The Threat of the "Therapy Culture"

We live in an age marked by countless paradoxes and contradictions: in some parts of the world, we're using advanced technology to cure cancer while millions of people worldwide are still dying of tuberculosis; we're fighting obesity, and yet millions of children are still fighting malnutrition and face death due to hunger. In "civilized" countries, children are becoming obese, addicted to social networking sites and cell phones - and now, an even more alarming trend is emerging all over advanced Western societies: the so-called "therapy culture".

At the basis of this new "culture" stands the belief that all human beings are essentially vulnerable and need help and counseling every step of the way, if they are to achieve anything in their lives. As Dennis Hayes and Kathryn Ecclestone of Oxford Brookes University explain in their book "The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education", the basic premises in many schools and even university campuses is that pupils and even teachers can't make it without being granted some sort of emotional support - even when they don't need it. As a result, many pupils - both schoolchildren and students - are using alleged "emotional" disabilities to score points with their tutors.

"Turning teaching into therapy is destroying the minds of children, young people and adults. Therapeutic education promotes the idea that we are emotional, vulnerable and hapless individuals. It is an attack on human potential", claims Dr Hayes, one of the authors of the book. "The infantilization of students reveals itself in the increased presence of parents on campus. Everyone looks for a difficulty to declare, like the hundreds of students who register themselves as 'dyslexic'", she adds.

As a result, expressions of emotion are valued as highly as expressions of ideas and generations of pupils and students are growing up feeling that being happy and carefree means that there must be something wrong with them. Children "are becoming neurotic and introverted", warns Dr Hayes. "The more you obsess about your difficulties, the harder they are to put behind you", she says. Which means that, while serious issues such as depression must undoubtedly be addressed and dealt with accordingly, we all have to be very cautious not to fall to the other extreme and start believing that we cannot make it on our own. Which would, indeed, be an attack to all the things that make us human: self-confidence, determination to succeed, creativity and intelligence.