Your Brand

[william_kent]

Warriors who have nothing to fight for

@sus HARSHING THEE VIBE!

 

[sus]

Dear Gus, could you please write us an essay (doesn't have to be a long one) about the extent to which attending psychotherapy is a status symbol among the contemporary American middle class?

You know, normally I would be happy to write this take but the scariest part is that it isn't a status symbol

 

[Mr. Tea]

You know, normally I would be happy to write this take but the scariest part is that it isn't a status symbol

Then tell us why not!

 

[version]

You know, normally I would be happy to write this take but the scariest part is that it isn't a status symbol

I said it was several months ago and your boy agreed with me, so...

 

[version]

It's a status symbol over there then?

I get the impression some Americans view it the way some South Koreans allegedly view cosmetic surgery, that it's a sign of arrogance or some sort of moral failing if you aren't doing it because, in their eyes, you're implying you have nothing to 'work on'.

Seen discussions online around women asking whether a guy's in therapy and it being a 'red flag' if they aren't.

Yeah, I don't mean in the same sense as buying a flash car, but it's a class signifier. The done thing within that milieu. You go to work, you go to the gym, you go to therapy, you go to a gallery opening, etc. I imagine it becomes a topic of conversation too. You talk about progress you've made and show your peers how you're improving.

Therapy as status tic is real, and I think it's mostly tied to a certain kind of milleu—upper class, neurotic, and very young. There's a sort of code to being faux-vulnerable as a way to establish being "real"—like a youth pastor who really wants everyone to know how much of a sinner he was.

The key is that one can only be vulnerable about things they're not genuinely vulnerable about; there's a sort of need to be blasè about horrible things; this all acts as a testament to legitimacy, which of course connects us back to how therapy as clout is a deep descendent of identity politics as status game.

(If this all sounds implausible and possibly comic—someone I met at a party a year or two back was later revealed to be a race faker—this person had spent seven years pretending to be half japanese, which raised interesting ontological questions about their concurrent claim to be nonbinary.)

 

[sus]

I said it was several months ago and your boy agreed with me, so...

Well at least now we can be sure he isn't my alt

 

[Clinamenic]

He got you there Versh.

 

[sus]

The bit about the race-faker is hilarious, I hadn't heard that one.

I get the sense from 70s discourse, films that psychoanalysis was a status symbol then. But for whatever reason, it doesn't feel that way to me now.

Then tell us why not!

When I moved to New York from small town California one of the most striking things was that every girl I knew was either prescribed antidepressants + benzos, or else abused xannies recreationally. Often with copious drinking. If you know anything about drug combinations, these do not mix well. Frequent blackouts, reckless decision-making, unprotected sex. These were often the same girls that wanted to be hit and choked during their anonymous Tinder hookups. I found it really bleak and sad. They didn't know what they wanted; they didn't understand the structure of their desires; they found themselves constantly slipping into gender roles that bred self-contempt; they found themselves subsidizing behaviors that hurt them, etc.

Often, they have bad enough judgment / are confused enough that their relationships with their therapists become quite power-laden and problematic. They're advised to end relationships or cut out family members.

There's also a class of sensitive boy I know who has been fairly guarded his whole life, and sincerely wants to explore his emotions and his relationship to his parents or whatever. They aren't especially troubled; by most standards, well-adjusted; but they make good tech salaries and can easily afford it, and are curious, and end up find it rewarding for a time.

 

[shakahislop]

dunno if it is exactly a status symbol. i think people believe that it's going to help them. and from what i can see among people i know it does. i'm always a bit torn but generally even sort-of-rich (ie well insured) americans seem to have killer healthcare compared to what we're used to in the UK. i think the therapy thing is part of that.

 

[shakahislop]

When I moved to New York from small town California one of the most striking things was that every girl I knew was either prescribed antidepressants + benzos, or else abused xannies recreationally. Often with copious drinking. If you know anything about drug combinations, these do not mix well. Frequent blackouts, reckless decision-making, unprotected sex. These were often the same girls that wanted to be hit and choked during their anonymous Tinder hookups. I found it really bleak and sad. They didn't know what they wanted; they didn't understand the structure of their desires; they found themselves constantly slipping into gender roles that bred self-contempt; they found themselves subsidizing behaviors that hurt them, etc.

literally 100% of americans i know are on some kind of regular psychoactive medication (idk the terminology but like adderal, antidepressents, whatever category of thing xanex is). one feature of being here is that people behave weirdly coz they're all on some kind of pharmaceutical. like how part of england's character is that when you speak to some rando there's a decent chance that they're drunk or hungover.

 

[sus]

People want too much, they want everything, but they can't have everything and they don't know what they want more, because they don't have good models for what to choose, so they can't choose, because the culture doesn't provide them these models

 

[sus]

So they end up perpetually unsure and perpetually riddled by FOMO, behaving inconsistently and self-defeatingly, and they want to know why, so they go to a therapist to figure out why, and what they actually want, and why they can't get it

 

[sus]

literally 100% of americans i know are on some kind of regular psychoactive medication

You know me, but yes

It's definitely an urban coastal liberal thing though. In the entirety of rural Wisconsin there's one bored housewife with an alcoholic husband who secretly takes SSRIs and when it comes up everyone's curious and asks her questions like, "Why are you taking this?"

 

[shakahislop]

You know me, but yes

It's definitely an urban coastal liberal thing though. In the entirety of rural Wisconsin there's one bored housewife with an alcoholic husband who secretly takes SSRIs and when it comes up everyone's curious and asks her questions like, "Why are you taking this?"

i did not know that. coz obviously everyone i know is coastal. that is a surprise but makes sense.

 

[william_kent]

i did not know that. coz obviously everyone i know is coastal. that is a surprise but makes sense.

the "Zoophilia" documentary ( "NBR"< "no bucket required" ) was all flyover states

 

[WashYourHands]

It seems like a status symbol over there, part of the self-improvement racket. You go to the gym, you go to therapy. You let other people know you go to the gym, you go to therapy.

psychoanalysis and therapy tend to differ in practice by degrees in the states

psychoanalysis can go on for years and aeons, hinder individuation, hinder meditation on any lasting sense of interconnectedness with a universal unity... it operates as an ideological pressure valve but like so much medicalised American healthcare, psychoanalysis emphasises resolving the sovereign individual as much as actually inducing healing - or even really attempting to heal - manifestations of underlying issues

eg you could have someone say “yes I’ve been with my therapist for 15 years, omg they keep me so on track” which is more like a deformed life coach imho, profiting from parasitical ethics of a pimped society

i know, deep but intermediate forms of therapy can help anyone in crisis yet the problem is increasingly the same everywhere - access/£

 

[ghost]

I'm sorry to report that you're taking a post I wrote almost six months ago, and since then it's become clear—after a long, slow fall, therapy has definitively left the zeitgeist of being status symbols one should talk about.

Psychoanalysis is still cool, because it expresses a higher aspiration. And having gone to therapy may still be a key ritual of self-purification. But it's increasingly uncouth to mention one's therapist directly in conversation, and a basic sense of propriety around such things is returning.

 

[WashYourHands]

It’s not targeted at you directly, more someone who assimilated into your nation for quite a while and the observations of an outsider looking in

granted, my last mission was over 5 years ago and life moves fast

 

[WashYourHands]

It’s far more ubiquitous than here

 

[WashYourHands]

you get ads for BetterHelp on YT here now too

Americans are never less than busy getting their brands out

Overt, niche, they all bleed out in the English speaking digital world I mean look what we now know about the Midwest cultural mafia!