September 2025

It started with good intentions. The rise of mental health awareness gave language to feelings we couldn’t name, made vulnerability socially acceptable, and encouraged people to seek help without shame. We normalized the idea that it’s okay to not be okay, to the point where saying you have therapy is now like saying you have a dentist appointment. And it’s largely a positive thing — until it isn’t. A well-meaning movement has, in many corners of culture, been stretched, misapplied, and meme-ified into absurdity. 

We call it ‘Mindflation’: a cultural phenomenon where the value of mental health language has been so diluted by misuse and commodification that it risks undermining the very cause it was meant to support. Like inflation in economics, more isn’t always better — sometimes, it just means everything is worth a little less. When everything becomes trauma, nothing is. When everyone’s a therapist, no one is. When mental health is everywhere, it becomes virtually invisible.  

This isn’t a rallying cry for regression. The very real need for accessible mental health support remains, especially in under-resourced regions where mental illness is still taboo. But in cultures where the pendulum has swung too far — particularly in parts of North America, Western Europe, and urban Asia — we need to talk about how we talk about mental health. 

Over the past five years, therapy-speak has escaped the clinician’s office and infiltrated mainstream culture. This has largely been fueled by social media, where pop psychology influencers (not to be confused with actual psychologists) have become the new clergy. Gen Zers are regularly sharing Reels about “navigating generational trauma” between makeup tutorials and Shein hauls; TikTok videos breaking down dating behavior through the lens of attachment theory have amassed millions of views; and unlicensed creators are providing ADHD-checklists that could describe pretty much anyone under stress. 

This explosion in therapy speak has created a dangerously low barrier to entry for self-diagnosis. What used to require a licensed assessment is now determined by whether or not you relate to a 30-second video. According to a study by Plushcare, the vast majority (83.7%) of mental health advice on TikTok is misleading, often portraying common human behaviors like forgetfulness or social anxiety as symptoms of neurodivergence. If you stare at your feet you’re not shy, you’re probably autistic. If you’re always late it’s not cause you need to work on your time management skills, it’s cause you have ADHD. Serious clinical conditions are now being tossed around like astrology signs. 

Research backs this up. In a paper published in 2023, two psychologists at the University of Oxford coined the term “prevalence inflation” — driven by the reporting of mild or transient symptoms as mental health disorders — and suggested that awareness campaigns were contributing to it. Overcoming this will require a counternarrative that re-normalizes the normal. Not every bad day is a depressive episode, and not every anxious moment is an anxiety disorder. 

Mental health conditions — whether professionally-diagnosed or not — have started to double as quirky personality traits. We’ve gone from discussing our psychological struggles in hushed tones to glamorizing them online under the guise of “celebrating individuality.” According to a 2024 survey, 72% of Gen Z girls said that “mental health challenges are an important part of my identity.” Only 27% of Boomer men said the same. 

The hit Hulu show English Teacher brilliantly comments on this through comedy. In one episode, a high school student named Kayla diagnoses herself with “asymptomatic Tourette’s” — literally making the fake disease her entire identity in order to gain sympathy and popularity. Her classmates decide to rename the disorder KS for “Kayla Syndrome,” and she’s crowned Homecoming Queen as a sign of support for her struggle.  

An even more troubling side effect of Mindflation is the glorification of trauma. This is being amplified on social media, where marketing your pain has become the quickest way to appeal “real.” From TikTok creators building entire brands around their anxiety, to influencers capitalizing on depression as an aesthetic, vulnerability has become a digital commodity. 

There’s a point where this hyper-awareness starts to backfire. When every emotion is scrutinized and every setback pathologized, we risk creating a generation so fluent in their diagnoses that they forget how to live outside of them. In this climate, victimhood becomes the default lens. People preemptively explain their reactions as symptoms. And they describe themselves in terms of what’s been done to them, not what they’ve done to overcome it.  

