The mental health of Generation Z is worse than previous generations due to the influence of the mental health industry on child-rearing practices. Shrier claims that therapists, psychologists, and other mental health experts have promoted harmful practices that have led to emotional fragility, treatment dependency, fear of independence, and severed family ties among young people.

Shrier criticizes misguided therapy techniques such as encouraging endless rumination on negative feelings, attaching diagnostic labels to children, and normalizing self-harm or suicidal ideation. She also argues that schools have increasingly positioned themselves as mental health clinics, constantly monitoring children's mental states and prioritizing social-emotional learning over academics.

The influence of unqualified experts has eroded parental authority, leading to parents abdicating their role as the prime authority in their children's upbringing. The therapeutic worldview regards children as vulnerable victims in need of constant coddling, which has failed to raise resilient and competent adults.

Shrier calls for a reevaluation of the societal captivation with therapy as a panacea and a return to time-tested principles of child-rearing to help young people grow into healthy, capable adults.

The Iatrogenic Effects of Therapy on Children

Iatrogenesis refers to the unintended harm or adverse effects caused by medical treatment. While therapy and psychological interventions are intended to help, they can sometimes backfire, leading to negative consequences - especially when applied to children and adolescents. It's crucial to understand the potential iatrogenic risks of therapy to ensure we aren't inadvertently doing more harm than good.

Therapy Needs a Warning Label

Many common therapeutic practices carry risks of iatrogenesis that are often overlooked or downplayed. For example, psychological debriefing - a widely used technique of having patients "process" traumatic events by discussing them in detail - has been shown to worsen PTSD symptoms in some cases.

Even well-meaning therapists may inadvertently contribute to negative outcomes like:

• Treatment dependency: Patients becoming overly reliant on the therapist, developing an external locus of control and difficulty acting independently.
• Demoralization: The patient internalizing the idea that they are fundamentally "broken" or disordered, diminishing self-efficacy.
• Diminished resilience: Therapy convincing patients they cannot handle life's stressors without professional help, undermining their ability to cope.

Many therapists are hesitant to openly discuss iatrogenesis, perhaps due to concerns about undermining faith in the profession. However, a lack of transparency about the potential downsides does a disservice to patients and prevents proper informed consent.

There are several common therapeutic practices that, while well-intentioned, may be counterproductive or even damaging when applied to young people:

Hyperfocus on Negative Feelings

Constantly prompting kids to examine and discuss negative emotions like sadness, anxiety and anger. This can lead to rumination and amplify the very feelings therapists aim to treat.

Overdiagnosis and Pathologizing

The tendency to apply diagnostic labels to typical childhood struggles convinces kids there is something inherently "wrong" or disordered about them.

Overmedication

The rising rates of prescribing psychiatric drugs to children and adolescents, despite limited evidence of efficacy and risks of dependency and developmental disruption.

Rather than automatically diverting kids to professionals at the first sign of struggle, we may need to rethink our assumptions. A little anxiety, sadness or anger is normal and arguably beneficial for developing resilient coping mechanisms.

Psychological Debriefing and Adverse Outcomes

For decades, the standard therapy offered to victims of traumatic events like combat, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters was "psychological debriefing." This involved therapists bringing victims into group sessions where they were encouraged to "process" their emotions, learn about PTSD symptoms, and continue therapy.

However, study after study has shown that this bare-bones debriefing process is not only ineffective, but can actually worsen PTSD symptoms.

Debriefing Worsens PTSD in Police and Burn Victims

For example, one study looked at police officers who underwent debriefing sessions after responding to a plane crash. Eighteen months later, these officers exhibited more PTSD hyperarousal symptoms than officers who did not receive the debriefing "treatment."

Similarly for burn victims - those who received debriefing therapy showed more anxiety than burn victims left untreated.

• Understand that debriefing worsens PTSD by inducing rumination and hyperfocus on the traumatic event in an uncontrolled setting. This re-exposes victims to the trauma rather than allowing natural resilience.
• Recognize that good intentions to "process" trauma do not necessarily lead to good outcomes. Therapy can do unintended harm, especially one-size-fits-all approaches that don't account for individual differences.

