How Does Capitalism Play a Role in Our Mental Health?

When I see a client who is experiencing extreme stress, and burnout one of the main sources of those stressors is often their job. We are taught from a young age that our worth is tied to productivity and ALL of us have experienced some type of praise or punishment for how well we can produce. In 2023 we are all collectively experiencing inflation and are noticing how no matter our levels of productivity we are met with low pay, layoffs, poor working conditions, abusive working environments, praise for self-abandonment, and punishment for setting boundaries.

This leads us to an inability to pay bills, experience displacement and homelessness, inability to receive health care, and overall struggle to get our basic needs met. All of these things can leave us with our mental health in shambles and sometimes cause pre-existing mental health conditions to get worse.

Do we internalize the way capitalism affects our mental health?

Yes! This is called internalized capitalism. Internalized Capitalism can look like…

• Believing your self-worth is tied to productivity
• Feeling guilty when you do something you enjoy
• Prioritizing work over relationships
• Prioritizing work over health
• Sunday scaries “dreading or feeling anxious about work”
• You tell yourself rest = laziness
• Anxiety and stress about losing a job, buying food, clothing, or a home
• Exhaustion and depression
• Suppressing emotions due to being overworked
• The belief that hard work = happiness or success
• Self-blame for systemic issues

How do we prioritize our mental health while living in a capitalist society?

We have to unlearn, explore, and fight in many different ways to engage in liberation from these capitalist ideals. To begin, we need to prioritize ourselves, lean in community with our loved ones, and be affirmed/validated in our experiences. But the most important thing is to keep dreaming and having hope for a world that allows us to thrive. Below are some anti-capitalist affirmations and journal prompts to help you in your process.

Anti-Capitalist Affirmations

• There is no such thing as a “real job.” All forms of work are real and valid
• I do not need to accomplish things to be enough. I am already worthy and enough
• I am not defined by what I produce
• I get to define what success looks like
• Doing nothing is good for me
• I am allowed to play and create things that are not perfect
• I do not need to make money from my hobbies
• It is enough to spend time doing things I love

Anti-Capitalist Journal Prompts

• How would your mental health change if you woke up tomorrow and knew that no matter what your basic needs would be met?
• What are your beliefs or assumptions about money and work? Where did those beliefs come from?
• When was the first time you experienced or witnessed labor exploitation? Burnout? A toxic working environment?
• How did those experiences affect your mental health?
• What did your family’s relationship to money growing up look like? How has that affected you today?
• What does anti-capitalism mean to you?

How do we address mental health and capitalism in therapy?

Addressing how capitalism affects mental health is an essential part of the therapeutic process for many clients. Often we place blame on ourselves while creating harmful narratives that we are the problem instead of looking at how systemic issues have harmed us. In therapy, I help clients process their feelings and notice how those narratives affect them. In some cases, we go further and set up action plans to either work towards changing the way they navigate through their work environments or make plans to remove themself from those environments and move towards spaces that meet their needs and align with their values.

#anticapitalism #mentalhealth #workstress #jobstress #therapyforstress