It's admittedly been a while since I read Lisa Bright and Dark, but my vague recollections are that the amateur group therapy was a last resort driven by the systematic refusal of the adults to admit that anything serious was wrong, the amateur therapy was about as effective as you'd expect from a bunch of teenagers, and the moral of the story was that the adults should have listened earlier, because things didn't have to get that bad.
It certainly wasn't the best book on mental health ever, but I don't remember getting the message that amateur group therapy was a great way of fixing things. I got the message that you stick by your friends even when they're mentally ill, that the stigma around mental illness is harmful, that reading a handful of library books doesn't make you an expert clinician but that social support is better than nothing, and that eventually maybe the adults will get a clue and do something constructive.
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Date: 2019-05-02 01:19 am (UTC)It certainly wasn't the best book on mental health ever, but I don't remember getting the message that amateur group therapy was a great way of fixing things. I got the message that you stick by your friends even when they're mentally ill, that the stigma around mental illness is harmful, that reading a handful of library books doesn't make you an expert clinician but that social support is better than nothing, and that eventually maybe the adults will get a clue and do something constructive.