The Vienna Subway Study

One of the most striking examples of psychological debriefing backfiring comes from Vienna in the 1980s. The city had a spate of subway suicides that proved contagious - epitomizing all the risk factors:

• Excessive focus on the traumatic topic of suicide
• Details of methods provided
• Framing suicide as a coping mechanism

In response, Vienna limited media coverage of subway suicides through a concerted public campaign. The result? Subway suicides dropped by 75% in just a few years' time.

This illustrates how focusing people's attention on traumatic topics and methods can actually increase their incidence, the exact opposite of what psychological debriefing aims to achieve.

Talking Doesn't Always Help

As trauma researcher Richard Bryant put it:

Really good trauma-informed work does not mean that you get people to talk about it. Quite the opposite.

For some victims, talking through their trauma can increase suffering by forcing them to re-live the experience before they are ready to process it naturally.

The key point is that debriefing overly focuses victims on their trauma at a vulnerable time, when resilience may be better supported by simply acknowledging the pain and focusing on present needs and moving forward.

Psychological debriefing exemplifies how well-intentioned but misguided therapeutic practices, applied broadly, can cause unintended harm - the epitome of iatrogenic effects.

Dependency, Demoralization and Loss of Resilience

Therapy can undermine a child's sense of self-efficacy and resilience in several key ways. By positioning the therapist as an authority figure who can unlock the secrets of the child's psyche, therapy can foster an unhealthy dependency on the therapist's guidance and approval.

Additionally, the process of pathologizing typical childhood struggles through diagnostic labels can have a demoralizing effect on young people. When therapists characterize common difficulties as symptoms of a "disorder," children may internalize a self-perception of being fundamentally flawed or damaged.

• This undermines their innate resilience - the belief that they can overcome adversity through their own coping mechanisms and support systems.
• Instead of learning that difficult emotions are part of the human experience, kids come to view themselves as forever limited by their "condition" and unable to fully recover without expert treatment.

The heavy emphasis on discussing negative feelings and personal traumas in therapy also risks reinforcing unhealthy patterns of rumination in young patients. As researcher Yulia Chentsova Dutton explains:

"Certain kinds of attention to emotions, focus on emotions, can increase emotional distress. And I'm worried that when we try to help our young adults, help our children, what we do is throw oil into the fire."

By training kids to be hyper-focused on their internal emotional states, therapy may amplify the very angst it aims to ameliorate. This flies in the face of research showing that resilience develops through learning to cope with discomfort, rather than obsessively exploring its roots.

In summary, while well-intentioned, many therapeutic practices carry the unintended consequence of leaving kids feeling fundamentally broken, dependent on professional guidance, and consumed by negative self-focus. This compromises the innate resilience children need to thrive in the face of life's inevitable challenges.

Harmful Therapeutic Practices with Children

Many therapeutic techniques and approaches commonly used with children and adolescents may be counterproductive or even damaging to their mental health and development. While well-intentioned, these practices often stem from faulty assumptions about childhood and can produce unintended negative consequences.

Encouraging Emotional Vulnerability

A bedrock principle of much contemporary therapy is that emotional vulnerability and open self-disclosure are universally beneficial for healing and growth. However, this assumption breaks down when applied to children and adolescents, who are still developing their sense of identity and emotional regulation skills.

Rather than helping kids process big feelings in a productive way, relentlessly probing them about negative emotional experiences may actually reinforce those feelings or convince kids that their inner struggles are more problematic than they really are.

Prying Into Kids' Privacy

Many therapeutic approaches assume kids will benefit from maximum emotional disclosure to an adult authority figure (the therapist). Therapists are trained to pry into the intimate details of a child's inner life, relationships with family and friends, hidden fears and uncomfortable experiences.

However, this invasive process undermines the natural boundaries kids erect around the most private parts of their identity during adolescence. It can damage their ability to develop appropriate self-protectiveness and interpersonal trust.

• Respect a child's right to keep some things private as they figure out who they are. Not everything needs to be dragged into the light.
• Allow kids to determine how much, if anything, they want to disclose - forcing premature or excessive self-revelation can do more harm than good.

