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On a podcast recently, UFC CEO Dana White compared cancel culture to the 1980s when LGBTs remained “in the closet,” unable to be their true selves. Back then, White argued, coming out could destroy your life. Three decades later, cancel culture is taking a similar toll.
White’s message resonates with millions of people today. It’s also consistent with new data on the subject of free speech and expression. Heterodox Academy just released their 2024 campus expression survey. It found that 45% of students were reluctant to talk about politics. Another study from the Freedom Economy Index found that high percentages of people believe that being “discovered” as a Republican will harm their career.
As a clinical psychologist, I hear stories like this all the time. People are afraid to say what they think at work, at school and even with family. Their fears aren’t baseless. They see people being attacked and don’t want it to happen to them. It could be a financial advisor falsely accused of bias, a teacher disciplined for disagreements about gender ideology, a doctor suspended for an inappropriate tweet. These incidents create a culture of fear. Now, it’s impacting mental health.
And psychologists are noticing.
A few months ago, I received a call from Dean McKay, a clinical psychology professor at Fordham University and an expert in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). He said that in his practice, he’d noticed a new trend. More of his clients are reporting intrusive thoughts (obsessions) about saying or doing things that might get them “cancelled.” They worry constantly about doing something un-PC and then having the mob come after them. This can contribute to avoidance of social situations that might damage their professional and personal lives.
Actually, this phenomenon isn’t all that surprising. Symptoms of mental illness are often shaped by socio-political contexts. In Freud’s day, the focus might have been more on sexual repression. In the Middle Ages, the focus was often steered toward the religious beliefs of the time. Now, people are bombarded by an intensely politicized culture.
Some of this makes sense. If a man has social anxiety, and his workplace has a flurry of accusations of sexism (about jokes, microaggressions and the like), then we would expect his social anxiety to be focused around gender. He’d be prone to excessive worries about sexism accusations, and his symptoms would take shape in that environment.
The same could be true for people with depression, substance use disorders, or anger management issues. The social context of the moment is the when and where of psychiatric symptoms. Beyond providing additional stresses, this context can shape triggers, reactions, coping and even the nature of symptoms themselves.
There are many examples of this type of phenomena. Millions of people, for instance, attend aggressive DEI trainings at work or school. Often, these trainings divide people into subsets based on race or gender, and then they attack one group and praise the others. Sometimes the language is vicious; calling white people “toxic,” “ignorant,” or inherently racist. In some DEI trainings I’ve seen people forced to read an article titled “Whiteness as Pathological Narcissism.”
This type of all-or-nothing framework isn’t just degrading and hurtful. It can lead to anger, anxiety and other psychological problems — both for those who believe in these ideologies and for those who are attacked.
Another example is self-censorship. There’s plenty of reason to believe this negatively impacts mental health. For one thing, self-censorship can cause isolation. Even if someone is well-liked, they’re still alone if no one is aware of their core values, thoughts, or feelings. Over time, this can leave people feeling empty or fake.
There are countless other socio-political issues that impact mental health — from hostility toward traditional religious beliefs, to experiences of anti-white racial aggression, to changing norms around sexual behavior, to the challenges facing young men living in a culture that frequently demonizes masculinity. And these ideologies have crept into nearly every area of life: dating, TV shows, family life, and even churches and synagogues. Take the Unitarian Universalist church website. It leads with pleas for social justice and action on climate and it ends with its support for Black Lives Matter. But what about faith, devotion — God?
As social dynamics have become more extreme, people are increasingly looking for answers. New research is confirming what many already believe: the politicization of culture negatively impacts mental health. Psychology has the potential to offer explanations and provide solutions, such as helping people overcome anxiety about speaking up, or helping folks who disagree have more constructive conversations.
Unfortunately, political bias in the mental health field has prevented it from addressing cancel culture and self-censorship. There’s almost no academic research on these topics. There are essentially no trainings for therapists — and few therapists specialize in addressing these issues. People fearful of social ostracism have almost nowhere to turn for help. If we really care about mental health, this needs to change.
Andrew Hartz, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist based in New York City, and the founder and president of the Open Therapy Institute.