When I lost my Christian faith at the age of 15, therapy culture and far-left ideology swooped in to fill the void (Tumblr was the medium). I’m grateful for CBT techniques and the meditation practice I picked up along the way, and I’m still in therapy now (IFS). But I cringe when I witness fellow liberals treating therapy like it’s a metaphysical framework with which to interpret the world. Because that used to be me!
Advances in the field of mental health have been objectively great for many people suffering from psychological issues. The problem is when therapy masquerades as the transcendent, the alpha and the omega, the point of it all.
I see the cause as a confluence of our cultural woes: hyper-individualism, hyper-immanence, high expectations of consumerist comfort, and intellectualism winning out over the mysteries of the heart and body. And liberals fall prey to it more easily because 1) our focus is more national/global, outside our locus of control, which makes us feel helpless and small, and 2) our belief in immanence over the transcendent fails to relieve us of any spiritual burdens. So we seek comfort where we can find it.
For all my critiques about my Southern Baptist upbringing (and there are many), religion/spirituality is better than medicine/science in making sense of our souls and comforting us in our pain.
Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of thinking and writing about the mental health implications of differing political ideologies. In general he posits that ideologies foregrounding an external locus of control (i.e., victimhood) have much poorer mental health outcomes than ideologies centering an internal locus of control (ie self reliance and resilience.).
Traditionally progressives have ceded much more agency to social forces rather than individual action and look to society for solutions. This can coincide with or even encourage feelings of helplessness and resentment. Not good for mental health.
Conservatives are often associated with self reliance but I don’t think that really applies to MAGA which is much more focused on grievance politics. According to Haidt’s theory, MAGA conservatives should also be experiencing a decline in mental health.
How much did you consider that conservatives are more likely to lie about their mental health? The people who say depression isn't real, are mostly conservative, and would never check a box that says anything close to "I'm depressed." In my own life I've seen these type of conservatives show several signs of poor mental health all while maintaining the belief that mental health is basically made up, they pretty much lie to themselves about their mental state.
Also, if it were the case that "therapy culture" was bad for mental health, that wouldn't say anything about therapy itself, maybe I missed it but I didn't see a question on the survey "do you go to therapy?" but that may be because Richard is familiar with the evidence for therapy's success.
There is a certain difference between self-awareness and neurotic self-consciousness just as there is a difference between positivity and "ignorance is bliss."
Would be interesting to look cross-culturally or cross-temporally too. My sense is that the association of left wing political beliefs with therapy culture is relatively spatiotemporally localized. Is it just the contemporary anglosphere? Were French leftists in the 80s believers in therapy culture? I'm not sure, but your theory predicts that if we go to times/places where the association doesn't exist, then left wing political beliefs should be less strongly correlated with poor mental health. Strikes me as plausible, though I don't know if good data exists to test.
I agree with RH's take here - I agreed with it before I saw the survey data. But I think there can sometimes be multiple effects in play, and one of them I theorize is that conservatives essentially lie or embellish the degree to which they are happy/content in life - at least in a relative sense to liberals.
Growing up Southern Baptist, there was a strong push by leaders in the chuch for members to claim that because we knew Jesus, we were happy all the time. In fact, there is literally a children's worship song I recall where the lyrics said that because I found Jesus I was hap-hap-happy all the time!
But I think that this is actually a bigger more society-wide thing that affects more than just one denomination. Conservatives religious people are under enormous pressure both internally and externally to claim that they made the right choice, believed in the right version of God, live in the right kind of family, had the right number of children, etc.
Essentially, the social incentive framework for conservatives is inverse to that of liberals. While Liberals are incentivized to celebrate their own fragility, their mental health problems, depression, victimization, doomerism, etc. Conservatives, particularly religious ones, are incentivized to do the opposite, even if they don't really feel it - to be tough, independent, resilent, absolute certainty, etc.
So that is why I don't think we can 100% trust conservatives when they say they are happy and doing great. Because there is significant shame for them in not being happy and doing great. Just like admitting that sometimes you don't feel like God is there means that you are an evil sinful backslider that has lost his salvation.
