If you have an accountant, is that a person you pay to pretend to give a shit about your taxes? Is an orthopedic surgeon someone you paid to pretend to give a shit about your broken leg?

Yes and yes. I'm hiring them because they perform a service in exchange for money. It's not reasonable to expect them to care on an individual level about my taxes or my broken leg, I just need them to do their job.

[–] Lyudmila@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago

You are in fact having someone perform a service in exchange for money. The service is to identify, analyze, and treat a specific, named issue or group of issues which you are facing. But would you walk up to your parent or neighbor and describe either of those professions as someone you paid to pretend to care?

A therapist is supposed to do the same thing: identify, analyze, and treat an issue or issues. So why the fuck would you frame therapy like you're trying to pay someone to pretend to be your friend? Why is it uniquely normalized to describe just this one profession in this way?