I have a question for you: Have you ever felt like you needed to talk to someone or get help with an issue that's getting in the way of the life you want to live? I have. It was 2012 and I was feeling lost and my mind started to go to some really dark places with increasing frequency. This wasn't me, so before things got out of hand, I decided I should talk to someone about it. So, I got on my insurance provider’s website, looked for a local therapist, and made an appointment with the first one who could squeeze me in. In retrospect, I probably should have spent more time evaluating my options because for whatever reason my therapist and I just didn't click. When I think back on that time, it occurs to me that I didn't really know what I was looking for. Fast forward to the end of 2025, when a zine titled One Punk's Guide to Therapy lands in my P.O. Box. Boy, do I wish I had this back in 2012!
Written by Kurt Morris, a punk and a social worker currently based in Indiana, the guide offers a ton of important and useful information including, but not limited to, how to find and what to look for in a therapist, the different types of therapy that are out there, how to get the most out of going to therapy, and how to know when it's time to stop. In fact, this guide is such a valuable resource for people who may want to go to therapy but aren't sure where to start that I contacted Kurt and asked if he'd do an interview about it. He was cool enough to say yes, so on the evening of February 18th, Kurt and I spoke via Zoom.
What you're about to read is an edited version of that conversation. Admittedly, my questions border the inane, but Kurt was a true professional and took the time to answer my queries with straightforwardness and patience. In addition to the guide, we also discuss how Kurt’s experience of punk and therapy inform one another, and his history as a writer and reviewer for the punk magazine, Razorcake.
Enjoy the conversation.
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Kurt Morris: It's going to be dependent on the individual. It's funny because some people will say, “My drinking's not a problem.” And then other people will drink once, have a horrible experience, and feel like that's getting in the way of them living the way they want to live their life. So, it's really pretty subjective because our brains are all different, you know? So, what annoys me may not annoy you, and you may think it's not a big deal.
Okay, so as a sort of part two to that question, later on in this same section, you say that, if someone decides therapy is something they’re going to do, you suggest that they have some idea of what they want to accomplish in therapy. To have some idea of what their goals are. When I read that, I thought, is someone who's new to therapy going to have an idea of what their goals should be? Because when I went that shit never even crossed my mind.
Yeah, I think the two go together, because if you have an issue that's keeping you from living the way you want to live your life, I would imagine the primary goal and other things could be flushed out over time. But the primary goal would be to stop that issue, or to alleviate that issue or reduce that issue. If you have a problem with anger, you say “hey, I'm coming to therapy to talk about my anger.” What's my goal? Well, I want to reduce my anger. I want to learn how to do it in a healthier way.
Okay, so you're just thinking about goals on a kind of really basic, surface-level, and not something lofty. It's just like, if this issue made me consider therapy in the first place, then my goal should be how do I address or cope with it? Okay. A little further on in the guide, you write, “It’s not the therapist's job to change the client. It's the therapist's job to help the client change.” That sentence stopped me in my tracks because I thought, well, wait a minute. The therapist is the professional here. Aren't I coming to the therapist to be changed? Aren't I supposed to leave being like, oh, okay, this is where I've been blown it all this time, or this is where I've been screwing up, or this is what I wasn't thinking about?
Well, I mean, just right there in your answer, I feel like that kind of shows that you had that realization. Something had to happen inside of you to realize that was an issue or made you realize that was how you needed to change. It has to be a revelation to you. Having someone just tell you, “here's what you need to do to change,” usually does not work. So, it has to be you who has the realization that you want to change and the ways you can change. The therapist's job is to point you toward resources, and those can even be things within you, like, “I do have the ability to take a deep breath when I'm really angry and kind of relax a little bit. I never really thought about that.” Or, “I do have these skills to be able to get a job. I didn't really think about that before.” Re-framing things. Therapists can do that, but at the end of the day, if you want to reduce your anger, then you're going to have to be the one to do it. Like the therapist can't do it for you, you know?
Right. Okay, so another thing I wanted to ask about is, you explain the different types of therapy that are generally available in the guide. How helpful is it for someone new to therapy to have this kind of information beforehand or up front? I mean, can you just go to therapy and then maybe figure out this stuff later? Should you know this going in?
