Have you heard the buzz? Abigail Schrier has stirred up a lot of controversy among mental health professionals and lay people alike. If you’ve read the book or just heard about it, please don’t cancel your child’s therapy appointment (at least not until you read this post)! Here is one mental health professional’s take on this highly provocative landmine of a book.
Schrier is a journalist, whose 2020 book entitled, “Irreversible Damage; The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” is no stranger to controversy. The main thesis of the book is that socially anxious teens are embracing trans culture as a way of fitting into a peer group.
In her current book, Schrier admits that she is not targeting children who truly need help; however, she gives this qualifying statement short shrift and makes crystal clear her disdain towards therapists, school counselors and parenting experts. Schrier makes sweeping assertions throughout the book, many of which she supports by cherry-picked, non-peer-reviewed studies.
Schrier covers several topics, and admittedly makes some valid points. She wants you to be a smart consumer. Parents should make sure a therapist is credentialed and provides evidence-based interventions. She wants you to be wary of therapists who automatically assume some hidden trauma at the root of every behavior problem. She rightly points out that inducing endless rumination on feelings in an otherwise well-adjusted child can often lead to endless, ineffective therapy. Schrier is correct, that children have a remarkable capacity for resilience, and therapists need to support a childrens’ coping skills.
But the real object of Schrier’s disdain are the parenting experts and authors of multiple parenting books, whom she believes have taken parents down a misguided road called “gentle parenting.” This results in what she calls, “battered mommy syndrome”. Schrier’s own approach to bad behavior falls under the heading, “just get over it.” She decries how the current parent generation has rejected healthy limits “for no limits and has ceded total authority to its kids.
As is the case with many of her assertions, the truth is somewhere in between. Of course, children need firm limits, but they also need love. These are not mutually exclusive. This overly permissive parenting style too often results in kids who can’t control their impulses, and experience way more anxiety and depression than children who know firm, but lovingly set, limits
So how do you know if your child needs therapy? Here is where Schrier and me part ways. Schrier sees therapy as a last resort, in all but the direst circumstances. In her opinion, even a teenager who cuts himself is probably just acting out, and nothing his parents can’t or shouldn’t handle. Many in the mental health profession, me included, share the view that no child should have to experience prolonged periods of anxiety, social isolation, difficulty with impulse control, to name but a few concerns parents bring to our office. And if you’re not sure, there is no downside in calling and speaking with a clinician.
So, the bottom line is that if you’d like a polarizing and provocative view of the mental health profession, please read this book but with a healthy dose of skepticism.
If you are in the Nashville-Brentwood-Franklin area and interested in some good therapy for you or your child, the team at Southeast Psych Nashville is top-notch. They are highly skilled and use evidence-based treatments that have great research support. You can call 615-373-9955 to explore whether they might be a good fit for you or your family.
