Psychotherapy - An "Artificial" Friend For The Lonely American

• To survive, psychotherapy would have to become more relevant to people’s everyday lives, and therapists would have to become less disinterested scientist and more interested friend.
• Many Americans in the 1970s had depressive symptoms or suffered from the psychological toils of everyday life, but for various reasons lacked anyone in whom to confide their troubles. Talk of stress and self-esteem helped convince people that therapists understood their concerns and wanted to help them.
• Managed care executives wanted to turn mental health into a commodious institution, a kind of happy home where people might enjoy artificial friendship — and over-intellectual egotists who think dark thoughts in a language that average people cannot understand do not make for a happy home.
  
  
  - Read rest of the brilliant essay Psychotherapy and the Pursuit of Happiness