Ideally, everyone would have the opportunity to explore vulnerability carefully, step by step, with a skilled therapist or something to turn to if things ever got dicey.
I think this is an essential line, and a core problem. For more than a half century the social capital of the average person in the US has been falling and falling and falling. A therapist is sort of just a person you pay to pretend to be a genuine friend, without you having to reciprocate friendship back at them. That it is considered reasonable or ideal (as the first thought) to go to a paid professional to get basic F2F friend services is historically weird.
Maybe it is the best we can do, but… like… it didn’t used to be this way I don’t think, and that suggests that it could be like it was in the past if we knew what was causing it.
I think this is an essential line, and a core problem. For more than a half century the social capital of the average person in the US has been falling and falling and falling. A therapist is sort of just a person you pay to pretend to be a genuine friend, without you having to reciprocate friendship back at them. That it is considered reasonable or ideal (as the first thought) to go to a paid professional to get basic F2F friend services is historically weird.
Maybe it is the best we can do, but… like… it didn’t used to be this way I don’t think, and that suggests that it could be like it was in the past if we knew what was causing it.
A therapist is also someone who is bound by confidentiality—things you tell them don’t get spread around and used against you by other people.