To think therapy culture has gone too far?

[BeSharpOliveHedgehog]

Not every bad day is trauma. Not every disagreement is “toxic.” Some people just need to toughen up and stop pathologising normal emotions. AIBU to think the rise of therapy speak (“boundaries,” “gaslighting,” “narcissist”) is turning everyone into self-obsessed armchair psychologists?

Again, that’s nothing to do with therapy, though. No therapist is going to ‘diagnose’ you with something — they’re not qualified to, and that’s not what you’re there for. It’s just self-help buzzwords from pop psychology, the kind of nonsense you get on fridge magnets.

That absolutely isn’t the case. A diagnosis doesn’t get you anything.

Are you new here, then?

Seems a strange post of you are dipping your toe in.

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

You can see it from this old Yes Minister clip, where his wife has run out of cigarettes and tranquilisers. I think it's much better that we can have an understanding of social stress now and talk out our problems.

But the problem isn’t therapists going around telling people the people in their life are narcissistic. And good therapists do challenge things. The problem is nothing to do with actual therapists, it’s people using language they don’t understand that they have picked up online.

Agree.

It's rare that an internal narrative of victimhood helps anyone. Resilience and recognising that the 'obstacle is the way' would be far more beneficial.

My child's school asks them to start the day reflecting on their current emotional state. I feel like this can become a self fulfilling prophecy and shouldn't be encouraged in such a willy nilly way!

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

"therapy culture"

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

Yes yes yes!! 100%

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

• naval gazing wallowing

-too much analysis and introspection -lack of tolerance for previous generations differences -self obsession -molly coddling culture that we should all be protected/have it easy. There's no 'moving on' or 'getting over ' lifes normal hardships anymore

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

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.

You sound self obsessed.

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.

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.

100%

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.

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.

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

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.