The mental health stigma is changing: What America’s increasing therapy rates reveal

As more Americans seek therapy than ever before, shifting attitudes toward mental health are revealing a broader cultural change in how people approach emotional well-being.

Nearly 9 in 10 U.S. adults now say that having a mental health condition is nothing to be ashamed of, and 83% report feeling comfortable talking about their mental health openly. That level of acceptance reflects a meaningful shift in how Americans relate to one another and to their own inner lives.

People who once felt isolated by their struggles are increasingly finding those same struggles widely shared, and that recognition of being understood rather than judged is reshaping how mental health is discussed across communities.

BetterHelp examines the data and cultural forces behind America's shifting relationship with mental health and what rising therapy rates reveal about where the country is headed.

A Cultural Turning Point for Mental Health

Americans are increasingly treating mental health the way they approach physical fitness and financial planning, as a fundamental part of how they live. According to APA's Healthy Minds Poll, 38% of Americans entered 2026 planning to make a mental health-related resolution, up five percent from the previous year.

For the first time, emotional well-being ranked third on the national priority list, just behind physical fitness and financial goals, which says something significant about where the culture has arrived.

APA President Theresa Miskimen Rivera, M.D., called that progress encouraging, adding that the strategies people are embracing "reflect a growing recognition that mental health is deeply connected to daily habits." That recognition has moved well beyond individual choices.

Conversations about therapy and emotional well-being are now happening in boardrooms, classrooms, and family dinners in ways that would have been rare just a decade ago, and that cultural openness shows no signs of retreating.

Post-Pandemic Mindset Shifts

There are a few events in recent history that forced people to reckon with their emotional lives the way the COVID-19 pandemic did. Across every demographic, people confronted stress, isolation, and emotional exhaustion simultaneously, with no precedent to draw from and no clear end in sight.

Dr. Delany Smith, system chief clinical officer at the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County, noted that years later, she still hears patients use the phrase "since the pandemic" as a mental health reference point.

The pandemic did not simply surface new struggles. It revealed how many people had been carrying unaddressed ones for years. Dr. Roger McIntyre, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Toronto, described the period as a turning point, noting that the number of people having conversations about mental health “over the dinner table” had considerably increased.

And Dr. Smith echoed that shift, observing that the pandemic brought widespread messaging around the idea that it is acceptable to not be okay, followed by a greater focus on mental wellness in both prevention and treatment.

What the pandemic ultimately produced was a generation of people more willing to seek support, and the culture around them began to shift in ways that made that decision feel far less isolating.

The Role of Destigmatization Movements

Part of what made seeking help feel less isolating was a change in who was willing to talk about it publicly. Athletes, actors, and musicians with massive platforms began sharing their own mental health struggles, and the cultural impact was significant.

Amanda McNab, a licensed clinical social worker at Huntsman Mental Health Institute, observed that when prominent individuals share their mental health journeys, it allows others to see "that they are not alone and that someone can be successful and experience emotional distress."

Seeing that kind of honesty from people in the public eye permitted others to be honest too. And that same permission has extended into the workplace, where mental health is no longer treated as a personal matter that employees manage on their own.

A 2025 Gallup study found that two-thirds of full-time workers report experiencing burnout, prompting employers to build programs that treat mental health as a core workplace concern rather than an afterthought.

As these conversations have become more normalized across public life and professional settings, support systems have begun to evolve alongside them.

Increased Access to Mental Health Support

One of the most significant structural changes behind that evolution has been the expansion of telehealth. The ability to connect with a licensed therapist by video, phone, or messaging changed what seeking help could look like in everyday life.

People no longer had to commute across town, rearrange work schedules, or wait months for a local opening, removing barriers that had kept millions from accessing care for years.

Geography, scheduling, and cost are no longer the automatic barriers they once were. And growing up with that level of access has begun to shape how younger generations think about mental health care.

A Generational Shift in Attitudes

No generation has grown up more fluent in the language of mental health than Gen Z. For many young people, talking about anxiety, therapy, or emotional well-being carries none of the shame it once did for their parents or grandparents, and that cultural distance from stigma is showing up in real behavior.

The American Psychiatric Association found that 37% of Gen Z is already receiving professional mental health treatment, the highest rate of any generation on record.

Patrick Griswold, a clinical instructor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, observed that stigma among young people has significantly decreased because "it's harder to stigmatize something so widespread." Therapy, for this generation, is a regular part of staying well, not a last resort reserved for moments of crisis.

That orientation toward proactive care rather than reactive crisis management may be the most consequential shift of all, and its effects are already rippling outward into how society understands mental health more broadly.

What Rising Therapy Rates Reveal About Society

America's relationship with mental health has not changed overnight, but the direction of that change has become unmistakable.

More people are seeking support, more institutions are building systems to provide it, and more communities are creating space for those conversations to happen without judgment. What that collective movement reveals is a deeper cultural recognition that emotional well-being is inseparable from overall health.

Takeaway

A society that increasingly agrees with that sentiment is one moving toward greater empathy, stronger communities, and workplaces where people feel supported rather than expected to endure in silence. And for millions of Americans who once felt alone in their struggles, that movement forward is long overdue.

This story was produced by BetterHelp and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.