Embrace the suck. Crucify the flesh. Count others more worthy than yourself.

The hidden kryptonite of the youth mental health crisis

Sep 12, 2024

What can be done to improve mental health in the West?

The answer may be a return to community and self-transcendence. The kind that makes people forget about themselves and turns their thoughts toward the human beings around them, toward the God who created them. Ask not what society can do for you, but what you can do for society.

Unfortunately, Americans (like me) carry a lot of cultural baggage that other cultures simply don’t, including an overwrought focus on the individual. One byproduct of such individualism is a well-intentioned but ultimately misguided commitment to “mental health awareness.” To be clear, there is nothing wrong with mental health awareness, as such, or therapy, as such. Therapy is a good and necessary resource for a great many people. However, therapy culture does more harm than good, as I argued in my last article. And adding it to the cultural stew of self-focused drives only gobbles up valuable time and resources that could and should be spent elsewhere—such as serving in a church or a voluntary association, like the military. These are good gifts God gives us to both (1) take our mind off of ourselves, and (2) help others in the process.

Unfortunately, by turning our focus perpetually inward—as if our mental health is the sun around which the universe revolves—therapy culture not only weakens the bonds between Americans, it discourages participation in the very activities that promote mental well-being in the first place. A cursory scan of the news shows that fewer people are getting married, having kids, volunteering, joining the military, or going to church than at any time in our nation’s history. This is horrible for society and the individual.

Which begs the question: was the relative poverty and high mortality of pre-industrial America the very thing that dispelled the self-obsession that can so easily spiral into anxiety, depression, and loneliness?

Looking at the research, the answer seems to be yes. According to the World Happiness Report, young people (those under 30) from Guatemala, Honduras, and Brazil report feeling happier than young people in the U.S. I lived in Guatemala. It is a third-world country. Many people live in tin shacks and wear the same clothes every day. Yet their youth are happier than those living in the richest nation on earth, many of whom attend colleges with tuition rates upwards of 40,000 dollars. A big reason for this is that Guatemalan teens grow up within a sticky web of relationships that bind them to their family and community. Because of their poverty, they can’t simply fly off to college in another state or take a job across the country. It’s not uncommon for children, parents, and grandparents all to live under the same roof. Guatemalans derive meaning from that unity, despite their poverty. In fact, their poverty may even drive them to sacrifice their time and resources for others in ways citizens of rich, developed countries simply do not (or cannot).

Technology has liberated us to do many things, but it has also liberated us to self-obsess to a degree not afforded to our ancestors (or poor Guatemalans). And as we self-obsess, we neglect two pillars of human flourishing: self-transcendence and community. To see why, let’s narrow our focus to just two examples of the aforementioned qualities—church attendance and military service.

In a church, congregants experience an emotion called awe. Awe is central to self-transcendence, or self-forgetfulness, because it is the experience of being in the presence of something or someone greater, perhaps infinitely greater, than oneself. Awe can therefore be described as the kryptonite of anxiety, because it draws you out of the “profane” realm of self-consciousness into a lightness and peace that is based on a love for God and his people (or God-consciousness). As we worship in community, there are observable shifts in our brains. The brain’s “Default Mode Network” or DMN—a sort of default setting in which we live most of our lives—actually weakens in spiritual settings, allowing us to better “deeply connect to something outside ourselves,” according to Jonathan Haidt. In addition, he cites a 2023 paper that concludes the following about awe: “Awe engages five processes—shifts in neurophysiology, a diminished focus on the self, increased prosocial relationality, greater social integration, and a heightened sense of meaning—that benefit well-being.”

Church is also an important source of community. “Shared sacredness”, in the words of Jonathan Haidt, is an experience that is highly predictive of good relationships and mental well-being. Haidt observes of religious communities:

They all enter the realm of the sacred together, at the same time. When they return to the profane level, where they need to be most of the time to address the necessities of life, they have greater trust and affection for each other as a result of their time together in the sacred realm. They are also happier and have lower rates of suicide.

