Thursday, January 21, 2010

Recommending counseling

A reader and fellow angry dad writes:
The custody evaluator in my case recommended that I seek cognitive behavioral therapy as it relates to parenting. The evaluation made no mention of parental deficits. I still haven't been able to find anyone who can figure out what "cognitive behavioral therapy as it relates to parenting" is.
I got a similar recommendation from one of my evaluations. The judge just blindly ordered it. I objected, and the judge could not explain it.

In my opinion, a recommendation for counseling is usually an admission of incompetence. You see it in letters to Dear Abby and other advice columnists. When she knows how to answer a question, she answers it. Or she gives bad advice based on her own prejudices. But when she does not know what to say, she recommends counseling.

If you press these people, they might say that counseling is good for everyone. But that is plainly not true, or we would have laws requiring everyone to get counseling. We don't. The psychology textbooks say that counseling is not good for everyone.

Whoever gave the above recommendation is just an incompetent bozo who knows a few buzzwords. The judges who listen to these bozos are even worse.