The percentage of people that go to therapy increases with each generation with a huge 10% jump from Gen X to Millennial, which should lead to a greater sense of mental and emotional stability. Yet Gen Z reports the highest percentage of mental health issues. Why is this?
At first glance, it does seem contradictory: more therapy creates more awareness, which should mean better mental health. But what we’re actually seeing is something deeper, and a bit uncomfortable.
First, more therapy doesn’t equal less stress. Therapy is not a pill to remove the pain, rather a process to reveal it. Earlier generations often suppressed or ignored mental health struggles. Gen Z, by contrast, is far more emotionally literate and willing to label and openly discuss anxieties. So part of the increase is measurement, not just reality. You can’t report anxiety if you don’t have the language to recognize it.
However, awareness without structure can increase instability. In the Ghost Framework, validation without grounding in reality can be destabilizing. To the point: you deserve validation, but you don’t deserve agreement. Modern therapy culture (and social media therapy) leans heavily into validating feelings and affirming personal truth, but doesn’t pair that with accountability, behavioral change, or the pursuit of objective reality. This can leave people more aware of pain, but less equipped to resolve it. So, the paradigm is not to feel anxious and work through it, rather to put the blame on external factors and remain stuck in that victimization identity.
But let’s not throw around this comment like we don’t all do it. I do this all the time. We all do at some level. The difference is between wanted to recognize it and change and feeling comfortable with the pain of being a victim.
Let’s throw out another reality: Gen Z faces a fundamentally different environment than other generations. So much so that therapy alone cannot offset the implications. Social media, for instance, creates social comparison and identity pressure where a a person must define themselves early and often and perfectly. To make a mistake or have a belief that is outside of the cultural truth is social suicide. Add to that, information overload and a lack of real-world resilience, and Gen Z is hurting.
In my book, Be A Good Little Ghost, I would frame this as a gap between personal truth and objective reality. When your internal narrative isn’t grounded, your mind becomes a “crafty little narrative maker.” That gap fuels anxiety.
Identity has become of thing of fragility and over-centralized on feelings, internal states, and self-concept. But if one thing is true it is this: We lie to ourselves all the time. So, while it sounds empowering, it creates a problem: If your identity is built on how you feel, and your feelings fluctuate or are untrue, then your identity becomes unstable.
Shame and instability come from misidentifying the self.
Therapy, in today’s context, is often seen as an element of relief, not transformation. This is as much a cultural problem as it is an institutional one. Therapy has become a place to vent and be understood instead of a place to identify and change patterns, confront reality, and take uncomfortable action. This is high insight and low transformation.
Healing isn’t just understanding. It requires action and behavioral change.
The common therapeutic insight (which includes social media therapy) becomes a system of more tools and less tolerance for discomfort. So, Gen Z has more language, more access to help, and more emotional tools, but has a lower tolerance for discomfort and a faster escalation to stress and anxiety. If every difficult feeling is a problem, then normal human struggles start to feel pathological.
So what’s really going on? It is actually not that therapy isn’t working, rather Awareness has increased faster than resilience, validation has outpaced structure, and insight has outpaced action. But the path forward isn’t less or more therapy, rather better integration where you can validate your experience, but challenge your narrative. You understand your pain, but build behavior that creates tangible progress. Acknowledge your feelings, but anchor yourself in reality.
The goal is not to feel better, but to become better.
Some stats for you:
- 37% of Gen Z and 35% of Millennials having received mental health treatment, compared to 26% of Gen X
- Generation Z reports the highest rate of mental health issues with 65%, compared to 51% by Millennials and 29% of Gen X.
- Gen Z is more likely than Millennials or Gen X to rate their mental health as poor.