You can. I'm just trying to save people some time and perhaps some pain and frustration. So, yeah, you can. I went to therapy for years without knowing most of this. But now looking back, I'm like, “Oh, yeah, if I would have known this, I could have made more progress sooner and not be like, beating my head against the wall figuratively for so many years, being frustrated with things.” If I had known like, “This maybe would be the type of therapy that would be really beneficial for me” and I could have found a therapist that specializes in that, then I could have resolved those issues sooner. At the end of the day, it is what it is and I'm not angry about it or upset or annoyed, but If I can give some of that kind of information to someone ahead of time, and then perhaps they can save time in their lives, that's kind of the goal.
It can't hurt, I think, to have a little better idea, because there have been some therapists where, looking back now, I think, “You and I were not on the same page as far as what I needed and what you offered.” But most of the time, most therapists are so eclectic with their styles that most of the time it can really be beneficial no matter who you meet with, but not always.
The therapist that I was working with, we didn't really click either, and that's where I wanted to go with my next question. In the section about how to get the most out of therapy, you know, you talk about the importance of doing the work outside of the sessions. I get that -- that's just a general rule of life, for me. You know, you get out of things what you put into them. But later in that section, before you talk about how to know when it's time to end therapy, you say, “If you don't feel like a session went well, tell the therapist.” That was another thing that kind of like stopped me in my tracks because I can think back to individual sessions I had with my therapist that just felt stupid, and I thought, boy, that was a giant waste of time. But it never occurred to me to say, “Hey, therapist, we have got to do something else.” I feel like people who don’t know a lot about therapy might not be ready to challenge their doctor about what is or isn't working. What are your thoughts about that?
I understand it can be completely overwhelming, but I think this is an issue that's pervasive across our medical and mental health system that people aren't willing to stand up to their physicians or their therapists or their nurses. As I mentioned later on in the guide, there is a history of gaslighting of women that they're all hysterical and that type of thing that went on for centuries. I think we put mental health clinicians, therapists, doctors, and nurses on these pedestals because we think they know everything and they don't. I've met a lot of lousy therapists and as clients or patients we need to be able to stand up and say, “This isn't working for me. You're not listening to me.” We should do it in a nice way, of course, but just say, “Hey, what I wanted to work on today was X, but it didn't really seem like we did that. Instead, we talked a lot about Y or Z, and I didn't find it helpful. I'm hoping next time when I come in, we could talk about X, specifically.” Any clinician worth their salt will say, “You know what, I hear what you're saying. Sorry, we didn't address this the way you wanted to today. I will do better. We'll make it a point to start our next session talking about that issue that you want to talk about.” And go from there. But therapists can't read minds. Clients have some responsibility to bring these things up too.
Right. I mean, in my case, it
wasn't a situation where I felt like I was like being taken advantage of or
just flat out not listened to, but I would leave some of the sessions and just
feel like, what did we just do for an hour? There was one in particular where
my therapist put me under hypnosis. That experience was awesome. I really liked
being in that state. I felt really calm, but she was asking me things like what
my happy place was. I think she wanted me to pick something like a sun-drenched
beach or a cabin in the woods, but I was having these weird visions
and seeing colors. I was telling her what I was seeing, but she kept asking me,
“What do you see?” and “Who are you there with?” And I would respond, I'm not
there with anybody.... So, after that, I was like, wow, that was a strange
session. But I never thought to say, "No more hypnosis, please."
Anyway,
you brought up discrimination. I don't have a question about that, but I
thought the section on it in the guide was quite thorough, and I
wanted to mention it that it’s in there and is important.
Yeah, when I wrote the guide, I wanted to talk a little bit about it, but some editors at Razorcake pushed me to go even further with it, and I'm glad that they did because it was originally a much smaller section. So, I expanded it and I think it's important. Like I said in the piece, I could have written a whole guide about discrimination in mental health, but I had to keep [its length] somewhat appropriate. So, yeah, I think it's important.
Definitely. Later, toward the end of the “Becoming a Therapist” section, you write that, over the years, your view of punk has changed to include radical love for people, and in the very beginning of the guide, you mention that putting on shows gave you a foundation for this kind of work. One often hears people who have a punk background talk about bringing a punk sensibility to their work, so I wanted to ask, how, in your experience, have punk and therapy informed one another?
