Therapeutic treatment for mental conditions involves interaction with one’s sadness, whatever may have caused it. In group therapy, patients listen and theorize with others about their sadness. In individual therapy, patients rehearse their own sadness, often for months and even years at a time. In both cases, the focus is on looking within. This, Shrier argues, “can hijack our normal processes of resilience, interrupting our psyche’s ability to heal itself, in its own way, at its own time.”  Also, therapists can be incentivized to continue treatment after a patient feels better. As Shrier wrote, “It’s in therapists’ interest to treat the least sick for the longest period of time.”  

This year’s World Happiness Report contained surprising news. Despite the near universal presence of social media, which studies show strongly correlates to depression and anxiety, there’s been an uptick in happiness for people under 30 in several non-English-speaking countries. English-speaking countries, on the other hand, have experienced a palpable drop in happiness.  

In the Atlantic, Derek Thompson suggested that one cause of this drop could be the western world’s increased focus on mental health. In the past few decades, English-speaking countries, especially America, have been inundated with terminology and conversations around personal “wellbeing” and “self care.” In fact, between 1952 and 2016, the leading handbook for psychological disorders grew by 200 new terms, an increase of not only new words but new mental difficulties.  

Mental health has also become a focus of broader culture. Many TikTok celebrities regularly “open up” about their personal mental health struggles. Teachers often spend as much time instructing students in therapeutic techniques as in mathematics, and parents are quicker to turn to counselors than to pastors. 

And so, the generation that has been most fed on therapy, wellness techniques, and “gentle parenting” is also the generation most burdened with depression, anxiety, and mental health disorders. All the discussion around mental health, Thompson argues, may be prompting excessive introspection. Also, an under-30 crowd that has been engulfed in these new cultural norms is more likely to interpret typical swings of emotions as signs of the “psychological disorders” that they hear so much about. 

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