50 pages • 1 hour read
Abigail ShrierBad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Critique of Modern Psychotherapeutic Methods
Shrier criticizes the use of modern psychotherapeutic methods on all but the most ‘obviously’ mentally ill. According to Shrier, instead of helping people, modern therapy has increased the levels of anxiety and depression among the populace. Highlighting its many negative side effects, she maintains that the overuse of therapy has caused Generation Z to be fearful, pessimistic, and lacking a sense of agency.
Acknowledging that therapy can be useful for adults, Shrier claims that the power differential between an adult therapist and a child prevents children from recognizing inappropriate advice and placing any advice in context. She argues that when children are sent to a therapist, they assume something is wrong with them, something their parents are unable to fix. Subsequent diagnoses by the therapist reinforce this belief; they are likely to cause children to lose self-confidence and to rely on these diagnoses as crutches. Shrier stresses how modern therapy threatens parent-child relationships in this way and others. For example, therapists inquire into parenting methods and the reactions children have to them, leaving the children to think that their parents have caused their problems. Sometimes, therapists encourage patients to break from toxic family members as well.
The focus on a client’s feelings in therapy enrages Shrier. Such a focus induces a “state orientation,” or one with thought directed inward toward oneself. It prevents children and adolescents from completing tasks and meeting high expectations, and it leads to self-absorption and unhappiness. Trapping clients in an endless loop of rumination about feelings, therapists isolate individuals. Clients are not encouraged to think about how their actions and behavior impact others, and they instead dwell on their own feelings. In some cases, per Shrier, it is harmful to discuss trauma as well. Some people do better focusing on other activities, such as sports, and not re-living painful experiences. Additionally, the obsession with feelings causes therapists to validate problematic emotions, such as unjustified fears and anger. There are times when children should instead be told to repress such emotions.
Shrier maligns modern psychotherapeutic methods for an over-reliance on medications as well, claiming that certain powerful medications have negative side effects, especially in children and adolescents, and serve at times to dull adolescents’ experience of the world. As a result, adolescents become insecure in themselves and less able to deal with challenges. Shrier cites prescriptions for ADHD as an example of abuse in the industry. With respect to anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants, she counters that there are benefits from anxiety and depression in healthy people, yet therapists treat these maladies as though they are abnormal. In short, the subjection of psychologically healthy people—especially children and adolescents—to therapy has created a generation that is dependent, insecure, ill-adjusted, and unhappy.
Critique of the Normalization of Mental Health Awareness
Shrier argues that preventive mental health checks and widespread mental health awareness can be harmful when applied to a psychologically healthy population. She claims this approach fosters dependency, unhappiness, and a ‘state orientation’—a form of self-absorption. She also points out that mental health awareness has become normalized in schools and health care settings. According to Shrier, this normalization has negatively impacted an entire generation, particularly Generation Z. Although only about 30% of young people see therapists, she attributes many generational traits to the widespread focus on mental health awareness.
Describing her own experience with her son at a physician’s office, Shrier notes her surprise when a health care worker wanted to ask her psychologically healthy son questions about suicidal thoughts. These commonplace surveys have negative impacts. Such questions make suicide seem like a viable option and mention methods of self-harm. Similarly, surveys about diet mention unhealthy weight-loss strategies, which could be suggestive to adolescents. The normalization of problematic behaviors is the result of such surveys, much like the DARE program had the unintended effect of increasing drug use among teens.
Shrier saves her sharpest criticism for schools, which she holds responsible for spreading the therapeutic method to the general population. After attending a conference for California teachers, Shrier laments the focus on trauma. Educators falsely assume that all children have experienced trauma, which has a specific clinical definition, when few have. In doing so, they equate minor adversities with trauma and encourage children to wallow in self-pity. Children are invited to discuss their traumatic experiences in front of others, which harms those who have experienced trauma, frightens others, and creates an atmosphere in which children are encouraged to embellish and dwell upon their adverse experiences. After debunking a study that found a link between childhood trauma and adult problems, Shrier claims that there is no evidence to support negative effects in adulthood because of traumatic experiences in childhood.
Given its focus on feelings, Shrier objects to the very notion of social-emotional learning. In her view, it attempts to teach things like friendship, which should be experienced instead. The curriculum has sought to transform teachers into therapists. Because teachers are not qualified as therapists, they make very bad ones. Educational excellence has been undermined as a result. In fact, teachers are forced to make accommodations, such as not penalizing late papers. She also laments the increasing numbers of school counselors. Instead of punishing students for bad behavior, even if violent, she claims that therapy is offered in the form of restorative justice. Arguing that such therapeutic approaches simply do not work, Shrier goes further to claim that they excuse physical violence in the name of emotional well-being. Students who are taught to focus on their feelings imagine slights from other students and tattle on them. She compares students to citizens in totalitarian regimes, as the normalization of mental health awareness has made them isolated and dependent. As a result, she would like to see the bulk of school counselors fired.
The Role of Parents in Childrearing
Shrier argues that mental health professionals have usurped the role of parents to the detriment of children. Generation X parents enabled this usurpation by abandoning the traditional goal of instilling values in children and replacing it with ensuring emotional well-being. Once that new goal was in place, mental health professionals became the experts on childrearing over parents. Shrier urges parents to push back and assert their rightful authority over their own children. Parents know more about their children than any expert does, and it is past time to place such experts in a subordinate role.
Heeding the advice of mental health experts, Generation X parents adopted a permissive approach to childrearing. This approach is therapeutic and non-judgmental. It eschews punishments and seeks to understand a child’s frustration and anger. Per Shrier, affirming a child’s impulses, the approach does not correct violent behavior and ignores the impact of the child’s behavior on bystanders. Although the approach has the potential advantage of providing children with autonomy and independence, Generation X parents do not allow for it. Instead, they micromanage their children’s activities, constantly monitor their children, and smother them with concern. Attuned to their children’s feelings, these parents attempt to shield their children from any pain. Shrier maintains that this approach does not work, claiming that it produces unhappy, ill-behaved children who will never be prepared for the adult world. Frightened by their parents’ lack of authority, these children act out and seek authority at times in inappropriate places. Shrier argues that these adolescents are more likely to become estranged from their parents. The parents are too needy, begging their children not to take risks. Overwhelmed, some children simply disassociate when they turn 18.
In contrast to the permissive approach, Shrier advises parents to assume an authoritative one. In such an approach, parents retain control and hold children to high standards. Grounded in love, this approach allows for some negotiation but adheres to rules. Transgressions from rules are punished, and children are expected to contribute to the household. This approach, unlike the permissive one, creates happy and successful children. Additionally, Shrier recommends that parents do less and allow their children space to act independently. She thinks it is important for children to experience failure and some pain while in the protective custody of their parents, claiming that, with their parents’ faith in them, children will recover and come back stronger. Part of doing less involves not providing children with the latest technological equipment, as children need independence from that too. A parent must teach children how they are connected to the broader community and world. A child’s actions impact others, and that must be taught early. Most importantly, parents must take back responsibility for raising their children. They should avoid therapists in all but extreme cases. Shrier describes mental health professionals as interlopers who have strayed into the sacred domain of parents and must be expelled.
