Roughly one-eighth of the world’s population suffers from some form of mental illness. When factoring in the parents, spouses, children, co-workers and friends of the sufferers, practically no one is entirely free from its effects.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) presents the challenge in stark terms. “Research shows that mental illnesses are common in the United States, affecting tens of millions of people each year.” Even more striking is its finding that “Estimates suggest that only half of people with mental illnesses receive treatment.”
The Lancet Study
Last May, the British medical journal The Lancet published a massive study compiled over thirty-three years (1990-2023). Three statistics describe the current trend. The first is that there are 1.17 billion cases of mental illness worldwide, out of a total population of 8.2 billion. The second is that this number is up by 95.5 percent over 1990. Within that statistic, the increased rates of anxiety and depression stand at 158 percent and 131 percent, respectively. The third trend is that the most affected group is female, aged 15 to 19 years old.
In an article covering the Lancet study, CNN quoted Dr. Robert Trestman, chair of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at Virginia Tech’s School of Medicine. “If you take a step back and look at the conditions in which people are living, it’s sadly not surprising. ” Dr. Trestman listed several factors he believes cause the illnesses.
However, his list reads like a leftist manifesto, including “genetics, economic instability, trauma, inadequate or unaffordable healthcare, political conflict and instability, warfare, food insecurity, intimate partner violence, body image issues, discrimination, declining social connection, environmental threats and more.”
Dispelling the Fog
Most of these factors have existed for millennia. People have always had to deal with survival, which involves genetics, poverty, economic instability, food insecurity, and inadequate healthcare. The difficulties of living together in society result in discrimination, environmental threats, political conflict and political instability.
However, many items on the list—food insecurity, inadequate healthcare and environmental threats—have actually improved in recent years with advances in technology and agricultural methods. Only four factors on the doctor’s list are growing significantly worse today—trauma, intimate partner violence, body image issues and declining social connection.
Factors and Processes
The American Psychological Association defines trauma as “Any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning.” The definition includes both human and natural causes. In that context, intimate partner violence is a subset of trauma. Body image declines when someone, usually an adolescent, sees everyone that they care about as being more attractive than they are. This creates a complex set of emotions that often leads to catastrophic interpersonal decisions. Declining social connections occur when someone sharply restricts their contacts with other people.
All these worsening causes have existed since time immemorial. Five modern processes increase both the frequency and severity of mental disease. They are:
- Mass media—The birth of the recording and motion picture industries and later the Internet introduced suggestive lyrics, gratuitous violence and pornography into people’s lives and therefore causing psychological stress and trauma.
- Social media—Interactive social media accelerated the pace and impact of harmful material in people’s lives, creating anxieties about how others perceive them.
- The Sexual Revolution—the disruptive revolution in the sixties that destroyed social norms and the individual’s defense against the unrestrained passions. This philosophy has spawned almost unlimited forms of selfishness, leaving many individuals, families, and communities in its wake.
- The Culture of Death—Two related effects of the sexual revolution were artificial contraception and abortion. These have, in turn, spawned a decreased reverence for human life, per se, and for the lives of children and the elderly in particular.
- Isolation from God—Each of the above developments removed God and long-established religious doctrines from society. It inevitably took away meaning and purpose from people’s lives. This created a sense of futility and anomie that eventually caused people to see themselves as wounded, broken or even worthless.
The Spread of Mental Disease—And God’s Path Away From It
Each process contributes to one or more factors cited above. Viewed from this perspective, the increase in mental disorder that the Lancet describes becomes all too understandable.
Thus, the mental health crisis is not just a medical condition but a moral problem. The natural and supernatural defense mechanisms that help people cope with life’s difficulties are no longer present. Each person is left to face life alone, which is a terrifying perspective.
Modern society, which promised happiness, now delivers depression and anxiety. Mass media and social media cannot fill the void.
Things work when they function according to their nature. Thus, humanity’s social nature requires that individuals live in a society that facilitates virtue. People will, however, find true happiness only when they work toward their final end in God. Until then, depression and anxiety will reign. Maintaining mental health is a difficult task, but with the help of God’s grace, it is possible. Indeed, life itself—both here and in the world to come—depends upon it.
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