What makes counsellors and agony aunts wiser and more normal than the people they treat?

Question

A course they take on a socially sanctioned therapy to make us all the same and not creative?

Answer 1

because its easy to give advice and is even easier when you get paid for it. once they have pigeon holed every one the answers and advice

are more or less the same. you wouldn't need to get out of bed to do

that job, all you need is a dicta-phone

Answer 2

They are not more normal; that is a really bizarre idea! I don't know about Agony Aunts, I suspect they are just very nosey people who like telling others what to do, but counsellors are trained in various ways to help you explore yourself and find a level of comfort and acceptance in whatever is "normal" for you.

Answer 3

TO EVERYONE - I apologise for the length of this answer.

Your question is laughably antipsychiatry and sexist.

Therapy is not meant to make us all the same and uncreative - it's meant to help us deal with our problems. It's unhappiness and mental illness that make us uncreative, not therapy.

Yes, traditional research suggests that women solve problems by talking more than men do. But it's not so simple as that: just because more women solve problems by talking, that doesn't mean that all women do, or that no men do. Many people of both genders find it helpful to talk through their problems.

Why do you think that counselling would weaken men but not women? Do you think that women are already weak? I think it would be weaker for a person to struggle on with their problems, unhappy and stressed, than it would to admit that they needed help and get it. I think it shows a great deal of strength for a person to get counselling, in the face of people with opinions like yours.

As for your original question - counsellors and agony aunts are not necessarily wiser. They are trained to help people, and have been taught how to help people deal with their problems (counsellors have, at least. I don't know what kind of qualifications are required to become an agony aunt). They are also, by necessity (the good ones, at least), kind, considerate and helpful. These qualities go a long way towards helping people. As for 'more normal' - I don't believe there is such a thing.

Edit: what is feminisation? What is femininity? You are attributing all sorts of qualities to the female gender in a rash generalisation. You think that counselling makes people weak, and so you think that it makes them more feminine. This shows a total lack of understanding and open-mindedness (although, I suppose, to you, those are just some more disgustingly feminine traits).

The more questions you add to this, the more your ideas seem outdated and offensive.

"Laura - i don't give a fig about being called sexist, the latest fad in our society. Women throughout history show that their brains are built for solving problems through talking. Men solve their problems on their own by thinking silently through them. No society can change how our brains are wired. I am not saying women are weak, I am saying that the womans way of working out problems is different, not weaker.

Laura - outdated? I don't follow fads? Offensive? You can't speak nowadays without offending someone, its the new social engineering.

No, it makes men weak and it empowers women - if I am sexist to women by what I say you are sexist to men by trying to say they work things out the same way as women and you lack understanding of men

And i never said these traits were disgusting in women"

1) I don't believe that the condemnation of an unjustified hatred of any group of people is a 'fad'.

2) Men's brains aren't built for thinking silently about things (if anything, they're built for solving problems through doing things). One of the biggest reasons that more men than women commit suicide is because of the ridiculous idea that men don't need help for anything. The stereotype that men are 'the strong, silent type' can be amusing, but the fact is that it costs lives, because it makes men too afraid to get help, for fear that they will be labelled as 'weak' and 'feminine'.

3) You said, "Does it weaken a man to have counselling by saying he cannot sort his problems himself?" which certainly suggests that getting help for problems is weak, and since you say that only women need to get help for problems, this implies that you do believe that women's way of working out problems is weaker.

4) You can speak without offending people - all you need to do is not judge people by an arbitrary fact about themselves, such as gender (or race, or sexuality, etc). If you take people as you find them, and judge them only on what they as individuals say and do, you will find less and less people are offended by your opinions.

5) I am actually really amused that you think I'm being sexist because I think that sometimes men need to talk about things. I think that you'll find that all those men out there who discuss their problems with counsellors/family/friends,etc, would be much happier with my idea that men need and deserve someone to talk to as much as women do, as opposed to your idea that they should suffer in silence.

6) The tone of your questions implies a marked distaste for all things feminine. You may not find women's traits disgusting in women, but you clearly find them disgusting in men - which is, if anything, more offensive.

I'm sorry that I called you sexist. Your hatred is clearly more all-encompassing than that. Your hatred of men who display what you believe to be feminine traits suggests more of a misanthropy than a mysogyny. You seem to hate anybody who actually has the strength to get help which enables them go continue with and succeed in their lives.

I'm not a professional, but this question suggests to me that you have a LOT of issues. Maybe you should consider seeing a counsellor.

Edit again: Firstly, I don't mind being considered to be politically correct. I am not politically correct because I am desperate to follow rules - I am politically correct because my belief - that people should be judged on their own traits rather than the traits that belong to some (or even most) people who share one characteristic with them - happens to coincide with the current official political thought. If the government told me that all people should be generalised based on their gender, I would still have the same beliefs. So, to, me 'politically correct' is not an insult, it is simply a fact that I agree with liberal politics (I don't find 'liberal' to be an insult, either). Secondly, what does my age have to do with anything? Thirdly, as for my not being able to love anyone - that's more of a psychological and trust issue than a political one.