Okay. I'm back with Abigail Shrier, everybody. Welcome back to Walk-In. Welcome back to Walk-In's welcome. I feel like it's

been way too long. It has. It's been too long since a podcast, although, of course, I get to see you

fairly frequently. I just feel like I, I've been begging you to come back on to talk about kind of all of the, I mean, since you came on so early when you put your last book out, I don't even know if you had done anyone's podcast.

You know, I didn't just come on early. You were the first podcast. I really did. I mean, you were one of the first few who was brave enough to have me on.

He's not bravery.

I was just like, you need to write this book, please.

And now ever since, everything in your book has been, you know, jumped, like jump the shark entirely.

And I wanted you to come back on and talk about it, but you were very

clear about the fact that you were working on this book for like two years. Your new book,

Bad Therapy, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I changed the thesis in the middle, so it added

some time. It's such a cool cover. Oh, thanks. You know, it was designed by an amazing graphic artist,

Pablo Delcon. I love it. So how did you decide? Can you talk about how your thesis changed?

Sure. So I started the book with a question, you know, this rising generation, generation that I'm raising three kids in, had went through no world war, no great depression, but they seemed to be in serious psychological pain. And I wanted to understand why. And when I started with a book, I actually sold it thinking it had to do

with the way they had been raised. Maybe they'd been raised so gently that it didn't make them

tough enough. I mean, what was it that made them so susceptible and so vulnerable? And that was my thesis

when I started. But, you know, I'm an investigative journalist, so I change,

you know, based on the evidence. And I thought when I started, I knew that this generation was getting

a shocking amount of therapy. I mean, 40% of them have been in therapy, 42% has a mental health

diagnosis. But we're still talking about less than half. So I thought, well, okay, I know therapists

make a lot of mischief,

but that can't be it. But then when I started looking into what was going on in the public schools,

I realized there have been significant mental health interventions that look a lot like therapy.

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