Mental(izing) Health: Worse Than It Seems, But Not Without Hope

Newsletter, #67

This photo was taken by Alex Garland for the South Seattle Emerald during the No Kings March, used with his permission..

How’s it going at work? Has it felt different to be a mental health clinician with all that is transpiring around us? Have you noticed changes with your patients? In pursuing these questions, it seems impossible to ignore the corruption and destructiveness of the current administration. In this month’s newsletter, my reading of our current political environment will include a psychological lens, fully aware that this will lead us down a path of speculation. I am less concerned with getting things right than with stimulating thoughtfulness, which might serve both as self-protection and resistance during this perilous time.

Things are scarier that we permit ourselves to experience, given the enormous power that Trump has accumulated and the recklessness he has displayed in exercising it. Since he has taken office in January 2025, both the wars in Gaza (and in the West Bank and Syria) and in Ukraine have continued unabatedly. The brutality and loss of life is shocking, as Trump oscillates between colluding with Netanyahu and Putin and being vexed about their disrespect in perpetuating endless aggression. That Trump seems surprised by the intransigence of Netanyahu or Putin speaks volumes about the uncanny melding of his ignorance and grandiosity. At the same time as a discernable consensus of outrage at Israel’s war mania has emerged in the US and abroad, Trump has pressured universities to curtail protest, as if humanitarian concern about Palestinians can be equated with being anti-Semitic. There can be no justification for the killing of approximately 60,000 human beings, including 18,000 children; not to be horrified by this is to lack a sense of shame about belonging to the human family.

The bombing of Iran by the US has been inconclusive, exemplifying a newfangled style of warfare, where both sides know what the other is likely to do, and property is damaged, rather than people killing each other. The hope for international organizations to contain wars has sadly diminished, without much promise for the future. That Europe is rearming cannot be considered progress, even if it is caused by the threat of Russian aggression. And it is certainly not justified to mention only conflicts that garner the most attention, thus ignoring smaller, burgeoning conflicts in other places around the world, like the Sudan, the Congo, Myanmar, and Venezuela (https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker).

Closer to home, we have witnessed gratuitous aggression against US citizens as well as undocumented people, notably in LA, but across the country. According to Robert Reich, “56,816 people are now being detained by ICE, both in the United States and in El Salvador and other countries where there’s little or no control over the conditions in which they’re being detained. Over 70 percent have not been convicted of any crime.”

Three critical stories that are getting buried by Epsteingate

Reich’s main argument is that the media focus on “Epstein-gate” (or alternatively, we might add on Trump’s preoccupation with Coca Cola or Rosie O’Donnell), serves to distract us from the issues that bear more weight. I agree with this up to a point: a tactic is being put forward that is automatically mirrored by the media. However, there is a more perverse animating energy to be explicated here, as the distraction serves to undercut and compromise our own values. In one sense, Epstein-gate is certainly less consequential than Gaza; in another sense, Epstein-gate teases us psychologically, with what we know, but don’t know (and suspect), concerning Trump’s utter depravity. This forges a variation of moral self-injury, where the values that we care about are undermined, and we are left to suffer the consequences of feeling complicitous and coping with that disturbing reality.

For the vast number of US citizens whose families were immigrants, what kinds of emotions does ICE’s viciousness evoke? How does it fit with the wish to honor the memory of your grandparents? Do shameful feelings now become activated and attached to those memories? My grandfather came with his father from Romania, where they were rejected at Ellis Island (because of an eye infection that my great grandfather had). So, they made their way to Canada and snuck in the country illegally. My grandfather was undocumented but was later granted citizenship under an amnesty during the FDR administration. My life has been a privileged one, but I hold a place in my heart for what it feels like to be in a vulnerable stateless place. Once someone is stateless, bad things happen with impunity (an insight from Hannah Arendt).

The abusive treatment of immigrants is only part of the story. The phony effort to streamline government, eliminating programs and stripping entire departments, like Education and Health and Human Services, is disastrous and will set us backward for many years. How could it be rational to deny healthcare to millions of Americans? How agonizing is it to accept how many people will lose Medicaid benefits without jobs? Mental health professionals need to realize the extent to which the lack of insurance and the rejection of parity between mental and physical health will affect them.

The attack on public television and NPR push us closer to authoritarian regimes that restrict the free transmission of information. Just today, Trump has banned Wall Street Journal reporters from travelling with him, based upon their reporting on Trump’s involvement in the Epstein case (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/business/media/trump-scotland-wsj-press-pool.html). Although many people have commented on it, it is a new level of degradation that we are witnessing, as the administration functions through retaliation and instilling fear.

