Book Review – ‘A Therapeutic Journey’ by Alain de Botton

Some of us are incapable of remembering our small successes. We forget moments of joy or our many small kindnesses to others. We struggle to remember anything good about ourselves. It requires a grim effort of will to hunt through the forests of our memories, to flush out some rare moment where we were, however briefly, someone we’d recognise as a good and decent person. Some of us can only remember our foolish mistakes, and we do so readily – unbidden and unwanted memories, our days and wakeful nights filled with replays of our selfish acts, our spites, our thefts, our betrayals, our careless and uncaring stupidities, and the hurts we’ve caused to others.

Kindness and care is key.

If all that seems odd or weird to you, I’ll get back to you in a minute.

If, on the other hand, you live with the constant struggle for self-worth, I’ll simply say ‘read this book’, not because it will ‘fix’ you, or teach you anything you don’t already know, or because it will offer you pathways to ‘healing’ or some other bollocks. It won’t.

You should read this because it will offer you kindness you need and deserve. It will say ‘I know and understand’, then prove that understanding, and enlighten your own. It will say ‘you are absolutely normal’, and be absolutely correct. It will offer you the option of healthier connections with yourself, your loved ones, your life. It may even, perhaps, make your existence slightly less awful.

But, back to the normies – the normal people who think anxious or depressed people should shrug off sadness and soldier on. Why should you, as much as the ‘freaks’ I’ve just outed myself as a member of, read this book? For one, ‘an unexamined life is not worth living’. The famous old dead Greek guy, Socrates, felt that if you don’t question your own or others’ actions, and try to discover the difficult, interesting and more nuanced truths of existence, then you’re little better than a zombie. At least I think that’s what he said.

In case you didn’t already know, de Botton is a philosopher and best-seller of philosophical, and philosophy-adjacent, books. The rather dreary title of this particular book suggests it’s another tedious, worthy, self-help drudge through depression, anxiety and all the other mental ills that drive so many of us to drink, drugs and doom-scrolling. It’s not – the title is a metaphor, ie. life is a therapeutic journey.

For de Botton, ‘the challenge isn’t to learn to survive only a one-off [mental health] crisis but to set in place a framework that can help us manage our fragility over the long term.’

He suggests various ways of viewing, and re-viewing, life on the small and large scales, including, for example, the use of art as a tool for mental wellbeing – understanding the work and lives of artists, some famous, some less so, can provide a healthy focus, and balm, for our own tortured souls.

De Botton argues mental illness is normal for humans in our era. We’re evolved and equipped for conditions 200,000 years ago, so we’re to be commended for coping as best we can with the same equipment now. In other words, it’s an appropriate set of responses to be anxious, depressed, uncertain and even ‘fucked up’. As Philip Larkin says:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

[From Collected Poems, Copyright Estate of Philip Larkin, Faber and Faber Ltd]

De Botton writes beautifully, and engages with humility, honesty and insight. Terrible title, terrific book. Recommended.

A Therapeutic Journey – Lessons from the school of life, by Alain de Botton, is published by Penguin Books and available for purchase from 10 October 2023. ISBN 9780241642566, paperback, 400 pages.