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Abigail Shrier

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Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up Kindle Edition

by Abigail Shrier (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 636 ratings

in Sociology of Marriage & Family

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.

From the author of Irreversible Damage, an investigation into a mental health industry that is harming, not healing, American children

In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations. Youth suicide rates are climbing, antidepressant prescriptions for children are common, and the proliferation of mental health diagnoses has not helped the staggering number of kids who are lonely, lost, sad and fearful of growing up. What’s gone wrong with America’s youth?

In Bad Therapy, bestselling investigative journalist Abigail Shrier argues that the problem isn’t the kids—it’s the mental health experts. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with child psychologists, parents, teachers, and young people, Shrier explores the ways the mental health industry has transformed the way we teach, treat, discipline, and even talk to our kids. She reveals that most of the therapeutic approaches have serious side effects and few proven benefits. Among her unsettling findings:

Talk therapy can induce rumination, trapping children in cycles of anxiety and depression
Social Emotional Learning handicaps our most vulnerable children, in both public schools and private
“Gentle parenting” can encourage emotional turbulence – even violence – in children as they lash out, desperate for an adult in charge

Mental health care can be lifesaving when properly applied to children with severe needs, but for the typical child, the cure can be worse than the disease. Bad Therapy is a must-read for anyone questioning why our efforts to bolster America’s kids have backfired—and what it will take for parents to lead a turnaround.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Every parent should read this."—Elon Musk

“Essential reading for parents, teachers, and mental health professionals.”—Richard J. McNally, PhD, professor of psychology at Harvard University

“Shrier persuasively and forcefully demonstrates how mental health professionals (and some parents) often make things worse for the kids and adolescents they aim to help."—Elizabeth Loftus, distinguished professor of psychological science at University of California, Irvine

“A powerful critique of a culture in which ‘traumatic’ describes anything from horrific abuse to your new laptop going on the blink.”—Elizabeth Gaufberg, MD, associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School

“Shocking, revelatory, and eminently important... A must read!”—Amy Chua, Yale law professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and The Golden Gate

“Five stars.”—Caitlin Flanagan, staff writer at The Atlantic

“A dazzling combination of investigative reporting and story-telling.”—Gerald Posner, award-winning investigative journalist and author of Pharma

"An astute and impassioned analysis of the mental-health crisis now afflicting adolescents." —Kay Hymowitz, City Journal

“Fascinating, urgent.” —Bari Weiss, Free Press

“Bad Therapy takes a sledgehammer to every article of therapeutic parenting and pedagogical faith.”—Mary Harrington, Unherd

"Pacy, no-holds barred....a thought-provoking, though uncomfortable, read."—Financial Times

About the Author

Abigail Shrier received the Barbara Olson Award for Excellence and Independence in Journalism in 2021. Her bestselling book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (2020), was named a “Best Book” by the Economist and the Times. It has been translated into ten languages. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

Iatrogenesis

In 2006, I packed up everything I owned and moved from Washington, DC, to Los Angeles to be closer to my then boyfriend. I had only ever visited California once, a few months earlier, when I had flown out to meet his parents. Outside of my boyfriend and his family, every single person who could identify my body in the event of an untimely demise lived on the East Coast.

Then twenty-eight and having recently graduated from law school, I faced the unpleasantness of having become a lawyer. I was restless. My boyfriend had a business in Los Angeles. If I wanted things to work out with him, I needed to move.

But I also knew it was entirely possible that in this new life-his life-I would go crazy. My best friend, Vanessa, lived in DC. We'd both been hired by law firms, which meant long hours and an impossible time difference, as far as calls were concerned. I needed someone to listen to my worries and misgivings on my schedule. I needed a stand-in Vanessa, available every Thursday at six p.m. And for the first time in my life, I could afford one. I hired a therapist.

Every week, for a "fifty-minute hour," my therapist lent me her full attention. If I bored her with my repetition, she never complained. She was a pro. She never made me feel self-absorbed, even when I was. She let me vent. She let me cry. I often left her office feeling that some festering splinter of interpersonal interaction had been eased to the surface and plucked.

