The Illusion of Happiness: Emotional Conformity as Wellness

Happiness is no longer a feeling—it’s a requirement. In today's culture, we're expected to think positively, visualize success, and maintain an upbeat attitude at all costs. Sadness, doubt, and exhaustion are framed not as natural responses to a difficult world, but as personal failures. This pressure isn’t just internal—it’s built into the wellness industry, corporate environments, and even medical frameworks that define what counts as "healthy."

As Chris Hedges notes, the booming self-help industry doesn’t teach us to question our environment—it teaches us to blame ourselves. If you're burned out, it's not the system—it’s your mindset. The promise is seductive: think positive, and good things will come. But when that promise fails, it leaves individuals isolated, ashamed, and convinced they alone are broken.

Byung-Chul Han takes this critique further. In his analysis, modern individuals become their own overseers—motivated by freedom yet trapped in the need to constantly perform and optimize. Positivity becomes a compulsion, and any deviation—grief, anger, fatigue—is pathologized. In a culture obsessed with productivity and self-improvement, emotional honesty is quietly punished while fake optimism is rewarded.

This is not wellness. It’s emotional conformity, dressed up as care.

Alongside self-help culture, psychiatry has expanded in influence and scope. The increase in psychiatric medication use, particularly antidepressants, is striking. Between 2015 and 2018, approximately 13.2% of American adults reported using antidepressants, with higher rates among older populations. By 2020, 16.5% of adults were taking prescription mental health medications, and as of 2022, 1 in 6 adults in the U.S. was medicated for psychiatric conditions.

This rise is not explained solely by an increase in suffering. It also correlates with shifting diagnostic standards. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the foundational text of psychiatric diagnosis, has been repeatedly revised to expand the definitions of mental illness. Broader criteria lead to more diagnoses—and more prescriptions.

Crucially, these changes have not occurred in a vacuum. A 2006 study found that 69% of DSM-5 task force members had financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies. These ties raise ethical questions about how disorders are defined and whose interests are being served. When pharmaceutical profits depend on expanding treatment markets, the line between medical help and market creation becomes dangerously blurred.

This entanglement suggests that ordinary human experiences—grief, fear, apathy, fatigue—may be increasingly labeled as pathological. For the pharmaceutical industry, more diagnoses mean more customers. But for the public, this risks turning emotional pain into a product.

We live in a world that often causes despair—and then sells us the cure. The self-help industry, psychiatric institutions, and corporate wellness programs all feed into a system where positivity becomes a performance, and discomfort is medicalized or moralized.

But true wellness cannot come from denial. We must reclaim the legitimacy of emotions that don’t fit the mold. It is okay to doubt. It is okay to grieve. It is okay to feel tired in a world that demands too much.

Real healing begins not with the forced pursuit of happiness, but with the freedom to feel without punishment. Only then can we begin to untangle our emotions from the systems that distort them.

Note: The statistics and studies referenced are based on data available up to April 2025. For the most current information, consulting recent publications and official health sources is recommended.

Books:

Hedges, C. (2009). Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Nation Books.

Han, B.-C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (E. Butler, Trans.). Verso.

Academic Articles and Reports:

Cosgrove, L., Krimsky, S., Vijayaraghavan, M., & Schneider, L. (2006). Financial ties between DSM-IV panel members and the pharmaceutical industry. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 75(3), 154–160. https://doi.org/10.1159/000091772

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2020). Data Brief No. 377: Antidepressant Use Among Adults: United States, 2015–2018. National Center for Health Statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db377.htm

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2022). Data Brief No. 419: Mental Health Treatment Among Adults: United States, 2020. National Center for Health Statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db419.htm