As a Christian who attended a Pentecostal (“non-denominational”) Bible school, I know this from experience. When you experience the presence of YHWH in a church service with other believers, a change takes place. You forget yourself and see other human beings, really see them—they are beautiful and complete, image-bearers, beloved of God—and are so enraptured by Christ’s love that all lesser goods—all idols—seem nauseating in comparison, whether it be fame, prestige, social standing, or whatever else. It’s almost as if the experience forms a heatshield around your mind, a heatshield so hot that all anxious thoughts burn up on entry. Such a mental state is the exact opposite of anxiety. I realize that I exist for God and other people, not for myself, and everything else sort of melts away.

Tragically, such soul-transforming, anxiety-busting experiences are becoming less and less common due to a nationwide decline in church attendance. Since 2013, the number of atheists and agnostics has doubled, according to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute, and only half of Americans in their 20s say they are religious, compared to 80% of older folks, according to polling by the Pew Research Center. Indeed, the data show that those raised atheist are more likely to stay atheist, while those raised Christian are more likely to abandon their faith—and, presumably, transfer primary responsibility for their mental state to a therapist who is unlikely to be a Christian, let alone suggest going to church as a form of therapy.

Self-transcendence and community is also seen in a military setting. While military combat veterans often relive the trauma of their experiences, a year or two of military service right out of high school appears to confer mental health benefits in the same way religion does. Watching Business Insider’s YouTube documentary on cadets’ first six weeks at West Point Military Academy—in which they undergo a form of basic training, including firearms training, rock-rappelling, tear gas exposure, and simulated combat—their transformation from nervous freshmen into confident, happy, competent young men and women leaves a strong impression on the mind, like a fast-motion video of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

But there are numbers to back this up.

Lithuania and Israel respectively rank first and second in the World Happiness Report’s global ranking of youth mental health, but what many don’t realize is that both countries require their citizens to complete mandatory military training upon turning 18. In Israel, both men and women are required to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces after graduating high school (women for two years, men for two years and eight months). Lithuania has an annual draft that randomly selects 18- to 23-year-old males for a nine-month service. Finland, which ranks seventh, also has compulsory service. Serbia, which ranks third, had compulsory service until 2010. Either there are real benefits being conferred here, or I have stumbled across an incredible coincidence.

But what on earth does compulsory military service have to do with mental health? My two cents: compulsory service is the very epitome of community and self-transcendence. For a period of months or years, young men (and women, if you live in Israel) are forced to surrender their dreams and aspirations to serve in the armed forces, sacrificing a small part of themselves on the altar of national security. Not only does this increase patriotism, through communal training and living, recruits are bound to each other—indeed, would probably die for each other, if we are to believe the accounts of combat veterans. Military service encourages recruits to “embrace the suck”—which is to the U.S. Marines what “crucify the flesh” is to Christians—and direct all of their energies to the success of the unit. To put it crudely, it is a kind of spiritual experience—a bloody, muddy, sweaty version of what happens in church.

Sadly, though, this experience is an increasingly rarified one in the U.S., which hasn’t had a draft since the Vietnam War. Teenage boys are more likely to play Call of Duty until their eyes fall out than volunteer for military service. And the recruitment numbers show it. The U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy fell well short of their recruitment goals in 2023, after years of declining interest. Nearly a third military-age males in the U.S. are unfit to serve due to rising rates of obesity, but the bigger problem is that no one wants to. General Randy A. George, the Army’s vice chief of staff, had this to say: “Military service, to many people, seems like a life setback. In reality, it’s a life accelerator.”

I include what he said about military service being a “life accelerator” because it exposes so much of what is wrong with our culture. The very things that prevent mental degradation in the first place—church attendance, military service, marriage, family, volunteer work—are the very things young people dismiss as being too much of a drag on their life. Even when, as Gen. George says, the benefits far outweigh anything they would be required to give up.

Which brings me back to therapy culture.

Let me be absolutely clear: therapy is a critical resource for many people, particularly those suffering from PTSD, clinical depression, and feelings and emotions they just can’t control on their own. But I think the sainted status of therapy as a cultural lifestyle needs to be revoked, and other neglected activities brought to the forefront. Therapy isn’t the only form of therapy, after all. And in the case of my faith, the “therapy” provided is just one byproduct of a much deeper, fuller experience of life—abundant life in Christ.