She helped me realize that I wasn't so bad. Most things were someone else's fault. Actually, many of the people around me were worse than I'd realized! Together, we diagnosed them freely. Who knew so many of my close relatives had narcissistic personality disorder? I found this solar plexus-level comforting. In quick order, my therapist became a really expensive friend, one who agreed with me about almost everything and liked to talk smack about people we (sort of) knew in common.

I had a great year. My boyfriend proposed marriage. I accepted. And then, a month before we were due to get married, my therapist dropped a bomb: "I'm not sure you two are ready to get married. We may need to do a little more work."

I felt the demoralizing shock of having walked into a plate-glass door.

My therapist was a formidable woman. She had at least fifteen years on me, a doctorate in psychology, and an apparently strong marriage of long duration. She dropped casual references to never missing Pilates. I once caught her at her spotless desk before our session, eating a protein bar she had carefully unwrapped, and marveled at her obvious self-mastery, the dignity she managed to bring to our silly modes of consumption. Maybe I should have been thrown into crisis by her pronouncement, but for whatever reason, I wasn't. For all her training, she was still human and fallible. I had already moved across the country by myself, set up a new life, and by then I knew: I didn't agree with her assessment, and I didn't need her permission, either. I left her a voicemail expressing my gratitude for her help. But, I said, I would be taking some time off.

A few years later, happily married, I resumed therapy with her. Then I tried therapy with a psychoanalyst for a year or so. Every experience I've had with therapy has fallen along a continuum from enlightening to unsettling. Occasionally, it rose to the level of "fun." Learning a little more about the workings of my own mind was at times helpful and often gratifying.

When I agreed with my therapist, I told her so. When I didn't, we talked about that. And when I felt I needed to move on, I did. Which is to say: I was an adult in therapy. I had swum life's choppy waters long enough to have gained some self-knowledge, some self-regard, and a sense of the accuracy of my own perceptions. I could pipe up with: "I think I gave you the wrong impression." Or, "Maybe we're placing a little too much blame on my mom?" Or even, "I've decided to terminate therapy."

Children and adolescents are not typically equipped to say these things. The power imbalance between child and therapist is too great. Children's and adolescents' sense of self is still developing. They cannot correct the interpretations or recommendations of a therapist. They cannot push back on a therapist's view of their families or of themselves because they have no Archimedean point; too little of life has gathered under their feet.

Nevertheless, parents my age have been signing up their kids and teens for therapy in astonishing numbers, even prophylactically. I talked to moms who hired therapists to help their kids adjust to preschool or to process the death of a beloved cat. One mom told me she put a therapist "on retainer" as soon as her two daughters reached middle school. "So they would have someone to talk to about all the things I never wanted to talk about with my mom."

A few moms told me, in roundabout verbiage, that they had hired a therapist to surveil their surly teen's thoughts and feelings. The therapist doesn't tell me what my daughter says exactly, the moms assured me, but she sort of lets me know everything's okay. And occasionally, I gathered, the therapist relayed to Mom specific information gleaned from the little prisoner of war.

If the notion of "therapy" here seems vague, that's largely to do with the experts. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry offers a tautology in place of a definition. What is "psycho therapy"? "A form of psychiatric treatment that involves therapeutic conversations and interactions between a therapist and a child or family." The American Psychological Association offers a similarly circular definition of psychotherapy: "any psychological service provided by a trained professional."

What's a "clock"? A device for measuring time. What's "time"? Something measured by a clock. Any conversation a therapist has with a patient counts as "therapy." But you get the idea: conversations about feelings and personal problems styled as medicine.

Parents often assume that therapy with a well-meaning professional can only help a child or adolescent's emotional development. Big mistake. Like any intervention with the potential to help, therapy can harm.

Iatrogenesis:
When the Healer Makes Things Worse

Any time a patient arrives at a doctor's office, she exposes herself to risk. Some risks arise through physician incompetence. A patient goes in to have a kidney removed, and the doctor extracts the wrong one. ("Wrong-site surgery" happens more often than you might think.) Or negligence: the surgeon loses track of a stray clamp or sponge in the patient's abdomen, then sews her up.

Or he "nicks" an organ. Or the operation proceeds swimmingly, but the patient develops an opportunistic infection at the surgical site. Or an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. Or bedsores, from lying in recovery too long. Or everything goes according to plan, but the entire treatment was based on a misapprehension of the problem.

