It’s a moment I’ve come to recognize too well as a psychiatry resident: a patient walks into my office already convinced of their diagnosis. They’ve watched a dozen videos, followed mental health influencers on Instagram, and taken online quizzes that “confirmed” what they suspected. They have ADHD, or autism, or borderline personality disorder. They’re not here for an evaluation; they’re here for validation.
On one hand, this moment feels like progress. Social media has sparked a cultural shift where mental health is no longer cloaked in shame. More people are seeking help, talking openly about their struggles, and advocating for care. That part is unequivocally good. The stigma is fading, and for too long, that stigma kept people silent. But there’s a darker side too, one that’s harder to talk about without being misunderstood. In an age where content creation is currency, psychiatric labels have become hashtags. Complex conditions are reduced to bite-sized checklists, and symptoms are pulled out of context. The nuance and rigor of a proper evaluation, what we spend years learning to do, often gets drowned out by algorithms that reward confidence over accuracy.
This creates a strange and delicate challenge. When an evaluation does not support the diagnosis a patient is certain they have, it doesn’t just lead to disappointment; it can lead to mistrust. The clinician becomes the gatekeeper blocking entry to a community the patient already feels they belong to. Sometimes patients leave convinced we are wrong. Sometimes they stop coming altogether.
To make matters worse, the system we work in often sets us up to fail. Insurance companies push for shorter visits, faster turnover, and endless documentation. There’s rarely enough time to sit with a patient’s full story, let alone untangle where social media ends and psychiatry begins. It often feels like we are asked to do deep, delicate work in a system designed for speed and volume. That pressure doesn’t just exhaust physicians; it harms patients.
For trainees, this world of algorithmic self-diagnosis adds another twist. We are still building confidence in our own clinical judgment while constantly trying to prove we belong in the room. They never told us imposter syndrome would be our most consistent co-resident. When patients come in convinced they have a certain diagnosis, quoting symptoms verbatim from TikTok, it can trigger a quiet panic: What if they’re right and I’m the one missing something? Even when every instinct, supervisor, and DSM page says otherwise, that tiny voice of self-doubt loves to chime in. Balancing humility with authority is a delicate art, best practiced with coffee in hand.
There’s also a kind of emotional whiplash in these encounters. Patients come armed with certainty, while we come armed with curiosity and an annoying tendency to say, “Well, it depends.” It can feel disorienting when the very thing we’re still learning, how to untangle complex psychiatric presentations, is being declared with confidence by people outside the field. But that discomfort can be strangely useful. It forces us to slow down, sharpen our reasoning, and remember that good psychiatry isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room. It’s about being the most thoughtful one.
The problem is compounded by a broader social climate where misinformation travels faster than facts and skepticism toward institutions, including medicine, runs deep. We have seen how dangerous this can be with vaccines. Psychiatry is no exception. Still, I believe there’s a way forward. It starts with humility, recognizing that our field has not always done a great job of listening to patients or validating their experiences. It also requires clarity, helping people understand the difference between self-awareness and diagnosis, between having symptoms and having a disorder. And it demands presence, taking the time to talk, to explain, and to be curious rather than dismissive.
Because at the end of the day, people aren’t coming in because they want to game the system. They’re coming in because they’re suffering and searching for answers. Social media may shape their questions, but it’s our job to help them find grounded, evidence-based, compassionate ones. We aren’t here to police identities; we’re here to help people heal. And in a world where the internet never stops talking, our ability to truly listen has never mattered more.
Anadil Coria is a psychiatry resident.
