The human psyche is built for connection. Our evolutionary history, our families, and our communities shape us to seek cooperation, mutual respect, and shared purpose. We are, by design, social beings whose sense of safety depends on trust and belonging.
When that natural orientation toward unity is fractured; when instead we encounter hostility, harsh language, or dehumanization, it cuts against the grain of who we are. What might once have been experienced only within a troubled family system or a divided community is now amplified on a global scale. In today’s era of instant communication and social media, where every insult and every outrage can be broadcast in real time, the psychological impact is magnified.
In the psychiatric clinic, I see this every day. Patients arrive with panic attacks, spirals of anxiety, and depressive symptoms that worsen after being immersed in the 24-hour news cycle or scrolling through polarized feeds. For many, the conflicts they witness on cable television or online feel eerily familiar, echoing the unresolved arguments of their families of origin: childhood environments where anger, volatility, or withdrawal left deep emotional imprints.
The reactivation of these early wounds is not merely symbolic. It is visceral. Patients describe chest tightness, sleeplessness, and an overwhelming sense of helplessness as if they are once again caught in an argument they cannot escape. This overlap of personal history and societal discord creates a unique form of psychic trauma, an erosion of the sense that human beings are capable of listening to one another and finding common ground.
Yet, there is a hopeful clinical lesson here. When I ask patients about their exposure to divisive media (how often they watch, what emotions it stirs, and how it connects to old relational wounds), many begin to recognize the cycle. Identifying the link between political polarization and personal trauma allows them to reclaim agency. For some, setting boundaries on news and social media intake becomes not only a practical step but also a symbolic act of healing: a way of affirming their own right to peace, dignity, and unity.
Psychiatry has always been about understanding how the inner world interacts with the outer one. Right now, the outer world is flooded with voices of conflict. But if the human psyche is indeed wired for cooperation, then even amidst the noise of division, we can help patients rediscover resilience. By acknowledging the psychic wounds caused by polarization, and by offering paths back to calm and connection, we remind them (and ourselves) that unity is not just an ideal. It is a psychological necessity.
Farid Sabet-Sharghi is a psychiatrist.
