Do Better, WSJ

Since I keep seeing news segments on it…I have to say something. The Wall Street Journal did an article this week saying that therapists are pushing people to become estranged from their parents.

I’ll address more of it later, but there is one serious part I need to address first because I think its implications reach far beyond family estrangement.

The paragraph you see here is in the article in question. It is not mentioned in ANY of the news segments I’ve seen.

I’ve also seen several people say therapists should “seek corroboration.”

Corroboration from whom?

If someone has truly been abused, are we expecting them to invite the abusive parent into therapy? Because…I’m not inviting my mother to therapy.

And that’s problematic because this paragraph is HUGELY problematic.

We are in a mental health crisis and you are printing that people with mental health problems may not be reliable narrators of their own stories.

Are there some mental health illnesses that would make someone a less reliable narrator of their life?

Yes.

But remember, “mental-health illnesses” range from depression to social anxiety to eating disorders to PTSD…to AN EXTRAORDINARY number of things…before landing on extremes that may make someone a less reliable narrator.

But, yes…let us come together and tell the teenaged girl who is depressed because she is being emotionally abused at home that we don’t believe her because she has a mental health illness.

Even better. Let her therapist tell her that.

Do you see the problem?

I’m honestly so disgusted by this one paragraph I’ve been trying to decide if I’m canceling WSJ.

Now…here’s the truth on the rest of it.

Are SOME therapists pushing it? Probably. Some therapists suck. That’s always been true. To put it in SAT format, “All therapists are human. Some humans suck. So, some therapists suck.”

BUT I can say that I’ve yet to meet a therapist who does more than ask questions. They aren’t supposed to tell clients what to do. And good therapists don’t.

Should adult children cut off their parents because they disagree with how they voted for?

NO!

But…I’ve yet to meet a person who cut parents off for that. I’ve met a number who did it around the same time OR, even a few who, cut a parent off because the voting difference was the eye-opening moment, after years of hurt, that showed them, “Wow. We really aren’t ever going to understand each other.”

Do I believe the word “toxic” has been overused so much it’s lost its meaning?

Yeah. I kinda do.

Do I believe that means ANYONE has the right to tell someone else that their abuse doesn’t count?

Absolutely not.

In short, is estrangement on the rise?

Yes.

Is it only (or even mostly) because of therapists?

No.

In my honest opinion…it’s because in our (GOOD) push to begin to understand and accept mental health awareness…

We’ve made it safe to admit to ourselves, “Wow. These things weren’t ok.”

We’ve made therapy OK.

We’ve made it safe to talk about, “Wow. These things really hurt and are continuing to hurt me.” with therapists.

We’ve made it seem safe to ask our parents, “Hey, can we talk about these things?”

Some are met with curiosity and discussion.

Some aren’t.

And we’ve made it safe for those adult children to say, “I can’t keep hurting myself.”

I’ve been 100% estranged from my mother for 20 years. No therapist told me to do it. I had a daughter and IMMEDIATELY said, “What happened to me isn’t going to happen to her.” I feel zero guilt about it. And I give zero EFFs whether anyone else considered it abuse. And mine and Bella’s lives are MUCH better off without her in them.

I don’t know if you made it this far…I guess the point of this…this is what I hope, if you run into this news story, you remember: Please don’t confuse “therapists can be wrong” with “people with mental health illnesses are unreliable narrators of their own lives.”

Thank you for coming to my irritaTED Talk.