There’s a Therapist Under Ocean Blvd

Abigail Shrier’s new book Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up opens with an epigraph quoting Lana Del Rey’s song “Born to Die.” Lana’s lyrics (sometimes love is not enough / and the road gets tough / I don’t know why) are perhaps apt as an anthem for people around my age. Despite being born in a world where unlimited information is available at our fingertips, many of us Zoomers can’t figure our lives out. We grew up in a world where smartphones are ubiquitous and we are expected to curate social-media personas, where a few taps of an account’s Instagram Story may show, in sudden succession, a slide about one’s stress-relief routine, a smudged mirror selfie, and a solemn infographic about the culture-war cause du jour.