I used to think my inability to get mundane and bureaucratic tasks accomplished came down to being lazy and disorganised, but thanks to a series of YouTube adverts I’ve had to listen to, I have come to realise that I actually have something called “high-IQ ADHD”.
On a similar wavelength is a recently released book I've been reading, Resisting Therapy Culture by Matthew Loftus. Although Loftus is coming from an explicitly Christian perspective, you might find his work interesting. He emphasizes that whereas good therapy encourages people to reclaim a sense of agency in their lives, even if it's merely in tiny ways, bad pop psychology of the sort you're talking about here deprives people of agency and inculcates a sense of complete helplessness.
(Which is why I'd slightly disagree with your statement that it makes no sense to tell people with clinical depression that they should be more active. While it's true that depressed people can't simply "snap out of it", and you have to consider individual circumstances, setting concrete goals of activity is an important tool for improving mental health, even when the goal is as modest as "get out of bed and put clothes on each day".)
On a similar wavelength is a recently released book I've been reading, Resisting Therapy Culture by Matthew Loftus. Although Loftus is coming from an explicitly Christian perspective, you might find his work interesting. He emphasizes that whereas good therapy encourages people to reclaim a sense of agency in their lives, even if it's merely in tiny ways, bad pop psychology of the sort you're talking about here deprives people of agency and inculcates a sense of complete helplessness.
(Which is why I'd slightly disagree with your statement that it makes no sense to tell people with clinical depression that they should be more active. While it's true that depressed people can't simply "snap out of it", and you have to consider individual circumstances, setting concrete goals of activity is an important tool for improving mental health, even when the goal is as modest as "get out of bed and put clothes on each day".)
Thanks! I saw Loftus promoting his book on Twitter, and it did look interesting. I should pick it up.