The promise of therapy

Contemporarily, therapy can be a place to seek self-understanding and to learn to cope with difficulties better to live a happier, more satisfactory life. In Western and Westernised societies, it is increasingly common to see therapy as promising to be the main solution to psychic suffering. This article asks: can therapy live up to that promise? Are the social roots of suffering eclipsed when therapy is placed as the main solution? Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s work on happiness and Lauren Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism, we analyse how therapy tends to direct efforts towards what is socially sanctioned as a ‘good’ and ‘happy’ life; that is, towards ways of living that are entangled with neoliberal and neocolonial orders. We explore how therapy can help us to feel better whilst leaving intact, or further reproducing, the social roots of collective suffering. We suggest that therapy can work as a cruel optimistic attachment, thus making us feel better whilst preventing us from engaging with the practices that might actually make a difference in our lives, personally and collectively. We exemplify this dynamic with the increasing demand on therapy, especially among young people, of offering diagnostic validation. We conclude by considering what humbler promises therapy could make.