this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
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I'm going to push back but only slightly, as I agree that society itself and this hierarchy we're stuck in is the root of a lot of mental health problems, maybe even the biggest sole contributer.
But where I'll push back is that improving your mental health is different from improving your material situation. Both are important. The latter is about survival and between the two, arguably the far more important one. But the former is about how you react to the latter.
If you're having panic attacks each time you think about your material situation, that's going to make it much harder to deal with that situation. If you have trouble motivating yourself to get out of bed, that probably also affects your ability to do anything about your situation. If you lose your temper to the point where you destroy objects or relationships around you, that doesn't help either.
Or on the perception side, if you're constantly paranoid about everyone around you to the point where you don't let anyone get close, it can help to recalibrate your expectations or where you draw your line for not trusting others.
Or if you recognize a pattern of using or manipulating people and want to break it or figure out why you keep returning to it.
I think in regards to how society is, therapy can teach you acceptance. I don't mean "accept that this is the way it is and that it is fine", you don't have to do that second part. But the first part is true: the world is the way it is and unhealthy reactions won't punish the world or change it, nor will allowing your nervous system to go into overdrive.
Whether you want to change it or just find a place in it, you need to first accept it for what it is, for better or worse. Then when you have that foundation of understanding and healthy coping skills, you have a much better chance of accomplishing, well, anything. Note that that is relative, I'm not going to try to push BS platitudes like "you can do anything!" It's just "if you have a healthy mind or healthy ways of dealing with an unhealthy mind, you'll have a better chance at doing anything compared to if you don't".
Anyways, therapy is one potential path to that. I see therapists as guides for a journey of introspection and getting to know yourself better as well as understand how you interact with the world and find new ways of doing so. Ultimately you are the one that needs to walk that path and the destination is still this reality, just with a healthier way of seeing and interacting with it.
Fixing this shit will involve a lot more than therapy, but it will require healthy minds.
Though I also don't think the "gee thanks I'm cured" mindset is a healthy one. While I agree that it's easier said than done, mental health is heavily influenced by your mindset and deciding "this won't help" can be the reason why it doesn't. Part of getting better, an essential part of it, is deciding that's what you want and fighting the part of you that wants to just keep going like you have been because you're comfortable with your habits, both good and bad.
All this is true but just taking the time to validate those externalities would be so helpful. You know, giving their take on how screwed up the forces outside have become on making people's lives difficult. That validation alone would be such a helpful therapy tool. But in my experience it's almost like they barely want to touch it. Why not? It's almost dehumanising not to. What are they so competent or wealthy they don't feel the awful pressures as well? They don't have an opinion as to why the voters around the world, say, are increasingly turning to fascist alternatives for example out of desperation? It almost seems weird.
Yeah, true. I mean, there's probably some that do, some that are in denial themselves, some that think they are on the winning side, and some that think anything negative will hinder the process. The formal parts of the process itself could have been coopted by the ruling class such that therapists are trained to perpetuate the system like cops and teachers are.