Health,
I am not his therapist, but I do have some common sense.
YOU can tell him what to do, i.e. seek therapy, which I’m not going to disagree with, if his opinion about himself is really so low — I’m not sure he’s not exaggerating it a bit.
However, I know he read your comment already — which I doubt he’ll follow in any case. (You could have been a bit more delicate IMHO, though I don’t know if it would have made a difference.) He didn’t rush to tell you he’ll go ahead with it, although he can do so and chose to keep it private.
I feel I’m allowed to add my two cents of something I think might be helpful with or without therapy.
He’s still free to do as he pleases. If he tries it and doesn’t gain enough from it, he can realize he’s in far too deep and seek therapy then. It was basically a suggestion which I doubt any therapist would disagree with or consider harmful.
I know you are very anti-meddling and believe in leaving everything for the real pros. Problem is many of us don’t seek it out for various reasons. If I was confident he’s planning on therapy I would have shut up. It didn’t seem that way to me.
If you propose a CR intervention, I will go along with it, though it has to be done with proper, PROFESSIONAL guidance.
And Wolfish, I know you’re in the room, hope I didn’t offend you. I felt I needed to defend myself and you are mature enough to “listen in”.