Our cultural relationship with politics is deeply unhealthy

Viewing modern partisan politics as a mental disorder isn't as crazy as it sounds...

Increasingly, political discourse resembles a mental illness more than a social or cultural dialogue. And that’s not just because many of our elected leaders appear to be mentally ill — although, they often do.

Full disclosure: I’m not a psychologist… I don’t even play one on Television. I do, however, find the study of psychology to be fascinating — although it is sometimes a bit disturbing.

Especially as one starts to apply such knowledge to the insane, absurd and bizarre world in which we currently exist.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychological treatment that recognizes the role “cognitive distortions” play in mental disorders — focusing on giving patients a way to reframe how they think as a way to treat their disorder. It’s an incredibly powerful approach to treating depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug addiction, marital problems and even eating disorders because it effectively “hacks” the unhealthy thinking patterns that contribute to such problems.

Certainly, if such a form of therapy can treat depression and drug addiction, it ought to offer a little reprieve from our moment of political absurdity, right?

According to the American Psychological Association, CBT is based on several principles — two of the most pertinent, however, being the following:

1. Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.

2. Psychological problems are based, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behavior.

At this point, do I even have to keep writing to explain how partisan politics often reflect a psychological disorder, or are we all pretty much on board with this hypothesis? After all, “unhelpful ways of thinking” and “unhelpful behavior” quite nicely articulates the way many of us view political parties nowadays.

Nonetheless, in the interest of being thorough, let’s explore it: