Hot Take: Psychology

This opinion is not for someone considering suicide. Please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 

Everyone with a life has problems. Psychologists are not necessary to fix them unless they involve incessant suicidal thoughts that can only be quelled with medication. Otherwise they are not trustworthy.

Psychologists curate their demeanor to appear like a caring person when, in fact, they only care about themselves; they have expensive student loans and run a small business.

This is why psychologists are always defending their worth to their patients who are frustrated by its lack of results.

At best, psychologists can get lucky and offer helpful advice. At worst they are biased and manipulative. The most dishonest ones will invent disorders to treat their patients for. Most psychologists are middling, and too understanding. Without context, or an intimate understanding of the other people involved, a psychiatrist easily becomes lost. They have to grasp at straws and offer trite advice because they have little to go on.

There are certain types of people who do not need medication and could benefit from psychology, like troubled high schoolers. Troubled youth fit two criteria for psychology to have a positive affect:

1. they have bad friends and don't know it 
2. they don't respect their parents enough to take their advice

A psychologist might be the role model they need only insofar that the troubled youth are trusting enough to be honest about their feelings. Then they can accept guidance while they talk themselves out of their own problem *if* they have a value system. (The psychologist cannot provide them with a value system if they lack one; another reason it is bullshit.)

A psychologist could be useful for a non-religious married couple in need of counseling, but it is dependent upon their honesty and mutual desire to mend their relationship. In this case the psychologist is just the referee for the argument when emotions interfere. Meanwhile, a religious couple would not need counseling because their value system would be the same, making differences of opinion trivial.

Talking through a problem is helpful. Talking to a good friend is more helpful. A good friend does not need an advanced degree to offer good advice because they have an understanding of the troubled person and equally importantly, context. They know the troubled person well enough to offer tailored advice, and might be respected enough to humble the troubled person enough for them to listen to unsolicited advice.

No psychologist, no matter how advanced their degree, can will someone to listen. Only money can do that. Then again, anyone that offers advice in exchange for money and time cannot be trusted to care for you the same way that a good friend can, and does.

Good advice shouldn't cost money. Confession, after all, is free. A psychologist just isn't necessary for a (religious) person with a good friend.

After receiving advice it becomes the responsibility of the troubled person to act on it....everyone is the solution to their own problems.