The number of Americans receiving some sort of mental or emotional health treatment more than doubled from 2002 to 2024, rising from 27.2 million people to 60 million, a recent Statista article shows. Anxiety and depression are the most commonly cited reasons for seeking treatment. Experts credit this increase to the Covid lockdowns, less stigma attached to seeking therapy, greater awareness of mental health, and a desire for help with specific marriage or relationship problems.

It’s possible, however, that in some circles that therapy is a case of “keeping up with the Joneses.” “I’ve noticed with a lot of people who’ll use their mental health issues—it’s almost like a conversation piece,” 16-year-old Nora says in Abigail Shrier’s “Bad Therapy: Why Kids Aren’t Growing Up.” “It’s almost like a trend.”

Schools from kindergarten to university have driven this increase by emphasizing and providing therapeutic approaches to what were once considered typical problems of youth. “The mental health establishment has successfully sold a generation on the idea that vast numbers of them are sick,” Shrier says. Consequently, “Less than half of Gen Zers believe their mental health is ‘good.’ They do not believe mental health is something that arises typically, in the normal course of a balanced life, but like a boxwood tree, requires constant tending by the gardener you hire to prune it.”

Shrier also points out that therapy can often worsen rather than improve a patient’s mental state. Police officers, for instance, at the site of a plane crash who underwent therapeutic debriefings “exhibited more disaster-related hyperarousal symptoms eighteen months later than those who did not receive the treatment.” Other studies found that support groups can impair rather than improve the moods of breast cancer patients and that “counseling sessions for normal bereavement often make it harder, not easier, for mourners to recover from loss.”

After the death of my wife 20 years ago, a woman I had just met told me about a grief counseling camp for adolescents, commenting that she considered it child abuse if a parent didn’t take advantage of the camp. I said nothing but had no intention of sending my nine-year-old off for some head sessions with his peers and a counselor for a week.

At any rate, revisiting Shrier’s book confirmed my own long-held convictions that disorders like anxiety and non-clinical depression are not root causes but rather symptoms of a deeper affliction, namely the loneliness and isolation so prevalent in American culture.

In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory titled, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” The report cited the large numbers of people who lacked close relationships with others, who “felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant.” It also included studies demonstrating the detrimental effects of this isolation, not just on the mind and our emotions, but on our physical well-being. The report created quite a splash at the time, but then vanished, though the epidemic of loneliness remained.

So here’s a thought: Maybe the sharply rising numbers of people seeking therapy over the last two decades has less to do with individual illness and much to do with what the report calls “societal disconnection,” the breakdown of our human need for conversation, connection, and relationship. In short, we need friends and family members who will listen to us in our times of trouble.

Until the 20th century, Americans lived without professional therapists, yet like us they suffered from anxiety and depression. Infants and young children frequently died from illnesses easily treated today, leaving behind bereft siblings and parents. Workers who lost their jobs were on their own. The adolescent whose mother died in childbirth wasn’t sent to a grief counseling camp.

Instead, in their pain and distress those so afflicted turned to those around them for counseling. Family ties were stronger then, an adhesive made up of blood, shared experiences, and love. Without televisions and screens, neighbors knew one another and could be counted on in a time of need. Many of these family members and friends would have spent far more time talking face to face with other people than we do today, distracted as we are by our phones and fast-paced lives.

Near the end of “Bad Therapy,” Shrier quotes Yale psychiatry professor Charles Barber: “The secret to life is good and enduring intimate relationships and friendships.” To form these relationships, the Surgeon General himself offered this specific advice:

Each of us can start now, in our own lives, by strengthening our connections and relationships. Our individual relationships are an untapped resource—a source of healing hiding in plain sight. They can help us live healthier, more productive, and more fulfilled lives. Answer that phone call from a friend. Make time to share a meal. Listen without the distraction of your phone. Perform an act of service. Express yourself authentically. The keys to human connection are simple, but extraordinarily powerful.

There’s the remedy for much of our brokenness, “a source of healing hiding in plain sight.”

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

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