Today's youths are the most anxious, depressed, and medicated generation on record. Those of us in the mental health field must consider what role our work plays in the crisis.
Today's youths have grown up in an era where talking about mental health is more acceptable than ever.This is undoubtedly the result of a convergence of causes. Nevertheless, those of us working in mental health ought not to shy away from asking what role our work plays.
Generation Z—those born roughly between 1997 and 2012—has grown up in an era where talking about mental health is more accepted than ever. Yet paradoxically, they are also the most anxious, depressed, and medicated generation on record. What's going on here?rates among 15- to 19-year-olds from 2000 to 2017 . For the 10-14 age group, the suicide rate nearly tripled from 2007 to 2018 . This behavioral data shows that the mental health crisis isn't just about more awareness or overdiagnosis inflating the numbers—many young people are dangerously unhappy.. Around 2012, when over half of Americans had smartphones and social media became nearly unavoidable, Gen Z’s mental health metrics took a nosedive.But there’s an uncomfortable question we rarely ask: Could the mental health field itself be part of the problem?apps, self-care slogans—these have become the wading pool in which young people play. We've built a culture where everyone is encouraged to look inward, to identify symptoms, to name their, often vague enough to apply to almost anyone. And teens and young adults, fluent in this language, self-diagnose, self-express, and seek treatment in unprecedented numbers.is consistently shown to be effective in outcomes research, but the field of mental health faces a deeper crisis of knowledge. Despite decades of study, no definitive tests exist for conditions like depression, ADHD, or schizophrenia. Psychiatric knowledge often relies on correlation and interpretation rather than causation. Additionally, while therapy is effective, its benefits appear nonspecific—any explicit, systematic approach yields similar results. Given the immature state of the science, psychology is capable of any number of unfalsifiable hypotheses to suggest the cause of the mental health crisis and what might help. However, when a hypothesis cannot be disproven, it holds no greater validity than other unprovable alternatives. Take this worrisome claim: We keep turning to psychological explanations and solutions to fix our distress, but those explanations may themselves be part of what’s making us sick.Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan had a provocative idea. He said modern people increasingly relate to the world through what he called “the hysteric’s discourse.” At its core, it goes like this:It’s a fundamentally human impulse—when we hurt, we want to know why. But here’s the twist: what if the act of constantly asking what’s wrong actually fuels the crisis? What if the search for a satisfying answer keeps us stuck?trauma, brain chemicals, societal stress—it feeds the demand to know. But because these answers can never be complete, they always leave us wanting more. Like the hysteric’s directive, psychological disorders are notoriously persistent. Successful psychiatric or psychological therapies typically lead to remission and effective coping strategies rather than a complete cure. This type of therapy is vulnerable to becoming a loop: something’s wrong with you, we’re not quite sure what it is, but we’ll keep looking—and billing. Meanwhile, the broader culture has changed. We’re no longer repressed Victorians avoiding feelings. We’re oversharing them. Today’s ideal citizen, says philosopher Byung-Chul Han, is no longer the obedient worker, but the endlessly self-optimizing achiever. You’re free—so long as you keep improving, hustling, and “being your best self.” In this context, even mental health can be another source of self-branding. Rather than healing, influencer mental health can just as easily become about managing one’s image, curating one’sNot in despair—but perhaps in a place of honesty. The mental health crisis isn't just about Gen Z, or smartphones, or even trauma. It’s about what it means to be human in a world where we’re constantly asked to perform, compare, and explain ourselves—yet rarely just. And in a system that profits from our dissatisfaction, even our search for healing can be commodified. The solution may not be more awareness, more therapy, or better diagnoses. It may begin with what Lacan called “the cut”: a refusal to keep playing the game on its current terms. In Lacan’s treatment of hysteria, the key was not to rush in with answers, labels, or solutions—but to stay with the question. Lacan believed true healing comes not from naming or fixing the symptom, but from disrupting that demand—what he called “the cut.” This means breaking the cycle of endlessly seeking validation or explanation, and the way that a mental health field can produce this need in offering both validation and explanations, and instead confronting the deeper mystery of desire: not “What’s wrong with me?” but “What do I really want?” From there, Lacan suggests, the goal isn't to cure the symptom but to make peace with it—even to enjoy it—as something that expresses the unknowable, singular truth of who you are.Young people today live in a uniquely disorienting time. But they also carry a rare potential: to rewrite the script. To ask new questions not just about their symptoms, but about the world that keeps producing them. And maybe, to begin finding ways of being that don’t rely on endless self-scrutiny—but on real connection, creative freedom, and the kind of meaning that can’t be found in an algorithm or a diagnosis.. United States: Stanford University Press. Miron O., Yu K.H., Wilf-Miron R., Kohane I.S."Suicide Rates Among Adolescents and Young Adults in the United States, 2000-2017." JAMA. 2019 Jun 18;321:2362-2364.Life never gets easier. Fortunately, psychology is keeping up, uncovering new ways to maintain mental and physical health, and positivity and confidence, through manageable daily habits like these. How many are you ready to try?Self Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist? Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
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