This is everything that is wrong with this institution in a nutshell.
If one is--literally--mentally unwell (ill), their perspective is flawed by definition.
The industry has found that humoring flawed perspectives drives repeat business, like me selling a drowning man a glass of water. You can't say I'm not helping him, but I am deliberately not giving him the help he needs.
Consider further a world in which there are many minds for whom sensitivity to being wrong is such a high priority, as you seem to want it to be, that they may try and avoid formulating stances or taking positions at all. Lest they be wrong.
Sometimes it can be helpful to have someone explain to you how you have to have some confidence in your own capacity for intuition, your own ability make decisions, in order to make anything happen.
I certainly won't argue that there are probably a lot of ineffective practitioners out there, but to me that speaks to the difficulty of the task, of tuning between insecurity and confidence and arrogance. It doesn't suggest to me the task, or the institution that is still in its earliest years of trying to formally study it, is fundamentally flawed.
We all live in that world. These hypothetical individuals sound like people in desperate need of direction, not self-reflection. People don't go to therapists because everything's great and they're thinking clearly; therapists have a naturally-exploitable customer base.
Left to their own devices, these wayward souls tend to end up radicalized in some way. Your suggested approach sounds an awful lot like the outcome of grooming-- "I didn't tell you to do that. You wanted to do it." Make anyone spend enough time miring in their own confused thoughts and they'll start to normalize and rationalize whatever it is. No wonder we have so many gender-confused kids running around; they're exposed to the topic constantly. If that's what therapy amounts to, we can call off the labor shortage, because any accomplished child molester has the qualifications to do this job...I'm sure they need the work.
For some reason, doctors have little problem proscribing direct advice to ailing patients-- "you're dying because you won't stop eating cheesecake and smoking meth." Why are therapists so resistant to telling clients they're unlikable assholes and they need to fix their shit? Why the "need" for florid introspection that distracts from obvious problems, unless it's an intelligence-gathering exercise, looking for something else to blame or ideate? No other professional service works like this except fortune-tellers and the church (through confessionals) and their track record is about as effective. My mechanic doesn't wax poetic about thermodynamics, ask about the journeys I've been on with the vehicle and blame the engineers when my car doesn't start.
> It doesn't suggest to me the task, or the institution that is still in its earliest years of trying to formally study it, is fundamentally flawed.
My point remains: perceptions are subjective, are easily manipulated, and are frequently wrong. Eyewitness testimony is incorrect 50-fucking-percent of the time. This institution has already had scandals involving "discovery" of false memories and other manipulations of both its own personnel and the public. I've even had one insist I was molested despite no such attestations on my part (and it not being true). Psychiatrists have vouched for the perceived rehabilitation of rapists and murderers up for parole, who then immediately proceeded to rape and kill again within hours of release.
There are other peculiarities too, like insistence that hypersexuality is exclusively an artifact of abuse (and not at all precocious/excessive access to pornography), while sex addiction is not recognized at all in the DSM-V-- yet they'll offer to treat you for something they say doesn't exist. They like to tout the idea of all this domestic and sexual abuse going on based on what patients report, but it's not like they conduct any actual investigation-- they'll believe anything you tell them at face value (it's how Sybil got away with it for so long).
On that note, they've managed to legitimize what we used to call demonic possession as multiple/disassociative personality disorder. Here's an open challenge: prove it. So far, the highest-profile cases they've put forth have all been frauds, and it's so easy to act out the symptoms of that there are entire subreddits and hashtags dedicated to overprivileged children LARPing it. Why it's even still in the book, I cannot fathom.
It is junk science. They have some neat ideas about behavioral classification and CBT is as useful for humans as it is for dogs, but that's about it.
The one couple I know that talked to several priests in the end, is happier than ever.
Small sample size but it makes sense to me. Priests study people and have experience bonding people. Therapists seem to have experience separating people.
If you are willing to suck it up and ask a pastor/priest for help, you probably already believe that a marriage is an important/sacred thing worth preserving and are willing to accept some authority and make sacrifices.
If you click through the article to the actual study[0] the article actually references, the data is broken down into the changes in each population.
The lowest growth population is Religious communities but it also has one of the higher decreases in population, which means it was one of the ones that changed the least over the past 12 months.
However, Religious communities is closest to Rural communities and Veterans.
[0]https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/practitioner/2023-psycholog...
From my experience a priest would go into that discussion with the goal of keeping the couple together, while the therapist would want ( a good one ) the best for them, whatever that may be. If your goal is to stay together with someone don't go to a therapist.
I disagree. The only difference between a priest and a therapist is that one blames God and the other blames everybody except You. Both are salesmen who externalize your problems on your behalf.
The church has a unique triangulation tactic in that they can bond a couple against supernatural forces. Therapy doesn't have that. The closest they come is blaming someone's parents.
I haven't spoken to a priest in 20 years, and that's mostly because I'm afraid of just how keen they are on "this is your fault/responsibility". They wouldn't blame anything on God IMO, but if they did, they would be very clear that the reaction to the problems is 100% on you.
I'm drawing from a Catholic/Lutheran upbringing from decades ago, but the verbiage is never "this is God's fault," it is kinder euphemisms like "this is God's plan" or "God is testing us."
You're expected to endure whatever it is, not react to it. Whatever it is that you're going through was always supposed to happen, so keep marching onward, Christian soldier, out of faith that God will guide you out of this and that there will be cake at the end of the trial.
> They wouldn't blame anything on God IMO, but if they did, they would be very clear that the reaction to the problems is 100% on you.
Well, Catholics lean this way I guess, but what I remember was more shaming people for being bad adherents to the faith, not so much grandma died because you touch yourself. She was always going to die when she did because God willed it.
For example, while I might enjoy casual sex, I get that if I followed what's best for me, I really would abstain from having sex outside of marriage. And even in marriage, sex would hold more meaning and be even more bonding if there was a chance of a child being born. If that means I'd have a lot less sex, so be it, I still think that would be best.
I could explain lgbt issues also from their angle, but that would just upset HN. What you call questionable, is just as questionable from their side towards your views.
What do you think is more questionable.. waiting til you find someone very important to you, who promises to join you for life, before you have sex... Or a sorority girl having sex with two dudes at the same time at 19 yrs old because one made her laugh a lot and his roommate is really good looking. (I was the funny one in this story 20 years ago)
1 - I am passionate about philosophy and human psychology. I have yet found a psychologist with whom I can talk to about the various topics I am interested in. The younger ones are just shells of knowledge in the fields to the point where I am shocked they got degrees. I had a great relationship with an older therapist but unfortunately she retired.
2 - A relative is a certified psychotherapist. The amount of misinformation she subscribes to only reinforces my views that most are not to be trusted. Zero interest in debunking failed classical 'experiments'. Judgemental character, prescription instead of understanding etc.
3 - I've seen psychologists ruin a close to me person's life by validating all their strange fantasies.
With these data points, I no longer trust this profession and would rather appeal to a priest if I ever feel the need to feel myself heard.