To think therapy culture has gone too far?

You've pretty much described using behavioural activation to treat depression!

A decent therapist will tailor sessions to ensure they are focused on supporting a client to reach a goal or overcome a problem, they will have a treatment plan, will be able to explain how they have helped people with similar problems previously, how many sessions they anticipate it taking, and will be open about their training and accreditation.

The therapists that provide open-ended, expensive, person-centred discussions for years on end build dependency that doesn't help anyone but keeps them well paid.

Yes, rumination is a key hallmark of depression. Ruminating on the negatives - which unlimited talking therapy effectively is - can very easily exacerbate the problem. For me it also started to feel quite disgustingly self-indulgent! Every week I would leave therapy feeling utterly bereft. It did me more good to stop and use that time to walk/run/make plans with friends, essentially crack on with life.

I'm a therapist and I couldn't afford it either. A lot of 'therapy culture' has helped ensure this!

I think a lot of people could benefit from therapy and can't afford it.
So more therapy culture, please.

Yeah, I am not sure about that either.

At then end of the day, if you are sad, so what? You shouldn’t really do anything differently because you are sad. You still have to go to work and do all the things you have to do, regardless of feeling sad. Learning how to power on is an important skill. If you avoid doing stuff because you are sad, or anxious or scared, you are going to have problems and be less successful in every part of your life.

You do need to learn when you are having problematic feelings you do need to listen to and address. But a lot of day to day feelings, however uncomfortable, are just ones we need to learn to live alongside, and get on with life regardless.

Not every disagreement is “toxic

I agree on this. Being able to listen to and understand others who have different points of view from you is essential to society and your own emotional health ( as well as being able to hold well informed opinions). Believing you are ‘unsafe’ when you hear different views, or that others with different views are ‘fascists and Nazis’ is a terrible modern trend that is really unhealthy on an individual and societal level.

I also think there is an unhealthy trend to Uber individualism. I think we see this in young people who obsess on ‘discovering their gender identity’ from a hundred possible variations. I do believe there are people with gender dysphoria,so I am not talking about them. I am talking about the trend to over analyze how you appear TO YOURSELF. Self reflection and self knowledge is vital. But that should be about reflecting on your interactions with others, how well you approached a task. In others words, reflecting on your interactions with the world. Not reflecting endlessly on how you appear to yourself and obsessively labeling it.

More controversially, the value of ignoring problems is under rated. I have found many problems do indeed go away if you stop thinking about them. The trick is discern which problems you need to focus on, and which only exist because you are feeding them with attention.

There might be very few people out there that would meet the criteria to be clinically diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, granted, but there are definitely many people, especially men, who display a lot of the traits associated with narcissism and once you have come across them once, you tend to notice them a lot more.

I think the world is generally becoming far more self centered, insular and insecure with so much competition online etc, and definitely a lot more people with anxiety and depression because they never leave their houses anymore which definitely doesn’t help.

The amount of children out of education I'd the perfect example of no resilience now everything is "mental health:

This. Yes, the language of therapy has entered into everyday usage. And, Yes, the stigma of talking about mental health struggles has lifted.

Two totally different things.

Agree with this. I think some MN posters genuinely seem to think that today's parenting is the definitive 'right' way and will never change.
Parenting styles that were absolutely normal a generation ago are now weaponised and blamed for everything, yet they can't see that there will be a day when the way they are raising their children will be criticised.

100%

I agree. I saw a lovely lady therapist once. (I didn't get on with the whole therapy thing in the end, found it very "wallowy") Anyway, she labelled everyone in my circle. I was advised basically that everyone around me was an abuser and I should go no contact , In so many words.

I'm glad I didn't listen to this. I learnt to accept people's past mistakes, realise they're human and learn to invest in their opinions less. It worked for me. (In my case there wasn't any "serious" abuse ) More grey area stuff.

I'm not so sure. There are some great therapists, don't get me wrong. But I think some are really, really bad and make people's problems worse in many cases. Or at least, keep them from finding better help.

You sound self obsessed.

At the university near me, now, it gets you all kinds of things, in fact, you don't even need to show a diagnosis, they take your word for it. The class my friend teaches has 40% of his current class with accommodations, many for things like anxiety, so they get to write their exams alone, get significant extensions on work, or can't be called on in class. This is not for undergrads, btw, the students already have a degree, it's a serious professional qualification.

Yes yes yes!! 100%

A lot of it is :
-americanisation of our British culture

• naval gazing wallowing

It goes without saying that I'm not talking about major abuse.

Ooft you’ve really offended some butthurt people OP. But you’re right. Sometimes people have bad days and don’t behave perfectly. Sometimes people are just dicks. Sometimes (most times) sucking things up is the best way forward.

Im also sick of people suggesting therapy for every last feeling. It’s not for everyone. I had it, it was pointless

"therapy culture"

I agree with OP. Lots of therapy speak can be manipulative and bullying.

I don’t actually see any of this in real life interactions, just online.

Tbh I don’t like narcissist anyway, I prefer arsehole. Plenty of those online and in real life.

No, you're quite right and good ones will manage these things skillfully but but there are a lot of quick short eg CBT that don't work through people's experiences constructively.

Also, I don't mean (sorry, my poor explanation) therapists themselves bandy around diagnoses (or should). I mean more the culture, where people do their own reading, quite a lot of it quite unspecific, and apply pathologies to normal circumstantial human faults. It's usually the same ones.

I think it's much better than everyone being on tranquilisers like in the 80s

The 60s and 70s had the best tranquillisers to be fair. Valium was a lifesaver for many.

I do agree - have seen a few threads like that too

Yes! I've had therapy and it's great but people bandy around narcisim, weaponised incompetence, gaslighting etc willy nilly about everything, where often it's just we are all imperfect humans with some character flaws. I have boundaries, but I can accept that most of the time someone breaks then it's not intentionally done to cause me harm.

Yes. And the OP did talk about therapy culture, rather than actual therapy.

Therapy is a godsend to many people, and shouldn’t be underestimated - but as a way to empower not reinforce.