Freya India is a writer and journalist focussed on female mental health and modern culture. Are modern women okay? With rising statistics on declining happiness, life satisfaction, and marriage rates, it’s clear that the younger generation is facing serious challenges. What are the biggest issues modern women are dealing with, and how can they start to overcome them? Expect to learn why so many girls are drawn to therapy culture, if girls raised in religious families seem to be doing better than liberal secular girls, why so many people are addicted to social media, how social media is reshaping the fundamental nature of relationships, is Gen Z actually living in an imaginary world, and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get a 20% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why are modern women drawn to therapy culture?
Why do you think so many girls are drawn to therapy culture?
Oh, I think it's a lot of things. I do think this is kind of a cliche thing to say now, but I do think therapy culture has replaced religion. And that's not a new thing to say. People have been saying that for a long time. So Christopher Lash was writing about that in the 70s. Frank Ferudy writes about it really well now.
But in recent years, since social media, I would say therapy culture has just escalated to the point where I think young women don't see it as a worldview. They just see that as kind of life. So they interpret everything through this therapeutic lens. So their lives, their relationships, their emotions. And I think it has elevated to the level of religion.
So you think of all the kind of characteristics of religion, we just mimic them with therapy culture. So instead of praying, we just repeat our positive affirmations. Instead of seeking salvation, you'll go on a healing journey. Instead of resisting temptation from the devil, you'll reframe your intrusive thoughts.
Chapter 2: How has therapy culture replaced religion for young women?
And so I think for young women in particular who are becoming less religious, this kind of therapeutic worldview has completely replaced that void.
What does a therapeutic worldview consist of? What does that mean?
Chapter 3: What does it mean to have a therapeutic worldview?
Like seeing problems in your life, kind of pathologizing problems and experiences as something medical rather than I'm just experiencing this emotion or kind of age-old anxiety. Now it's become a medical issue. So things like talking in the language of attachment styles and trauma and losing the language of just ordinary hurt and disappointment and things like that.
And for some reason, this is giving some kind of solace or comfort to order being brought out of chaos.
I think it gives the comfort religion gives and the consolation of like, you see young women on TikTok saying things like, like they won't pray to God, but they'll give a request to the universe and like have faith in that. And so I think it gives all the comfort of religion, but it takes away the inconvenient parts.
So the, any actual demands on you or kind of restrictions on your freedom or anything like that.
Being held to standards of behavior, et cetera.
So it has what women are craving in modern life, I think, which is belonging and security in something and faith in something. But it's a much easier version of religion.
Slippery religion.
Yeah.
How many of these girls are in therapy, do you think?
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Chapter 4: Are religious young women faring better than secular ones?
Yeah, if you think of an anxious young 14-year-old girl, the worst thing you can tell her is to go further into her own head to get relief and to think more about her problems and to kind of search her life for symptoms. If you told me that at 14, it's the worst thing I could have heard.
So I actually think maybe some men do need to do that a little bit more, but the average young girl needs to kind of cut out.
I wonder whether therapy language and therapy culture for girls is what gym language, gym culture, Psalms, testosterone, steroids at 17 is for guys.
Yeah, I think it's a form of control. So it's like, it's our version of control. You know, if we feel uncomfortable or feel an uneasy emotion, we're just like, I'm going to categorize that and diagnose it. You know, that's my attachment disorder or that's my depression disorder.
um and i think men do that kind they have their own kind of self-optimization trends and the gym stuff where that can become like a form of control um to deal with kind of uneasy emotions and i think yeah this is the woman's version of that it's like we can't sit with it or just accept like a painful situation so i often think about
So if you look at these kind of attachment style forums or girls talking about their attachment styles, very often they'll describe just a bad relationship and then they'll say, oh, it's my attachment disorder. So they'll be like, he cheated on me and I can't get over it because of my anxious attachment. And it's like...
It's so sad because they're actually losing the language to talk about the actual problem that they're facing because they're trying to get control. Because it's a lot easier to be like, oh, you know, I'm anxious or he's avoidant than we have a terrible relationship and I've just wasted four years with someone. You get the control through the therapy culture.
So that's where I see it becoming a danger to girls and young women.
What's that stat that you mentioned there about girls from religious families seeming to do differently well and now 18 to 25-year-old girls are religious at different levels and stuff?
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Chapter 5: Is social media reshaping the nature of relationships?
Yeah, and I think I have that tendency to see people as distraction because I'm trying to work. So I'm often like, you know, I need to write in perfect silence. I need to have my perfect routine. And yeah, I read a quote, I think it was C.S. Lewis saying something like, Eventually you realize that all of these distractions from your life were just your life. Like they weren't distractions at all.
