The term “mental health” is now ubiquitous in contemporary cultural parlance. We have a whole month (May, incidentally) dedicated to mental health awareness, modern universities are overrun with students seeking help for mental health struggles, and many workers often take “mental health” days off work.

The question is what this kind of hyperawareness of mental health ends up do to us as a citizenry? Has it made people happier and more mentally prosperous? Perhaps not.

A new paper from the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition claims that popularizing an over-awareness of mental health and illness, particularly among younger people, may not help but actually exacerbate the problem. The following is from the paper’s abstract:

Across theories and explanatory frameworks of concept creep, nocebo effects, prevalence inflation, and illness self-labeling, we identify three common mechanisms through which mental health awareness may unintentionally cause harm. These include (a) lowering the threshold for what counts as a mental disorder, (b) increasing attention to internal states and pathologizing ambiguous experiences, and (c)reinforcing negative expectations and identities over time. 

According to the insights of the authors of the paper, mental disorders need to be thought of in more specific terms, meaning people with ordinary emotional distresses shouldn’t necessarily be thrown into the category of those suffering from genuine mental and psychological disorders. In addition, “pathologizing ambiguous experiences” also makes people with no history of mental illness or proclivity towards it feel like they might be suffering from some medically diagnosable condition. The writer Freya India has written about this at some length in her Substack essay “Nobody Has a Personality Anymore.” She writes,

In a therapeutic culture, every personality trait becomes a problem to be solved. Anything too human — every habit, every eccentricity, every feeling too strong — has to be labelled and explained. And this inevitably expands over time, encompassing more and more of us, until nobody is normal. Some say young people are making their disorders their whole personality. No; it’s worse than that. Now they are being taught that their normal personality is a disorder. According to a 2024 survey, 72% of Gen Z girls said that “mental health challenges are an important part of my identity.” Only 27% of Boomer men said the same.

The writer Matthew Loftus further breaks down the academic study mentioned earlier in a new article for The Daily Wire. In terms of solutions and ways forward, he writes,

Psychiatry and therapy can be lifesaving for people who are suffering from mental health disorders, but therapy culture is downright toxic when it’s applied across the board. Despite good intentions, spreading awareness and widespread screening for psychological problems can cause these problems or make them worse. As Inzlicht and Sandra note, with appropriate caution we can help people who are suffering from mental health disorders without accidentally creating more of them.

Loftus has a new book coming out on this topic later in 2026 called Resisting Therapy Culture: The Dangers of Pop Psychology and How the Church Can Respond. This is taken from the book’s description on Amazon:

We live in an age where “therapy culture” dominates our cultural milieu. Everywhere we look, therapeutic language and psychological concepts are popularized, misapplied, and lose their medical significance. Therapy and psychiatry are good practices, but when people begin to filter everything in life through a therapeutic lens, it becomes harmful rather than helpful.

Mental health is obviously a big and pervasive topic, and I look forward to reading Loftus’s book and the conversation it will generate. With the mental health crisis seeming to get only worse (thanks in large part, no doubt, to digital technology addiction), maybe it will help to reframe what mental illness really is and how to help those who suffer from it, while also putting forward healthier habits for those dealing with more common and manageable emotional distresses.