The Algorithm Isn’t Your Therapist

How Social Media Is Warping Public Understanding of Psychotherapy

Admittedly, I began thinking about this piece after seeing a post about China requiring individuals to have a degree to talk about certain topics. It immediately captured my thoughts about the intersection of social media and mental health.

Mental health has never been more visible. Therapy is openly discussed at brunch, podcasts punch out episodes on trauma weekly, and TikTok therapists have fan bases that rival pop artists. We’ve broken stigma, and that matters. But as with anything democratized, visibility without depth carries consequences. Psychotherapy is becoming flattened, rebranded, and occasionally weaponized by an ecosystem that prioritizes virality over accuracy. And the public is increasingly trying to heal itself with half-truths and hashtags.

Let’s be honest, social media is shaping how people think about therapy far more than graduate programs ever could. And the results are…complicated. I’m going to try to unpack what we’re seeing in the therapy room and in the culture, and how we might reclaim clarity in an increasingly noisy landscape.

Mental Health Has Become Content Not Care

We used to tiptoe around the idea of seeing a therapist. Today, mental health is aesthetic; with infographics, reels, and pastel slides promising “10 Questions to Heal Your Inner Child.” On one hand, that’s progress. On the other, the medium has rewritten the message. Complex clinical processes, like CBT, DBT, and IFS, are reduced to digestible clips meant to hold attention for seconds. Online, you can do a “parts check-in” between errands and call it IFS work. While I’m being a bit facetious, its kinda true! People feel psychologically “literate,” but they’re often only consuming the headlines, not the chapter.  Don’t get me wrong, the problem isn’t sharing information. It’s mistaking exposure for deep therapeutic work and integration.

The Influencer-Therapist Economy: Authority vs. Attention

Therapists with public platforms are navigating an impossible dual mandate:

·      Educate responsibly

·      Feed the algorithm

The incentives are mixed. The platforms seem to reward charisma more than competence, and certainty more than nuance. And for every Clinician trying to operate with strong boundaries and humility, there are others chasing engagement, diagnosis videos, “narcissistic abuse” content, and therapy-as-entertainment. True, some of it is harmless and some of it’s reckless. “Consumers’ can’t always tell the difference, and the platforms don’t automatically help them sort it out.

Misinformation Spreads Faster Than Evidence

Evidence-based psychotherapy has never been sexy. It’s slow, relationship-based, and requires consistent effort. Misinformation, meanwhile, is fast and emotionally charged. If it “feels” true, it spreads. From what I see and research shows, short-form content encourages diagnostic labeling:

“If you do this, you have anxious attachment.” Or “If you avoid conflict, you’re trauma-bonded.”

The list goes on! It’s seductive to believe that your pain has a neatly labeled category. It makes life feel predictable. However, this quick labeling is often inaccurate, and it can distort how people understand their experiences and relationships. Increasingly clients come to therapy convinced they know their diagnosis or someone else’s because of a 14-second TikTok. Helping them peel back those assumptions is now part of the job.

Therapy Is Being Packaged as a Consumer Product

Therapy has been marketed as self-optimization. Better relationships, better communication, better dating, better productivity. Sure, growth is possible and the ultimate goal. But therapy is not a five-week plan or a simple lifestyle upgrade. It is work. Slow, relational, reflective work. Social media fuels expectations of rapid transformation and it goes like this:

·      Watch a few videos → Understand your trauma → Find peace.

The public is primed for speed. The reality? Therapeutic change usually increases discomfort before things improve. There’s no “hack” for healing.

Boundaries Are Getting Blurry

Social platforms reward intimacy and self-disclosure. As a result, therapists are increasingly presenting themselves as lifestyle brands, sharing their stories, relationships, and personal struggles.

I believe, in small, thoughtful doses, transparency absolutely humanizes the field. But unchecked, it confuses clients and potentially weakens the therapeutic frame. When clients walk into sessions with pre-formed expectations, because they “feel like they know what you as the therapist should do,” the relationship is no longer neutral. And neutrality is part of what sets the environment for deep therapeutic work. The more therapists become personalities, the harder it becomes to maintain clarity about the role we hold.

Pop-Psychology Language Is Everywhere…And Often Misused

Attachment terms. Trauma language. Neuroscience buzzwords.

These concepts have escaped the therapy room and entered everyday speech. People are diagnosing partners as “narcissistic,” calling ordinary stress “trauma,” and labeling any friction in a relationship as a “trigger.” Yes, access to vocabulary is good. But language without context is dangerous. It pathologizes the complexities of everyday existence and sometimes relieves people of accountability.

Everyone has wounds. Not everything is trauma.

The Field Is Drifting Toward Over-Categorization

Niche branding is trending:

“Attachment-focused therapist”

“Narcissistic abuse specialist”

“Inner child coach”

“Neurodivergence therapist”

Of course, some specialization is necessary. But that’s different from making complexity small so it can fit inside a marketing strategy. Humans don’t show up in single-issue bodies and categorizing them into trending lanes risks missing their full, lived experience.

Therapy-Adjacent Services Are Confusing the Public

Coaching. Courses. Masterclasses. Shadow-work retreats.

Some are valuable…and some are gimmickier. The problem is the public often can’t distinguish licensed, regulated care from unregulated personal development. The danger isn’t coaching. It’s lack of clarity. And when people are hurting, they don’t always know what they need or who is credentialed, if at all, to help. In the absence of structure, charisma becomes the sorting mechanism. That’s not good enough.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Let’s face it, this landscape isn’t going back to what it was. I don’t believe social media is the enemy; it’s a tool. But tools need responsible use. I think the field needs to:

·      Show up online with competence and boundaries

·      Speak in plain language without dumbing down

·      Clarify the difference between education and therapy

·      Teach the public what therapy is and isn’t

·      Hold room for critique, self-reflection, and course correction

·      We need more thoughtful clinicians in the digital space, not fewer.

But we cannot let the platform shape the work. The work must shape our presence. Healthy skepticism is now a clinical skill. Social media didn’t break psychotherapy. But it’s distorting it.

If we want to protect the integrity of this field, we’ll need to be clear, be honest, be humble, and refuse to trade depth for visibility. Therapy isn’t a vibe. It’s an artform and a craft.

It deserves more than soundbites.

Jamaal A. Crone, MAR, M.Ed., LPC