Therapy Culture Has Gone Too Far, Says a Stanford Psychiatrist

Anna Lembke argues that modern life has made people more anxious, lonely, and shame-prone by giving them unprecedented control over daily experience. She says humans evolved to reduce uncertainty, but today’s micro-control through technology, curation, and endless choice leaves people terrified of mistakes and trapped in self-blame when life does not go perfectly.

A major focus is how overparenting and screens combine to weaken resilience. Lembke says parents often create “padded cells” to reduce their own anxiety, while devices intensify the problem by feeding obsessive reassurance-seeking. She describes social media and short-form digital media as inherently reinforcing, and says they can function like drugs because they directly stimulate the brain’s reward pathway and can produce withdrawal, lying, irritability, and emotional dysregulation when taken away.

She also argues that the rise of digital addiction is reshaping other forms of compulsive behavior, including pornography, online gambling, gaming, and shopping, while many young men are disappearing into isolation, unemployment, and virtual life. Her prescription is not just therapy, but a more outward-facing life: embodied work, exercise, school or job requirements, real-world responsibility, and radical surrender. She says therapy culture can become too inward and backward, while healing often comes from doing the next right thing, accepting limits, and reconnecting with reality.