This NY Times Magazine  article by Malia Wollan has nothing whatsoever to do with therapy, psychiatry, adult ADHD, addiction etc. (you get the picture), but it was fun to read and made me think about different approaches to people feeling better.

Geography matters, but authenticity matters more. Country is honest. Your lyrics should tell your story; no matter how dull it may seem to you, it will be novel to others.  We’re all born different, that’s what we got in common. While lyrics don’t have to be 100 percent factual, they should be based in the particularities of on-the-ground experience. Even someone from Manhattan can write a country song.

If you feel down and you write that down, most of the time it is going to be a country song. Song writing is the best psychiatrist there is, according to Billy Joe Shaver, who started songwriting as a boy in Corsicana, Tex. Shaver, who is now 75 and lives in Waco, sings and plays guitar, but his lyrics are better known coming from the mouths of other performers. Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Elvis Presley have all recorded his work. In the 1970s, Shaver wrote a number of anthems in the rougher, less-polished-than-Nashville subgenre called outlaw country.