" If more purely physical health outcomes can be shaped by expectations", i think you wrong about this, palcepo effects have thier biggest impact on subjectively reported symptoms, placepo has not been showed to effect objective health measures like mortality rate or cancer progression.
also one important variables missing in your survey is urban vs rural, general health status.
I appreciate that Hanania somewhat separates therapy itself from therapy culture, as the former existed for a long time before the explosion of the latter. Can we imagine a version of therapy that is less fundamentally left-wing or liberal? It seems to me that part of the problem is that the field of therapy has become captured by an ideology which is not necessarily essential to it. I've heard anecdotes from more conservative people who consider or even try therapy but find the environment unwelcoming or discouraging of real honesty. The same goes for those studying to become therapists. There have been and still are conservative therapists and clients; I would be curious to see what their perspectives would reveal.
Freya India has made some insightful commentary on the degree to which therapy culture and therapists often pathologize conservatism itself. Many clients are encouraged to always prioritize their own needs, set "boundaries" which amount to willfully estranging themselves from friends and family, and taught that there are real solutions and fulfillment waiting for them if they can just journey deeper into themselves, and take some pills while they're at it. If a devout Christian housewife and mother of five went to a therapist in the nearest big city, she would likely be encouraged to question the fact that she considers her duty to her husband, children, family, and God more important than fulfilling than any of her own interests or needs. If she decided that is her genuine desire, or even refused to frame her lifestyle in those terms, would that be accepted? Or would her therapist secretly think of her as a pathetic victim?
Therapy is inherently individualistic to a degree, but I imagine we can cultivate a version of it which more effectively teaches people to turn toward their family and community, take responsibility for their choices, seek purpose beyond simple "happiness," etc. without denying the existence of certain mental health challenges and treatments outright.
Wendy Kaminer wrote about this topic way back in 1992, in her prescient book, "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional". Her focus was more on self-help than on therapy per se, but many of her observations hold true for the mental health industry as a whole.
Therapy culture has a massive negativity bias and encourages people to think about all the bad things in their life more than they would naturally (e.g. trauma). If this doesn't make people genuinely feel worse, it at least makes them report worse moods.
This is a very helpful and well-done study. I can use some of this in my own classes. It has been clear to me for some time that my college students (especially the female liberal ones) adore therapy culture. When I talk about mental disorders and mental health, I always have to preface tit with "please don't feel that you have to reveal or share of your own personal situation", because so many are desperate to 'confess' to the severity of their various 'disorders'. I came to see that they are really proud of their disorders, to such an extent that it becomes a distraction to the lesson plan.
So, your findings make an intuitive sense to me. But I think it important to recognize that 'belief in therapy culture' is itself a natural product of liberalism. Therapy really takes over the sacramental needs of the population living in a modern, secular, agnostic culture. If one believes that religion is central to human nature (as I do), then those basic needs do not magically disappear. Ideology replaces theology, but it does so rather poorly. The need for forgiveness, alleviation of guilt, of the desire for the sacred go unmet. Psychology was created in part to address those needs of the soul (psyche), but psychology is fundamentally a shallow replacement of sacramental needs.
If you looked at the pretty shocking APA clinical guidelines for the treatment of boys and men you would run a hundred miles. Especially given the contrast with the same document for girls and women which is a victimology fest.
Our social environment is not neutral when it comes to our mental health.
What if our social, political and economic environment is structured such that conservative individuals experience a greater sense of coherence and belonging (I would argue it is)? If one believes humans are meant to live collectively and cooperatively, rather than individually and competitively, the world is a more hostile place.
That doesn't explain this result, that the effect of politics on mental health mostly vanishes when you take therapy culture into account. You could rescue this theory by saying liberals experience less coherence and belonging which causes them to turn to therapy (perhaps because they have nobody else to talk to) and therapy culture in turn causes them to report worse moods. But even then, if Richard's data can be generalized, the effect on mood reporting would be mostly caused by the therapy culture, not the isolation itself.
