Not Every Kid Needs a Shrink

Is therapy good for you? Many people have benefited from it, and the word itself, from the Greek, therapeia, means "healing." But what happens when the effort to heal extends beyond necessity? Or when a focus on trauma stunts the development of resiliency? Or when families raise children to believe that the normal slings and arrows of childhood are the beginning of lifelong mental health issues? Or when most of the socially formative institutions in the lives of the young regularly force-feed them a message of victimization and weakness?