Tell Me What That Means to You
Navigating Insta-Therapy and Its Critique
A recurring theme in the therapy influencer corner of social media is the tension between New Age, trauma obsessed “therapy influencers” and their critics. It’s an important conversation to be had, though a confusing one for me as a therapist — and therefore, I imagine, probably confusing for clients, as well.
The camps are as follows: New Age therapy influencers, big name accounts sometimes with hundreds of thousands of followers, seemingly obsessed with trauma as a wide net rather than a specific experience or diagnosis, as well as interventions that are not quite evidence based. They peddle — according to their naysayers — in scientifically unproven concepts such as the inner child, shadow work, self-healing, manifestation and the power of positive thinking, and secret, potentially repressed traumas hiding in our unconscious and causing our current discomfort, dismay, and dysregulation.
Their critics are often more science-minded and social constructionist in character. They emphasize the diagnostic criteria for trauma, noting that trauma (and more specifically, post-traumatic stress disorder) and distress are distinct psychological and emotional experiences. They cite specific evidence based interventions exist to treat a diagnosis of PTSD. They expound on…
