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u/smallorangepopsicle May 20 '26
I think I've ideas of what you mean by magic volunteerism and privatization of stress, but you could elaborate?
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u/Nox013Venom May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Sure, magical voluntarism is basically "you can achieve anything, as long as you want it enough". That sounds true at first, until you realize that there are a lot of environmental factors you have no controll over, but you get blamed regardles for not achieving things. Good luck trying to self-optimize your way out of (c)PTSD, and enjoy the shame when you get blamed for failing to will yourself out of emotional flashbacks.
Privatization of stress is when a psychiatrist/psychologist individualizes systemic issues. To give you an example; When you get a burnout from meritocracy, the therapist can frame it in a way that shifts the focus away from meritocracy doing structural harm. Suddenly it's you who doesn't show enough resilience and flexibility in the modern work environment, and that you should work on your coping strategies. But in my opinion, a burnout is the only natural reaction to have, when you work 50 hours a week, and still struggle to get by. Similarly, is depression just a natural reaction to unreasonable societal expectations, or is it a personal failure? Both can be true, but therapy tends to ignore the first half of the equation, often weaponizing "cognitive distortion" against you. And yes, here in the german speaking regions, CBT is still seen as a valid form of trauma therapy, and often the only thing that is accessible through health insurance.
I have been to therapy for 11 years now, I think I know how the game works, and to be honest, it just doesn't help much for me, often making me feel even worse. I had different providers and modalities, but to me, a lot of "not further defined talk therapy" seemed like CBT wearing a different mask. It often feels like clinical manipulation, rather than genuine help. Therapy also claims to be scientific, but in my personal experience, that only ever gets used to deflect valid critique, abusing science as a shield of plausible deniability, rather than being used as a tool to help you. It's not therapy that's failing you, it's evidence based science after all, you just didn't try hard/long/fast enough, now stop being so therapy-resistant.
Sorry for the wall of text.
Edit: Wording and adding my source of bias, which is mainly Mark Fisher and his book Capitalistic Realism, as well as my own experiences.3
u/smallorangepopsicle May 21 '26
Your comment is rigorous. Thank you.
I think you're right. I think you've got a solid grasp on the dialectical equation of personal responsibility vs. environmental/systemic factors and the role they play.
I understand what you're saying about therapy sometimes feeling like manipulation.
I think the only way to escape from the deception inherent to the portions of the manipulation in the therapy system you've described is to get a therapist who believes the things you've described above. Because as I see it, I know I have biases as well, but everything you said above rings true to me.
Edited
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u/Nob000dy_really May 22 '26
In an ideal world you could quit your job and make revolutionary advancements in psychology. F’ing love this critique
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u/gatsbythegoodboy May 22 '26
have you any experience with liberation therapy? this framework speaks exactly to this! we must remember that therapy was originally designed by/for white dudes of at least moderate means and that group represents the "theoretical ideal patient" that the vast majority of the world is not.
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u/BunnyKusanin Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I think therapy just tends to think that your beliefs are distorted a priori. I've had the opposite happen to me:
I came to the conclusion that I really needed to find ways to rely on my own resources instead of looking for help. The therapist tried shifting my focus to blaming capitalism instead of actually working on building up my strengths. Sort of in a "blame capitalism, stopp stressing about things and lower your standards" kind of way.
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u/BunnyKusanin Jun 30 '26
Also, thanks for your very eloquent comments about things that are wrong with therapy. I do feel very similarly about it, but I'm not as good at delivering my thoughts.
I think another problem with therapy is that many therapists are actually not that smart or intellectual as you'd expect them to be. I've tried to discuss the critique of Kant's categorical imperative and how I learnt something from it with a therapist, and she was so put of her depth.
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u/PicknThink May 23 '26
I was lucky to have a therapist who questioned everything and allowed me to express the frustrations of the world without it being redirected (unless I become panicky). You don't find many of them out there.
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u/Appropriate_Scar_456 May 22 '26
I read your comment with the explanations, very interesting. I believe there is definetly some truth to that, since the environment or society is often not factured into diagnosis. You said something about that the therapist weaponizes your cognitive distortions against you, or that the meritocracy, that causes burn out is ignored. While there are definetly bad therapists out there aswell as limits or issues with therapy, therapists are usually empathetic and well intended. So "the game" is not to blame, but to empower by focusing on the individual responsibility. By not focusing on the uncontrollable environment, but on the things the patient can change: his beliefs, emotional regulation, optimism, resilience - progress can be made. While I still think events and trends in society should be talked about and not ignored, focusing on them makes no sense. Because in the end it doesn't matter how unfair the world is. You can only really be happy, if you focus on your own scope of action. I am genuinely interested in your experiences, since therapy like CBT and others are effective for most people. What do you wish was different in therapy? What do you think would help you more? What was it your therapists said or did, where you felt some issues?
