How is it that we are the most knowledgeable society in history pertaining to psychology and the way the brain works yet we’re the most medicated and depressed? Shouldn’t we be further along in our mental health journey as an American society?
We have more people in therapy than ever. Billions of collective dollars have been spent on therapy, therapeutic interventions, intensives, awareness campaigns, studies to help with mental health, and more.
We have more mental health awareness than ever. We have more books, more articles, more videos, more classes, more awareness campaigns, more therapy than any other time in history regarding mental health. Yet, those things don’t seem to be helping. Why?
In reality, the entire culture surrounding therapy and mental health is broken. This culture may push awareness, but it doesn’t push actual mental health. The downfall of therapy culture is due to it giving rise to brokenness culture where it’s “hip” to be broken. “We’re all broken people.”
Brokenness Culture
The awareness campaigns and therapy only served to make people think they are perpetually broken. And it’s here that intersectionality reigns supreme. Those with the most “brokenness” are held up higher than the rest.
In therapy culture, the person diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder is quick to run to TikTok to let people know all about what it’s like to live with BPD. Not only that, maybe they’re non-binary and perhaps they also have a physical disorder as well.
In therapy culture, the more broken you are the more celebrated you are. “I’ve been in therapy for the last decade” isn’t met with concern but with a “Oh wow, good for you.” We just accept that people will be perpetually broken, and DSM-5 diagnoses are the way to solidify this.
Once you’re diagnosed with Major Depressive and put on meds you may have that diagnosis for life. And because we celebrate the various diagnoses, we incentivize staying on the mental health hamster wheel. We’ve incentivized brokenness.
And once you receive that DSM-5 diagnosis, it becomes the ace in the hole. No, they’d never state it as such, but their diagnosis either becomes their excuse for not getting better and staying broken or it becomes their only way to build community with other broken people.
Stay Broken
Therapists are completely to blame for this. Due to lazy therapists who don’t bother to do the tough work, people are quickly diagnosed, put on meds, and told to cope with their issues for life. No one told the client they have hope to completely change their life circumstances because no one bothered to ask how they got there in the first place or helped them establish a path to change.
People long for reasons to explain why their lives are so difficult and too many therapists are happy to give them the easy answer: “You have Borderline Personality Disorder” (or you name the diagnosis). It's the easy explanation and it gives people a reason (read: excuse) to feel broken. Once it becomes a part of their identity, they are then disincentivized to change it.
Find Your Tribe
It also gives them a tribe, a people group they now belong to. People are desperate to put themselves in boxes so someone can understand them, as we see with the Enneagram and Myers Briggs. They want to read up on what all the other 4-Wing-5s are up to and how the rest of the INTJ’s think. They want people to know there are reasons for their mental health struggles, for why they’re broken.
“I’m not awkward, I struggle with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.”
“I’m just an anxious mess because that’s what INFPs are.”
Are we shocked that in a world where divorce is rampant and attachment issues abound we have a bunch of people trying to label themselves so they can finally fit in somewhere?
People are craving to be known. They’re craving to be understood and cared for. Our mental health crisis in America is because people stopped spending time outside surrounded by real friends and swapped it for our dark rooms chatting with online “friends.”
It’s also because an entire generation of parents stopped paying attention to their kids. The latchkey kids of the past grew up struggling to feel like someone would be there for them. The kids whose moms and dads both worked crazy hours and who spent untold amounts of time in daycare grew up thinking their parents didn’t care for them. The children who lived vicariously through the families they saw on TV grew up to find they still only connect with those on a screen.
Medicate and Cope
And what is therapy culture’s answer to this? Medicate and cope. Is that really what the average client needs? Just take some pills and try to avoid the issue? No, they need someone who can help them work through childhood wounds to create a better, more connected future.
The reality is that people are broken. But they don’t have to stay that way. They have been through a lot, but they don’t have to let that define them. They can change and find real solutions. Therapy culture doesn’t offer that. How could it when it incentivizes people to stay broken? It’s not set up to fix the real problems. It only offers cheap solutions meant to mollify the broken masses.
True therapeutic work will force a person to face their dark past before creating a brighter future. It is tougher work but the change is far more sustainable. Until therapy culture stops incentivizing brokenness and starts empowering clients to actually change through real work it will remain a broken system. The only way to reclaim therapy is to start asking the harder questions and for people to seek the deeper answers.