Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
by Abigail Shrier
Rating: 5.0 / 5 · Read · Finished 2025-12-06
The book legitimately changed my mind. I used to think everyone could benefit from therapy. I now think it can cause its own problems and is overused. The book groups together several phenomenon: therapy, accommodation, psychotropic medication, exaltation of trauma, overprotection and surveillance of children.
The book in a sentence: Overtherapy and overaccommodation harm kids by pathologizing normal life and fostering dependence.
Chapter summaries
Iatrogenesis - Therapy is like surgery. It comes with risks and should only be used in extreme cases. D.A.R.E. increased drug use just by increasing awareness.
A Crisis in the Era of Therapy - Gen Z has more mental health problems than any in history. This chapter argues this is due to a rise in therapy, and argues against other causes like phones, covid, climate, etc. It acknowledges phones are bad for mental health, but blames therapists for enabling such self-destructive behavior.
Bad Therapy - Explains how therapy can be bad for mental health: pay close attention to negative feelings, ruminate, reward suffering with attention, turn mental health problems into identity, accommodate worries, drug patients, encourage cutting off family relationships, make patients dependent on therapy.
Social-Emotional Meddling - Schools are now acting like therapists: emotional check-ins, school psychologists, social-emotional learning, micromanagement of social interactions. These can have negative effects, as described in chapter “Bad Therapy”.
The Schools Are Filled with Shadows - Schools overprescribe accommodations. “Shadows” are adults who follow a kid and advocate for them. Extra time on tests, preferential seating, late assignments, etc if you have a diagnosis. Accommodations teach kids to be helpless. Chapter also criticizes restorative justice, and ACE (adverse childhood event) scores.
Trauma Kings - Dissects the meaning of “trauma”, which used to apply to war veterans but now applies to many more common situations. Argues that the normal response to most trauma is growth, but today’s culture turns trauma into excuses for bad behavior. Criticizes “The Body Keeps the Score”. Criticizes “repressed memories”, which are often fictional. Unhappy people are more likely to remember bad events, not the other way around.
Hunting, Fishing, Mining: Mental Health Survey Mischief - Criticizes mental health surveys, which are given out often at school and in hospitals, but cause iatrogenesis. They cause healthy kids to ruminate and become unhealthy. They make it seem weird to not have mental problems.
Full of Empathy and Mean as Hell - How empathy can go wrong. Punishing kids for saying racist things can cause harm to the kid without preventing much harm to anyone else. Example: Jewish girl joked about Hitler, other non-Jewish girls said they were offended, Jewish girl was publicly shamed and suspended.
The Road Paved by Gentle Parents - Describes counterintuitive phenomenon where gentle parenting makes children unhappy and resentful of parents. Kids thrive on rules and encouragement, not overwhelming choice and accommodation, which teaches helplessness. Gentle parenting is also hard on parents, because they feel anxious all the time about making the wrong move. Permissive and authoritarian parenting are both worse than authoritative parenting.
Spare the Rod, Drug the Child - Chapter argues that some things like ADHD should not be classified as disorders and should not be medicated. Kids are overmedicated today.
This Will Be Our Final Session - Solutions are mostly about not getting in the way. Hired professionals don’t always know better than parents. Parents don’t need to be involved all the time. Kids are naturally resilient. Treat anxiety with independence.
Spoons Out - Title comes from joke where man says he gets eye pain every time he drinks coffee and doctor says to take the spoon out. Lesson: the best treatment is often taking something away, not adding something. Like the previous chapter, advocates for not getting in the way of children having a childhood. Ends by exalting parenthood.