From Chapter Four of the five-part series on Dasani, the child who lives with her parents and seven siblings in a fetid Brooklyn homeless shelter:
Three days later, it is raining as the children spill down Sherry's steps. They are hungry and short on sleep. In theory, they are heading to the thing they most need — psychotherapy. Chanel signed them up after learning that she can reap $10 per child in carfare through Medicaid, at a clinic in the Kensington section of Brooklyn.
I don't doubt that these children might benefit from psychotherapy, but is it really "the thing they most need"? I'd argue that, even more than psychotherapy, they need a better place to live. They could also probably use, more than psychotherapy, higher-functioning parents, but that's harder to make happen. Anyway, it's a kind of classic New York Times editor worldview that of all the things that a child like Dasani and her siblings need, 'the thing they most need" is psychotherapy. Sign the kids up for the Times staff health insurance plan!