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‘Rising fragility’: Therapy culture is fueling America’s unrest
The Hill ^ | 21 Jun, 2025 | Jonathan Alpert

Posted on 06/22/2025 5:31:34 AM PDT by MtnClimber

The unrest in Los Angeles isn’t just about politics. It is a symptom of something deeper: a national collapse of resilience.

Behind the protests lies a broader crisis, a fragile mindset that mistakes discomfort for danger, grievance for identity, and emotional reactivity for truth.

New polling reveals a striking psychological divide: 45 percent of liberals report poor mental health, compared to just 19 percent of conservatives. This is not about ideology. It reflects two competing visions of how Americans are being taught to face adversity.

As a psychotherapist practicing in New York City and Washington, D.C., I have seen firsthand how therapy has changed over the years. Once a tool for building resilience and fostering growth, it has increasingly become a system that rewards victimhood and reinforces vulnerability. Today’s therapy culture pathologizes ordinary discomfort as trauma and treats accountability as incompatible with emotional safety.

One woman told me her previous therapist urged her to quit a new job after only one week because it “triggered” her. The real issue was difficulty taking directions. But instead of confronting it, the therapist simply validated her discomfort.

Another patient was told that setting “healthy boundaries” meant cutting off her entire family. No conversation, no healing — just isolation framed as progress.

This is not therapy. It is enabling.

This mindset goes well beyond the therapy room. It spills into classrooms, workplaces, media and now the streets. When people are conditioned to see themselves as perpetual victims and feel aggrieved, that inner turmoil eventually erupts into public unrest.

Take the recent “No Kings” protests, loosely organized around anti-monarchy themes. These demonstrations erupted across major cities without clear demands or coherent goals. They were not political movements, but emotional releases shaped by a culture that values validation over responsibility and reaction over resilience.

In my practice, I see a growing pattern, especially among younger patients. Many now view the world through a rigid binary of safe versus unsafe, oppressor versus oppressed. While that lens may offer clarity, it ultimately stunts growth, fuels anxiety and deepens social division. Emotional strength is mistaken for aggression. Assertiveness is labeled harm. Coping is no longer a virtue.

More concerning, this worldview is being institutionalized. From diversity, equity and inclusion training centered on personal grievance to college campuses where opposing views are treated as psychological threats, we are cultivating a generation that expects the world to adapt to their emotions rather than learning how to adapt to the world.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: fragility; leftism
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To: Savage Beast

Thank you for your testimony.

God is good.


21 posted on 06/22/2025 9:28:55 AM PDT by Bigg Red ( Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.)
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To: redangus
I'm a retired psychotherapist. If I had a client more than 6 months I knew I wasn't doing my job. We would talk about what wasn't working.

Was the client doing his homework? Was I not listening well enough? Could a different therapist better meet the client's needs?

The author is correct that the profession needs to needs to purge itself of the enabling philosophy he describes. Fortunately, there are plenty of us who, like him, are speaking up.

22 posted on 06/22/2025 9:50:42 AM PDT by TexasKamaAina
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To: MtnClimber

Psychoanalysis and its cousin, psychotherapy, arose out of non-Christian sources.

It fails because it does not recognize that evil is real and that some behaviors are sins against the only God, Who created us and our universe.


23 posted on 06/22/2025 5:29:37 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (Think about it: The Supreme Court is nine lawyers appointed for life by politicians. —David Horowitz)
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