By Rob Whitley, June 12, 2025
Canada is the third highest per capita consumer of antidepressants worldwide. Several prominent mental health issues are on the rise across the country, including depression, anxiety, opioid use, non-suicidal self injury, loneliness and use of psychiatric medication. Canada ranked third globally in per capita consumption of prescription opioids.
The reasons for this dramatic rise are many and varied. However, shifts to our underlying social values have undeniably played a role—one that is often ignored. There is strong evidence to suggest that a key cause in the mental health crisis is a shift away from communitarian values that focus on others, towards a widespread self-centred individualism.
This shift has been framed as epoch-making; a desirable transition from a society constrained by tradition and social obligations to one characterized by personal choice and unfettered freedom. But what really happens to people in such an individualistic society? Is this focus on the self ultimately unfulfilling? Greater preoccupation with the self can lead to greater personal freedoms but it can also lead to intense loneliness, social alienation and a chronic emptiness. Understanding the role these shifting values have played in the rise of mental health issues has very real implications for mental health prevention and policy.
Where does this shift in values come from? Psychological theories—like those related to humanistic psychology and self-determination theory—suggesting that personal emancipation derives from a continuous quest for self-realization, individual authenticity, and unrestricted autonomy are a key factor. Such theories often emphasize the pursuit of happiness as an ultimate goal, often without reference to ethical conduct or living a meaningful and productive life. These nebulous psychological concepts have become a common currency in therapists’ clinics, school counsellors’ offices, and within the extensive self-help community. Indeed, they have replaced traditional and religiously-inspired concepts such as obligation, duty, personal responsibility, discipline, self-sacrifice, service to nation, and social harmony as common values.
What are some of the consequences of this shift in values? Census data from the last few decades indicate steady increases in people living alone and single parenthood. These are accompanied by decreasing rates of marriage, multi-person households, and declines in total fertility. Meanwhile, people who do get married are more likely to do so at an older age and delay childbearing to their thirties. Such changes represent a significant shift from the last few decades, which was characterized by marrying at an early age, larger nuclear families, and low rates of divorce. This means that people today are much less likely to have meaningful social connections and supports, or a safety net beyond the state.
At the same time, involvement in community organizations has decreased dramatically. For example, rates of church going have declined precipitously, as has participation in community groups such as Parent-Teacher Associations, organized club sports, and volunteering. Robert Putnam documents many of these changes in community participation in his classic work Bowling Alone, which outlines quantitative decreases in various measures of social capital across the United States. Several surveys indicate similar decreases in Canada, meaning that fewer and fewer people are meaningfully participating in their communities.
Societies’ response to the rise in mental health issues has taken many forms. Provincial governments provide a variety of mental health services such as mental hospitals, outpatient clinics and continuing care, often involving heavy doses of psychiatric medication. These services can be extremely helpful in stabilizing people in acute crisis but are less effective in facilitating the long road of recovery from a mental illness. These official services are complemented by a variety of psychologists, counsellors, and therapists providing , which involve speaking with a trained therapist to explore and manage emotional difficulties, mental health conditions, or personal challenges. These talking therapies are often touted as a safer and more meaningful intervention than psychotropic medications, striking at the root of a psychological issue. To be sure, -based talking therapies are extremely effective. For example, cognitive behavioural therapy can equip individuals with practical skills to solve identified issues.
That said, some of the above-described services have been criticized by people working inside and outside psychiatry alike. For example, it has been argued that the official psychiatric system is unduly influenced by pharmaceutical companies, and thus overly reliant on psychiatric medication as a one size fits all approach. This is despite ongoing concerns around safety, side effects and the long-term impact of these medications. Moreover, some talking therapies that are commonly employed for disorders such as depression have also been criticized. For example, some of these therapies encourage more focus on the self, more self-reflection, more self-awareness, more striving towards self-fulfillment, happiness, and authenticity. This focus inwards can lead to negative rumination as the mind becomes overly focused on internal feelings, emotions, and states—rather than engagement with (and service to) the outer world.
Moreover, these services are typically led by a professional therapist, who has no connection or emotional tie to the individual concerned, beyond a professional service. Robert Reich somewhat disdainfully labels engagement in such contractual, commodified relationships as “paying for attention.” Others are more damning in their analysis. Ivan Illich argues that the reliance and deference to these health care experts strips away people’s ability to deal with the inevitable struggles and common challenges of day-to-day life. Illich argues that people are consequently drawn into voracious, interminable, and ultimately dissatisfying consultations, coming to rely upon experts to solve issues that were previously managed within the family and the community. Are such therapists really best placed to help people who are struggling with mental health issues related to meaning and purpose? To be sure, they can play a role, but the family and the community can be equally important in promoting mental health.
