Social media has profound impact on how we experience the world and interact with others. Rapidly advancing technology has created platforms that have become increasingly image- based and emotionally manipulative. Do the new patterns of communication change patients’ mental processes? Is free association becoming more imagistic? Contemporary clinical set- tings invite new perspectives on the intersections between the social and individual realms, patients’ modes of expression, and analysts’ interpretations. In the mosaic of virtual life, images prevail. In the place of artis- tic production conceived by an exceptional talent, we now find more democratic and widespread visual forms: photographs, reels, videos, short digital stories, and so on. This increase of visual ele- ments on social media posts and interactions has an impact on communication, social connection, and virtual identity. The storytelling habits are transitioning from words to imagery, from lived to virtually experienced, from written and spoken to imagistically constructed. This movement slowly but steadily may be changing how we live, what we feel, and how we express ourselves. Conse- quently, it impacts how patients free associate—and perhaps how analysts perceive mental processes. It was Sigmund Freud who first addressed how imagistic compo- nents become connected to certain characteristics of manipulated groups, shaping social mentality and repressing individualization: “A group is extraordinarily credulous and open to influence . . . It thinks in images, which call one another up by association . . . and whose agreement with reality is never checked by any reasonable function” (1921, p. 78). Most influential social media platforms promote or require communication in images and short sen- tences. The majority of their users are teenagers and young adults: Auxier and Anderson (2022) describe a study in which “A majority of Americans say they use YouTube and Facebook, while use of Ins- tagram, Snapchat, and TikTok is especially common among adults under 30.” If mental representations are created by the internalization of what is happening between us and the external world, what types of representation are likely to be formed in the minds of those who predominantly learn and interact in social media contexts with imagistic content?

Recent research published by the Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry showed that 27‒33% of U.S. adults have experienced some form of religious trauma during life. The research also shows that at least 37% U.S. adults are suffering from any three of the six major religious trauma symptoms according to the research. These symptoms include anxiety, stress, fear, depression, shame, and nightmares (Slade et al., 2023). This research has been conducted from a sociological perspective, seeking to identify the specific indicators that suggest a link between these symptoms and religious trauma. While we cannot claim these symptoms are always caused by such traumatic experience, the research conducted on this topic provides provoking data that can offer insights into the ways religious beliefs and experiences can impact mental health. This data points to an opportunity for clinical research on the manifestation of these symptoms as consequences of religious trauma.

In today's world, happiness is perceived as a fragmented idea. Finding people equate happiness with success, material possessions, and social media popularity is common. The pursuit of happiness has become a constant rat race, leading to increased stress, anxiety, and depression. Happiness is often portrayed as an unattainable ideal that can only be achieved through external validation. Social media platforms have made it worse by creating unrealistic standards of beauty, wealth, and success, fueling the belief that we are not happy unless we meet these standards. This constant comparison game takes a toll on mental health and leads to feelings of inadequacy, disconnection, and emotional dependency. From a psychoanalytic perspective, happiness is closely linked to personality and the process of psychic organization—a byproduct of what Wilfred Bion called the alfa function. Anpha function refers to the ability to create meaning out of unconscious raw contents; the process in the mind transforms chaotic sensory experiences into cohesive and thinkable mental representations. At the heart of alpha function is the ability to tolerate frustration and uncertainty. This is critical because life is often unpredictable, and circumstances change quickly. "The price we pay for our advancement in terms of civilization is a loss of happiness…”—Freud in Civilizations and Its Discontents, 1933.