[Abigail] Shrier’s new book Bad Therapy, an astute and impassioned analysis of the mental-health crisis now afflicting adolescents, may cause a similar emotional meltdown in some corners of American culture. Shrier’s target is more expansive than it was in Irreversible Damage; she aims her fire at the therapeutic mindset that pervades not just the offices of psychologists and counsellors, but elementary, middle, and high school classrooms, best-seller lists, middle-class homes, and government agencies. It’s a pernicious development because a therapeutic mindset easily paralyzes kids’ natural defenses and resilience, hence the crisis we confront today. Assuming a Bad Therapy backlash comes, it is unlikely to be as heated as it was in the case of Irreversible Damage—therapists, who have the most to lose if Shrier’s analysis were to win out, are a more sedate crowd than trans activists—but one hopes that for the sake of the rising generation, any pushback won’t prevent people from heeding the warnings of this important book. 

Shrier’s general thesis is that Gen Z’s distress is iatrogenic in origin. That is, it is caused in large part by the treatment—in this case, bad therapy—meant to cure it. She begins by showing how thoroughly therapeutic thinking has twisted parents’ understanding of their role in socializing their children. A generation of mothers and fathers ill-disposed to displays of authority has come to view harsh words and punishment as outmoded power moves bound to leave their children emotionally stunted; they try to reason, cajole, beg, and blackmail the kids to put their shoes on, take a bath, or go to sleep. When they fail to wrangle their progeny, they turn to self-anointed experts to diagnose and solve the problem. The experts select an answer from a grab bag of recently minted labels that are often more like placebos for parental frustration over their powerlessness than scientifically tested judgements: the child has “sensory processing issues,” “oppositional defiant disorder,” “social anxiety disorder,” ADHD, or some other novel ailment. Stunning numbers from the CDC speak to the extent of bad therapy’s impact: 42 percent of the rising generation has received a mental-health diagnosis.