Ask Lemmygrad

It isolates these processes from systemic factors (e.g. it can’t be that the system is creating this kind of behavior in a person - it must be something going wrong inside of them that can be overcome with better striving, willpower, techniques, etc.). Or sometimes it might delve into your upbringing, but it’s not going to get into the superstructure you live within.

It emphasizes that you are the only one you can control, cleanly cutting you off from thoughts of broader social change. So individualist therapy is all about changing who you are and, in so doing, blaming yourself, whether it explicitly frames it that way or not. It might even say it’s not your fault, yet still instruct you in such a way that the emphasis is on changing you.

This is not my lived experience, and I had some pretty bad therapists, when I had them. I did have one therapist like that and she told me "just believe in G-d."

Ironically, the best and last therapist I had was reared evangelist and went to an evangelist school, and was a believer. One day I asked her, "if belief and worship of pagan deities is magical thinking, why isn't belief in mainstream religious deities magical thinking?"

This woman looked me full in the face and emphatically said, "It is!”

Last therapist needed. I've had some rough patches since then, but I gathered enough tools over the years to weather the storms.