My Dark Night of the Soul

[yossarian]

P.S. Movies do not give good depictions of the therapeutic process. Even the most accurate movies typically have major distortions for the sake of entertainment, e.g. In Treatment which is probably the most accurate show about therapy but has to do big embellishments for the sake of TV.

The therapy profession does not take into account IQ.

1. This isn't true. IQ and academic performance are strongly correlated and you need high academic performance to become a therapist. The competition is tremendous, straight As are not enough. (The actual IQ metric was originally created specifically to measure academic performance in children in a standardized school setting. Only later on did pop culture turn it into this big number that defines your worth as a human being.)

... This is disheartening to me. In all, pure, honesty, therapists, for what their purpose is, can be found in the darnedest places. ... A newborn child (apologies for redundancy here, but I am thinking of hogey11, quite frankly) can sometimes offer more than a textbook educated somebody can. And this is the point that has been brought to attention about the neglected spiritual aspects of the degree-ridden.

... but newborn babies have low IQs. So which is it? Do therapists need high IQs or don't they?

IQ was invented by psychologists who believed in eugenics and it's a lot of bullshit anyway. Society latched onto the concept and governments promoted it because it's a great way to divide people into elites and non-elites. One of the things my "evil" psych textbooks taught me is that society's obsession with IQ has a lot to do with society wanting to divide people using simple tests and very little to do with anything meaningful or scientific.

Your talk of IQ sounds incredibly elitist. Low IQ people are perfectly capable of having therapeutic personalities.