One Nation under Therapy

[MYSONSDAD]

Salvation through Psychology

'One Nation Under Therapy'

http://new.townhall.com/opinion/columns/chuckcolson/2005/09/29/158823.html

Sep 29, 2005
new.townhall.com
by Chuck Colson (bio | archive)


Whether it's the Columbine shootings, September 11, or
Hurricane Katrina, in the wake of the initial crisis,
an army of grief counselors descends on the survivors.
Is that a good thing? Probably not.

In their excellent book One Nation under Therapy,
ethicist Christina Hoff Sommers and psychiatrist Sally
Satel show how junk science has promoted the notion
"that seemingly content and well-adjusted
Americans—adults as well as children—are emotionally
damaged." They trace the history of what they call
"therapism," which "valorizes openness, emotional
self-absorption and the sharing of feelings."

This trend was popularized by twentieth-century
psychologists like Abraham Maslow. He believed—though
he had no scientific proof for it—that restraint was
unhealthy and that "self-actualization" and high
self-esteem were crucial to human development. It was
Maslow who said, "I sometimes think that the world
will either be saved by psychologists . . . or it will
not be saved at all."

We see the fruits of that philosophy everywhere. From
schools to talk shows, people are coached to focus on
themselves and obsess about their own feelings—in
short, to "save themselves" through psychology. No
wonder that Jim Windolf, writing in the Wall Street
Journal, said, "If you believe the statistics, 77
percent of America's adult population is a mess. And
we haven't even thrown in alien abductees, road ragers
or Internet addicts."



Valid scientific studies show that self-absorption, or
self-pity, is actually the worst possible way to
respond to tragedy. Study participants who were told
to focus on their emotions and express them aloud
actually ended up more depressed than those who tried
to distract themselves and find constructive ways to
cope.

We have bought into the myth of "therapism" so
completely that after every one of these disasters,
these armies of "grief counselors" descend upon us.
Well, the good news is that some folks are catching
on. After Columbine and September 11, even members of
the media saw the failure of the therapeutic model.
The Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley wrote, "Surely
there are few sights in the contemporary landscape
more repellent than that of these leeches attaching
themselves to the stunned, bewildered survivors of
affliction, demanding that they give vent to their
'feelings.'"

As I reported in a "BreakPoint" at the time, kids at
Columbine were ignoring grief counselors, but flooding
the churches. Those kids understood. But the grief
counselors, after all, are after clients. That's what
keeps them paid. So after September 11, Sommers and
Satel report, grief counselors literally walked the
streets trying to recruit patients. One mental health
center tried to hire someone to sit in a general
practitioner's waiting room and ask every patient who
came in if he or she was having problems dealing with
September 11.

No wonder people are getting disgusted with
in-your-face tactics and pop psychology. What these
people do not need is more high pressure. What they
really need is counseling from the Great Counselor.

For further reading and information:

Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship by
Paul C. Vitz.

Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel, M.D., One
Nation under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is
Eroding Self-Reliance (St. Martin's Press, 2005).

Sally Satel, M.D., and Christina Hoff Sommers, "The
Mental Health Crisis That Wasn't," Reason,
August/September 2005. (Reprinted by the American
Enterprise Institute.)

Christina Hoff Sommers, "I'm Okay, You're Okay,"
Forbes, 11 April 2005. (Reprinted by the American
Enterprise Institute.)

Jim Windolf, "A Nation of Nuts," Wall Street Journal,
22 October 1997. (Reprinted by BrianWilson.net.)

BreakPoint Commentary No. 90513, "Good Grief: Faith
versus Freud." (Free registration required.)

Kate Drolet, "Seek counseling for post-disaster
depression," The Current Online, 26 September 2005.

"Despair among some Katrina survivors," CNN, 23
September 2005.

John Fischer, "Forget about Self-Esteem: (Now They
Tell Us!)," BreakPoint Online, 10 February 2005.

"Children learn what they live"