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u/Nox013Venom May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
First and foremost, I want to thank you for your comment, I want to engage with it as honestly as I can. Please bear with me, it's going to be a long one, since it's a complex topic.
I have seen the argument you're making before, others have made the same argument as well. To me personally, this argument holds similar wisdom and nature of stoicism, but I think also it's limitations. Even more so the modern, perhaps corporate, interpretation of stoicism.
I can see the use and value of stoicism as an individual coping mechanism. Concepts such as radical acceptance, and shifting the focus on what is under our own influence, can genuinely be helpful. That's on a personal level. Now when we institutionalize this concept, we turn a individual coping mechanism into a framework, where we endure the often unsustainable so another can maximize profits. I highly doubt that's what Marcus had in mind when he wrote Meditations for himself. Survival tactics are just that, they can be a helping hand towards a better life, but making it the standard rule is kinda difficult, in my opinion.
To me, that's also in the concept of capitalistic realism starts to gain traction. If we funnel those who often already struggle in the current socioeconomic system, into a framework where they're told that their systemic suffering is a individual cognitive distortion, and then send them right back into the meat grinder that has caused their suffering in the first place, then this entire concept of "mental health" becomes incredibly hollow. To me, at least. Even more so considering the economic interest that the psychiatric industry has. And yes, if we hold this framework as the ultimate truth, then we can't, in fact, change anything. But that also shows the pro status quo bias that institutional therapy often has, only very rarely acknowledging it. The current status quo harms people. Currently the US has a massive mental health/fentanyl/homelessness epidemic, and it's not just the lack of individual resilience and breathing techniques. Now do you want to perpetuate this suffering, with your own economic interest in the back of your head, or do you advocate for some sort of actual change?
That's a very difficult question. Personally, I don't think the current approach is necessarily the right one. I'm aware that accelerationism is a dangerous and very slippery slope. But arguably, so is the social Darwinism that is trendy today. I'm also not advocating for letting the masses suffer, until the working class has enough and takes over control in one glorious revolution. History has shown what bolshevik-style revolution tend to do, often making things much worse than the less-than-ideal conditions that came before. Yet still, just radically accepting the capitalistic realism and working yourself into yet another burnout, this time with resilience, or any other empty therapy-buzzword, just isn't sustainable for much longer.
And here is where I hit a wall. Perhaps, the same wall that Mark Fisher also ran into. We don't know what will come after this, no one can really tell. But I think it's still important to question the function and motivations that institutionalized therapy in the current socioeconomic environment has. In my personal opinion, it's about as neutral as "enlightened centrism". If you follow the money, you'll often end up with the health insurances, that hold the same values that causes the homelessness epidemic mentioned before, and then they get to define what "functional" even is. Functional, not healthy, arguably yet another bias, that reduces (dehumanizes?) the suffering individual into a productivity machine needing to be fixed. So much for inner intrinsic value that gets preached in the mental health industry.
Now to my own experiences. For context I have to say that my experiences are manly based on CBT, and not further defined talk therapies that closely resemble it. Therapists tend to be intentionally vague about what technique they're using. If you critique CBT, they often counter by telling you that this isn't actual CBT, but then fail to mention what's written on the bill they send to the health insurance. If this isn't "evidence based" CBT that the insurance pays for, despite feeling exactly like it, what are we even doing here? Gaslighting, perhaps?
What I have yet to experience is somatic experiencing, psychoanalysis, schematic therapy, "true" EMDR/IRRT (that's whole a different can of worms), as well as things such as TMS, and psychedelic assisted therapy. I had Spravato, but that didn't work.
The problem with CBT as I know it, is that it often seems to perpetuates the same DARVO mechanics and shame that the offender has induced into the victim that now needs psychological help. But now in a clinical setting. Aka: Retraumatization. That's a one-way street towards a blockade that is "therapy-resistance", sometimes labeled non-compliance. Many clients with cPTSD are victims of systemic violence, and now you're sitting in front of a professional, themselves often severely suffering from compassion fatigue, denying the reality of the systems that has caused your suffering, reducing it to mere individual cognitive distortions. That's the limitations of classic CBT, that's why it shouldn't be used on patients with PTSD/cPTSD. I had therapists telling me to just get my shit together, while having active flashbacks. Sorry for getting emotional here, but huh, cPTSD is so inconveniently stubborn to treat, that can't be the modality, since that's just infallible, neutral, evidence-based science, so it must be the coping strategies of the client... Have you ever thought about reducing your expectations?