Isaac Ahuvia, a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook University, recently tested this in a study of 1,423 college students. Twenty-two percent of students “self-labeled” as having depression, but 39% met the diagnostic criteria for depression. He found that the students who self-labeled felt that they had less control over depression, were more likely to catastrophize, and were less likely to put their difficulties in perspective, compared to their peers who had similar symptoms. Similarly, psychologists are already sounding alarms over kids internalizing diagnoses so deeply that it limits their sense of agency, like saying they’re too depressed to try in school. 

A better model would be one that puts accountability and agency at the center of mental health strategies. One promising example can be found in the Trauma-Informed Resilience-Oriented Schools Toolkit, which offers school-wide frameworks for fostering greater resilience, self-awareness, and coping skills. Instead of pathologizing students, it empowers them to overcome their trauma and alter the course of their life for the better. A similar approach could be implemented across workplaces, parenting styles, and private therapy practices going forward — encouraging people to understand their patterns without hiding behind them. 

Over-therapizing doesn’t just affect us on a personal level — it’s having a very real effect on our relationships. With a growing emphasis on self-protection over connection, relationships are increasingly being governed by checklists, labels, and emotional boundaries that can feel more like walls. 

We see this in how the mental health lexicon has been hijacked to dodge anything uncomfortable. A difficult friend is automatically a narcissist. Any disagreement is gaslighting. Cancelling plans last-minute is “protecting your peace.” But these interpretations disregard the fact that friendship is inherently inconvenient. It involves sacrifice, messiness, and showing up even when you don’t feel like it. 

Creators on TikTok are starting to call this out. Chelsea Fagan, CEO of The Financial Diet, put it best in a stitched video commenting on how people have become afraid to ask friends for small favors. “The way we often talk about mental health and self-care now is so hyper-individual that it’s basically antagonist to the concept of community,” she explains. “I think that mental health talk is pushing us toward a world where we all have perfect boundaries and no real friends.”  

In another video that’s been viewed over 1.3 million times, a woman tells a story of how her over-therapized friends ghosted her after she covered their meals on a trip because they were tight on money. “They said, ‘The way that you paid for everything was manipulative. You don’t serve me anymore’,” she recalled in the TikTok. “Almost 20 years of friendship down the drain.” The comments are full of people sounding off similar experiences. 

While boundaries are important, a culture that overanalyzes emotional transactions can breed isolation. We stop giving people grace. We stop growing through conflict. We stop doing the very things that meaningful relationships require. 

This lack of tolerance becomes even more concerning when you consider the rise of AI relationships. According to a new study by Common Sense Media, almost a third of American teenagers find chatting to AI companions on platforms like Character.AI and Replika to be equally or more satisfying than speaking with their friends. A big part of the appeal? Unlike human friends, AI ones are eager to please, programmed to avoid conflict, and will tell you exactly what you want to hear.  

Reversing this pattern starts with normalizing relational conflict from a young age. Inspiration can be found at Ashgrove and Bardon State Schools in Brisbane, where a new program called UR Strong is helping students understand what healthy friendships look like and giving them tools to handle disagreements. Staff teach the kids how to distinguish “friendship fires” (natural clashes) from deliberate bullying, and students learn emotional regulation skills and self-advocacy rather than simply being labeled as victims. The result has been improved communication, stronger peer-to-peer relationships, and a culture of accountability. 

Thankfully, more experts are starting to raise the red flag and point out where awareness has gone too far. The Swiss podcast “100 Sekunden Wissen” takes a closer look at why the term “trauma” is being used more frequently and what the harmful consequences may be; the 2024 book Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up investigates how overdiagnosis is harming, not helping, children; and psychiatrists like Dr. Jared Ng are re-normalizing the normal by reminding people that not every bad day is a depressive episode. Outside of the industry, the weaponization of therapy language is also becoming a punchline on TikTok, with several creators making skits that poke fun at the overuse of words like “projecting” and “gaslighting.” 

