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Hindustan Times

When Did All of These People Become Therapists?

Jeremy Sosenko moved to Los Angeles in 2007, determined to make it as a successful screenwriter, like his heroes the Coen Brothers, or Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson. He and his writing partner quickly found success, crafting cinematic jokes and dialogue for the likes of Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman and Terrence Howard. Work was, for the most part, steady and lucrative until the spring 2023 Writer's Guild of America strike . 'It started to seem like I might need to think about transitioning to a different career,' Sosenko, 47, recalled. On a walk one May morning, he was feeling particularly hopeless. 'I remember having a heart-to-heart talk with my wife and I said the only thing I could think of being that wouldn't make me miserable was a therapist, but you have to go to school to be a therapist,' he said. 'She had the brilliant insight of, 'Why don't you go to school to be a therapist?'' This summer, he's juggling eight clients. As artificial intelligence, offshore labor and the gig economy shatter any illusion of job security, once-stable career paths have turned into dead ends. For those like Sosenko in creative fields, the opportunities and salaries are being yanked faster than Stephen Colbert's contract. Pity the poor graphic designer, who according to the World Economic Forum is down there with postal workers and legal secretaries among the fastest-declining jobs. For these formerly upwardly mobile professionals, there is at least one seemingly recession-proof career pivot to make: becoming a therapist. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of mental-health counselors is projected to grow by 18% by 2033. Marriage and family therapist employment is expected to rise by 15%, and counseling psychologists by 11%. That's well above the average 3% for other occupations. 'There is always going to be a need and desire for human connection, and for human connection in the treatment space,' said Marnie Shanbhag, senior director of the Office of Independent Practice at the American Psychological Association. 'Covid reminded us all you could be going for your normal Tuesday and life can shift on a dime. It was an existential reminder of, 'If not now, when?'' Eliza Dushku, who spent her turn-of-the-millennium years starring in cult classics like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Tru Calling,' took the 'now' option. In June, she posted a video on Instagram of herself in cap and gown, receiving a Master of Arts in clinical mental health counseling from Lesley University. 'Today, I stand grounded and ready to support others on their journeys of becoming—through self-discovery, healing, and transformation,' Dushku captioned the post. This summer, screenwriter Jeremy Sosenko is juggling eight therapy clients. Singer-songwriter Ed Droste, frontman of the indie rock band Grizzly Bear, whose songs were featured on shows such as 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Sex Education' (and a Volkswagen commercial), back-burnered his band to pursue a therapy practice. 'It's kind of one of those things I just had to take the plunge and be like, 'Am I going to do this or not?' Droste said on the March 2, 2020, episode of the podcast 'Lunch Therapy.' 'I was like, you know what, I'm ready for a change.' His Psychology Today profile (where he's Edward, not Ed) obliquely references his musical career but focuses on his multidisciplinary approach, alongside a picture of a welcoming tawny leather couch. For creative people whose careers were built on their understanding the intricacies of the human experience, becoming a therapist isn't the largest of leaps. Award-winning filmmaker David Schisgall, 57, spent decades documenting psychologically complex stories, from Theo Padnos's time held captive by al Qaeda in 'Theo Who Lived' to the lives of sex-trafficked children in 'Very Young Girls.' But while making last year's 'Anatomy of Lies,' he decided he needed something more. 'I really liked doing narrative therapy with people who'd been through a floridly traumatic experience, traumatic enough to be the subject of a film, and working with them to craft a story of their lives that they could live with and share with the world,' he said. 'What I realized was I had been winging it and had almost no training.' When Schisgall enrolled at New York University, where he also teaches journalism, he was surprised by how many career-shifters were among his social work classmates. 'I expected to be the oldest person by 30 years and to be a fish out of water and I was not,' he said. 'There are actually a lot of people who want to go into social work to do emotionally fulfilling work after they've done X, Y and Z.' 'It's a common inflection point for people in midlife, who by then have been working for 15 to 20 years, to think differently about the next 15 to 20,' Shanbhag said. And that goes across all professions. 'I have known pharmacists, teachers, attorneys and many others leave their professional careers to become psychotherapists,' said Mirean Coleman, the National Association of Social Workers' director of clinical practice. 'Clinical social workers enjoy the concept and benefits of being their own boss and creating their own benefits and policies.' Deborah Halpern, 61, a successful marketer who rose through the ranks at companies such as Kraft and Campbell's, stopped thinking about status once she started paying attention to a field she'd been drawn to since her undergraduate days at the University of Pennsylvania. 'I had accomplished enough that I was confident that if I got a masters in social work and people didn't see it as an accomplishment, that was OK with me,' she said. Now she says she's 'finally doing what I should have been doing for the past 40 years.' She's 'never been so in the zone,' she said. 'People ask me, 'Isn't it too much to have eight clients in a day?' I say, 'No, I've never loved something so much.'' Deborah Halpern went from a successful marketing career to pursuing a masters in social work. She says she's 'finally doing what I should have been doing for the past 40 years.' Many people in midlife are finding that the fields they spent decades working in are nowhere near what they once were. 'The industry I grew up in has fallen apart,' said Trent Johnson, 50, a former creative director who worked in media for 27 years. 'There's always the 'what if' if someone from Vogue suddenly wanted an art director. But it doesn't have the luster that it used to. The magic of that is gone.' With its national salary average of $61,330, therapists with social work degrees do not bring in Hollywood or even media money, and it is a luxury to be able to afford taking a massive pay cut. 'It's not corporate money, but it gives me something else,' Halpern said. 'I get paid so little it's unconscionable, but I'm happy at the end of the day.' She retained a 10-hour-a-month consulting gig that pays more than a week of therapy sessions. Likewise, Sosenko is still writing (albeit with less pressure to lean into the mainstream and more marketable ideas), Schisgall is developing docs and Droste's band Grizzly Bear will embark on its first tour in six years this fall. Whatever happens with those side gigs, the need for therapy might just be timeless. 'As long as there are people,' Shanbhag said, 'there are going to be people problems.' When Did All of These People Become Therapists?