The rising trend of Instagram therapists

A desert palette of black, mauve and slate mix with beautiful imagery of hands grasping poppies and wild grass greets you. The artistic flourishes are met with stark white sans sherif and graphs, to remind you that the art of feeling well is also serious business. The feed consists largely of quotes and lists that essentially boil down to wellness ‘cheat sheets’: how to connect with yourself, to ‘say yes to yourself’, and how to heal from heartache.

It’s pretty, it’s thoughtful, and it’s really, really #woke.

These colours and icons are trademarks of influence in the age of peak wellness that we currently live in, and their appearance on Instagram can often concoct images of Gwyneth Paltrow and other glammed up nonexperts trying to sell you marble things to put various places for no discernible reason.

Lisa Olivera is no such quack (sorry Gwen but that spade you’ve got is a spade). She’s a licensed marriage and family therapist with a private practice in California. And, as well as spending hours a week conducting expensive private sessions, she’s one of dozens of councillors who’ve decided to democratise a portion of their time and therapist’s wisdom on Instagram, for all to enjoy.

Social media has unexpectedly become one of the most influential ways Gen Z and wellness advocates can normalise discussions of mental health. A once stigmatised topic, the soaring rates of depression and anxiety among young people has necessitated discourse on the topic like never before. Whilst some clever marketing experts have been capitalising on the so-called ‘therapy generation’, the involvement of real therapists on a social media platform poses a host of potential new benefits, and risks.

How it could be game changing

Despite the many calls from young people to alter a prohibitive system, a lot of mental health care remains expensive and moderately stigmatised (particularly in the US). According to The New York Times, of the nearly two in five young people who experienced mental health issues in 2017, less than half received any kind of professional help. This gap in supply and demand is an issue that Insta therapists wish to address.

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As children, we depend on our parents or caregivers in a unique way. Our livelihood is in their hands. What we want more than anything is to be seen, heard + loved by them. Yet, because of their own unresolved trauma, few of us get this experience. So we unconsciously learn to betray ourselves to receive love. We perform. We achieve. We rebel. We become who we believe we need to be to be seen. Then, in adulthood we do this in every relationship we have. Our self worth is so low because we don’t trust ourselves with our own word. To heal self betrayal, we need to start to make + keep promises to ourselves. We need to have boundaries. Even if that means being misunderstood: and you will be misunderstood. It’s part of the process. Surrender to it. The most important relationship you’ll ever have is the relationship with yourself. Do the work to trust your own word. As your self worth improves, so does every relationship you have #selfhealers

A post shared by Dr. Nicole LePera (@the.holistic.psychologist) on Feb 18, 2020 at 1:42pm PST

Andrea Glik is a New York based psychotherapist who started her own Insta, @somaticwitch, after realising that she had access to resources that shouldn’t be proprietary to only those who could afford therapy (as she tells Man Repeller here).

She believed the sort of thing that’s par for the course for every therapist shouldn’t be privileged information. It’s often vital things about our minds and bodies that we’re completely in the dark about, or simply aren’t usually given the space to think about. Take this post about how to recognise the difference between conditioning and neuroplasticity for example:

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Ok first off because this part confused me at first: CONDITIONING CAN BE POSITIVE OR IT CAN BE UNHELPFUL/VIOLENT etc. ✨ But for the purpose of this post, let’s focus on the conditioning we learned from caregivers or society that we want to let go of and unlearn. People pleasing. White Supremacy (note: for white folks this work is NEVER OVER). Internalized homo/transphobia. Never feeling good enough. Feeling like we have to be scary/alone/guarded to be safe. ✨ Neuroplasticity offers us the chance to change some of these conditioned thought and belief patterns. ✨ This can be literally unlearning and relearning through education, especially around isms, or books to better understand yourself like In my highlights (knowledge is power is healing). ✨ This can be new experiences, repeated until we believe it’s ok to make everyone happy or we deserve love (setting a boundary, making your end, holding your heart and breathing, only dating people who understand trauma).

A post shared by Andrea Glik, LMSW she/her (@somaticwitch) on Feb 20, 2020 at 2:22am PST

It’s a radical shift for a medium that was created as a way for friends to share picture of their last breakfast, but Insta therapists are proving increasingly popular. Lisa Olivera boasts over 200k followers, whilst others like Dr. Nicole LePera (the.holistic.psychologist) have over 700k.

The insta therapists openly recognise that sharing generalised insights and advice is a far cry from ‘personalised’ therapy. Most refrain from giving followers individual advice, as the platform is not confidential and because, well, there are only so many hours in the day.

But in the manner they exist now it’s clear that these accounts can be used as a gateway to a more nuanced relationship with the self, reminding people as they scroll through their feeds to pay closer attention to themselves – something that it’s easy to forget to do in an age of over-stimulation.