Betraying Parent-Child Bonds

When therapists make it their mission to unlock every secret in a child's inner world, they subvert one of the most developmentally crucial relationships: the one between child and parent.

By design, therapeutic relationships are sterile conduits for uncensored disclosure - but real families aren't built to operate that way. Encouraging kids to turn against parents' intimacy boundaries undermines parental trust and authority, which kids still need to become healthy, functional adults.

Affirming Kids' Perceived Limitations

Many therapeutic models take the position that kids will only overcome problems or grow emotionally by first giving full voice and validation to their perceived limitations. So therapists are taught to begin by accepting and empathizing with a child's stated reasons for not being able to handle challenges.

For example, if a child claims they can't possibly take a test because of anxiety, the therapist avoids disputing that self-assessment and instead works from the premise that the anxiety is fully real and determinative.

While this approach aims to be supportive, it also affirms a child's belief that they are fragile, weak or broken in some way. Over time, this conditioning diminishes self-confidence and self-efficacy, training kids to live down to incapacities that may only exist in their own anxious minds.

In contrast, kids tend to rise to meet the expectations we set for them. By validating their perceived limitations too readily, therapy encourages stagnation and reinforces a fragile self-concept.

The underlying issue is that contemporary therapy often treats childhood as a chronic condition requiring expert management, rather than a resilient transitional state with an inherent capacity for growth and adaptation. As such, many therapeutic approaches provide kids with disability accommodations when what they most need is space to develop strength and autonomy.

Encouraging Rumination and Emotional Hyperfocus

Therapists and mental health experts often encourage children and adolescents to constantly monitor, discuss, and analyze their emotions and inner experiences. However, research suggests that this approach of inducing "rumination" and hyperfocus on feelings can actually exacerbate psychological distress.

The Dangers of Rumination

Rumination refers to the repetitive and passive contemplation of one's negative emotions and personal problems. It involves obsessively going over the causes, meanings, and consequences of distressing feelings rather than taking action to address them.

While some self-reflection can be healthy, research shows that excessive rumination is counterproductive and has been implicated as a key factor in the development and maintenance of:

• Depression
• Anxiety disorders
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Eating disorders
• Substance abuse

Emotional Hyperfocus in Therapy

Many therapeutic approaches for children involve routinely asking kids to report on and analyze their emotional states. For example:

• Emotions Check-Ins: Teachers commonly start the school day by prompting every student to announce how they are feeling emotionally using prompts like "On a scale of 1-5, how happy/anxious are you feeling today?"
• Reflection Exercises: Kids are given journaling assignments and other activities designed to make them hyper-focused on and articulate minor fluctuations in their mood.
• Discussing Feelings: Therapists spend extensive time each session encouraging child patients to explore, understand, and give voice to their feelings about daily events and personal problems.

While cultivating some emotional self-awareness can be useful, this hyperfocus on emotions may backfire by amplifying feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger, and other negative states. Research shows that:

• Paying excessive attention to emotions tends to intensify the felt experience of that emotion.
• Ruminating on sources of distress prevents effective coping and perpetuates the distress.
• Continually reinforcing the significance of emotional experiences promotes emotional instability in kids.

Emotions Aren't Always Valid

In addition to risks around rumination, many therapeutic approaches operate from the assumption that emotions should be closely attended to because they provide valid signals about one's psychological needs and the state of the world.

However, emotions are subjective experiences that don't necessarily reflect reality. Sadness, anxiety, anger and other feelings can arise from cognitive distortions, physiological factors, or simply misinterpretations of events.

By over-validating kids' emotional experiences, therapists may inadvertently reinforce unhealthy emotional patterns and impair kids' ability to regulate their feelings effectively.

The Alternative: Action Over Reflection

Rather than endlessly analyzing emotions, research suggests that effective emotion regulation often involves redirecting attention away from feelings and towards constructive action and goal-oriented pursuits.

• Get out of your head and focus outward. Don't dwell on or ruminate over worries, distressing thoughts, or negative emotions.
• Engage in absorbing activities, social connection, productive work, or hobbies that give a sense of purpose and accomplishment.
• Practice delaying emotional reactions. Before acting on strong feelings, take a step back and put the emotion into perspective.