"Iatrogenesis" is the word for all of it. From the Greek word iatros, meaning "healer," iatrogenesis literally means "originating with the healer" and refers to the phenomenon of a healer harming a patient in the course of treatment. Most often, it is not malpractice, though it can be. Much of iatrogenesis occurs not because a doctor is malicious or incompetent but because treatment exposes a patient to exogenous risks.

Iatrogenesis is everywhere-because all interventions carry risk. When a sick patient submits to treatment, the risks are typically worth it. When a well patient does, the risks often outweigh the potential for further improvement.

And here, what I'm calling an "intervention" is any sort of advice or corrective you would typically give only to someone with a deficiency or incapacity. So, telling kids to "eat vegetables" or "get plenty of sleep" or "spend time with friends" may be advice, but it isn't an intervention. We all need to do those things.

With interventions, a good rule of thumb is: Don't go in for an X-ray if you don't need one. Don't expose yourself to the germs of an ER just to say hello to your doctor friend. And-just maybe-don't send your kid off to therapy unless she absolutely requires it. Everyone knows the first two; it's the last one that may surprise you.

Psychotherapy Needs a Warning Label

For decades, the standard therapy proffered to victims of disaster-terrorist attack, combat, severe burn injury-was the "psychological debriefing." A therapist would invite victims of a tragedy into a group session in which participants were encouraged to "process" their negative emotions, learned to recognize the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and discouraged from discontinuing therapy. Study after study has shown that this bare-bones process is sufficient to make PTSD symptoms worse.

Well-meaning therapists often act as though talking through your problems with a professional is good for everyone. That isn't so. Nor is it the case that as long as the therapist is following protocols, and has good intentions, the patient is bound to get better.

Any intervention potent enough to cure is also powerful enough to hurt. Therapy is no benign folk remedy. It can provide relief. It can also deliver unintended harm and does so in up to 20 percent of patients.

Therapy can lead a client to understand herself as sick and rearrange her self-understanding around a diagnosis. Therapy can encourage family estrangement-coming to realize that it's all Mom's fault and you never want to see her again. Therapy can exacerbate marital stress, compromise a patient's resilience, render a patient more traumatized, more depressed, and undermine her self-efficacy so she's less able to turn her life around. Therapy may lead a patient by degrees-sunk into a leather sofa, well-placed tissue box close at hand-to become overly dependent on her therapist.

This is true even for adults, who in general are much less easily led by other adults. These iatrogenic effects pose at least as great a risk, and likely much more, to children.

Police officers who responded to a plane crash and then underwent debriefing sessions exhibited more disaster-related hyperarousal symptoms eighteen months later than those who did not receive the treatment. Burn victims exhibited more anxiety after therapy than those left untreated. Breast cancer patients have left peer support groups feeling worse about their condition than those who opted out. And counseling sessions for normal bereavement often make it harder, not easier, for mourners to recover from loss. Some people who say they "just don't want to talk about it" know better than the experts what will help them: spending time with family; exercising; putting one foot in front of the other; gradually adjusting to the loss.

When it comes to our psyches, we're a lot more bespoke than mental health professionals often acknowledge or allow. And Tuesdays at four p.m. may not be when we're ready to confront our woes with a hired expert. Reminiscing with a friend, cracking a joke with your spouse you wouldn't dare make with anyone else, helping your cousin box up her apartment-without talking about your problems-often aids recovery far more than sitting around in a room full of sad people. Therapy can hijack our normal processes of resilience, interrupting our psyche's ability to heal itself, in its own way, at its own time.

Think of it this way: group therapy for those who experienced loss or disaster forces the coping to hang out with the sad. This may make the relatively resilient sadder and prompt the sad to stew. The most dejected steer the ship to Planet Misery, with everyone else trapped inside.

Individual therapy can intensify bad feelings, too. Psychiatrist Samantha Boardman wrote candidly about a patient who quit therapy after a few weeks of treatment. "All we do is talk about the bad stuff in my life," the patient told Boardman. "I sit in your office and complain for 45 minutes straight. Even if I am having a good day, coming here makes me think about all the negative things." Reading that, I remembered saving up emotional injuries to report to my therapist so that we would have something to talk about at our session-injuries I might have just let go.

