Abstract
Generation Z (born between 1997 – 2012) is characterized
as having both unprecedented mental health awareness and unprecedented mental distress. An apparent contradiction with
troubling implications for the mental health field: Either the
response to the mounting crisis has been insufficient or the field forms part of the problem. Taking seriously Wilks’ (2023) criticism
of “therapeutic overreach” of the contemporary mental health field
in the lives and development of youth, this paper attempts a self-
analysis and moral inventory about the field’s potential complicity
in the crisis and in the history of hysteria. Lacan’s writings on the
“analyst’s discourse” are considered a potential resource for course correction. However, drawing from Byung-Chul Han’s (2015, 2017) writing on the "achievement-subject" and Lacan’s own discourse theory, we are doubtful of Lacan’s (Lacan & Copjec, 1990) comment on psychoanalysis as a “way out of capitalist discourse” (p. 16). Rather, we consider whether psychoanalysis
and its psychotherapeutic translations have helped to embed Gen
Z in new, more advanced political-economic diversions.
Recommended Citation
Dubitans, V. (2025). Psycho-Analysis Will Not Save Us: Reflections on the Gen Z Mental Health Crisis. Middle Voices, 3 (1). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/middle_voices/vol3/iss1/1