In case the point of the post isn't obvious, read comment #23.
Comment #12 is also quite awesome: I agree with Phillip on this one, especially with regard to neurotic concerns of women. They shouldn’t be encouraged in their irrational beliefs.
A nice attempt at satire, but let's be real: there is a significant difference between "sympathy" and what most therapists offer, and there's a signficant difference between the kind of problems our friends help us with and mental illness.
Philp Greenspun (hmm, another PG) likes to satire. Before I applied my graduate school in 1995, I found his "Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists"(http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/) and laughed my ass off.
Unfortunately, what he said finally rings true in East Asia. After we churned out tons of our home grown engineers and computer scientists, there are no jobs for them due to credit bust.
I am not sure if he is being sarcastic or not, but I agree with comment #4: "It’s not that you are obligated to care, it’s that you should want to care."
There can be a signficant difference between the kinds of problems our friends help us with and and the kinds of problems that shrinks have unique information to help us with.
For example, I have a friend who has just turned 40, is still a virgin and is consulting a psychiatrist to decide whether to lose his virginity to a prostitute. I have given him my take on it which basically boils down to "get laid by whatever means necessary" but he is taking a more empirical approach and wants the advice of an expert on all of the possible psychological ramifications of his act before the fact.
Am I delinquent as a friend because I don't have enough information to answer his question? No. I'm not trained in psychology although I can give him some of my guesses about possible psychological ramifications - excitement, anxiety, guilt, wanting to go back for more.
However, because of his empirical leanings, his question is best answered by a professional. But to say that all he is looking for is "sympathy" would be a gross misunderstanding of the valuable role that a therapist can play because of his/her unique traning. My friend wants facts backed up by studies and he doesn't have the time or training to find those answers efficiently himself.
So to talk about 'mental illness' and 'sympathy' as being the primary distinguishing features of psychiatry vs friendship is a gross oversimplication of both.
He's not taking an empirical approach; he's taking an argumentum ad authoritam approach. An empirical approach would involve observing other people doing this and seeing what the effect is. The best you can say is that he's consulting an authority whose information he hopes is empirical.
Well, he might be a lot better off talking to his friends about their experiences. Historically, Scholasticism was a big part of the background against which the 18th-century empiricists were rebelling, so from my perspective they're almost opposites.
