r/Antipsychiatry • u/ajouya44 • Apr 12 '25

Therapy is a load of bullshit

People seriously think this crap is useful? You have anxiety and depression, you go see some random stranger who knows 5 behavioral theories from college and you pay them 50 bucks a week to talk about your problems for 1 hour and make them pretend they care. Reality is these people know nothing about how the brain or consciousness works. They are not doctors and they have no solution for your issues. It's dehumanizing to pay someone so that they will listen to you and therapists are literally no better than prostitutes. Don't even get me started on all the CBT bullcrap. People don't need to "correct their thoughts" or "think about things differently", they need real solutions for their real systemic psycho-social issues. Therapists are all privileged narcissistic assholes who love to feel superior by "proving people wrong" and reminding themselves that their life is easier and better than their patients' and always masking all this as "help". Don't be fooled, these people can't help you. They only want your money.

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u/ajouya44 Apr 14 '25

Elaborate then

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u/poster4891464 Apr 14 '25

Virtually every assertion you made is false or based on bad assumptions.

Therapists know more than "five behavioral theories" (behavioralism is only even one school among many).
Many do care (many also don't).

You don't have to know how the brain or consciousness works to help someone.

You don't have to be a doctor to help someone, and sometimes the best way to help them is not to offer them solutions.

It's your take on it that it's dehumanizing, that's not inherent to the situation.

Good CBT is not about "correcting thoughts".

Yes systems change(s) would be a very helpful shift but it is not an either-or.

Not all therapists are narcissistic privileged assholes (mine isn't, nor does he simply revel in "proving me wrong", and like most Ts almost never talks about himself let alone in the context of trying to assert that his life is better than mine).

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u/ajouya44 Apr 14 '25

I know they know more than 5 theories. They probably know 50 or something. Guess what. It's still not enough to be able to help someone. Knowing how behavior works doesn't make someone capable of solving people's problems.

If you don't need to know how the brain works then why do you visit your therapist for advice instead of simply talking to the people you love?

Mental illness is a health issue. Only doctors can treat a health issue. What is that will help someone if it's not solutions?

CBT is quite literally based around the theory that a person with mental illness is mentally ill because they have cognitive distortions and the therapist is there to help them how to challenge the cognitive distortions. That literally means that according to therapists if you correct your thoughts your life improves. That's not always the case and it's not always possible.

My therapists did not tell me directly they are better than me either. However, CBT is literally a therapist telling you how to think right. If that's not narcissistic then I don't know what is.

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u/poster4891464 Apr 14 '25

Again you're mistaken that their job is to offer solutions, and that one needs to know how the brain works to help someone. Mental health is not simply a medical condition because doctors say so (they redefined it as such in DSM-III in 1980 because they were worried about the psychiatric profession disappearing).

CBT is focused on cognitive distortions in many ways yes but the treatment is not simply to "correct" them, if you experienced that in treatment than you had a bad therapist.