you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]dicknipples 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'll download and examine his books soon, but the biggest problem with his kind of "self-help" books - as with many other self-help books - is often the avoidance suport from trained professionals. I think he makes matters worse for the LGBTQ+ community by promoting the idea that teens and counselors for teens shouldn't reach out to trained professionals when they want advice. This would discredit a claim by a teen that she/he should be the opposite sex, because it was read in a book by an untrained person, rather than based on medical advice. Arguably, no one would give that medical/psychiatrist's or psychologist's advice, but shrinks are supposed to be trained to help people understand themselves. There's also the very common activity of teenage rebellion against their parents. Self-help books cannot address that effectively. What I also don't like about Finke is his politicization of this approach to teens, which also causes problems for the LGBTQ+ community because they become targeted as pedophiles and anti-psychiatry nutjobs in the views of the many who would naturally reject Finke's ideas. Anyway - just thinking out loud about something I know nothing about, and would doubt anyone would read it anyway.