American Thinker

by Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.

    Baby boomers grew up in a different mental-health culture. Anxiety, depression, and emotional struggles certainly existed, but they weren’t routine topics of conversation. The prevailing advice was often some variation of “suck it up and keep moving.”

    Boomers heard little about “feelings” or “validation.” There might instead be a threat of a spanking if we wanted to spend too much time exploring our feelings.

    That wasn’t necessarily healthy. Genuine psychiatric illness went untreated, and stigma kept many people from seeking help. Those needing assistance might turn to “Mother’s Little Helper,” as the Rolling Stones famously called the tranquilizers of the era.

    Today the pendulum has swung dramatically in the other direction.

    Mental health is everywhere. There are therapists, medications, support groups, Reddit communities, and social-media influencers devoted to virtually every psychiatric diagnosis imaginable. Mental-health terminology has even become part of how some people publicly define themselves.

    Even the boundary between psychological disorder and personal identity has shifted. Earlier psychiatric classifications included “transsexualism” and later “gender identity disorder”; DSM-5 replaced the latter with “gender dysphoria,” focusing the diagnosis on clinically significant distress rather than transgender identity itself. The World Health Organization went further, moving “gender incongruence” out of the mental-disorders chapter entirely.

    That evolution reflects changing medical thinking, but it also illustrates a larger cultural transformation. Behaviors, identities, and psychological states once regarded as abnormal, pathological, or simply private may now be discussed openly, incorporated into personal identity, or even celebrated.

Some of that change has undoubtedly reduced stigma and unnecessary suffering. But it leaves a legitimate question: Have we become better at recognizing genuine mental illness, or have we also become more inclined to medicalize, and sometimes romanticize, psychological distress

    The little pills, meanwhile, now come in considerably more varieties.

    CDC data show antidepressant use rose from about 8% of Americans in 1999–2002 to 13% in 2011–14.

    Now a new Rasmussen Reports survey adds an intriguing political dimension — because in modern America, apparently nothing escapes politics.

    Twenty-two percent of American adults say a doctor has diagnosed them with a mental-health condition. But beneath that number are striking differences.

    Women are almost twice as likely as men to report a diagnosis, 28% to 15%. Among adults under 40, the difference becomes remarkable: 40% of women compared with 22% of men.

    There is a partisan gap as well. Twenty-six percent of Democrats report a mental-health diagnosis compared with 18% of Republicans. Current prescription medication use follows a similar pattern: 23% versus 17%.

    At the same time, America has developed a substantial gender divide in politics. Pew Research Center’s analysis of the 2024 election found women favored Kamala Harris by seven percentage points, while men favored Donald Trump by 12.

Coincidence

    Perhaps. Correlation isn’t causation, and Rasmussen’s survey cannot tell us whether political attitudes influence mental health or psychological disposition influences political attitudes.

    There are plenty of alternative explanations. Women may be more willing to acknowledge psychological problems, visit physicians, and accept treatment. Men may be more reluctant to seek help, or even acknowledge a problem, instead suffering in silence. Biology, age, marriage, religion, income, and social connectedness could influence both mental health and political preferences.

But another possibility is more interesting: Do different ways of interpreting adversity affect psychological well-being

    A 2025 study of Israelis during an intense political crisis offers an intriguing clue. Researchers found no significant left-right differences in positive wellness measures such as life satisfaction, purpose in life, or personal growth. Yet those on the political left reported greater distress, including anxiety, depressive symptoms, and negative affect.

    The researchers examined what they called the “hostile-world scenario”—essentially how people perceive and cope with life’s inevitable threats.

    One measure of “positive engagement” offered a wonderfully simple proposition: “Successful coping with dangerous situations strengthens me.” Other measures included believing one has some control over what happens in life and being able to confront difficulty without despair.

    Friedrich Nietzsche said it more memorably, and Kelly Clarkson eventually put it to music: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

    That brings us back to politics.

    Progressive politics often emphasizes systemic barriers, discrimination, identity, and circumstances beyond individual control. Conservative political traditions tend to place comparatively greater emphasis on individual agency, resilience, and personal responsibility.

Could these different ways of interpreting adversity have psychological consequences

If people increasingly understand setbacks as products of forces beyond their control, could that diminish their sense of agency  Or does the causal arrow point in the opposite direction

Perhaps people already experiencing anxiety, depression, or vulnerability are more receptive to political movements emphasizing protection, social support, validation, and collective solutions. Does government become, psychologically speaking, another source of security

    Or perhaps neither causes the other. Both may reflect broader cultural changes.

    The Israeli study cannot answer the question for Americans. It involved a different country during an extraordinary political crisis, and Israeli political categories do not map neatly onto American ones. Rasmussen’s numbers establish correlation, not causation.

    Still, the overlap is difficult to ignore.

    Mental-health diagnoses differ substantially by sex, age, and political affiliation. Political attitudes differ by sex and age as well. Younger women sit near the intersection of those trends.

    The question isn’t whether mental illness makes someone a Democrat or whether being a Democrat makes someone mentally ill. There is no scientific evidence establishing either proposition, notwithstanding Michael Savage’s provocative book title, “Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder.”

    The more interesting question is why these divides overlap—and whether the way our culture teaches people to understand and confront adversity might be part of the explanation.

    Sometimes asking the uncomfortable question is more revealing than pretending we already know the answer.

    Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Colorado-based ophthalmologist who writes frequently about medicine, science, and public policy.