Today, as I was listening to a podcast where yet another unqualified Millennial was spouting off some pseudo-therapy buzzwords about attachment styles, astrology, and self-diagnosed mental illness, it suddenly clicked for me.
Therapy talk and pop psychology has become entertainment!
That’s why it has become so prevalent online, in podcasts, on TV and in books.
Someone I know said he decided to stop seeing his therapist this year and instead is working with a business coach to help build his business.
I applaud that.
Then he said he’d been seeing his therapist for 14 years!
What????
What could he possibly have been doing for 14 years? I knew this guy well enough to know that he’s not that messed up.
Now I know…he was seeing his therapist once a week instead of watching TV, reading a book or hanging out with a friend.
And his therapist was fine with collecting his hourly fee, every week for 14 years, to be this guy’s therapy-tainment.
Ugh. I’d rather stick toothpicks in my eyeballs.
My mother, a retired Psych Nurse, often says that having a therapist is like having a paid friend. I completely disagree. When I saw a therapist, he was not my friend. I saw him for guidance, advice and perspective so that I could resolve specific problems. Once I addressed those problems, I stopped going to therapy. Each week, I took specific, concrete actions to ensure I was making progress.
Friends are different. With friends, I am giving as well as taking. With friends, sometimes I am just shooting the shit. With friends, I’m building meaningful relationships. With friends, touching base and catching up is perfectly acceptable. When I felt like I was “catching up” with my therapist, that was my queue it was time to move on.
I don’t need paid friends.
What is interesting to me, is I see an overlap with people who do a lot of therapy-tainment talk and people who talk a lot about reality TV shows.
If they are fans of one, they are usually fans of the other.
I consider reality TV shows to be one of the worst types of entertainment. Bad scripts, terrible acting, made up drama and ridiculous premises.
Worse is when someone says, “I’m not a therapist”, but then drones on with their unqualified diagnosis, therapy talk and pop psychology. This is usually accompanied by some mumbo jumbo about “expressing your authenticity & vulnerability”. Bleh. Gag me.
But you know what the worst entertainment is? Going to therapy.
Save your money and find something better to do.