When I lost my Christian faith at the age of 15, therapy culture and far-left ideology swooped in to fill the void (Tumblr was the medium). I’m grateful for CBT techniques and the meditation practice I picked up along the way, and I’m still in therapy now (IFS). But I cringe when I witness fellow liberals treating therapy like it’s a metaphysical framework with which to interpret the world. Because that used to be me!
Advances in the field of mental health have been objectively great for many people suffering from psychological issues. The problem is when therapy masquerades as the transcendent, the alpha and the omega, the point of it all.
I see the cause as a confluence of our cultural woes: hyper-individualism, hyper-immanence, high expectations of consumerist comfort, and intellectualism winning out over the mysteries of the heart and body. And liberals fall prey to it more easily because 1) our focus is more national/global, outside our locus of control, which makes us feel helpless and small, and 2) our belief in immanence over the transcendent fails to relieve us of any spiritual burdens. So we seek comfort where we can find it.
For all my critiques about my Southern Baptist upbringing (and there are many), religion/spirituality is better than medicine/science in making sense of our souls and comforting us in our pain.
I see you already made the same point as my comment. I should have read it first before writing my own. Apologies.
Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of thinking and writing about the mental health implications of differing political ideologies. In general he posits that ideologies foregrounding an external locus of control (i.e., victimhood) have much poorer mental health outcomes than ideologies centering an internal locus of control (ie self reliance and resilience.).
Traditionally progressives have ceded much more agency to social forces rather than individual action and look to society for solutions. This can coincide with or even encourage feelings of helplessness and resentment. Not good for mental health.
Conservatives are often associated with self reliance but I don’t think that really applies to MAGA which is much more focused on grievance politics. According to Haidt’s theory, MAGA conservatives should also be experiencing a decline in mental health.
My theory about conservatives basically lying/embellishing in these survey's could explain this.
Great point — strongly agree
How much did you consider that conservatives are more likely to lie about their mental health? The people who say depression isn't real, are mostly conservative, and would never check a box that says anything close to "I'm depressed." In my own life I've seen these type of conservatives show several signs of poor mental health all while maintaining the belief that mental health is basically made up, they pretty much lie to themselves about their mental state.
Also, if it were the case that "therapy culture" was bad for mental health, that wouldn't say anything about therapy itself, maybe I missed it but I didn't see a question on the survey "do you go to therapy?" but that may be because Richard is familiar with the evidence for therapy's success.
There is a certain difference between self-awareness and neurotic self-consciousness just as there is a difference between positivity and "ignorance is bliss."
Would be interesting to look cross-culturally or cross-temporally too. My sense is that the association of left wing political beliefs with therapy culture is relatively spatiotemporally localized. Is it just the contemporary anglosphere? Were French leftists in the 80s believers in therapy culture? I'm not sure, but your theory predicts that if we go to times/places where the association doesn't exist, then left wing political beliefs should be less strongly correlated with poor mental health. Strikes me as plausible, though I don't know if good data exists to test.
I agree with RH's take here - I agreed with it before I saw the survey data. But I think there can sometimes be multiple effects in play, and one of them I theorize is that conservatives essentially lie or embellish the degree to which they are happy/content in life - at least in a relative sense to liberals.
Growing up Southern Baptist, there was a strong push by leaders in the chuch for members to claim that because we knew Jesus, we were happy all the time. In fact, there is literally a children's worship song I recall where the lyrics said that because I found Jesus I was hap-hap-happy all the time!
But I think that this is actually a bigger more society-wide thing that affects more than just one denomination. Conservatives religious people are under enormous pressure both internally and externally to claim that they made the right choice, believed in the right version of God, live in the right kind of family, had the right number of children, etc.
Essentially, the social incentive framework for conservatives is inverse to that of liberals. While Liberals are incentivized to celebrate their own fragility, their mental health problems, depression, victimization, doomerism, etc. Conservatives, particularly religious ones, are incentivized to do the opposite, even if they don't really feel it - to be tough, independent, resilent, absolute certainty, etc.
So that is why I don't think we can 100% trust conservatives when they say they are happy and doing great. Because there is significant shame for them in not being happy and doing great. Just like admitting that sometimes you don't feel like God is there means that you are an evil sinful backslider that has lost his salvation.
