Cognitive therapists see meteoric rise in patients seeking treatment for political anxiety

During George W. Bush's presidency, Brian Tierney — the Philadelphia-based conservative insider who headed Bush's Catholic outreach in 2000 and formerly published the Philadelphia Inquirer — had some advice for Americans who were feeling stressed out by post-9/11 politics: turn off the news. Anxiety over political events is even more acute in 2026 than it was back then, and according to Politico's Catherine Kim, more and more Americans are seeking therapists in order to cope with U.S. politics in the Trump era.

"American politics has been deemed broken for years," Kim explains in Politico, "but something new is happening: Not only are more people depressed or anxious about the state of the world, but now, they are seeking professional help. And therapists are more than ready to give it. With anxiety over politics reaching new heights and crises flashing relentlessly across our screens, mental health professionals say they're seeing an influx of patients distraught about the news coming out of Washington and beyond."

This increase in politics-related anxiety, according to Kim, isn't minor — it's meteoric.

Veronica Calkins, clinical director for the California-based Pacific Mind Health, is seeing a definite increase in Americans suffering mental health problems because of politics.

Calkins told Politico, "This is the first time that we're really seeing people initiating therapy because of political (anxiety)."

New York City-based therapist Melissa Tihinen is seeing an increase as well, telling Politico, "The vast majority of people are affected in some way (by politics). And that's more true today than it ever has been in the past."

According to an American Psychological Association study published in 2025, 65 percent of Americans saw politics as a major source of stress in their lives.

"Therapists say these figures have often been high, but it's a recent phenomenon for such distress to actually drive clients into their offices — a shift fueled both by the destigmatization of mental health care and by the sense that some people are reaching a breaking point," Kim reports. "As a result, therapists are also adapting, and some have begun to specialize in the area. Within her own practice, Calkins has been tasked with seeing the clients who come in for political anxiety, including focusing on how it affects other stressors in a person’s life."

Kim adds, "Others in the field see political anxiety as such a pervasive issue that they believe every therapist needs to learn how to tackle it in a session. Tihinen says her practice has held staff meetings dedicated to addressing best practices in handling political anxiety."

Kevin Smith, a political scientist for the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and University of Toronto psychologist Brett Ford are even holding workshops on politics-related anxiety.

Ford told Politico, "One of the most common ways, like low-hanging fruit ways, of managing anxiety is avoidance. When you pair anxiety with hopelessness and feeling like there’s nothing you can do, that creates the perfect storm for widespread political disengagement."

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