For kids struggling with difficult emotions, therapists may be wise to provide tools for cognitive reappraisal and mindfully observing feelings without judgment - not endlessly rehashing the feelings themselves.

While some emotional exploration has value, an excessive focus on kids' internal emotional worlds - at the expense of outward action and constructive engagement with the world - is likely counterproductive. Therapists would be wise to strike a better balance.

Pathologizing Normal Behavior with Diagnoses

The mental health establishment has developed an alarming tendency to apply diagnostic labels to perfectly normal childhood behaviors and struggles. By convincing kids that their difficulties represent a disorder in need of treatment, therapists and school counselors inadvertently teach young people to see themselves as damaged or deficient.

Consider the incredible prevalence of certain diagnoses today compared to previous generations:

• Nearly 10% of kids now have an anxiety disorder diagnosis
• More than 10% of American kids are diagnosed with ADHD - double the rate in other countries
• 42% of Gen Z report having a mental health condition diagnosis

In a massive overcorrection, the mental health field has pathologized the full spectrum of childhood difficulties and eccentricities as disorders requiring expert intervention. Simple shyness becomes "social anxiety disorder." Typical bursts of kid energy get labeled as "ADHD." Low motivation or defiance is "oppositional defiant disorder."

Step 1: Normal Struggles Become "Disorders"

The path often goes something like this: A child is disruptive in class and has trouble focusing. The teacher recommends an ADHD evaluation. Conveniently, the criteria for ADHD include common kid behaviors like fidgeting, talking excessively, and struggling to stay on task.

A pediatrician or psychologist then slaps on the label, often with little hesitation or exploration of alternatives. Boom - your perfectly normal but rambunctious child is suddenly "disordered."

Step 2: Diagnostic Labels Shape Self-Perception

Once a diagnosis is applied, it radically reshapes how the child sees themselves. Whereas a few years ago they were just an energetic kid who had trouble paying attention sometimes, now they have a medical condition that makes them different and deficient.

Teachers and school staff then treat the child through the lens of their diagnosis. Their difficulties are no longer seen as normal struggles to overcome, but as symptoms of an underlying disorder. Their sense of capability and self-efficacy is undermined from all sides.

Diagnostic manuals like the DSM are intended as guides for clinicians, not rigid checklists to apply to any child who displays commonly occurring behaviors within the wide range of normal human variation. But that's exactly how schools, pediatricians and even parents use them today - convincing kids that any deviation from an impossible ideal of perfect self-control and academic focus must signify a brain malfunction needing correction.

What happened to the understanding that kids often take time to develop self-control and focus? That restlessness, mood swings and disruptive behavior are frequently just temporary phases on the path to maturity? Instead of learning perseverance, millions of kids are taught their issues are chronic, brain-based deficiencies requiring expert management.

The rush to diagnose lets adults off the hook from employing actual discipline, setting firm boundaries and holding kids to appropriately high standards of behavior. It's far easier to declare "this child has a disorder" than to put in the hard work of patiently cultivating emotional regulation and personal responsibility.

But decades of psychological research confirm that diagnostic labels lead to demoralization and diminished self-efficacy. Kids who see themselves as fundamentally deficient live down to those learned expectations of inadequacy. The cycle is vicious and iatrogenic - therapy and treatment intended to help kids winds up harming them instead.

Overprescription of Psychiatric Medication

The mental health establishment has become alarmingly quick to prescribe powerful psychiatric drugs to children and adolescents, often as a first-line approach before exploring non-pharmacological options. This overprescription of medication carries significant risks that are frequently overlooked or dismissed.

Drugs Interfere With Normal Developmental Processes

Adolescence is a critical period of brain development and maturation, with profound changes occurring in cognitive, emotional, and social capabilities. Introducing psychiatric medications during this delicate stage can disrupt these normal processes in ways we don't fully understand.

Many experts caution against medicating adolescents unless absolutely necessary, as the drugs may alter brain chemistry and functioning in unpredictable ways. As Dr. Scott Monroe explains:

"Male forebrains don't really come together until almost the mid-twenties and there's individual variation there. I don't know how badly it can impair brain development. But it seems like those are prime years. I'd want to find alternatives before implementing that."

