When the TV salesman pitches a beauty product to eliminate wrinkles or a politician promises no new taxes, most of us raise a skeptical eyebrow. If only we afforded that same skepticism to education fads. “Learning styles” have as much grounding in reality as horoscopes, yet twenty-nine states include them in their licensing exams. Seemingly every morning, a new innovation promising to revolutionize the classroom crops up. Thankfully, most of these fads are largely innocuous, if distracting.
In her compelling new book Bad Therapy, Abigail Shrier eviscerates education’s latest fad: an almost neurotic obsession with kids’ mental health. Parents will not punish their children for fear of trauma. Schools meddle with the psyches of their charges. And every child who was once “shy” now exhibits “avoidance behaviors.”
At times, it reads like Shrier herself needs a Xanax, portraying every school as a clinic running experimental trials. She recounts stories of fifth graders crying over distant fathers in glorified group therapy. School days open with mental health check-ins asking if each child has considered slitting their wrists. And she reserves her most vicious rhetoric for affluent parents who wonder if a weighted blanket—never consequences—might keep a toddler from hitting mommy. But such anecdotes, while galling, are hardly emblematic of a science teacher who implements social and emotional learning (SEL) by asking their students to reflect on teamwork after dissecting a frog.
Criticisms out of the way, Shrier’s book levels useful criticism at this therapeutic mindset in the classroom precisely because it receives so little. Students, she points out, are said to be too fragile and traumatized to receive a bad grade. SEL must be a priority in social studies class. Schools should extend the day so students can spend more time attending to their mental health. In each case, these recommendations are emblematic of what Robert Pondiscio has called therapeutic education—the shift of teacher from pedagogue to counselor.
But what if this new focus on mental health in the classroom risks real harm to students?
A central concept to Shrier’s book is “iatrogenesis,” a fancy word for a simple idea: all medical interventions carry trade-offs. Surgery, chemotherapy, anesthesia—each one brings its own perils. In medicine, doctors inform patients of these risks. With therapy, too, psychiatrists and counselors must receive informed consent. But in schools, too few acknowledge that there might be real harms arising from mental health interventions. Shrier provides numerous examples.
Wellness checks may worsen depression or anxiety. Healthy introspection can quickly spiral into a toxic dwelling on negativity, and the best therapies train patients out of these loops of reflection. Few of us are happy all the time, and daily wellness checks or restorative circles keep the difficulties of life ever present in a student’s mind.
Trauma-informed pedagogies risk accommodating emotions in an unhealthy way. Ask any therapist worth their salt and they’ll tell you that avoidance fosters anxiety. No cold calls, no high-stakes exams, only soft deadlines and mental health days. Such accommodation creates fragile students, leaving them less capable and without the coping mechanisms required to face life’s challenges. If we treat a failing grade like an 10/10 crisis and not a minor setback to overcome, our students will respond accordingly.
Another obvious pitfall at the root of this therapeutic shift in schools connects to expertise. The American Psychological Association’s Code of Ethics exhorts mental health providers to only practice within their competence. A therapist specializing in pediatric anxiety should not willy-nilly take on an adult drug addict. Counselors without the pharmacological knowledge of psychiatrists cannot prescribe medications.
Against such exhortations, too many schools have deputized teachers into quasi-therapeutic roles far beyond their training. One adolescent psychology class in a teacher prep program is insufficient to handle the volatility of suicidal ideations or restorative circles, where students are compelled to share their life’s traumas with their gossipy peers.
In one compelling chapter, Shrier takes a wellness screening for children and reworks it for adults, asking “Do you feel emotionally supported by your spouse about the things that matter most to you?” Adults can take a long view in answering that question, overlooking the testy exchange with their spouse the night prior. How might an adolescent respond to questions about their feelings of “hopelessness” after a breakup?
If every child receives regular questionnaires inquiring into their mental state, we risk pathologizing the slings and arrows of daily life. A kid who’s down after a rough day suddenly shows “depressive symptoms.” Nervousness before a test is now “anxiety.” These designations are stultifying, fatalistic even.
Shrier describes the D.A.R.E program as a school-level intervention that famously backfired, fostering curiosity and experimentation with drug use. Regarding various school-based mental health interventions, a handful of high-profile studies recently found several such programs made students more anxious, more depressed, report worse relationships with their parents and peers, and less able to manage their emotions.
These are serious reasons for skepticism that’s sorely absent from the education field. McGraw Hill, a prominent publishing company, insists that every class—especially math class—needs to incorporate SEL. Over half of the country has incorporated SEL into state-level standards, requiring teachers to play mock therapist for their students in between the Pythagorean Theorem and cellular biology. How-tos abound on the topic, with examples of daily “check ins” for teachers and observation checklists for administrators.
Intensive counseling works well for individuals with genuine diagnoses, but we seem to be expecting teachers and school staff to implement therapy-like practices into their classrooms. It’s an error akin to recognizing that chemotherapy works well for cancer patients, and so teachers should administer small doses to all children.
We ought not follow Shrier too far. Without doubt, there’s need for character education in schooling. A few lessons on conflict resolution or emotional regulation are inevitable, especially among younger students. And I worry that readers may take her criticism of permissive parenting too far and never discuss emotions with their children.
Taken as a whole, however, Shrier’s book is a compelling argument against therapeutic education that I hope will encourage districts and advocates to and pump the brakes on this well-intended but risky endeavor.
