Infantilization Is an Important Part of Treatment

Ever noticed how mental health workers infantilize adults?

It’s not just drug pushing, manipulation and gaslighting. They also infantalize to quietly erode a person’s sense of self and start positioning themselves as the authority over this persons life, feeling, thoughts and choices by making clients feel small.

Idk if this is the same in every country, however In the Netherlands it gets absurd. Grown adults are told to work with coloring worksheets, smileys (about how they feel) and color coded charts. Often they want the client to use traffic light style charts and put a smiley on it. Some mental health institutions are literally painted in a way that look like elementary schools.