Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up

Although most American children are not in therapy, they are in school. Under the mandate of “trauma-informed education” (71), teachers and counselors are dispensing bad therapy. Children are constantly asked how they are feeling, a question that induces a state orientation and thereby undermines their potential for academic success. With a growing staff of psychologists at schools, children who misbehave are sent for counseling in place of detention. There is an ethical problem with this counseling because counselors have a dual relationship with students. They know and treat the friends of student clients and report to the school administration. Shrier argues that these counselors exert an undue influence and are partly to blame for the increase in issues about gender identity.

Under the guise of social-emotional learning, students are encouraged to share their private pain. Other happy children become saddened upon hearing these stories, and the privacy of the student in pain is shattered. Teachers are not trained in therapeutic techniques and can sometimes undermine the benefits of those students who are in and need professional therapy. Social-emotional learning is also injected in all lessons, including math. There is no consideration of the damage that emotional conversations are doing to learning.