On their press junket, Wicked actresses Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande appeared confused and performatively moved when their interviewer told them that people were “holding space” for the lyrics of the song “Defying Gravity.”
It was a lovingly ridiculous celebrity moment, as neither of them seemed to know what “holding space” meant.
Holding space, a phrase fashionable in therapeutic circles, means being fully present with someone while embodying what psychologist Carl Rogers called “unconditional positive regard”: a non-judgmental relational stance that accepts a person completely as they are.
The phrase was first popularized by author Heather Plett on her blog.
What does it mean to hold space for someone else? It means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they’re on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgement and control.
The moment between Erivo and Grande was ridiculous partly because it was an example of “therapy-speak” gone wild, where therapeutic terms escape their clinical setting and enter wider cultural vernacular in silly ways. As ex-influencer
argues, we’ve reached “peak therapy,” with people casually throwing around (and sometimes weaponizing) phrases like…I need to set boundaries.
I feel unseen.
You’re projecting.
They’re trauma bonded.
He’s a narcissist (and so is everyone else, really).
It’s overused, abused, and basically cringe. But that’s not the worst of it.
The Psychological Man & Bounded Authenticity
In his 1966 book The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud, sociologist Philip Rieff argues that the sacred underpinnings of culture have been undermined and replaced by “the psychological man”: someone reduced to purely psychological understandings of himself and subjected to therapeutic interventions.
The psychological man, to use more modern therapy-speak, aims to live “authentically,” in pursuit of “well-being” and “personal growth.” In reality, he’s vacuous, lacks real depth, and suffers from spiritual necrosis, reduced to a useful idiot for those with the means of mass manipulation.
However, while this critique is a strong one, I find it limited. It fails to account for the fact that many psychological tools used in therapy do work—within context—and offer something far better than what many people are otherwise forced to live with.
captures this tension well in a tweet…
In Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex, another sociologist, Elizabeth Bernstein, introduces the phrase “bounded authenticity” to describe what sex workers do. Those who offer the "Girlfriend Experience" engage in emotional labor with deep acting, bounded within a commercial exchange.
A similar phenomenon is happening in therapeutic sessions, except with holding space instead of sex. It’s not fake; it’s just bounded. And it can be effective in ameliorating loneliness, at least temporarily. There’s a huge market demand for it, for good reason, which explains why therapeutic terminology bleeds into the cultural wild, only to receive understandable blowback, along with a broader sense that all this therapy-speak reflects a sad state of affairs.
A Sad State
Yes, therapy-speak is cringe, and the psychological man, with his need for bounded authenticity, is a poor substitute for sacred-based living.
Yet it still beats what many people are surrounded by: family, “friends,” and co-workers with default NPC-level thinking, terrible listening skills, a tendency to go into “solution mode” and give bad advice, constant one-upping, weird manipulative behavior, and an inability to stop talking (please, shut up). They argue in bad faith and, to risk therapy-speak, are what’s known as “conversational narcissists,” always pointing the proverbial finger back at themselves in conversation.
In essence, many are embedded in communities that are not only communally deracinated, but populated by people who lack the basic social skills to be in a good relationship.
I’m critical of therapy culture, partly because I’ve engaged in my share of it. I’ve personally experienced various therapeutic modalities, such as hypnotherapy, Gestalt, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Focusing, Hakomi, and Jungian therapy.
I’ve actually become something of a psychotherapy hobbyist, investigating many modalities (there are hundreds!), including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and the Bio-Emotive Framework. I’ve also explored coaching approaches, like Neuro-Linguistic Programming (with my good buddy, Tony Robbins!) and the “unfolding coaching” currently popular in online spaces interested in wisdom.
In addition, for four years now, I’ve been doing what could be described as “philosophical counselling”: holding space for someone and their worldview, and reasoning together about what matters most.
Despite my criticism of both therapy and the coaching world—or what I sometimes call the “coaching-industrial complex”—having had others hold space for me, and me for them, has made me a better husband, son, and friend. Overall, it’s made me a better person to be around: more chill, more open-minded, with stronger emotional literacy, and more interested in what’s happening in another’s inner reality.
But yes, it’s understandable to see this kind of relational outsourcing as a sign of the sad state we’re collectively in—where many have to pay others just to have someone hold space for them. Still, I think there’s something even sadder: AI therapy and companionship.
According to a study done by the Havard Business Review, the main use case for AI in 2025 is for therapy and companionship.
