Book Review: The Angry Therapist

[osprey_archer]

I found John Kim's The Angry Therapist: A No BS Guide to Finding and Living Your Own Truth super frustrating, possibly because I took the title too literally and believed that he was going to be angry about something. The growing trend toward giving patients medication without therapy? The high cost of mental health care? The fact that American prisons are stuffed with mentally ill people who really ought to be in treatment, not incarcerated? The difficulties of getting insurance companies to pay for mental health care? Stigma around mental health problems?

I mean really, there are a lot of things a therapist could be angry about. But as far as I can tell, the thing that most grates Kim's cheese is the fact that sometimes the strict guidelines of therapeutic practice where he works make him feel stifled, which is... well, I'm sure it's frustrating, but it seems like a weirdly self-centered reason to call himself "The Angry Therapist."

This is in fact something I felt about the book in general: it's weirdly self-centered. Kim wants to help you find your best self, but he also wants you to know that he used to be a screenwriter - a successful screenwriter! He didn't become a therapist because the whole screenwriting thing didn't work out for him. He just realized that being a screenwriter wasn't fulfilling his true self, so he went back to school to study psychology.

And also he ran a high-end nightclub where he rubbed elbows with film stars. And also he created a start-up company called ModelInABottle.com which was staffed with models who were friends of his girlfriend at the time. Who was a model. Just FYI.

Holy humblebragging, Batman.

He also has a deeply aggravating imagined scene where he creates a Genuine Emotional Connection (tm) with a waitress by breaking free of the chains of phatic discourse. She asks how he's doing and instead of saying "Fine" like a normal person, he's all - I have to transcribe this, I'm sorry -

JOHN
You know what?

She instantly looks nervous.

JOHN
You've been asking people that all day. So, maybe I should ask you how you're doing?

She looks a bit shocked, confused, taken aback. She fumbles her words.

WAITRESS
Um...fine, tired. Been here since 10 AM. I can't wait to get home.

PROBABLY BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO GET AWAY FROM NOSY CUSTOMERS PRYING INTO THINGS THAT AREN'T THEIR BUSINESS. If you make your waitstaff look nervous, shocked, confused, and taken aback, that is probably a sign that you are doing something wrong.

(But of course the scene ends with the waitress smiling and grateful that someone has taken the time to treat her like a human being instead of just handing her the credit card for the check. "Thank you," she says, and John replies, "You're welcome.")

Do you know what I dread at work? People trying to create genuine emotional connections with me when all I want to do is take their coffee order and then finish filling the caramel bottles, or emptying the trash, or doing literally anything else because everything in the world is less taxing than having an emotionally meaningful conversation with a total stranger. I get paid $10 an hour! That buys you phatic discourse and an empty smile! There's a reason therapists charge $100 an hour for this shit!

...Having said this, I have friends who work retail who love it when people treat them like a human being rather than a coffee dispenser, so who knows, maybe your friendly local barista is just dying for a chance to tell a customer her feet hurt.

Otherwise, it's basically a bog-standard self-help book (live in the now, surround yourself with people who support the real you, etc. etc.). There are probably five dozen books at your local Barnes and Noble that will give you the same advice. Read one of them.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Whoa that quoted scene! What strikes me is how unadulteratedly self congratulatory it is. "And I alone, in this whole world, have ever thought to treat someone serving me as a human being, and my munificent gesture was so staggeringly great that the peon on whom I bestowed it groveled in worshipful gratitude." .... scuse me, I have to go run and throw up.

People like him are why therapy is such a roll of the dice. You could end up with someone good, or you could end up with a self-aggrandizing semi-narcissist.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Self-congratulatory! Yes. That's the word I wanted and couldn't think of. There is a time and a place to make deep emotional connections with people, and there is a time and a place to just take your coffee and leave the poor waitress in peace.

I've read that the most important factor in therapy, much more so than the actual interventions used, is a good relationship with the therapist. This thought is simultaneously encouraging and worrisome.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I've read that the most important factor in therapy, much more so than the actual interventions used, is a good relationship with the therapist.

In both studies and my personal experience (both as a therapist and client) this is true. It's why I advise clients who are going to do therapy with someone else later to end it quickly and move on if they don't like/feel comfortable with their therapist on a personal level. How long they take to figure that out depends on them, but in general (if you don't already know it takes you six months to even minimally be OK with anyone, etc) if you're not having at least preliminarily positive feelings within two sessions, DUMP THEM. You don't have to love them that early, but if you don't like them at all and are doubtful that you ever will, it's probably not a good match.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

This thought is simultaneously encouraging and worrisome.