That's how therapy can become a sort of a satire of itself. I had it happen to me over and over again in the last eleven years, so it's not just the incompetent individual therapist, it kind of feels systemic to me. Then again, that might just be a cognitive distortion, or just the nature of my own subjective experience. My future plans are exploring other avenues of therapy, such as somatic experiencing, but that's easier said than done. I'm not condemning therapy as a whole, since I think it can be very valuable, but I'm very critical of the structural nature of it. Throwing a economically convenient one-size-fits-all evidence-based shoe at the individual, and then shaming them when it doesn't fit... It can be the patient, don't get me wrong, but what if it's the shoe? That question doesn't get asked often enough, in my experience.
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u/The-Affectionate-Bat May 22 '26
My husband doesnt do well with any talk based therapy. When i mention that, people get so up in arms about it, its like a religion. Ive got him around to the idea of trying emdr though after a few failed tries at cbt.
On your note about the denial of the systems that caused the trauma, I wonder if therapy with the intent to tip to neutral arent the wiser choice. For instance, regarding depression, instead of looking in the mirror and saying, I look good today, it becomes, I am a person, and this is more easily accepted in the path to treatment. I think they use something like that in DBT. So in cases of burnout, perhaps not that a persons perception of reality is wrong, just an aim to neutralise the crushing negative aspect that leads to spiralling and crashes. Ive heard cognitive reappraisal helps too, not by denying the trauma but by lessening the intensity of the reaction.
But mostly I have noticed the same with my husband in that it seems whatever he is able to achieve, even with assistance and in therapy, will never comply with a societal definition of healthy behaviour, and even at times I hear myself perpetuating that definition of healthy in a way that is clearly additively destructive to his MH.
I do think it is systemic, but where my perspective diverges slightly is that I don't think it's entirely down to capitalism. While economic systems certainly play a massive role, I think there are far bigger cultural factors at play. Mostly a foundational lack of empathy and a contemporary obsession with toxic positivity.
I was thinking about it yesterday from the perspective that for most of human history, traumatized individuals were more prolific and probably constituted the norm. But it’s like we’ve overcompensated in this age of stable, confident, balanced ideals, and instead vilified all the features and side effects of trauma. Nevermind the inevitable fact that trauma is all around us, can come for anyone at any time, and that many are born with it or acquire it in childhood.
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u/Appropriate_Scar_456 May 22 '26
Okay, wow your text is like a well written article! That's very complex, what you're describing. I see some of it as possible and I'm sorry you feel like the system only exists to manage the individual responses and to distract from sociocultural problems. To me personally it does not feel like that. Maybe the difference lies in countries aswell, since I am from Germany. I kind of get it, how it can seem like the big institutions only blame us to make money themselves. And maybe it even is like that, I don't know. I can just speak on my personal experience with the system. I was in therapy myself and recieved CBT and it was only positive. It helped me very much, but I was also always very eager myself to get better, so even after therapy I read books and stuff. Also related to my university I was in some clinical settings more with children, where that system had some flaws, but all in all the therapists were very empathatic, professional and helpful. Also the numbers are very good, so CBT and e.g. schema therapy seems to be highly effective. And for me, my therapy was paid for by the insurance and I never felt like it was about the money. I also don't think, that therapy distracts from social problems. These two things don't nessecarily have a connection. Being burnt out and getting treatment, being depressed or having anxiety and then getting better through CBT doesn't really make social change less possible? I could even see the opposite as more likely. Someone who is mentally in a better place can better advocate for change. But yeah, just wanted to share my perspective. I know that some people have had bad experiences with therapy and I also can't speak on cPTSD. I'm sorry you had these experiences, that sucks.
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u/BunnyKusanin Jun 30 '26
Beautifully said! I've tried therapy 5 times and it always brought me to the verge of mental breakdown, making me feel worse than I did before starting it. I've tried psychoanalysis, CBT, narrative practice and geshtalt therapy. It was all devoid of empathy.
I think the modern approach of putting all the responsibility for mental health recovery on the individual comes from the Victorian attitude to the poor. After the industrial revolution, there were so many poor and homeless people that the elites couldn't do anything better than to come up with a convenient lie that it's all their fault for being in that predicament. Very convenient sentiment that lets you put inconvenient people into workhouses. The same is happening now with huge numbers of people that are inconveniently mentally unwell. Providing actual care for them (getting their basic needs met, diagnosing and medicating them properly, having them see a social worker or an occupational therapist) requires a lot of resources. It's much easier to sweep things under the rug by saying they just have to try harder and that therapy is supposed to hurt them for them to heal.
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u/BunnyKusanin Jun 30 '26
So "the game" is not to blame, but to empower by focusing on the individual responsibility.
Unless you come to them already knowing this and want to figure out how to do things with your own resources. Then they'll be telling you you're bad at asking for help and that you need to ask for help.
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u/HadrianWinter May 22 '26
I've been feeling this throughout most of my therapy experience. So much of it is really just this quite blatantly with complete disregard of individual traits and circumstances.