Lake Mom

Really disappointed in this book. The premise is interesting and I was looking forward to it. But I couldn’t make it through the whole thing. The extent of her research was a few hundred interviews and getting access to one book of social emotional learning assignments. Everything else is extrapolated. The book ends up reading like an extended rant or a vendetta piece, and I’m not even sure how relevant some of the information is. Is what she describes a California problem only? No statistics are given about how often people get therapy or what percent of time it goes badly, and most interviewed are in CA. None of the high schoolers I know in Connecticut experience the level of mental health issues reported by her subjects. The SEL assignments my kids bring home or do in class aren’t anything like what she is describing. The hypotheses are good, but there are no facts to support them. A few bad therapists and bad school counselors doesn’t make a country wide epidemic, and unfortunately no information is provided that shows this is more than a few people complaining about a bad experience to a journalist. It’s hard to trust an author when they seem to be stretching to find facts to make their point. I think there are real issues with the therapy explosion in our country, but unfortunately this book isn’t the one to bring them to light.