Gen Z’s Obsession With Labels is Hurting, not Helping, the Mental Health Crisis
From Personality Quizzes to Chronic Pathologizing
I began to notice Gen Z’s obsession with labels a few years ago, and it led me to wonder where it comes from; it feels like every person I know describes themselves as a people-pleasing, bisexual, introverted empath. We yearn to know if we are more of a Carrie or a Charlotte. While these short, simplified descriptions can help us in-group online, I think the label-frenzy comes from somewhere else. Our search for personal identity replaces our lack of a deep intrapersonal connection in the digital age.
What happens when this search for the self gets into mental health territory?
Gen Z is simultaneously the most mental-health conscious and most mentally ill generation in history. And, no, this isn’t just a result of overrepresentation in diagnoses. According to TIME, “One in eight U.S. adults now takes an antidepressant, and one in five has recently received some kind of mental-health care.” We’ve seen a massive uptick in therapy attendance, one which is especially pronounced in Generation Z. It’s not only this, therapy culture and speak is proliferating throughout pop-culture. We’re a generation utterly steeped in mental-health language. But if we’re surrounding ourselves with the vocabulary to describe our problems and the tools to heal, why is nobody getting better?
It might be that we’ve been conditioned to over-pathologize normal occurrences. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan describes what has become a common internal monologue as “the hysteric’s discourse.” It goes something like this: “Something is wrong, and I demand that someone explain it to me!”
Today, however, this discourse isn’t hysterical as Lacan described. We’re constantly encouraged to turn inwards for answers, to name our trauma, to practice mindfulness. The destigmatization of mental-health conversations and the entire mental-health field plays into our desire to understand ourselves. Victor Dubitans writes:
“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?”
This led me to wonder, are these labels even helping us? It turns out, they often make us worse. Mental health labels have been shown to have somewhat of a “self-fulfilling prophecy effect.” (Science Direct). Diagnostic labels have been proven to exacerbate stigma in the diagnosed person and those surrounding them. Even when symptoms are not actually congruent with the label, or the label is corrected, the perception is often unchanged.
In summation, what happens is that we search for answers. We label and define until we feel calm again. But maybe, just maybe, you don’t need therapy; maybe you need to go to the park and meet a real person. Maybe you need to break the cycle of self-soothing by giving every problem a label.
Diagnosis determines treatment. And while our chronically online generation has the language to self-diagnose, we aren’t equipped to treat ourselves. Even those receiving professional help are in danger of becoming their label. Author and Professor of Clinical Psychology and Applied Science at Bath University, Paul Salkovskis, warns: “Those working with patients with mental illness need to be extremely cautious both in the use of diagnostic labels to describe a patient and mindful of the influence that such labels can have on their own clinical judgements.” In the age of hyper-introspection, especially in terms of our mental health, we might be able to translate this advice to our personal lives.
Though the BuzzFeed quiz purporting that “Everyone Has A Random Disney Personality Twin” and asking you to “Choose Some Multigenerational Songs To Reveal Yours” is tempting, remind yourself that labelling each and every personality trait, no matter how small, could be keeping you stuck on your path to self-fulfillment, not aiding you. Put the iPhone down and go on a walk.
Sources:
https://dsc.duq.edu/middle_voices/vol3/iss1/1/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000169182400297X#s011
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/mental-health-labels-can-do-more-harm-than-good/
https://time.com/6308096/therapy-mental-health-worse-us/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000169182400297X#s0110
