This Week's Podcast Ep is REALLY Good + Friday Open Chaos Thread
The Rise of Therapy Speak
We’re back to Normal Culture Study Schedule starting this Sunday — but this week’s podcast ep was so good I had to email about it specifically.
Rachel Monroe has been one of my favorite longform writers for years — particularly her writing rooted in and around rural Texas. When I found out she was hosting a new podcast with her friend Ash Compton (who is a psychotherapist, but not Rachel’s psychotherapist) on the general subject of “bad therapy” (particularly how it manifests in social media…..I knew I wanted to listen immediately but also, selfishly, I knew I wanted to have Rachel and Ash on the podcast to talk about something Melody and I talk about all the time: the rise of therapy speak. WEAPONIZED. BOUNDARIES. SHADOW WORK.
We didn’t (totally) plan it this way, but it’s a perfect episode for this time of year — and I loved the end of the discussion, when we tried to answer a listener’s question about how to think about New Year’s Resolutions in a way that’s neither productivity hustle bullshit OR therapy-speak-woo.
You can listen below — or follow this magic link to listen wherever you like to listen to podcasts.
But also, it’s Friday! We’re still in the In-Between! Let’s do an Open Chaos Thread!
The last time I did this, it was right before the Election — and I knew it was a risk because any time there’s a lot of social anxiety people start being really mean online. The level of *acute* anxiety is slightly less, but the level of fear and baseline anxiety is not — but after a very successful pre-election chaos thread, I think we can handle this one, too.
What is a Chaos Thread?
You can talk about your In-Between feelings, your post-holiday processing, your struggles with New Year’s Rhetoric. But you can also talk about the case for keeping your Christmas tree up through January, your feelings on A Complete Unknown, or the best romance you read in one sitting. You can talk about a good dog you met or ask for advice or complain about your manager or share the song that’s currently your personal soundtrack.
Think of this thread as every Culture Study thread combined, in one place, being absolutely chaotic — but also supportive, and trying, as best as we can, to avoid being shitty to one another. Each of you is part of making it a place you want to hang out, and I’m grateful to you. Now let’s talk about everything.
(And if you’ve not already been tempted to become a Paid Subscriber — you get access to all the links/recs and all the weekly addictive threads, including next week’s Culture Study Classifieds, where thousands of readers advertise their services/needs every quarter. Subscribe now and get in on this conversation and all of the rest.)