Notes On… Therapy as Camp

Therapy, like camp, is an exaggeration of real life meant to reveal a deeper truth.

It’s a performance of honesty inside a performance of structure.
Earnest and stylized. Sincere, but just a little theatrical.

A client enters the room playing the role they’ve always known:
The Good One.
The Angry One.
The Bitch.
The Broken.
The Healer.
The Villain.

Therapy, like camp, asks:
What happens if we lean into the role just enough to find its seams?
What if we name the costume out loud?
What if we adore its brilliance for keeping us alive, even as we start to peel it off?

Camp, as Susan Sontag said, is a love of artifice.
But in therapy, we don’t cling to the artifice.
We hold it just long enough to understand why it was needed, and then we begin to let it go.

We don’t mock the defense. We bow to its necessity.
We don’t roll our eyes at the dramatics.
We stay with the pain that made them essential in the first place.

In this way, therapy might be the highest form of camp.
Exaggeration used to uncover something unpolished and real.
Stylized survival slowly turning into something unplanned. Unperformed.

A stage where new ways of being are rehearsed, and yes, it’s awkward, extravagant, and genuine.

Camp knows seriousness and absurdity are never far apart. So does good therapy.

The moment someone bursts into tears laughing at their own ancient pattern.
The moment truth slips sideways through a joke.
The moment a client says, “This feels ridiculous,” and we answer, “Yes. And you’re still safe.”

That’s camp.
That’s healing.

Therapy honors the drama without getting swallowed by it.
It lets the performance exist until the performer feels ready to step offstage.

Therapy doesn’t tear off the costume. It lets the client decide. Moment by moment. Layer by layer. To arrive as they are.

And when they do, it’s the most beautiful, subversive, sacred performance of all:
Being human, without apology.