I feel like I've met a lot of people in punk who could use therapy. But I think the big thing that I've been thinking about lately in regard to punk and therapy is, a lot of punk is just asking, “Why?” Why are these systems set up this way? Why is there this injustice, and then, moving on from there, what can we do about it? What are the ways we can fight back? There's a type of therapy called narrative therapy, which I mentioned in the guide, that I've been really interested in lately because the idea with it is that we all have stories we tell ourselves about our lives, and, unfortunately, a lot of the time those stories don't put us in the best light. They cause us to think that we're worthless, or we're dumb, or, we'll always be single or something like that. Narrative therapy asks us to re-frame these stories that we have about our lives and to reassess them. I think punk does that too. Punk looks at society and culture and says, “Why should we accept the status quo?” You look back at the beginning of straight edge: why is it we always have to default to drinking? Why do we accept what politicians say? Things like that. I see a lot of parallels with narrative therapy, so I've been interested a lot more in that type of therapy with my clients because I see so many people telling themselves stories like “I'm always going to be a drunk. There's nothing I can do. My family's always going to hate me.” And it's like, well, why? Where does that come from? Why is that the standard that you've set up for yourself and how can we change that? So that's one way I see the two relating to each other. As far as how therapy affects punk, I feel like therapeutic culture has caused people in punk not to be so shitty as they probably used to be. I was listening to an interview with Henry Rollins and him recounting stories from the '80s of skinheads showing up and people getting in these fights, the police coming out to punk shows, him getting hit in the face with beer cans and getting cigars put out on him. That kind of stuff wouldn't, I don't want to say never happen, but it would be rare for people in punk to treat bands like that, to treat other punks like that. And so, I think there are a lot of punks that have gone to therapy and I feel like there is more acceptance within the punk scene. A lot of those issues aren't seen as much. Not that they're gone, but they’re not around as much.
Yeah, those stories from the old days of punk are downright terrifying. I don't know if I would have been in bands and gone to shows if that's the kind of thing I knew I was in for. I probably would have gone in a different direction.
Yeah, even in the 90s when I was
going to shows there would be fights. There would be people calling other
people out and shit-talking people in the scene. There would be a lot of drama, but
it wasn't anything like that.
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| 18 year-old Kurt singing with Directed Youth. |
I also wanted to ask about your relationship with Razorcake and ask if your therapy background filters into some of the things you do for the magazine?
Yeah. There's this piece I did ... I forget what issue number it was. It was somewhere before issue 100. I was the whole issue. I interviewed four or five different punks about mental health and then wrote an essay. Normally there's like four, five, or six interviews from different people with different bands and stuff, but I did the whole issue. There were columns, obviously, and reviews, and everything, but that was really cool. That happened because we did a whole issue on trans folks in punk, and I was like, “Oh, I wonder if we could do something around mental health and punks.” Todd, the editor, was really up for that. So, yeah, I definitely am able to bring it to the magazine.
Even in my reviews, I think there would have been a time when I was writing a review for a book or a zine or an album where I would have been okay just to shit-talk it. If I didn't like it, I would have just said nothing but shitty things about it. Now, the way I look at it is, if there's criticisms, I want to include those, but I do most of my reviews the same way in that I explain what the thing is, highlight the positives, and then mention any room for growth. I couch it in those terms. Not like, "This is stupid or this stinks.” It's more like, "Here's an area where it could be improved.” I'm critical of things, but not in a negative way, and that's just because you don't have to be mean. We don't have to have the Maximum Rock and Roll attitude anymore of “This is stupid and you suck and this is so dumb.” If something's racist, homophobic, I might go that route, but over my 21 years of writing reviews for Razorcake, that's happened like two or three times. So yeah, just trying to be more kind in a way, but also being critical. That’s another area in Razorcake where I use my therapeutic skills to offer some ways for improvement.
Well, as someone who gets their stuff reviewed, not only in Razorcake but elsewhere as well, I appreciate that. So, in terms of your relationship with Razorcake, what can you tell me about that? When did you start? How did you get involved? Did you start out doing reviews? Did you write something first? What was the process there?
So Razorcake has been around since 2001. It started in January of 2001. I started writing in the summer of 2005. I was already doing zines and writing for online websites, and I was just looking for another place to review music. So, I cold emailed them and Todd, the editor, was like, “Yeah, sure.” And then, they would send me music and then I started reviewing zines and books. As far as features and stuff, every now and then, it's usually like once every few years I'll pitch something because it has to be something I'm really excited about and that would also be a good fit. And then usually Todd's pretty good with it. It goes through several rounds of editing. It's not just like an interview and then it's done. It has to go by a lot of people. So, if I'm doing an interview today, you may not read it in Razorcake until August or September. So, yeah, whenever I have something, I pitch it to them. I've gotten a good feel for what they're looking for after 20 years.
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You get a copy of One Punk's Guide to Therapy via Razorcake here.
You can learn more about Razorcake here.
Kurt also publishes a zine called Room Tone. (I believe he's up to issue 10). You can order current and back issues here.
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