The State of Therapy Today

Let’s see. The most recent polls, conducted by Gallup, tell us that more and more Americans are suffering from depression. One might say that, given the state of the nation, this is a normal response.

And then, we read and have reported that therapy has been largely destigmatized, because more and more people are doing therapy, unabashedly. Therapy patients might not be proud of being in treatment, but they are certainly not embarrassed by it. Therapy has become a rite of passage for many young Americans, especially those who are attending colleges.

So, put these two facts together-- more therapy has given us more depression. You might conclude that therapists, even with their new pharmacopeia, are not exactly doing a bang-up job.

As it happens, the New York Times has launched a therapy marketing campaign, designed to promote therapy, but also to promote the current cultural political madness called wokeness. If therapy has not been working very well, the New York Times has concluded, we need more of it.

Apparently, if we are to believe therapist Orna Guralnik, who is sufficiently famous to have her own television show, the current cultural upheaval has been salutary for patients. I will qualify this by suggesting, as you will quickly discover, that Guralnik, regardless of her talents as a therapist, is thoroughly mediocre when it comes to theorizing. And this is, on a good day.

Consider this:

Not long ago, if I would ask a couple about the ways class or race played out between them, I’d typically be met with an awkward shrug and a change of topic. But recent events have reshaped the national conversation on power, privilege, gender norms, whiteness and systemic racism. Together these ideas have pushed us to think, talk, argue and become aware of the many implicit biases we all carry about our identities, unconscious assumptions that privilege some and inflict harm on others. These insights have also made it easier for people to realize there may be plenty of other unconscious assumptions undergirding their positions. I’ve been surprised and excited by the impact of this new understanding, and it has all made my work as a couples therapist easier.

It’s a sad day when therapy has been reduced to high school level cultural commentary. So, the Black Lives Matter and hate-America movement has made it easier for people to talk about their biases, their bigotries, their mental sins, and their thought crimes. And let’s not forget the gaslighting mania about trans rights.

Now, from the time of Freud, therapy has always involved unmasking repressed sins, like the wish to commit incest. It is very much like a religion where you confess your sins, do penance for them and receive absolution. 

Therapy is just a secularized version of the same.

Guralnik continues to tout the wonders of our cancel culture

But in my practice, I’ve found that engaging with these progressive movements has led to deep changes in our psyches. My patients, regardless of political affiliation, are incorporating the messages of social movements into the very structure of their being. New words make new thoughts and feelings possible. As a collective we appear to be coming around to the idea that bigger social forces run through us, animating us and pitting us against one another, whatever our conscious intentions. To invert a truism, the political is personal.

So, has therapy now been given over to the task of recruiting radical leftists and enlisting them in the cultural revolution. In the past therapists scrupulously avoided taking positions on political matters. Such is no longer the case. Guralnik unabashedly takes up the cancel culture, and even declares it to be therapeutic.

For an instant, and because an essay like this one has a limited space, consider the opposing point of view. Among its other deficiencies and deformities the cancel culture, mixed with the Black Lives Matter movement and even Black Liberation Theology has taught people to hate America. It has taught them that America is an organized criminal conspiracy and that we should spend our time atoning and doing penance for America’s sins.

But then, what about national pride, what about patriotic feelings for the nation, what about feeling that one belongs to a great nation that has accomplished great things. Of course, such thoughts and feelings are precluded by the BLM movement. It has done everything in its power to strip Americans of their pride, the better to render them more depressed. Obviously, since most therapists buy the radical leftist critique of America, they have never even imagined enhancing anyone’s personal pride. They will happily boost your false pride, your self-esteem, but will never promote the pride that comes from doing well. And they certainly ignore the pride that comes from belonging to a nation that has done great things.

To see this point one must simply disembarrass oneself of the notion that hope is the cure for despair. You will recall that a recent past president was selling hope as the cure for depression. Apparently, it did not work very well. In its place we should understand that the cure for despair is pride-- pride in country, pride in family, even pride in one’s personal achievements. 

If you allow therapy and the cultural industrial complex to erase your pride, to tell you that you have no right to be proud of a racist country, and that you should spend your time, not achieving and accomplishing, but doing penance for your and your forebears’ sins,  you are going to feel like you are being pushed into the slough of despond. Good luck working your way out of that.

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