Abigail Shrier is author of the best-selling new book Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up. She argues that the mental health of Gen Z—people born between 1997 and 2012—is a mess because an infantilizing therapeutic culture pervades every aspect of their lives.
0:00- Why do kids have no interest in growing up?
3:37- Do kids see too many doctors?
4:10- The difference between adult therapy and child therapy
7:48- How many children are in therapy?
9:32- Therapy in K-12 education
13:00- Who is Elizabeth Loftus?
16:35- Has every child been traumatized?
18:05- What is trauma?
20:33- Who is Viktor Frankl?
24:20- The redefinition of trauma
28:20- How to understand what our ancestors experienced?
30:44- Are we delaying adulthood?
32:04- What happened to after school jobs?
34:06- Is social media making kids sad?
37:02- Why do parents surrender authority to experts?
42:36- Are we done with the cult of experts?
48:38- How to be a good parent
50:16- How to fix mental health at school
https://reason.com/podcast/2024/04/10/abigail-shrier-stop-obsessing-over-our-childrens-happiness
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Shrier stresses that she's not against psychological counseling and help per se, but she believes too many unqualified and misguided people are causing far more problems than they solve.
Her previous book was the controversial Irreversible Damage, which looked at the rapid rise of girls identifying as transgender. We talk about the roots of today's therapeutic culture, the extent of the problems it causes, and how parents, teachers, and young people themselves might find a better way forward.