But don’t be mistaken — this isn’t a call to shut up about mental health. Despite the noisy distractions, the core of the mental health movement remains vital. According to the World Health Organization, nearly one billion people globally live with a mental disorder, yet over 85% receive no treatment. The resource gap is especially stark in low-income regions. Africa has 1.4 mental health workers per 100,000 people, a dismal figure compared to the already low global average of nine workers per 100,000 people. And in Southeast Asia, which has the highest regional suicide rate of 17.7 per 100,000 people, mental health systems remain patchy and culturally constrained. 

All the cultural chatter isn’t necessarily translating to real solutions in rich nations, either. In the U.S., about 60% of people in who attempt suicide still don’t receive mental healthcare. In the U.K., nearly 1.7 million people were waiting for community mental health care at the end of last year. 

The goal isn’t to shove mental health back in the closet — it’s to put it back in its rightful context. We do need more resources, more access to treatment, and more open dialogue. But we also need a cultural recalibration that honors the seriousness of mental illness without diluting its meaning. As the pendulum starts to swing back toward the middle, we’ll see the start of a more conscious and credible conversation led by actual experts.  

For the long list of brands that have joined the Mindflation parade — either by using therapy speak in social campaigns or commodifying self-help journeys to appear relatable — now is the time to reevaluate your approach. Over the past five years, we’ve seen mental health become the go-to social good strategy. Brands have leaned on language like “we see you, we hear you,” and marketed any product vaguely related to self-care as a mental health aid “for the days when you have nothing left to give.” But it’s been a lot of talk with little action to back it up. Just look to the number of taglines that instruct people to slow down and prioritize their well-being — as if a lack of desire, and not time and resources, is the issue. For Powerade it’s “Pause is Power.” For Spotify it’s “Take a Beat.” For Asics it’s telling workers to take a “Desk Break.”  

As more businesses use soft slogans to sell products, consumers will begin to draw clear lines between exploitation and genuine effort. In fashion, it’s the difference between brands that simply sell “be kind to your mind” t-shirts, and labels like Madhappy that born with the goal of de-stigmatizing mental health. Similarly, in beauty, it’s the difference between brands like Rare Beauty, which is mobilizing $100 million in contributions for youth mental health, and Bioré, which was accused of trying to profit off a school shooting as a result of an influencer partnership gone wrong. The sponsored TikTok featured influencer Cecilee Max-Brown washing her face while talking about how she’s struggled with anxiety since the tragic 2023 shooting at Michigan State University: “I’m partnering with Bioré Skincare to strip away the stigma of anxiety,” she explained. The clip went viral for all the wrong reasons.  

As Mindflation reaches a breaking point, brands will need to be honest with themselves about what they have license to say and do. Just because mental health is part of the cultural zeitgeist doesn’t mean it belongs in every campaign. 

For actual mental health brands, this creates a massive opportunity to reclaim authority and set the record straight. This is your time to move beyond surface-level messaging and build platforms rooted in clinical integrity, peer-reviewed frameworks, and proven community care. All the noise has made the need for real expertise more urgent than ever. 

For creators, this means treading carefully. Vulnerability can be powerful, but commodifying trauma as a hook for engagement has a shelf life. Share the struggle, yes, but also share how you overcame it. Build ecosystems that encourage self-awareness without self-absorption. Be part of the rebalancing — not another voice fanning the flames of overdiagnosis. 

For connection brands (think dating apps and community platforms), this is a call to design for complexity. Relationships are messy, emotional, and often inconvenient — but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth it. If your brand is in the business of intimacy, don’t flatten everything into attachment styles or conflict-avoidance tools. Instead, build in real support mechanisms, from conscious conversation starters to emotional health frameworks backed by professionals. 

For everyone else, it means avoiding therapy speak unless you’re actually committed to offering tangible support. Because mental health support isn’t a vibe or a marketing campaign. It’s a service.

→ Speak with Precision. Don’t use mental health terminology unless it’s clinically informed. 

→ Restore Credibility. If you do decide to enter the mental health arena, be sure to work hand-in-hand with licensed professionals or mental health organizations.

→ Walk the Walk. Offering a “self-care” campaign while overworking your staff and defunding their mental health benefits won’t cut it.