‘Instagram therapy’ offers self-diagnoses, vocabulary and justifications, but it does not solve anything

“Too much attachment screws up relationships.” “Rank your red flags.” “Dissociating: why it happens to you, me and all of us.” These are just three titles of videos, photos and reels on Instagram and TikTok, which touch on psychology, certain types of attachment, toxic dynamics and other topics related to mental health.

When 21-year-old Carmen and 20-year-old Bea (who prefer not to give their last names) go on their social media accounts, it’s common for them to find this kind of content on the Explore pages. Both young women are members of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012), a generation of young people for whom there’s no separation between the virtual and the real world. And, therefore, on many occasions, Carmen and Bea hop on social media to solve their problems, manage trauma and try to better understand themselves and their relationships. In short, they carry out therapy through a screen, even if the person on the other side isn’t a mental health professional.

Popularly known as “Instagram therapy” — a concept coined by Katy Waldman in The New Yorker — this online phenomenon works in a very simple way that Gen Zs apply in their daily lives. They go on Instagram or TikTok, obtain a self-diagnosis through a reel or a post and adapt to its symptoms. They also justify behaviors by simply naming the term. And, when they don’t know how — or are unable — to manage their problems, they just open Instagram or TikTok again.

As soon as she heard the term “benching” — leaving a person on the bench, without committing to moving forward in the relationship, while maintaining minimal contact — Bea says that she opened TikTok and determined that a girl she met in the summer was doing this to her. As for Carmen — after an hour of learning about various types of attachment via social media — diagnosed herself with an “anxious attachment style” for two reasons: she was overprotected by her parents during childhood, and she was already giving her boyfriend intense displays of love at the beginning of their relationship.

From their queries on social media, Carmen and Bea are able to list the so-called “red flags” of their ex-partners, or identify whether a person in their environment is being “love-bombed” — an overdose of insistent and repeated displays of affection and excessive love, which often end abruptly. But they also accept the fact that someone they know may not reply to their message for three days because they’re feeling “dissociated” (translation: the communication was so intense that their head was unable to process it in real time). They also tolerate disrespect — from themselves and from others — by identifying themselves as HSPs (highly sensitive persons).

For Silvia Sanz — a clinical psychologist and sexologist who specializes in treating couples — social media and this type of content have helped young people become aware of some topics that were previously taboo in public conversation. They’re also able to have greater knowledge about social dynamics.

However, for María Arias — a clinical psychologist — even though she considers it positive that stigmas are disappearing, the normalization of going to the psychologist and the disappearance of the taboo can lead to the other extreme, where the word “therapy” loses its value.

“Nowadays, it’s fashionable to go to therapy. Which is bad, because needing therapy and self-diagnosing shows that something isn’t right in our existence,” the specialist explains. Therefore, the problem isn’t that behaviors are being identified online — both psychologists think that this is something positive and also the beginning of treating and managing problems — but that the behaviors are normalized and justified, without any intention of resolving them. “Things going wrong shouldn’t be normal,” Arias says.

However, when the focus is shifted to more severe mental disorders — such as depression or schizophrenia — the reality is very different, due to the stigmatizing effect of media discourse. This past October, a study — Can’t Stop Scrolling! Adolescents’ Patterns of TikTok Use and Digital Well-Being Self-Perception — was published in the journal Nature. It points out that, while the progress of diagnoses among young people is positive, it also clarifies that sometimes — and depending on the disorder — there’s still a stigma and discrimination against people who suffer from them. According to the analysis, this is a disincentive to seek help. Therefore, on these occasions, the number of existing cases is much higher than the number of people diagnosed.

“‘Instagram therapy’ transforms a nuanced and contextualized process [of psychological help and mental health care] into something exclusively individual, to be directed at the ego. As if the most important premise were: ‘I’m the most important person and I need to take care of myself,’” writes U.S. psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb in her book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (2019).

Carmen and Bea — based on this pseudo-therapeutic language and content, which has flooded popular culture and the internet — began self-diagnosing themselves, their friends and their family. For example, Carmen — who has diagnosed herself as having an anxious attachment style — says that she’s unconsciously discovered herself recreating the patterns she’s seen on social media, which are associated with this type of attachment. And that, on occasion, she’s even justified negative behaviors that come her way.

“As a therapist, I avoid labels that can reinforce negative patterns in the sense of ‘That’s how I am, I cannot change,’ because they maintain harmful behaviors and exclude the possibility of healing,” Arias emphasizes.

Sanz, for her part, explains that self-diagnosis among Gen Zs — which is fostered by social media — “limits them when it comes to modifying behaviors, because they justify them. And it also leads them to accept certain negative attitudes in others, by attributing them to patterns that they mistakenly identify because of these [self-]diagnoses.”

Sanz has also observed how “Instagram therapy” — which has contributed to blurring the fine line that separates the invisibility of going to the psychologist from the extreme normalization of taking care of mental health — manifests itself, in real life, in dichotomous behaviors among young people when they’re in relationships. Their standards are more open, taking into account their needs and — at the same time — being less tolerant, by prioritizing individual well-being over that of the relationship. They’re more influenced by social media, constantly comparing themselves and self-diagnosing, while accepting excessively inappropriate behaviors. But, at the same time, they’re more flexible, they communicate better and gender roles aren’t as rigid. Additionally, while Gen Zs tend to be more traditional, for them, commitment is never so serious.

A TikTok video or an Instagram photo — brief, superficial and sweeping — can be the beginning of a more complex process because, in the words of Arias, “identifying any pattern or symptom is fine, through a video or wherever.” But she clarifies: “This is only the first step. Afterwards, the process must be accompanied by professional tools.”

Both psychologists emphasize that — in order to accurately diagnose any psychological or mental health problem, manage it and solve it — a complex assessment carried out by a professional is required. A smartphone and a social media account aren’t enough, no matter how much they influence the relationships between Gen Zs.

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