Empathy Economy

How Perverse Incentives Turn Pain into Profit

What if your therapist’s business model depends on you never getting better?

In this hard-hitting exposé, Dr. Hugh Brisbane pulls back the curtain on the mental health industry and reveals how compassion itself has been commodified. From Freud’s “talking cure” to TikTok therapists, the empathy economy has grown into a billion-dollar machine where the incentives reward endless sessions, quick prescriptions, and patient dependence—not healing.

With wit, candor, and deep professional insight, Brisbane dismantles the myths propping up modern therapy and challenges the industry’s sacred cows:

Why the “chemical imbalance” story was more marketing than medicine.

How therapy’s default mode keeps clients circling problems rather than solving them.

Why pharmaceutical profits skyrocket while patient outcomes stagnate.

What a sane, humane, outcome-driven system could look like instead.

But Empathy Economy is not just a takedown—it’s a roadmap to reclaiming sanity. From resilience and personal agency to the four pillars of mental health (sleep, diet, exercise, community), Brisbane offers listeners the tools to build real strength outside the therapist’s office. The message is clear: healing is possible—but not if you outsource your humanity to a professionalized empathy industry.

Bold, unflinching, and ultimately hopeful, Empathy Economy is a rallying cry for patients, professionals, and policymakers alike. It will make you think twice before booking your next session—and inspire you to invest in something far better: real connection, real accountability, and real healing.

©2025 Quicksilver Publishing (P)2025 Quicksilver Publishing

Outstanding! Direct, Actionable, and Earnest

This book was great! It was lightweight and easy to follow, despite the heavy subject matter. Mental health is important to everyone and this book provides an important counterbalance to the dominant narrative.

I highly recommend it!