By numbing emotions, flattening the peaks and valleys of the adolescent experience, we may be robbing young people of valuable opportunities for growth and self-discovery. Feelings of sadness, anxiety, and confusion - as difficult as they can be - play an important evolutionary role in shaping resilience and coping skills.

Understanding Side Effects

Common side effects of psychiatric drugs in adolescents include:

• Weight gain
• Sleep disturbances
• Nausea and fatigue
• Diminished sex drive
• Increased suicidal thoughts and behaviors (in some cases)

These disruptive side effects only compound the existing struggles teenagers face.

Dependency and Emotional Blunting

Even more concerning is the potential for dependence, both psychological and physiological. Teens placed on antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, or stimulants at a young age may come to believe they cannot function or cope without chemical assistance.

Worse still, the drugs' emotional blunting effects prevent the real-life practice of recognizing, tolerating, and working through difficult emotions. This robs young people of vital opportunities to build resilience.

As Notre Dame psychologist Dr. Steven Hollon warns:

"Evolutionary biologists would say it's part of life. You learn to deal with grief, you learn to deal with loss. The things you can learn to do—sometimes they hurt a little bit, it's scary at times. But the things you can learn to do, you're better off learning to do those things than relying on a chemical substance."

Dubious Evidence for Efficacy in Youth

Despite their widespread use, the evidence supporting psychiatric drugs for youth is surprisingly weak. Several major reviews and meta-analyses have concluded that the benefits of antidepressants and stimulants are, at best, modest and potentially outweighed by adverse effects.

For example, a 2021 Cochrane review found that "overall, methodological shortcomings of the randomized trials make it difficult to interpret the findings with regard to the efficacy and safety of newer antidepressant medications [for kids and teens]."

With such marginal benefits, one has to question whether we are simply treating the symptoms rather than addressing the root causes of adolescent distress and underperformance.

A Tragic Slope of Overmedication

Perhaps most disturbing are the well-documented cases of teens being prescribed a cocktail of 5, 6, even 10 different psychiatric drugs simultaneously. This egregious overmedication transforms the adolescent experience into a numbed, zombified haze.

In one appalling example reported by the New York Times, a teen was taking:

"Two antipsychotic medications, three antidepressants, a sedating medication for sleep, a non-stimulant medication for ADHD, an anti-anxiety medication, a mood stabilizer, and an anti-craving medication used for addiction."

With such aggressive pharmacological intervention, is it any wonder that rates of suicide, self-harm, and hopelessness continue to skyrocket among young people? We are quite literally drugging the life out of a generation.

How Schools Have Become Mental Health Clinics

In the past decade, public schools across the United States have transformed into outpatient mental health clinics for children. This shift has been driven by the belief that most students have experienced some form of trauma or adverse childhood experience that impairs their ability to learn and function normally. As a result, schools have hired armies of counselors, social workers, and psychologists to provide therapeutic interventions and "trauma-informed care" to students.

While well-intentioned, this medicalization of education has had some unintended and troubling consequences. Students are routinely screened for mental health issues through surveys that normalize thoughts of self-harm, suicide, and dysfunctional family dynamics. Classroom management techniques rooted in therapeutic principles have displaced traditional disciplinary methods, resulting in classroom chaos and even violence in many schools.

The Allure of School-Based Mental Health Services

The rationale behind embedding mental health services in schools is understandable. Schools are where children spend most of their waking hours during critical developmental stages. By having counselors and psychologists on campus, the thinking goes, students' emotional and behavioral issues can be identified and addressed early before escalating into more serious problems.

Proponents argue that school mental health programs:

• Increase access to services for families who may not otherwise seek help due to costs, stigma or transportation barriers.
• Allow for better coordination between mental health providers and teachers who observe students daily.
• Provide a safe, familiar environment for delivering counseling and interventions.
• Catch problems early before they negatively impact academic performance.

Additionally, many school administrators believe investing in mental health support creates a more positive school climate and makes campuses feel safer for students dealing with issues like anxiety, depression or trauma reactions.

