Division: The New Mental Health Crisis

Posted Friday, July 24, 2026 9:54 am

Dr. Ana Daniels-Omomarho, PhD, LMSW, MSW, BSW

Founder and Director, The Burnout Institute

For further information or to get in touch, contact dr.ana@burnoutinstitute.org

By Dr. Ana Daniels-Omomarho

There was a time when disagreement did not automatically end a relationship. Neighbors with opposing political views still borrowed cups of sugar from one another. Families gathered around holiday tables trusting that even spirited conversation couldn’t outweigh love. Friends debated passionately and still laughed together the next day.

That world feels increasingly distant now.

Political division has stopped being something we simply disagree about. It has seeped into homes, workplaces, faith communities, schools, and neighborhoods, reshaping the emotional architecture of everyday life. Most of the public conversation focuses on the political consequences of this shift — who wins, who loses, which policy prevails. Far less attention goes to what it is doing to us emotionally. Therapists and mental health professionals are watching anxiety, burnout, loneliness, and emotional exhaustion rise in tandem with our divisions, and the pattern is becoming impossible to ignore: prolonged division changes the way people relate to one another.

I know this in a way that isn’t abstract to me.

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