Interestingly, even when patients' symptoms are made objectively worse by therapy, they tend to assume the therapy has helped. We rely largely on how "purged" we feel when we leave a therapist's office to justify our sense that the therapy is working. We rarely track objective markers, for example, the state of our career or relationships, before reaching a conclusion. Sometimes when our lives do improve, it's not because the therapy worked but because the motivation that led us to start therapy also led us to make other positive changes: spend more time with friends and family, reconnect with people we haven't heard from in a while, volunteer, eat better, exercise.

An embarrassing number of psychological interventions have little proven efficacy. They have nonetheless been applied with great élan to children and adolescents.

D.A.R.E. to Say "Yes" to Drugs

Picture it: 1992. Blue eyeliner, Doc Martens, and acid-washed jeans shot out at the knees. Into your high school assembly room tromps a uniformed officer in clodhoppers, keys jangling at the edge of a stiff black belt, armed with a jeremiad about the dangers of drugs.

This was the decades-long D.A.R.E. campaign, designed to raise awareness that drugs could ruin your life. Utilizing therapeutic techniques designed by Carl Rogers, one of the most influential psychotherapists of the twentieth century, D.A.R.E. counselors led students in a kind of group therapy. They entered schools and prompted kids to talk about their personal problems, confess their drug use, and role-play refusing drugs from each other.

Turns out, you can lead a teen to D.A.R.E., but it might make him wink. The program flopped like Vanilla Ice in his parachute pants, humiliating everyone involved. Not only was the campaign entirely ineffective, but follow-up studies revealed that D.A.R.E. may have actually increased substance and alcohol use among teens. Kewpie-faced Kirk Cameron pleaded, "You don't have to try 'em to be cool," but we sniffed a traitor, shilling for the Man. Kirk promised there were other avenues to cool, but teens who heard this message apparently figured drugs were quicker and more straightforward than most. Participating in group therapy to discuss a problem you didn't already have? That may be sufficient to introduce it.

Wanting to Help
Is Not the Same as Helping

Therapists almost always want to help, but sometimes they simply don't. And while some therapies have shown success in circumscribed areas-like cognitive behavioral therapy has in treating phobias-those who study the efficacy of therapies often point out that the results across treatment types are not terribly impressive. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CBYHTV2D
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sentinel (February 27, 2024)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 27, 2024
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2568 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 314 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #7,797 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1 in Sociology of Marriage & Family (Kindle Store)
- #3 in Parenting (Kindle Store)
- #8 in Sociology of Marriage & Family (Books)

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4.5 636 ratings

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Abigail Shrier

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Abigail Shrier is the New York Times bestselling author of BAD THERAPY: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up (2024). She received the Barbara Olson Award for Excellence and Independence in Journalism in 2021. Her previous bestseller, IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (2020), was named a ‘Best Book’ by The Economist and The Times (of London). It has been translated into ten languages.

Shrier holds an A.B. from Columbia College, where she received the Euretta J. Kellett Fellowship; a B.Phil. from the University of Oxford; and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

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MIchael

After reading just bought 5 copies for gifts: Essential read even if you disagree

Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2024

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Background to help you evaluate my review: I had a panic attack at age 26, began counseling and still participate. I am age 69 and fortunately have had 4 excellent counselors across the decades help me. The result: my quality of life has improved significantly due to their skilled, ethical, dedicated care.

For years I have responsibly used psychotropic medication experiencing its benefits, limitations, and negative side effects. Current thinking is talk therapy used with meds, when indicated, can produce the most favorable patient outcomes. I concur. In fact, from 2010-13, at night I earned a MS in mental health counseling even though I am a financial advisor. With that thumbnail sketch, below is brief independent feedback I have received on two of the author’s topics. But first, my overall appraisal:

I find Abigail’s book to be vital in highlighting issues that need to be considered and not merely assumed to be true/wise: therapy, medication, schooling, and parenting - and how they are intertwined. I am delighted that she is so well-known and talented as a journalist to focus attention on the most fundamental question: whether what we are doing is working or failing. It can benefit our nation if we have a discussion and accurate appraisal of where we are to fix what doesn’t work. Abigail bravely has gotten this debate started though I would be unsurprised if vested interests attack her, and continue sos. Unlike the false claims of her critics, she understands that there are circumstances when therapy and meds are appropriate.