The Reality of School-Based Therapy

While the goals are laudable, the execution of school-based mental health initiatives has been problematic in many districts. A major factor is the lack of clinical training and oversight for the armies of counselors, social workers and other personnel tasked with delivering therapeutic services.

Compounding this issue is the tendency for schools to take a one-size-fits-all approach to student mental health, implementing universal "social-emotional learning" curricula and screening procedures that treat every child as potentially traumatized or disordered. This overmedicalization of childhood has produced a number of concerning trends:

1. Distorted Childhood Behaviors: Typical childhood fears, misbehaviors and emotional volatility are pathologized as signs of underlying mental illness requiring professional intervention.
2. Overdiagnosis and Overprescription: Unable to distinguish between situational distress and clinical disorders, schools have pushed staggering numbers of students onto psychiatric medication and into special education categories like "emotionally disturbed."
3. Erosion of Resilience: By medicalizing normal childhood struggles and positioning professionals as the arbiters of students' inner lives, schools may inadvertently be undermining kids' ability to develop critical coping skills and resilience.
4. Parent-Child Conflict: School mental health workers often side with the student's expressed desires over parental judgment, straining family relationships. Confidentiality policies preclude parents from full knowledge of what's happening in school counseling sessions.

In the quest to create a "trauma-sensitive" environment, schools have transformed from educational institutions into clinics staffed by underprepared amateurs operating without professional oversight or boundaries. The consequences have been predictably damaging for student mental health and family well-being.

The Importance of Unstructured Play and Independence

Children thrive on independence and unstructured play. By allowing them the freedom to explore the world with limited adult supervision, we foster essential skills like risk assessment, problem-solving, and self-reliance.

Our obsession with constant monitoring stifles kids' natural confidence and agency. The overprotective parenting style promoted by many modern experts leads to anxious, helpless young adults incapable of handling life's inevitable challenges.

One telling example comes from Hiroki, a three-year-old Japanese boy featured on the show Old Enough! Equipped with only a small purse and yellow flag, Hiroki bravely sets off on his own to run an errand at the local market - a half-mile journey crossing busy streets. His triumphant homecoming illustrates the remarkable self-reliance instilled from a young age in Japanese children.

By contrast, many American parents would never dream of allowing such independence until their children were much older, if ever. We deprive kids of these formative experiences out of an irrational fear that simply letting them take reasonable risks will inevitably lead to trauma or harm.

Recognize the Benefits of Unsupervised Play

Research demonstrates innumerable psychological and developmental advantages when children engage in:

• Unstructured, unmonitored play without adults crafting activities or resolving conflicts. This allows organic social skills to develop.
• Risky play involving minor dangers like climbing heights or using tools. Overcoming small challenges builds confidence.
• Independent mobility getting themselves to destinations like friends' houses or the park. Navigating their environment fosters self-reliance.

Start Early and Age-Appropriate

The foundation for healthy independence begins remarkably early. As toddlers, set aside time and space for uninterrupted free play while staying nearby to ensure safety.

As kids grow older, slowly extend their radius:

• Let a young child walk a familiar route alone, like from the school bus stop.
• Send elementary schoolers to the corner store with simple instructions.
• By pre-teen years, most should navigate public transit and run age-appropriate errands independently.

Resist the Urge to Intervene

The hardest part? Trusting kids to take appropriate risks and experience minor failures without rescuing them. It's understandable to fret, but gently encouraging their resilience allows far more growth than preventing any discomfort.

Fundamentally, extending age-appropriate independence shows we have faith in our children's abilities. It grants kids the freedom to develop crucial life skills at their own pace, with all the minor stumbles and triumphs that entails.

Contrast this approach with the sheltered, overly structured childhoods now common in the West. We frantically schedule kids' time, supervise even pretend play dates, and solve every interpersonal issue that arises. Is it any wonder so many young adults today feel incompetent and rudderless - unable to accomplish basic tasks their grandparents mastered as children?

By allowing ample unstructured play and steadily increasing independence from an early age, we arm kids with the mental fortitude to thrive as self-assured, capable adults. More structured "enrichment" or adult intervention is no substitute for the real-world experience of childhood autonomy.