I agree with you there!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

UGH I HATE HIM. That poor waitress. Did it occur to him that she may well be unable to express her true feelings (probably "fuck off") out of fear of reprisal or losing her tip? Also, so self-congratulatory. There's a difference between being friendly/real with a stranger because something emotionally genuine is going on, even at the simple level of a sincere impulse to say something, and being intrusive because it's all about you and your desire to be The Person Who Everyone Applauds In A Tumblr Post.

Something I am genuinely angry about as a therapist apart from the issues you mention: people being forced into therapy by the justice system: go to therapy or go to jail. It's an absolute violation of consent, which is especially infuriating as way smaller and less meaningful consent issues are held up as incredibly important and can get therapists in big trouble if they break them. What is actually more significant, speaking to a third party with your client's completely genuine verbal (but not written) consent, or forcing them into therapy by threatening them with jail time if they say no?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I finished this book mostly so that I could vent about how aggravating I found the author. He's so smug! So smug and humble-braggy and self-contralutory, and by his own admission he was even worse and less self-aware when he was younger. HOW? WHY?

I bet someone could compile a really interesting (if depressing) anthology called The Angry Therapists: Therapists Get Real about the Problems in Their Profession. If only John Kim hadn't already stolen the title.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

This lack of awareness about people's lack of freedom to speak freely. I see it all the time, everywhere. Reporters in war zones, speaking to people there. Researchers speaking to people in gangs or on public assistance. Always SUPER POWERFUL person speaking to person in a very tenuous situation. And then the powerful person comes away from the situation and says to the world, "Well, see, it's like this, because I TALKED TO THE PERSON AND THEY TOLD ME "--with no sense that their very presence, in all there US-ness, or whiteness, or maleness, or anyway, just POWER, is like a gun pointed at the person. What they say is what they feel they have to say, or what they think they can dare say. It's not the same as talking to someone you know.

I mean, with reporting, you have to take what you can get, otherwise you'd have nothing at all from folks on the ground. But situation and power are going to affect the responses you get, and I rarely see acknowledgement of that.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes! This! I remember reading, hmm, I think it was Kabul Beauty School, which starts with an anecdote about the author helping her translator fake her virginity on her wedding night - and thinking, "Gosh I hope she did a good job covering up this girl's identity, because otherwise if anyone in her family reads it, there's going to be trouble."

Which is not exactly the same thing, but there's the same sense of an author going after a good story without thinking about how it may impact the less powerful people she's writing about.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

The being-treated-like-a-human-being thing REALLY depends. I mean, I've had good off-script interactions with customers who were being genuinely cool, but there is a HUGE GAPING CHASM between "genuinely cool human connection" and "creepy personal prying," and I'm not sure the Angry T. is necessarily clear on the difference?

I've been spoiled working in the bookstore, where creepy prying does happen but it's also a lot easier than in some other environments to strike up a quick, fun, non-taxing conversation about the books Customer is buying. But mostly what makes my day better is just people going through those motions properly: answering questions (sincerely or not is irrelevant), handing me their money instead of dropping it anyhow or slapping it on the counter, returning the smile and saying thank you. Makes a world of difference!

This guy, idk. Women in customer service positions tend to attract a lot of demands for personal disclosures, facial expressions, and self-explanations already. For a customer to go HEY I'MMA ASK YOU A QUESTION isn't really a surprising turn of events, and it's not necessarily a sign of his personal awesomeness that she seemed disconcerted. I don't know, but I would guess that there are people in his life who could have pointed this out to him, if he'd asked.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Off-script interactions between customers and clerks work best when they happen serendipitously, IMO. You can't just force a meaningful moment of emotional connection because you need an anecdote for your self-help book. But generally speaking I think people are happier all around if we all just stick to the script.

I bet the women in the anecdote is just relieved that he's not hitting on her, and that's why she's smiling at the end. He may be a little creepy, but at least he's not trying to get in her pants!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ughhhh, this guy sounds like the worst!

Also I would be surprised if the waitress didn't get plenty of interactions that went:
How are you?
Fine. And you?
Fine.

So I'm sure people do ask about her! But in a normal small-talk way, not in an invasive weird way.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I work at a Starbucks and this happens like at least five times a day. I would be horrified if the customer either pinned me with a gaze and was all, "No, really," or else started telling me in excruciating detail about how their cat just lost its battle with feline AIDS or something.