02/02/2026
Two books every therapist (and client) should read, especially if they make you uncomfortable.
Bad Therapy (Abigail Shrier) and Against Therapy (Jeffrey Masson) both challenge a sacred assumption in our field: that therapy is inherently good, and that more therapeutic intervention equals more healing.
Shrier warns how modern therapy culture can:
• pathologise normal distress
• reinforce fragility rather than resilience
• reward symptom-talk over growth
• and unintentionally trap people in an identity of “being unwell”
Masson goes further, questioning whether therapy itself can become:
• subtly controlling rather than liberating
• driven by the therapist’s authority, theories, and interpretations
• disconnected from real-world change
• and more concerned with insight than truth or responsibility
What both books point to, admittedly uncomfortably, is this: therapy can make things worse when we as therapist lose humility.
As therapists, we work in uncertainty. There are no guarantees. No clean outcomes. And no ethical justification for certainty disguised as care.
For me, this reinforces why I practise with restraint:
• intervening less, not more
• trusting the client’s organismic wisdom
• staying alert to power, influence, and dependency
• and constantly asking: is this helping — or am I just doing therapy because I can?
• continuous analysis of my clinical work: reviewing notes, engaging in deep reflection, and applying critical ethical thinking. Making sense of my own values, beliefs, and biases, and recognising how these can shape or interfere with my practice
Being critical of therapy is not anti-therapy.
It’s a refusal to hide behind technique, identity, or good intentions.
