This interview between Dr. K and Primeagen occasionally surfaces on my feed thanks to the almighty algorithm.

Around the 3:03:25 mark, there’s an argument that the role of a therapist is better served by mentors and spread through a tribe of family and friends.

I can buy it.

Like many good ideas, works great on paper.

I have a large deeply-knit family and a social network that’s been described as broad. Some of those relationships are relatively recent, some have been maintained generationally.

Way too many folks have a decade plus of missed calls and/or walls of text.

Great for the tip of the iceberg.

But here’s the anecdotal data:

No one cares if parts of your childhood were messed up.

They don’t care if it hurts when you walk.

Don’t care if looking in the mirror was uncomfortable, or about the antagonistic voices in the back of your head.

No fault to them, everyone is busy and has enough of their own problems to memorize your backstory. Most folks can’t stop the running thread and allocate resources to a new task. Much like Apple’s silicon and way too many modern machines, we have a fixed amount of DDR and storage.

Some folks are tough and don’t hold onto the hurt.

But end of the day, there is a basic human need to be seen and heard.

And as unfair as it is, that’s something you can buy.

Unfortunately it’s not immune from inflation, sessions went from two digits to three.