Should you convince a friend to seek therapy?

[Lamb]

I know someone who is taking the political changes in this country a bit too hard and one of the last posts said that we are without hope. Do you think I should encourage this friend to seek therapy? Is it my place to do so? Should I just step aside?

 

[tango]

I know someone who is taking the political changes in this country a bit too hard and one of the last posts said that we are without hope. Do you think I should encourage this friend to seek therapy? Is it my place to do so? Should I just step aside?

If someone truly sees a temporary political figure as representing a total loss of any hope it seems like they might benefit from some professional help. Personally I'm wary of pointing people towards therapists too quickly for two reasons - firstly because it can be hard to find a good therapist when you really need one and people who really need to learn to suck it up and deal with it might end up taking space from someone who needs it a lot more, and secondly because therapists have a direct interest in maintaining the patient relationship which has the potential to not be in the patient's best interest.

If your friend is truly without hope they may benefit from professional help, although in the meantime you can always remind them that the political landscape won't stay the same forever. I know people talk about Trump installing himself as dictator or doing away with elections and all that but the Democrats said that about Trump last time, and about Bush Jr. The Republicans said it about Obama and that the election would be rigged to ensure another Biden term, then when Biden stood down it was going to be rigged to ensure a Harris presidency. You can probably see what all those predictions have in common. It's possible that Trump will find some way to permanently install himself and not trigger a civil war in the process. It's also possible that the asteroid we keep hearing about will slam into the earth and really ruin our day.

If they're just being melodramatic they're part of the problem.

 

[Frankj]

I know someone who is taking the political changes in this country a bit too hard and one of the last posts said that we are without hope. Do you think I should encourage this friend to seek therapy? Is it my place to do so? Should I just step aside?

I would encourage her (or him or it as the case may be) to seek God the Father as her God instead of putting politics before him and making it a false god to follow in his place.

People -even many of those calling themselves Christian FWIW- tend to put all kinds of things in first place ahead of God, making them false gods in practice- without realizing they have don it and when that false god (be it politics or a denomination or money or whatever) comes under attack it is an attack on their god.

Therapy is the false god of many, the things we turn to and rely on first are the gods we worship.

As I see it.

 

[Lamb]

I would encourage her (or him or it as the case may be) to seek God the Father as her God instead of putting politics before him and making it a false god to follow in his place.

People -even many of those calling themselves Christian FWIW- tend to put all kinds of things in first place ahead of God, making them false gods in practice- without realizing they have don it and when that false god (be it politics or a denomination or money or whatever) comes under attack it is an attack on their god.

Therapy is the false god of many, the things we turn to and rely on first are the gods we worship.

As I see it.

My daughter needed therapy for her eating disorder when she was in high school. It helped to save her life because we ended up taking her to a Christian one and not only did the therapist help my daughter deal with relationships in her life, she focused on God. Not all therapists are evil.

 

[Frankj]

My daughter needed therapy for her eating disorder when she was in high school. It helped to save her life because we ended up taking her to a Christian one and not only did the therapist help my daughter deal with relationships in her life, she focused on God. Not all therapists are evil.

I didn't imply that any therapists are evil, only that people can make a false god to put ahead of our true God out of therapy.

 

[Forgiven1]

You can suggest they seek therapy for their feelings of hopelessness. They may not take your advice though. I have a brother who feels the same way. It is really sad to see people place their hopes on a political ideology and not God. Yet, those that do, seem to be weak in faith or don't have faith in the true God. Things of this earth are temporary. We know that, yet those who place their hope or lack of hope on one man are sad people.

 

[Lamb]

I think this two party system has made things worse in that when one side is getting their way, the other side feels doomed. Only the strong of mind can see the light?

 

[Frankj]

Only the strong of mind can see the light?

Or historians.

The laws of physics can be used to understand human behaviors, in this case everything seeks equilibrium. Consider the pendulum, it always tries to come to rest in the middle, a state of equilibrium, but when pushed off center it will go in the opposite direction before it does and the further it is pushed the more energetic, in a sense violent, it's return will be and back and forth and back and forth till it eventually rests in the center again.

Unless acted on by an outside force, which would be a different story.

Just accept this and life starts making much more sense and becomes easier to understand.

 

[tango]

I think this two party system has made things worse in that when one side is getting their way, the other side feels doomed. Only the strong of mind can see the light?

I don't know it's about "strong of mind", I think anyone can see it's like a pendulum swinging.

The bit I find most remarkable is that politics has become so tribal people truly believe their party will make anything better. As it stands it seems a two-party system just takes money from the people, shuffles it around and says they need more of it while not offering any meaningful accounting of where it went, but points fingers at the other party for being wasteful even as they are just as wasteful themselves.

It's easier to see why people feel pessimistic about the economy - with a $36,000,000,000,000 national debt that needs to be refinanced over the next several years, probably at a higher rate than it's currently paying, the interest alone is rapidly becoming one of the largest items in the federal budget. If that debt has to be refinanced at a 5% interest rate it means the nation will be spending $1.8 trillion every year just in interest to service the debt. Maybe DOGE will manage to trim enough spending to start reducing the debt without the national infrastructure totally imploding, but it's hard to know with so many claims and counterclaims about exactly what it is they are doing.