I'm really weary about the entire field of psychology/psychiatry these days. When I was younger, my father forced me to go to therapy for my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (hand washing, nothing to do with germs, several times an hour; would try out and crack my hands). I didn't really see a problem with it and just wish people would leave me alone. One center recommended getting the whole family in for group. My dad took me somewhere else that would just give me drugs. I don't think he wanted to see himself as the problem.

All the drugs sucked. I hated them. Lots of side-effected. Tired all the time. Thankfully I never improved and came off all of them and got my dad to just fucking stop before high school.

In University I tried therapy on my own. I'd state my OCD as the reason, because I didn't want to admit to the depression. One doc was a quick fixer; wanted as few sessions as possible. Another girl cancelled three appointments in a row and I stopped rescheduling.

I had one and only one decent shrink in my life. It was just for a summer, she helped expose bad patterns in my thinking, and I think my outlook on the world changed significantly. She still pushed drugs even though I said I didn't like them, and I stopped talking the SSRIs once when I got so woozy I wrecked a car in a ditch (first and only totaled vehicle that was my fault. There was one other where a woman ran a stop sign).

All that being said, one of my best friends is bipolar/schizo-effective. Two years back everyone got really worried about him cause he stopped talking his meds, started showing up unannounced at peoples' houses, had friends call the sheriff multiple times on him. He was totally apologetic after; defending none of this actions. He said he could see how crazy he got in retrospect, and felt deeply ashamed. One pill, one anti-psychotic, is all that keeps him from being a normal guy to being paranoid and unable to hold a job.

There are a few people who need medical intervention, but the vast majority do not. What's especially troubling are parents who send their kids to therapy, which likely causes all types of problems that normally wouldn't arise (see Joe Rogan #2109 with Abigail Shrier; who just wrote a book on the issues with child therapy).