Did you ever see the Malcolm in the Middle episode where Lois tries to use therapist techniques such as parroting on Malcolm? (S5E15 - page 6
http://www.malcolminthemiddle.co.uk/episodes/transcripts/eng... ) There's another (S2E8) where Malcolm fakes a breakdown so he can get out of a dorky class thing by talking to the school counselor. (Ed: I don't mean this as evidence, just a comedic primer for the general idea.)
I think a lot of people who read HN are in the same pseudo-category. They're smarter than the people they'd talk to. They don't need someone to listen because they can talk/write to themselves--some people find that scary to do, and talking with others is very helpful! And for volunteer things it's incredibly likely a person on HN knows more about psychology than the volunteer and can help themselves more-so by learning about why they feel the way they feel instead of repeating stuff they already say to themselves to a passive listener who may just repeat it back. I think a lot of therapy is about helping people to introspect, but the tech-crowd members tend to do that on their own. I'd rather talk to an actual friend who physically cares (as opposed to abstractly cares like a volunteer or someone you pay) anyway.