My view is that though well-intended, we have lost our way as a society in the areas she has underscored. I give our culture A++++ for our good intentions; however, outcomes must be evaluated candidly. Are we taking steps believing those actions are helpful when they are not? My view, we repeatedly utilize "Ready, fire, aim” to our detriment. Well-meaning adults have abdicated control thinking they are helping when they are harming. Here’s an example:

In my career I meet people from an array of occupations who share personal info. The uniformity of opinion I receive from educators about what is occurring from primary to the university levels is bleak. The educators feel miserable and can’t wait to flee. Why? The bottom line is there’s no discipline permitted. They feel defeated that they can’t teach and will receive zero institutional support because everyone is afraid for their jobs and public/internet ridicule. To paraphrase teachers, the system has collapsed but since there’s a sign on the door “school," learning is presumed to be occurring when it is not. Note how many teachers choose to send their children to private school as an alternative. Look too at the explosive growth of homeschooling as a measure of concern for physical safety and efficacy. One educator told me the kids know the teachers can’t do anything disciplinary to them and behave accordingly.

US academic performance has declined. US results versus nearly 30 other nations is appalling, though we spent so much more per child than competitor nations - and we are in competition whether we ignore that or not. The new bait and switch is to use SEL and pronounce schools as successful by downshifting academic measures replaced with SEL-focused yardsticks. The silver lining in the deadly COVID cloud is some parents got a glimpse of what their kids are being immersed in, were shocked and "voted with their feet" taking their children to be educated elsewhere.

Look at the nightmare on college campuses over the past decade: skyrocketing anxiety, depression and suicides. Those results reflect Abigail’s concerns. The Anxious Generation, by J. Haidt, which I have begun, buttresses Shrier’s thesis.

Overwhelmingly, employers tell me their younger workers behave completely differently, some don’t care about their performance, and except for excellent tech skills, they are surprisingly incapable, needy, demanding, and stunted. Please note: I am fortunate to know young people who do not fit the negative descriptions at school or work reported to me and are the polar opposite.

Our sacred oxen have strayed from path and are at risk - and so is our society.

At times I found her sarcasm humorous and at other times too snarky, but beyond that quibble, she has done a valuable service for our nation if we pause, consider, and act: what do we need to do differently to be more effective?
——————
April 29th Addendum
Finished reading Jonathan Haidt’s thoughtful, research-based, and prescriptive The Anxious Generation. It is excellent also. I rate it as Five Stars and have bought a second copy to gift. It serves as a helpful companion to Schrier’s work. I highly recommend it.

I read his outstanding work, co-authored with Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of The American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation For Failure, which is also a straightforward, easy read.

Years ago I read, then reread his masterful and superb The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion. I found this work to be more challenging, and a fascinating hypothesis.

Lastly, some of the one and two star reviews of Abigail’s book contained insightful, valid criticisms for which I am grateful. Still, I see the value in her work, despite its weaknesses, as having galvanized a needed review of current assumption and practices. Michael

53 people found this helpful

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Enthusiast 1

Recommended from a BH/MH professional

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2024

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Having worked over 20yrs in a variety of outpatient mental health settings, I highly recommend this timely and relevant book. The author is spot on regarding trends and changes that I and many of my peers within the BH/MH industry have seen unfolding. This should be recommended reading for all graduate level students/interns entering the field, as well as education professionals and parents. A well written work.

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Drew_STL

The 1 star reviews - they admit they didn't read it

Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2024

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Update: Finished. It is indeed well-researched and though accessible, there's plenty there for data nerds who wish to understand the methodological flaws underlying a lot of mental health treatment approaches and community health initiatives. She shines a light on the biases at play in the restrospective studies about the so-called causal relationship between childhood trauma and adult mental (and physical) health. I had no idea this all came from the same guy (Bessel van der Kolk) who we all agreed was bananas when his theories caused the Satanic Panic and "recovered memory" fiasco of the 1990s.

