Part of the problem is that mental-health professionals often seem oblivious to children’s impressionability, failing to notice how easy it is to implant negative thoughts and feelings kids might not otherwise have had. Shrier tells how she took her ten-year-old son to a clinic for help with a stubborn stomachache. During the visit, a nurse used a survey to interview the boy with questions like: “1. In the past few weeks, have you wished you were dead? 2. In the past few weeks, have you felt that you or your family would be better off if you were dead? 3. In the past week, have you been having thoughts about killing yourself? If yes, please describe.” Keep in mind a few facts of the case: this was an appointment for a stomachache. The child was only ten years old. The health-care worker had no indication of any mental distress. With the best of intentions, an adult was implying that thoughts of suicide are something children typically have to a child who was in all likelihood largely spending his time obsessing over baseball statistics and Minecraft. That the nurse asked Shrier to leave the room before beginning the interview—because supposedly children are more forthcoming about their inner life with a complete stranger with a clipboard than their parents—only adds to the incoherence of the activity.

Shrier’s chapters on the schools’ contribution to this era of bad therapy make the most compelling case for iatrogenesis. Schools are now wedded to Social and Emotional Learning, one of the latest of the recurring fads that regularly excite American educators. SEL has the effect of promoting “unceasing attention to feelings” and nourishes hyper vigilance and, she argues, anxiety. Teachers schedule “mindfulness minutes” (to bring attention back to the present moment) and “emotion check ins” (how are we feeling today?) Though untrained and without any thought-out theory of the juvenile mind, teachers encourage kids to share thoughts making them sad or angry—their parents’ divorce, a fight with a father—in front of other kids. Woe to the shy or introverted child: educators seem intent on subjecting their students to the stares and gossip of their classmates, though they may be effectively preparing them for the TMI spirit of social media.