While I aim to be judicious of the mass unthinking use of AI that’s underway (see here and here), I’m also sympathetic to why people are running into its arms for emotional support. Therapists and coaches cost money—and a lot of them aren’t very good. Some—especially of the “life coach” variety—are manipulative, pulling you out of your integrity to make the sale (see here). There’s no guarantee you’re going to land a good or ethical space holder, especially when browsing dry Psychology Today profiles or sad-scrolling on Instagram.
I’m not an AI pessimist—I’m an AI realist—and I use AI myself for various tasks. But I refuse to use it for certain things, and I’m “pre-committed” to keeping some practices off-limits to AI—such as holding space, which I argue is one of the key aspects of being a virtuous friend.
Friendships of Virtue
My pet theory is this: professional “space holders”—those who hold space, such as coaches, therapists, and philosophical counsellors—are placeholder roles for a relationship that is largely missing today: friendships of virtue.
These kinds of relationships, as understood by Aristotle, are the rarest form of friendship, contrasted with “friendships of pleasure” and “friendships of utility.” In the former, you relate for pleasure; in the latter, for some kind of benefit. The virtuous friend, on the other hand, is not just in relation with another, but together they relate to a third, higher thing: what is truly good.
There are different kinds of space holders, each of whom I see as “holding” different pieces of the friendship-of-virtue puzzle. I’ve been exploring taxonomies of these roles and appreciated one mentioned by philosophical counsellor
who distinguishes philosophical counsellors from psychotherapists, life coaches, and spiritual guru–disciple relationships—or what I’ll call “guides,” a title I’ve been seeing more often in spiritual circles.Each space holder—at their best—focuses on different things:
Philosophical counsellors help with reasoning prowess, aiming toward wisdom or at least less foolishness.
Psychotherapists help with emotional integration, aiming toward a self-loving individuation.
Life coaches help with well-rounded agency, aiming toward accomplishment in life.
Spiritual guides help with vocational alignment, aiming toward deeper fulfillment.
All engage in inquiry, and these can be said to represent different “inquiry genres.”
We can create a 2x2 to distinguish them: on one axis, half engage in inquiries that are reflective, and the other half in those that are actuating. For the other axis, I’ll use the classic masculine/feminine divide—the masculine being more mindful, focused on propositional truths, and accomplishment-oriented; the feminine being more senseful, attuned to poetic resonances, and relationally oriented.
What I’m suggesting here is that a true friend of virtue embodies all of these aspects: they can reason well, stay with emotional messiness without collapsing or denying it, help practically accomplish things, and sense into one’s deeper calling—offering deep support for it.
I mentioned that I do philosophical counselling, but it didn’t feel entirely true, because I strive to do all of the things above, and I aim to be skilled in each of them.
However, doing so within a market economy proves difficult, because the pressure to “name” yourself and what you do can limit the practice—and attract the wrong people.
Also, holding space is a delicate thing. None of these inquiries will work if one does not hold space first, which is the prerequisite for every kind of inquiry. Ultimately, it means being deeply present to what is, embracing the whole of reality as it presents itself, without imposing one’s theory of the whole onto another, or even needing to have one.
You cannot do this if you feel pressured to keep a client or to force yourself useful to them. While you may be useful at times, sometimes they do not need you to be, and your attempted usefulness can actually harm their development.
A different kind of economy may be needed for friendships of virtue to emerge.
Holding Space Economy
This week has been great.
I asked four people to hold space for me—a shame educator, an IFS therapist, a Socratic counselor, and a TAE coach. Most of these sessions took place outside the market economy—they were either offered as friendly gifts or part of an exchange. A holding space economy, if you will.
Sometimes I need to do this. I engage in inquiries for other people weekly, and Sundays are my days for self-inquiry—where I untangle my existential knots through private journaling. It works for the most part, but sometimes I encounter an issue I can’t seem to address on my own. Stacking my week with people to talk to usually does the trick in helping me become unstuck.
I’m going to lean into this approach more and treat it as a spiritual practice, one that is both mindful and senseful, and aimed at bringing friendships of virtue into the world. With this in mind, I’m opening up a holding space economy.
If you are a therapist, coach, philosophical counsellor, or guide and would like to engage in a friendly exchange, where you hold space for me and I hold space for you, reach out and tell me what inquiry genre and modality you specialize in.
I may not accept all requests, but I’ll be grateful for the offer.
AI is going to disrupt many things. We are in an unpredictable moment. The best currency in these uncertain times is friends of virtue. They just don’t exist yet. We have to create them.
