Know Yourself and Renounce Self-Help Therapy
Enlightened humility and the audacity of therapy culture
Most of us want to be told what to do and how to do it.
The answers are all on the internet in byte-sized packets: how to organize your closet, start a business, bake a lasagna, write a novel, paint a picture, tell a joke, go on a diet, survive a zombie apocalypse — it’s all there in black and white, endless step-by-step instructions.
If one recipe fails you, try the next. You need never live with doubt or failure. A world of know-it-alls is out there to pick you up, dust you off, and set you on the right path.
Then we leap to the conclusion that we should be told not just what to do but what to be. We think therapy should be just as straightforward as a how-to guide. If we’re short on the money for a professional therapist, we can resort to the “self-help” industry, since with all the free advice on offer, we assume we might as well help ourselves.
If you don’t like your personality, you can fix yourself just like you can fix a leaky faucet. What’s more, you can do so quickly and easily, with the same convenience as ordering stuff from Amazon, McDonald’s, or Uber Eats.
