Conversation

Replying to
The thing is, the brain only comes in one grade of complexity. The brain of a high-flying CEO with issues and $1000/hr to throw at therapy is same complexity as that of a faceless blue collar type like Stanley Kowalski with $15/hr to spare and eyeing an opioid addiction instead
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Both are basically like malfunctioning rocket engines. But one gets a healer capable of dealing with the intricacy and complexity while the other gets somebody who…basically isn’t.
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In most other professions with a competency bell curve you can match the top people to the hardest problems, median people with the median problems, and the worst ones with the simplest prob,ems. That’s kinda hard to arrange with therapy. Even harder than with physical care.
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Everyone I’ve talked to who’s gone to therapy talks about painfully shopping around to find a fit. Most matches don’t work. I suspect many give up after a few misfits or settle for someone who does more harm than good. Or goes to the staff therapist because workplace forces it.
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I strongly suspect for many demographics, alternatives like a pastor or mentor work better on average at least for mild-medium needs. The money factor is finessed, there is more goodwill, and more humility on the part of the counterparty in recognizing the limits of helping.
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Consulting/exec coaching is therapy adjacent. One of my firm beliefs is that nobody can do both well. So for a client my fit test is “are your personal issues covered enough through either therapy or jackass nerd interests that we can focus externally on management/leadership?”
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Interestingy, from my experiences helping junior individual contributor types (usually as a favor since they can’t afford to pay my rates) their psychological issues are more complex, not less. And typical blue collar types make me go “I’m not touching that with a 10 ft pole”
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In fact a selection pressure working for leadership roles is “are your issues simple enough to compartmentalize and solve with $?” Average mental health issues work are too complex to fix, at an acceptable price, so end up as attrition forces.
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This is counterintuitive because famous leaders often exhibit almost cartoonish mental health issues, but this is in fact a tell. Their issues are simple enough to caricature into archetypes like “entrepreneur with chip on shoulder and adoption trauma” and manage effectively
Replying to
The average grunt otoh is trapped in an NP-hard mental condition that’s unfortunately not worth solving given available human unit economics. Give him a “history of Rome” book and hope he copes without opioids.
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Btw even if you interpret “therapy” as synecdoche for not looking inwards at all, I think avoiding and externalizing/displacing is on average sound. Most people suck at introspection, and have like 0 frames for it. Or worse, 1 really bad frame. They’re better of coping outwards.
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Random data-point: Jordan Peterson is a therapist and in fact a very good one if you look at his history/practice and publications and stuff. But the attempt to deliver his abilities at scale to a mass male audience... didn't go so well either for him or the audience.
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I met him once before he got famous, and was quite impressed. Now imagine the outcomes if you try to scale therapy from even the top 20% (I've met a few others in that band and... was not impressed)
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