We've seen our local school district fully embrace SEL and Restorative Justice with disastrous results. My kids report "no one gets in trouble -- ever" for fights, cursing the teacher, leaving or disrupting class, etc. We have found SEL programs to be intrusive -- my sons have been encouraged to reveal private information without my permission. A social studies teacher at their school does privilege walks, but what if you don't WANT everyone to know if you have chronic health problems, divorced parents, live in poverty, have a parent in jail, are an immigrant, have been a victim of abuse, etc.? You either reveal sensitive personal information you can never take back (of course it doesn't "stay in the circle") or you get pegged as "privileged" and your opinion and success come with a big asterisk.

Who knew that building entire identities around "trauma" and "clinical diagnoses" would lead to children and young adults feeling overwhelmed and incapable instead of resilient and empowered?
-------------------------------------------
I have purchased the book on Kindle am reading through and it's off to an excellent start. Considering it was published less than 24 hours ago and there are already 1 star reviews who admit they haven't read it (and how could they have, in less than a day?) it's clear that there is brigading happening by trans-activists who are still mad at Abigail for being an early voice in what is now an increasingly mainstream questioning or criticism of hormones and surgeries for children who experience gender dysphoria. Anyone who has touched that 3rd rail will never again publish without these rather telling 1 star reviews within hours of their release.

I will update once I finish, but in answer to the 1 star reviews which both indicate it's an under-researched opinion piece, I'm flummoxed about how they can say so -- it's already clear to me that she documents a wide variety of primary and secondary sources to support the ideas discussed, from peer-reviewed studies to personal interviews with evolutionary psychologists.

She also is quite explicit that mental illness is real, trauma & PTSD is real, and that psychiatric drugs can absolutely be necessary and beneficial. What she examines in this book is iatragenic harm, from providing treatment to someone who doesn't need it. She examines whether "preventative" mental health (standard screening forms, SEL in schools) encourages all kids to examine and ruminate over negative thoughts and experiences, an act which is itself detrimental to mental health outcomes. Interesting stuff.

627 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer tal I

Well researched and written

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2024

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Very well written and researched. The fact therapy can have side effects is rarely mentioned let alone discussed. This book should be read by every parent and teacher. Well worth the time.

6 people found this helpful

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Tony Rushworth

Outstanding

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2024

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This book is exceptional. There is so little most parents know about therapy and the effects on children. We should be so grateful that Abigail has taken the time to investigate and expose the therapy industry for what it is and how it affects children. Abigail qualifies right at the beginning of the book that some children are ill enough for mental health therapy. But what she exposes throughout about the dangers of it for most children is essential reading for all parents and teachers. A truly transformational book - thank you Abigail Shrier.

One person found this helpful

terra12

If I could I'd give it 10 stars!

Reviewed in Italy on March 10, 2024

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I've read all books from this author and I cannot agree more with her. Her ability to analyze society and the current trends among kids and teens (and adults too, for that matter) is spotless. Her style is direct, clear. It seemed I was reading my own thoughts in some parts. Thanks Ms Shrier. Cannot wait to read your next publication.

Damir

Fresh and status-quo challenging view that every parent need to read through and consider

Reviewed in Spain on March 10, 2024

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Abigail Shrier raises a valid question that most people don’t actually even think to ask - do all children that are assigned therapy actually need one? We tend to rely on widely accepted opinions and expert reviews, and it is quite eye-opening from the author to challenge this status-quo. Parents, she says, know the best (or should know) their kids, and leaving their mental well-being to someone else could play out not as great. I am half-through the book now, and it meets every expectation I had after listening to a podcast featuring Abigail and ordering the book on spot.

Tanuj

Excellent, eye-opening, must-read

Reviewed in India on March 9, 2024

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A must read book for anyone interested in mental health in general. This is challenging (and convincingly so) many beliefs about mental health that I held.

Bought the book yesterday at 10 pm on Kindle. It's 4 pm now and I am on page 177!

2 people found this helpful

Cassie romances

Food for thought

Reviewed in Australia on May 4, 2024

Verified Purchase

Helped to arm me with evidence when I want to resist some of the damaging modern parenting trends.

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