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[quote=Anonymous]I’m going to push back against the idea that therapy is pathologizing. Therapy can be about identifying automatic cognitive patterns and emotional responses, then considering  whether/where these defaults are out of sync with personal goals, and introducing new possibilities. It’s a way of unraveling assumptions and habits of mind that aren’t life-enhancing and that we don’t even realize hold sway over us. All of us have these.

With regard to OP’s kid, there is some underlying assumption about what a boyfriend — or not having one — means. That assumption almost certainly isn’t true, but she can’t unravel the behavior/effect (low self esteem) without recognizing the meaning she’s ascribing to a boyfriend.

Someone is probably going to have to walk her through the process of understanding what she’s making a boyfriend mean. This doesn’t have to be a therapist, of course, but it’s a very rare kid who can figure out this stuff proactively.

And having been that kid myself (oh, how desperate I was for a boyfriend in those days!) I’ll say *not* doing this gives an awful lot of power to some of the sh*ttiest guys out there. I would have loved somebody to help me understand that a lot of my crushes were actually my own longing to feel worthy, and that there were better ways of getting that than placing my heart in the hands of Smarmy Dave or Belittling Pete or Fast-hands Fred or whomever. [/quote]

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