THERAPIST, n.
1. Usually somewhat safer than a hereapist. Unless she’s an Influencer on social media, in which case, wherever you are, watch your back.
Old Amoeba had a meme,
E-I-E-I-O.
And on the Web he put that meme,
E-I-E-I-O.
Got a therapist here
And a hereapist there,
Hereapist,
Therapist,
Everywhere they’re pissed, pissed!
Old Amoeba had a meme,
E-I-E-I-O.
– The Fell Farmer
2. Wealthy and self-satisfied scam artist who, for a handsome fee, will convince you that your filthy practices (e.g., screwing over your employees, or bombing Ukraine) are socially acceptable, and give you permission to continue them. See CLERGY, MINDFULNESS.
If you see a therapist to cope with your situation, perhaps it’s because your situation impels you to do a- and antisocial things that even your dead conscience sticks at, and rebels against your willful (yes it is) compliance.
– Maharishi Jaiseifelided
Out of the whole great buzzing ball of classical writings on philosophy and religion, the texts that come closest to the facts of the case are those that address the theological “doctrines of grace“. In which humans are correctly identified as, at the core, “totally depraved” (utterly selfish), about which they can do nothing without “divine guidance” (socialization). Arguably, the uselessness, nay toxicity, of a faith system can be measured accurately by the degree to which it distances its theory and practice from the fact of human core utter selfishness, typically as driven by the dictates of their prime movers. Namely, their paying customers, who reject the facts, and all who insist on them, because they don’t feel good to them.
The “doctrines of grace” were not presented as scientific assessments of the human condition, but as propaganda documents urging acceptance of their adherents as the agents, on Earth, of a beneficent deity who, alone, can “rescue you from sin” (teach socialization and judge acceptable, and unacceptable, practices). In reality, the beneficent deity is utterly uncaring, because nonexistent, which places authority the next level down, in the hands of its self-identified agents on Earth. Which removes the word “agent” from their title, and makes them gods. Speaking of selfish.
Gods whose principal God-like activity is to make war on each other. As John Wesley wrote,
Even perfect holiness (socialization in ideal conformity to the dictates of society, or at least of those leaders of the society that one is trying desperately to impress) is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ.
Wesley might as well have been selling toothpaste.
Humanity desperately needs to solve the problem of how to achieve a society dedicated to mutual service, without reliance on those who claim certification from a mythical “divine authority” – or from any other authority, including university Ph.D. degrees.