“I’ve been in therapy for five years.”
It was the spring of 2020, and I was teaching a Harvard Business School class on the science of happiness for the first time. This went well, but not without missteps on my part. On the very first day, when a student began her question with that statement, I visibly cringed—in much the same way I did several years ago when an elderly relative at the Thanksgiving table regaled us with information about his “devil of a hemorrhoid.” Therapy, like hemorrhoids, seemed to me something best kept private.
I had recently returned to academia after a decade running a think tank in Washington, D.C. Evidently, things had changed on campus if this kind of self-disclosure was normal, and the other students were completely unfazed by her revelation. Therapy is no longer a private matter, and it is utterly ubiquitous, especially among younger, college-educated adults. Fifty-five percent of Gen Zers and millennials have attended at least one therapy session, and 83 percent of them openly tell others that they are in therapy.
I had to get with the times. And since then, you’ll be pleased to learn that I’ve become like a seasoned proctologist when it comes to hearing about my students’ mental-health treatments.
If you’re still reading after that metaphor, here was the student’s full question:
