A Brief Book Summary from Books At a Glance
by Benjamin J. Montoya, PhD
About the Author
Abigail Shrier received the Barbara Olson Award for Excellence and Independence in Journalism in 2021. Her bestselling book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (2020), was named a “Best Book” by the Economist and the Times. It has been translated into ten languages.
Introduction
Children being enrolled in counseling has become commonplace, but is it helping? The result is that these children are becoming adults who cannot even decide to apply for a job without calling their mothers. What happened? Why aren’t children growing up? On the one hand, many parents have gone with the proverbial flow from the schools, assuming counseling is the answer. But, on the other hand, the results of said “counseling” are leaving adult children as still children. What is happening is that these supposed healing therapists are actually causing harm.
Table of Contents
Part I Healers Can Harm
Chapter 1 Iatrogenesis
Chapter 2 A Crisis in the Era of Therapy
Chapter 3 Bad Therapy
Part II Therapy Goes Airborne
Chapter 4 Social-Emotional Meddling
Chapter 5 The Schools Are Filled with Shadows
Chapter 6 Trauma Kings
Chapter 7 Hunting, Fishing, Mining: Mental Health Survey Mischief
Chapter 8 Full of Empathy and Mean as Hell
Chapter 9 The Road Paved by Gentle Parents
Chapter 10 Spare the Rod, Drug the Child
Part III Maybe There’s Nothing Wrong with Our Kids
Chapter 11 This Will Be Our Final Session
Chapter 12 Spoons Out
Summary
Part I: Healers Can Harm
Chapter 1: Iatrogenesis
When a parent sends their child to see a therapist, a variety of things happen. Typically, therapists will “evict” the parent to have a private conversation with the child. Then, after the session, the therapist will provide a kind of summary of what was said, though without telling everything. Parents assume that the therapist has their child’s best interest at heart, but that is what is at the heart of our question. Are they helping?
There is a medical term known as iatrogenesis, that is, when a medical professional or someone meant to heal actually causes harm; this can happen when surgeons nick another organ while operating. This same kind of thing is happening in the bad therapy that children are receiving. Therapists are asking all kinds of suggestive questions, making associations with larger issues like life, death, etc., just because kids are expressing typical worries/issues that children struggle with as they become adults, and, at times, they make things worse by introducing concepts to the children that they had not previously known.
For example, many local schools have D.A.R.E. programs that cover drug related issues. Instead of helping, what is happening is that they are making issues worse—introducing ideas to the children that encourage the very behavior they seek to discourage; their “education” is enlightening children to begin using drugs, not reducing or eliminating their usage. Simply put, wanting to help is not the same thing as helping. . . .
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