Like a toxic omnipresence, Trump is everywhere. Including my therapy room

Therapy rooms are often where the zeitgeist is seen most clearly. While other spaces, such as pubs or cafes, allow for casual observations of the human experience, the intimacy of the therapy space allows the expression of the deepest and truest thoughts and experiences humans encounter.

“I just don’t see the point of life of going on this way,” my client, Emily*, told me recently. Emily was not suicidal. In fact, she’d been in relatively good psychological health but had started feeling despairing and hopeless since Trump’s re-election and return to the White House.

President Donald Trump is becoming an increasing topic of conversation among therapists and patients. Credit: Bloomberg

She felt a level of existential despair, she said, a sense that her life plans had been derailed completely and that any hope for a better life for herself, or even a future for humanity, had ended.

Emily is gay, and she watched the repeal of rights for LGBT people in America with horror, dreading the risk of similar incursions in Australia. She was also upset at how others were dismissing her fears.

Many of my more socially aware clients, especially those from disenfranchised identities, have had similar feelings to Emily since January. I have, too. Perhaps paralleled only by the wide-scale despair during COVID-19 lockdowns, though in that scenario, the despair was offset by a desire for things to get better and a belief that things would soon return to “normal”.

This time, the despair feels all-encompassing, marked by feelings of futility, apathy and hopelessness. In many ways, this is unsurprising. Humanity is experiencing a clear poly-crisis with numerous forces cohering to place our collective and individual futures at risk – climate change, fascism, the tech-oligarchy, geopolitical strife, spiralling costs-of-living, the steady repeal of rights and civil liberties – especially for those from marginalised communities.

Sure, we’ve faced similar circumstances before, but this is the first time we’ve experienced such threats with easy access to technology and the global interconnectedness that renders it likely that what occurs in far-off corners of the world will affect us in some way, even if only economically.

In The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Professionals Assess a President, Dr Jennifer Contarino Panning, an American psychologist, wrote about the increase in anxiety among her clients during Trump’s first term, noting that those historically marginalised were especially strongly impacted, as they had the most to fear from his cruel policies.

This is similar to what I am seeing now with my own clients, as even more flagrant violations of power occur in what can only be described as an emerging dictator state.

The idea of prioritising mental health can seem almost farcical when facing existential threats. It’s extremely difficult to diagnose an anxiety disorder or talk about catastrophising when the world is offering a bleak future for its young. Nor does it seem reasonable to tell a single mother working two jobs to keep a roof over her family’s heads that she needs to address her depression via 10 Medicare-funded sessions.

However, maintaining reasonable mental health is essential so that we can continue to fight these threats. Indeed, most of my clients say that they are seeking some succour from their dread, some way to hold on to hope despite the darkness they feel.

In these times, I find it important to acknowledge the sadness and recognise that no parent figure is coming in to take the reins and find a quick fix. Grieving the loss of hope for a magical cure is important so that we can take a deep breath, draw our shoulders back and step back into the fray.

Understanding the difference between hope and optimism is helpful. Hope is an emotional antidote to despair and allows us to believe that our actions can create a positive outcome, while optimism is the belief that things will turn out fine regardless of our actions. Conflating the two and waiting for resolution without any action can leave us feeling apathetic.

Maintaining mental health in this world requires acting in many small ways in our own homes and communities while keeping a cautious eye on broader societal trends. Teaching our children to be respectful to others, donating to food banks, using our power to vote, refusing to engage in social media attacks, investing in volunteer work, running a fundraiser, protesting, caring for friends, feeding our bodies and minds with good nutrition – all these simple actions can be transformative and can help us tolerate these existential worries and build strength to tackle the forces of rising fascism.

*Clients are fictional amgalms.

Dr Ahona Guha is a clinical and forensic psychologist, trauma expert and author based in Melbourne.