Evidence supporting the importance of family and community in mental health comes from various quarters. Most notably, the World Health that people with schizophrenia in developing countries had better recovery than those in Western countries. This was considered paradoxical at the time, given that the psychiatric system of Western countries contains a whole variety of medications, therapies, and other programs. In contrast, the developing countries studied had much thinner professional coverage, but instead had family, friends, and the local community implicated in the process of recovery.
For example, people with schizophrenia in developing countries were still expected to work on family farms or in family businesses (often due to economic necessity, rather than empathy), as well as support family members such as ageing grandparents. Sometimes, they were supported by their religious congregation, who gave them meaningful tasks, which often involved helping others in the congregation. Interestingly, the focus on self-reflection and self-realisation was not present in these countries. Instead, the focus was on maintaining their social connections, while imparting an ongoing sense of meaning and purpose.
What does this imply for mental health in Canada? To start, we need to better diagnose some of the underlying factors behind the rise in mental health issues. There has been a notable disintegration of social ties: people have become more and more detached from long-standing institutions that can impart purpose, meaning, fellowship, identity and support. These include marriage, the extended family, religious congregations, neighbourhood organizations, local community associations, meaningful workplaces, and other aspects of civil society.
For example, that marriage is a protective factor against mental health issues, but this is little known in wider society. In sum, people who are married tend to have lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide. In contrast, being single, widowed, divorced, or separated is associated with worse mental health and quality of life. Divorce and separation can have a negative impact on the mental health of children involved. Children raised by single parents are more likely to have greater ADHD symptom severity, and higher rates of conduct problems, anxiety, and eating disorders compared to the children of married parents. However, the mental health benefits of marriage are rarely communicated to wider society, and it is rarely promoted as a social good per se. Instead, marriage is still considered by some as a relic of a bygone age that constrains individuals (particularly women) from self-realization and self-fulfillment.
Furthermore, religiosity can have a positive benefit on mental health. Religiosity is an umbrella term that encompasses factors such as belief in God, adherence to a moral code, attending a place of worship, regular prayer, and scripture reading. Several studies indicate that religiosity is moderately associated with greater wellbeing and lower rates of anxiety and depression, as well as lower rates of suicide and substance use and abuse. Similarly, other studies indicate that religiosity can help people in recovery from a range of mental illnesses, including depression, substance use disorder and schizophrenia. This may explain why immigrants to Canada tend to have better mental health than the Canadian-born population. Immigrants tend to have higher rates of religiosity. They also have lower rates of suicide, depression, and substance abuse.
Another protective factor for mental health is meaningful employment. Those who are employed tend to have much better mental health than those who are unemployed, with lower rates of suicide, depression, and anxiety. People with mental illness who are in the workforce tend to have a much better recovery than those who are outside the workforce. This is the case even for the most serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. There is an evidence-based program called ‘supported employment’ which can help people with mental illness find and maintain jobs of their choosing in the competitive market. Such jobs give them a salary and social contact, as well as pride and purpose. Despite the success of such programs, there is a prevailing belief among some that people with mental illnesses should not work and instead should rest at home or use hospital day treatment centres.
Civil society can play a key role in facilitating recovery from mental illness. Canada is blessed with a variety of community organizations dedicated to helping people with mental health issues. These include peer support groups, faith-based initiatives, veteran support organizations, sports/outdoor programs and youth groups. Edmund Burke referred to such groups as the “little platoons” of society, beavering away under the radar providing essential supports and assistance to people in need.
These “little platoons” can be instrumental in helping individuals on the road to recovery, and many people prefer these services compared to the offerings of the official mental health system. However, they often exist on a shoestring budget, without the appropriate facilities or staff. Diversifying the mental health budget to ensure such organizations are properly supported (with the appropriate accountability metrics) should be a priority.
Unfortunately, the messaging from the various mental health-oriented organizations in Canada rarely recognize either the underlying causes of our mental health crisis or the evidence-based solutions beyond prescription medications or ‘talking therapies.’
The rise in mental health issues has occurred alongside the rise of self-centred individualism as a dominant cultural narrative, contributing to a pervasive loneliness, alienation, and estrangement—especially in young people. With a tragic irony, this rise in individualism has been propelled by trendy psychological theories aiming to help, propagated by well-meaning but ultimately misguided therapists, counsellors, and psychological theorists. This well-intentioned yet flawed movement has, paradoxically, deepened the very crises it sought to resolve, leaving many adrift in the name of self-realisation.
Rob Whitley is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, a researcher at the Douglas Research Centre, and a contributor for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.