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The big issues that came up in therapy work in 2024

Dec 24, 2024 09:15 AM IST

This year, clients reported loneliness, shallow friendships, dating fatigue, attention issues, and declining satisfaction in work and life as major concerns.

Over the last few years, as the year comes to an end, I sit down every December to make a list of concerns that have topped the list when it comes to client sessions. There are five concerns that topped the list for this year. The first concern that has echoed across age groups starting from 13-year-olds to those in their 50’s is loneliness. More and more people this year spoke about how they feel unseen, unheard and experience loneliness even in social settings. A forty-five-year-old client told me, ‘I dread weekends, I feel alone with family and then alone at work – the pandemic changed things and even though we go every day to work, something is broken, even conversations don’t feel the same.’

The first concern that has echoed across age groups starting from 13-year-olds to those in their 50’s is loneliness. Representational Image(Unsplash)
The first concern that has echoed across age groups starting from 13-year-olds to those in their 50’s is loneliness. Representational Image(Unsplash)

Another client, a fourteen-year-old boy, told me: ‘My parents think I am on the phone all day chatting with friends, what they don’t know is that while on groups everybody is typing and chatting, there is no one really who I can speak to at school or have a real conversation with.’

Another concern very closely related to this is how the flavour of friendships has changed. Several of my clients complain about how hard it is to make new friends or to even have real conversation with some of the old ones. As I wrote in this column earlier, social media has deeply impacted our friendships – it has created an illusion of intimacy. We may know too much via social media about our friends, colleagues and even people we potentially want to date but does it mean we understand them, or they us? Social media is coming in the way of getting to know people organically. Our capacity for engaging with people and letting conversations deepen has been impacted. A twenty-one-year-old client told me, ‘I spend time at work, with friends, my family and yet therapy is the only place where I feel that someone is interested in knowing how I am doing. I don’t know if young people my age want to invest in friendships where we can talk, share – all everyone wants to do is party, hang out or discuss trends on social media. I find this shallow and exhausting.’

‘Everybody seems so caught up in their own world, trying to hustle that there is no space to check on others,” says a 38-year-old male client in therapy. He goes on to say, “People who I considered friends are no longer interested in knowing me or my struggles – we talk about food, travel and may be a TV show, but it stops there. I have been avoiding these catch ups as it’s hard to pretend. All I am looking for is someone to share about my life and to find someone who cares to listen.”

Another concern which has pretty much invaded most therapy sessions is how it’s so hard for both men and women to find people who are interested in dating and building relationships. Stories of dating fatigue, disappointment, trust concerns and even disillusionment have been a big part of the sessions. For those who are married or live-in with partners – concerns around loneliness, the hectic pace of life, and the absence of depth of conversations are concerns that now emerge routinely. Conflicts in relation to demands from children’s school, education system, navigating screen time for kids, family dynamics are some of the other issues that were widely brought up in therapy.

The mention of struggles with focus, reading books, poor attention span, doom-scrolling and using the phone excessively are also discussed in most sessions. The desire for fame and social popularity is something that now cuts across careers.

Lastly—and this is something I have been noticing from the last six to seven years—there is a marked decline in the level of satisfaction and happiness that people report about their work, family or finances. This makes me wonder about the co-relation between or lived reality and what we see on social media which seems to be setting the parameters for our ambition, self-esteem and personal joy.

As we step into 2025, choose to pause and ask yourself – what has been your biggest concern this year, and once you know that, work towards at least one thing that will have the most positive impact on your overall wellbeing. Every small step counts, so begin now.

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