And I think it's really sad to kind of teach young people or just like drill into their heads that they should avoid anyone getting in the way of their self-development and their ambition or their healing because...
that's life getting in the way um and yeah it's sad to see people kind of half-heartedly do relationships or kind of um put them off in pursuit of that ultimate control i think that's a really that will backfire eventually what are the problems of excessive self-focus
Well, I think it's Jordan Peterson says there's no difference between self-obsession and mental illness in the sense that it's all focusing too much on yourself. Not to say that it's in your control all the time necessarily, but that is what it is. It's focusing too much on your own problems. And I think... Yeah, as I said, girls are particularly vulnerable to it.
And I think what it does is it blocks real self-development because you can't see... where you're going wrong because you have these endless excuses for why you're behaving the way you are.
So I think a lot of girls think they're doing self-development and self-reflection, but it's actually accidentally like self-obsession because they're thinking, oh, you know, I'm analyzing my attachment style and I'm thinking about my trauma and I'm like doing the work. But there's not much actual self-development going on.
Work being done.
Yeah. And I think it can kind of be a trap where you think, I'm working on myself as a person. And the same with the self-optimization stuff. I think you can get so obsessed with stuff like maybe the ice baths and the breath work that you're not thinking about trying to be a better person. It just becomes...
There's a couple of traps for that. Alex Hormozy taught me a really, really good lesson as I started to do little bits of investing and stuff like that. So sometimes a company will say, hey, we're this interesting company in a world that you maybe know or like, would you like to put some money in and maybe come on as an advisor or whatever it might be?
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Chapter 6: Why is self-diagnosis prevalent among young people?
I had loads of people when I started writing about social media loads people would say to me oh but you know young people need social media because it's like a lifeline like they have their online communities and stuff and I'm like that is not a benefit of social media like that's just an absolute indictment of where we are in modern life like why is their community a reddit forum um so we can talk about social media addiction but I think you have to kind of strip it back to what
why young people are so obsessed with it and what is missing in their actual life.
What is everyone searching for or missing?
Yeah, because when you meet people who aren't on social media or don't have, like, ridiculously high screen times, they usually have a lot of their needs met in the real world, which just sounds like an obvious thing to say, but... It's true.
And I think the more you find yourself in a fulfilling relationship or you're happy with your job, you don't feel as much of a pull to scroll endlessly through TikTok all day. So the fact that young people are spending like six hours a day on their phones is...
it's not just because social media is addictive it's because there's nothing more addictive in their life or like a reason to stop scrolling through it um and so i think sometimes i can get caught in the trap of like complaining about social media whereas social media is just filling the gap of whatever was stripped away before yeah it's not necessarily that
There's even nothing more addicting. There's nothing more compelling. What else is there that's as fun to do, that offers everybody the same... Yeah, I mean, you know, I left my old life of nightlife three years ago-ish, and that kind of felt a little bit like exiting Bitcoin at 100K or something and being like, well, that was kind of selling at the top because...
There's some crazy stat about how by 2036, there'll be no nightclubs left in the UK. Yeah, so I think it's one a day or one a week or something is closing at the moment across the UK. Just that nightclubs are not only competing with brunch and with restaurants and with lane seven and with top flight darts and with... those ball pit fucking places where people get to take selfies.
It's not just competing with other in-person events and other community-based events or pickleball or whatever. It's competing with Netflix, Amazon Prime.
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Chapter 7: What is driving social media addiction among youth?
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It seems like you've done a good bit of work on the attachment stuff, at least in terms of research. What have you learned about what's real and what's bunk from that?
Well, I think it's real that obviously your childhood impacts your adult life. I think that's just plain to see. Yeah. And I think it's real that you can kind of play that out in relationships that aren't, you know, so however your parents responded to you, you'll then take that into an adult relationship. That seems very obvious.
But I think where people go wrong now is they forget that, like in the original attachment experiments and the book Attached, it's quite clear that it's not a bad thing to depend on someone and it's not a bad thing to be attached to. Like we are wired to be that way. Whereas I think now where it's going online, it's like you have a problem if you're attached.
Like if you're a young woman who kind of dreams of having a romantic relationship and really wants to depend on someone, now we view you as like weak. There's something wrong with you if that's your ultimate goal. Because we've had it drilled in so much that dependence is a problem. Yeah.
And so you see all these people online saying things like, oh, you know, I'm anxiously attached because when my partner feels sad, I also feel sad. It's like, isn't that just like loving someone? You know, you are affected by their emotions. Or they'll say things again like, oh, I always put their needs first. So can you train me out of being like a people pleaser?
And it's like, we used to just call that love. And, you know, that was a trait that we treasured in people, people who put their partner's needs first.
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