In Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, Abigail Shrier provides a scathing Critique of Modern Psychotherapeutic Methods and the normalization of mental health awareness. Alleging that the application of these methods on Generation Z has increased levels of anxiety and depression, she urges parents to reclaim their preeminent role in childrearing and to shun mental health professionals. Given her education and experience as an editorialist at the Wall Street Journal, Shrier has the analytical and communicative skills to contribute this non-fictional and controversial work to the literature on mental health. Published in 2024, the book became a best seller on Amazon.

All quotations and references in this guide are from the hardback edition.

Content Warning: The book discusses sensitive topics such as suicide, mental health disorders, and critiques of widely accepted therapeutic practices.

Summary

Drawing a distinction between those with serious mental illnesses and a larger group who experience negative emotions, such as fearfulness, Shrier specifies that her Critique of Modern Psychotherapeutic Methods and mental health awareness concerns only the latter group. For that group, the negative side effects of therapy far outweigh any benefits. Indeed, therapy can undermine the normal response of resilience to adversity.

Generation X parents have been quick to take their children to therapy, where those children are diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Instead of helping to improve the psychological health of children, such therapy has resulted in greater levels of anxiety and depression among the members of Generation Z. She claims that generation is fearful, pessimistic, and lacks a sense of agency. These attributes result from Generation Z’s exposure to bad therapy, which instructs children to focus on their feelings. That focus causes self-absorption and prevents children from succeeding in tasks. Additionally, therapists validate the fears and worries of children, causing more anxiety. Children are diagnosed and labeled with psychological maladies, which causes them to have low self-esteem.

Problematically, children and adolescents are often prescribed medications for these maladies. Shrier argues that these medications have negative side effects and are most often unnecessary. Citing the example of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), she argues that the condition does not meet the definition of a psychological disorder and is over diagnosed. Prescribed drugs, such as Ritalin, are powerful and bring risks of addiction and dependency. Anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications also pose risks to developing children and adolescents. In psychologically healthy people, anxiety and depression have benefits and should not be treated. Anxiety can warn people of danger, and depression allows people to take time to regroup from a negative situation.

Although the vast majority of children in Generation Z are not in therapy, they are nonetheless subjected to modern psychotherapeutic methods in school and elsewhere. Via curriculums in social-emotional learning, children are asked about their feelings and encouraged to share their experiences with adversity and trauma. Shrier criticizes this curriculum for its negative impact on learning; for example, attempting to teach behaviors like friendship instead of allowing children to experience them hinders the development of social skills. Instead of requiring students to meet high expectations, educators accommodate students and excuse misbehavior. Even violent behavior is met with counseling, not punishment, in the name of ensuring emotional well-being. The obsession with trauma is misplaced, as most children have not experienced it. Even for those who have, it is sometimes better to repress it. She asserts there is no evidence proving a link between childhood trauma and problems in adulthood. The emphasis upon trauma only encourages students to embellish normal adversities and to harp upon them.

The therapeutic approach of educators ironically can result in cruelty toward some students. Given the focus on feelings, students frequently tattle and report anyone who has offended them in some way. In response, educators offer empathy to the complainer and marginalize the offensive student without any investigation or due process. Comparing these students to citizens in a totalitarian regime, as they are constantly monitored and lack agency, Shrier is not surprised that they report on their peers and families. Indeed, Shrier is critical of social-emotional learning for its invasion of privacy in its inquiries about family life. It does so via questions from teachers and counselors and via surveys. Because schools rely upon results of mental health surveys to justify more resources for mental health services, surveys have become commonplace. They too have negative side effects, normalizing rare and tragic behaviors, such as suicide, and providing suggestions to adolescents.

Generation X parents have taken the advice of mental health experts in rearing their children. Adopting a gentle and permissive approach to parenting, they are non-judgmental and refrain from punishments. They seek to create a pain-free environment for their children and to understand their children’s emotions, which they validate. Instead of transmitting their values, Generation X parents seek to ensure the emotional well-being of their children. That latter goal empowers mental health experts and subordinates The Role of Parents in Childrearing. A major argument of hers is that this gentle approach recommended by mental health experts does not work. Recommending that parents alternatively adopt an authoritative approach, Shrier explains that children crave structure and reassurance that adults are in charge. An authoritative approach is grounded in love and allows for some negotiation over rules. However, parents retain control, while children are expected to meet standards of behavior and are punished when they fail to do so. This approach, unlike the permissive one, creates happy and successful adults.

Shrier urges parents to give children space, independence, and responsibility. It is important for children to take risks and to experience failure while under the loving care of their parents. Such experiences acclimate children to the adult world gradually and build confidence. In fact, she claims parents should reduce what they do for their children by about one-third, including the supplying of technological equipment. Social media, for example, is harmful to children and adolescents. Thus, Shrier recommends that parents remove technology as well as monitoring, doubt, medications, and evaluations to the greatest extent possible. Instead of encouraging children to ruminate on their feelings, they should be taught to place themselves in a larger context of community. In all but extreme cases, therapists should be avoided for children and adolescents.