[afarrell]

In Adults outside a courtroom, mental health treatment focuses on easing distress because the person seeking out treatment is the patient.

Parenting is stressful and imposes a powerful incentive to reduce that stress. Consequently, too often in children, mental health treatment focuses on controlling behaviors because the person seeking treatment is the parent.

The first is a person seeking greater agency for themselves over a problem. The latter is a denial of agency of the child. I’m hearing you express your pain at having your agency suppressed and expressing skepticism at the tools used to suppress your agency.

But those same tools also grant some adults an agency they are desperately drowningly seeking for themselves.