Thread by @phl43

Why do I have the distinct impression that most of what therapists do is tell their patients that their insane worldview is not in fact insane?

I was kind of joking but also kind of being serious here. In theory, it could be very useful to see a therapist because he could help you see that your perception of the world is wrong, which can be hard for your friends and loved ones to do because it puts them in a hard spot.

But everyone I'm close to who is seeing a therapist seems to have their worldview validated by him/her, even though I personally think the worldview in question is deeply mistaken and a big part of why they are miserable, so that doesn't seem very good.

I think my impression is probably biased by 2 facts acting conjointly. First, therapists need their patients to trust them to come back, so they face the same problem as friends and family who can't openly tell people their perception is wrong, although to a lesser extent.

As a result, instead of "attacking" their patient's worldview, they probably try to change their patient's worldview more obliquely and part of this strategy probably involves "tactical" validation of part of that worldview, which gives them maneuvering room to question the rest.

My guess is that most patients just ignore or dismiss the critical parts and only retain the part where their worldview is validated, so when I talk to them about their experience with their therapist it gives me a skewed perspective on what he or she tells them.

Still, I can't help but think that, overall, therapists are doing a poor job. I'm not saying I could do better, but at least I don't pretend I can. Anyway, even if I'm wrong, conversations with people about their therapists have led me to form a very poor opinion of therapists.

Another theory I have that would be partly disculpatory for therapists is that maybe they are more effective with normal people and, since most of the people I've had these conversations with are *way* smarter than average, it has biased my perception of their effectiveness.

That's because while very smart people are no less, and arguably more, prone to have a flawed perception of the world, they are *much* better at turning their perception into a coherent worldview and finding arguments to support it, making it objectively harder to unfuck them.