Against therapy (Harry Readhead, 30 June, 2025, The Critic)
There is a more pernicious, insidious aspect of therapy. In Beyond the Self, the Buddhist monk and former scientist Matthieu Ricard questions the wisdom of an approach to wellbeing that is “me, me, me”. For him, trying to find peace “within the ego bubble” resembles a kind of Stockholm syndrome. Breaking free of our various entanglements and focusing on what is outside of ourselves might be better. We tend to make too much of things simply because we’re involved. One risks getting trapped in a hall of mirrors and losing one’s sense of proportion. To paraphrase the priest and writer Pablo d’Ors, we “martyr [ourselves] with diminutive problems or imaginary pains”. If we had a friend in the same situation, we would see things differently.
More: what Carl Rogers called “unconditional positive regard” can feel to the patient like endorsement. The patient suggests his friend or parent is “toxic”. The therapist does not disagree. Emboldened, the patient grows more certain. But his view may be highly subjective. Ask ten people for theirs and, on balance, they might find he has more to answer for. He is unlikely to hear that in therapy. Worse: his therapist has only his version of events, and is duty-bound principally to him. Yet our patient lives among others and must answer to them, too. This can lead to an absurd state of affairs in which someone grows ever more sure of his rightness, and ever less able to mix with those around him. He may even turn away from those precious few who would drop everything to get him out of a bind — or at least bring him tea and sandwiches — because their idea of affection doesn’t quite match his.
Abigail Shrier, who has a knack for walking straight into the hornet’s nest, charts this drift in Bad Therapy, which paints a vaguely dystopian picture of the therapeutic landscape. She shows that therapy can teach helplessness and induce distress; that its very definition (The American Psychological Association defines therapy as “Any psychological service provided by a trained professional.”) is circular; and that the idea behind the bestseller The Body Keeps the Score is reheated “repressed memory”, a discredited theory that led to the wrongful incarceration of people in the 80s. (The book’s author, Bessel van der Kolk, was a witness in their trials and “crucial to putting innocent people in prison”, according to journalist Mark Prendergast). Shrier’s book ruffled some feathers, as you can imagine; but it also drew approving nods from many in the therapy world. The writer and psychotherapist Joseph Burgo admitted that the profession “has come to be dominated by bad ideas”. […]
Ricard may well have been onto something when he said that trying to find peace through the filter of self-centeredness might not be all that wise. It is, after all, striking that some of the more well-grounded ways to lift our spirits involve, in effect, getting out of our own way. Many are ancient. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy owes much to the Stoics; meditation turns up in nearly every faith; and yoga came about over 2,000 years ago. Amusingly, there is now some evidence that those who suppress fearful thoughts feel better than those who don’t. It had been roundly accepted that it is terribly unhealthy to bury our feelings. But it seems the stiff upper lip might in fact have its uses.