Threats and violence prevail and need to be called out as regressive ways to contend with differences. We know this as mental health professionals, as it applies to interpersonal relationships, whether on personal or professional levels. Here’s something else to worry about: are there signs that our patients are influenced by the dominance of such crude standards, spurred by the perception that people are profiting from them? Another question: why are we not using what we know to protest in unison about the mentality of might makes right?

One could argue that it is always the case that there are wars, conflicts, and violence. However, the current reality is different. It goes well beyond that international organizations have lost their authority to impact events; diplomacy itself seems to have become a less valued, last option. This must relate to the psychological phenomena that informs our work. If domestic and international conflicts are uncontained and arguably worsening, how does that affect our belief in the efficacy of dialogue and conflict resolution as legitimate ways to solve problems?

Diplomacy represents a peaceful model to resolve differences; but it takes effort and requires diligence and flexibility. One ought to wonder how what’s happening on the larger playing field has an impact on personal and family conflicts. Moreover, it is worth pausing and considering the skills that underlie diplomacy. What comes to mind for me is mentalizing, imaginatively trying to understand others and oneself. Without this investment, diplomacy would not work; or it would only mean both sides trying to impose themselves on the other.

People seem unsettled these days, but this is manifest only sporadically. What is on our minds may well bear similar concerns as before; however, a sense of uneasiness is present that, I suspect, is linked to discomfort about the future. The future has become difficult to contemplate because of the fear of things worsening, with little evidence to the contrary. In my opinion, it is less that people are overtly voicing such feelings than that the new, threatening conditions of reality have seeped into the unconscious. It’s utterly disturbing to face our backwards slide. It’s easy to feel nostalgic for the consensus, however fragile, that once existed in the US. Reinterpretations of history are thriving—about the Civil War to the January 6 insurrection—as well as bizarre conspiracy theories—like the allegedly treasonous actions of Obama.

It is fair to wonder about where we might locate rays of hope. Three noteworthy events happened in June. For New Yorkers, the primary victory of Zohran Mamdani (a graduate of the same school as my son) is exciting. I know that there are Jewish voters who are worried about Mamdani. However, it matters that he sees himself as a defender of human rights, which does not exclude Jews. I do not believe that it is just younger voters who have become disaffected with Zionism. For far too long, Jews have desisted from criticism of Israel, which has allowed the right wing to thrive. I welcome the change that is emerging, and I am happy that the excesses of the current environment have opened up opportunities for a democrat who is not mainstream and is truly on the left (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/nyregion/mamdani-socialists-dsa.html).

I also see some hope in the No Kings march that also happened in June, which drew approximately 4-6 million people (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/19/no-kings-how-many-protesters-attended). Even if its impact and follow-up are not so clear, it must be counted as an enormous success. Perhaps, it ought to be conceived as a dry run for future protests. For example, what about a national educational strike, with specific demands about the administration respecting academic freedom, restoring funding for experimental programs aiming to improve the quality of education, and reckoning with the demonstrable inequity among schools? As Pete Buttigieg has pointedly reflected recently on the topic of DEI: if we are against diversity, equity and inclusion. does that mean we are in favor of uniformity, inequity and exclusion?

It seems particularly critical to assert the right to protest and to do so in ways that the administration will have trouble quashing.

This brings me to third hopeful example: the pride march in Budapest last month (https://www.npr.org/2025/06/28/nx-s1-5449685/hungary-budapest-pride-defies-ban). The march was officially banned by the Orban government, based on its being a danger to children’s moral and spiritual development. This is a vile accusation to make against sexual minoritized people, but it did not stop the mayor of Budapest from supporting the march in a crafty way, by linking it to the celebration of the Russians’ exit from occupying Hungary. The banning of the march backfired and drew people from all over the European Union, approximately 100,000 people. The police were present but made no attempt to arrest the marchers, thus successfully challenging Orban’s authority. Peaceful protest is powerful and can highlight that the government can be challenged and opposed.

We are grappling with threats of violence, fearmongering, the sidelining of our future, and the manipulation of emotions that betray our values. This can’t feel good! To deal with this crisis, we will need epistemic courage, the desire to face what we know to be true. It is obvious that this transcends being an individual matter and can only be sustained through solidarity, the will to stand together.