Dare to express a citizens view on Covid and youll be shut down for not having a degree in epidemiology. Only those with the wherewithal to spend six years in medical school are deemed a valid voice on the world crisis were all living through.

ut the scientific purism doesnt seem to apply in the areas of psychology and philosophy, at least not in Ireland. You dont need any qualifications to reinvent yourself as a mental health guru just an impressive line in psychobabble.

Share your own mental health experience and youre a sacred cow, beyond challenge or critique. Justify it under the overarching principle of if it helps one person and nobody can argue. RT will crown you as one of the nations spiritual leaders; a member of the new clerisy that has replaced the church in preaching to us how to live and how to think.

Podcaster and author Blindboy Boatclub is exalted to Socrates. I found myself laughing while watching him deliver moral instruction from his podcast studio on Claire Byrne Live the other night. If this is one giant surreal satire, its a great piece of art. But it appears he takes himself seriously.

Ah, here a fella in his late 30s, with a bag on his head, dispensing life advice, his every platitude hung on as though he were Moses coming down from Mount Sinai.

Blindboy has never said anything I havent heard before, or thought of myself. Its Wikipedia stuff the majority of us who have suffered anxiety already know.

His contribution on Claire Byrne was his usual mix of regurgitated Jordan Peterson crossed with ancient Stoic philosophy acceptance of lifes suffering, yielding to events beyond your control, living in the now.

Yet the fact he can bring a sentence to its conclusion seems to be enough to elevate him into having magical ability.

He is talented when he wants to be, he can be the sharpest, funniest, most exciting creative in Ireland but we dont see that side of him much any more since he took a position as the nations curate. Doubtless its safer in an era of cancel culture, but I miss his anarchic art.

Blindboy is not a psychotherapist, although it seems many assume he is a qualified authority.

He mentions how he studied psychotherapy for a while, but did not complete it.

He was never a professional, although he has said he might decide to pursue it in time. He should. Benefitting from counselling does not mean youre an expert. Ive had 10 years of cognitive behavioural therapy myself, but it doesnt make me a therapist.

Otherwise, its too easy to conflate opinion with fact for example, the time on the Late Late Show when he told young men with worries about providing for a woman that such concerns were outdated because neoliberalism has made it that you must be equal, its as simple as that. In reality, its not.

Another popular figure who has veered into guru territory is radio presenter and comedian Dermot Whelan. He did a teaching course in meditation and now hes the Dalai Lama.

Whelan, who is also from Limerick (there must be something in the water), is now peddling meditation as a way to help stress, anxiety and depression.

His new book Mind Full promises to help you feel less meh, sleep better, snap at the kids less. Sounds like a bestseller? It is. Theres a real constituency for this stuff.

Its a charming book and noble in its aim, but the key message I got from it is stop drinking your head off and youll feel better. I think we already know about the breathing techniques. Theres a bit of parroting at play when Whelan talks in interviews about how: It changes the shape of your brain, it shrinks your amygdala, it shrinks your fear centre.

Another podcaster, Caroline Foran is regarded as the millennial anxiety guru who has written three books on coping with anxiety, Owning It, The Confidence Kit and Naked, after suffering a breakdown in 2014. She has admitted: I am not an expert, I dont have a qualification and all Ive ever done is share my experience.

It seems to be enough for a successful career. What does it say about how seriously we take mental illness, that we forgo qualifications in favour of amateurs? Do we deem psychology a subjective concept, instead of the medical science it is? Why do we revere those who have experienced it as the experts, instead of the actual experts? We have fallen far from the days of Professor Anthony Clare.

Maybe it comes back to the Socratic paradox: I know that I know nothing.

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Our pop mental health gurus are just the Blindboy leading the blind - Independent.ie