" If more purely physical health outcomes can be shaped by expectations", i think you wrong about this, palcepo effects have thier biggest impact on subjectively reported symptoms, placepo has not been showed to effect objective health measures like mortality rate or cancer progression.
also one important variables missing in your survey is urban vs rural, general health status.
I appreciate that Hanania somewhat separates therapy itself from therapy culture, as the former existed for a long time before the explosion of the latter. Can we imagine a version of therapy that is less fundamentally left-wing or liberal? It seems to me that part of the problem is that the field of therapy has become captured by an ideology which is not necessarily essential to it. I've heard anecdotes from more conservative people who consider or even try therapy but find the environment unwelcoming or discouraging of real honesty. The same goes for those studying to become therapists. There have been and still are conservative therapists and clients; I would be curious to see what their perspectives would reveal.
Freya India has made some insightful commentary on the degree to which therapy culture and therapists often pathologize conservatism itself. Many clients are encouraged to always prioritize their own needs, set "boundaries" which amount to willfully estranging themselves from friends and family, and taught that there are real solutions and fulfillment waiting for them if they can just journey deeper into themselves, and take some pills while they're at it. If a devout Christian housewife and mother of five went to a therapist in the nearest big city, she would likely be encouraged to question the fact that she considers her duty to her husband, children, family, and God more important than fulfilling than any of her own interests or needs. If she decided that is her genuine desire, or even refused to frame her lifestyle in those terms, would that be accepted? Or would her therapist secretly think of her as a pathetic victim?
Therapy is inherently individualistic to a degree, but I imagine we can cultivate a version of it which more effectively teaches people to turn toward their family and community, take responsibility for their choices, seek purpose beyond simple "happiness," etc. without denying the existence of certain mental health challenges and treatments outright.
Wendy Kaminer wrote about this topic way back in 1992, in her prescient book, "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional". Her focus was more on self-help than on therapy per se, but many of her observations hold true for the mental health industry as a whole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Dysfunctional,_You%27re_Dysfunctional
Kind of cool to have real social science done in public on Substack. Yay regressions!
Therapy culture has a massive negativity bias and encourages people to think about all the bad things in their life more than they would naturally (e.g. trauma). If this doesn't make people genuinely feel worse, it at least makes them report worse moods.
This is a very helpful and well-done study. I can use some of this in my own classes. It has been clear to me for some time that my college students (especially the female liberal ones) adore therapy culture. When I talk about mental disorders and mental health, I always have to preface tit with "please don't feel that you have to reveal or share of your own personal situation", because so many are desperate to 'confess' to the severity of their various 'disorders'. I came to see that they are really proud of their disorders, to such an extent that it becomes a distraction to the lesson plan.
So, your findings make an intuitive sense to me. But I think it important to recognize that 'belief in therapy culture' is itself a natural product of liberalism. Therapy really takes over the sacramental needs of the population living in a modern, secular, agnostic culture. If one believes that religion is central to human nature (as I do), then those basic needs do not magically disappear. Ideology replaces theology, but it does so rather poorly. The need for forgiveness, alleviation of guilt, of the desire for the sacred go unmet. Psychology was created in part to address those needs of the soul (psyche), but psychology is fundamentally a shallow replacement of sacramental needs.
If you looked at the pretty shocking APA clinical guidelines for the treatment of boys and men you would run a hundred miles. Especially given the contrast with the same document for girls and women which is a victimology fest.
Our social environment is not neutral when it comes to our mental health.
What if our social, political and economic environment is structured such that conservative individuals experience a greater sense of coherence and belonging (I would argue it is)? If one believes humans are meant to live collectively and cooperatively, rather than individually and competitively, the world is a more hostile place.
That doesn't explain this result, that the effect of politics on mental health mostly vanishes when you take therapy culture into account. You could rescue this theory by saying liberals experience less coherence and belonging which causes them to turn to therapy (perhaps because they have nobody else to talk to) and therapy culture in turn causes them to report worse moods. But even then, if Richard's data can be generalized, the effect on mood reporting would be mostly caused by the therapy culture, not the isolation itself.