Why Purpose Alone Can’t Solve the Mental Health Crisis

We are in the midst of a global mental health crisis. This isn’t just theory…it’s what I used to see every day as a practicing primary care physician, and it’s backed by data. According to the World Health Organization’s Global Burden of Disease study, approximately 13.9 percent of the world’s population experienced a mental disorder in 2021. Anxiety and depression top the list.

There are countless reasons for this surge. The long tail of the COVID-19 pandemic, the isolating effects of social media, rising economic pressures, and a world that often feels unsteady all play a role. As we try to make sense of it all, some turn to one very appealing universal solution: purpose.

But here’s the thing. While purpose matters a great deal in life, I don’t believe it’s the answer to our mental health epidemic.

Purpose is valuable. Having a reason to get out of bed in the morning, to contribute, to grow—these things are essential to a meaningful and fulfilling life. And for those experiencing what we might call purpose anxiety, in which the discomfort stems specifically from a perceived lack of direction or meaning, working toward a life of purpose can be deeply healing.

But that’s not the same as treating depression. Or anxiety. Or trauma. Or any of the many mental illnesses that originate not from a lack of future direction, but from a tangled mix of biology, psychology, environment, and past experience.

Mental illness, as we know from decades of research, is rarely caused by one thing. It often develops through the interaction of genetic predispositions, early life experiences, chronic stress, and neurological or chemical imbalances. It is deeply rooted in both thought and biology.

Purpose, by contrast, is rooted in action. What I call “little p” purpose is about the day-to-day decisions and commitments we make. The things that energize us. The experiences that bring us into flow. The work or passions that give shape to our lives. It’s forward-facing. Active. Often motivational.

But mental illness often traps people in the past or in rumination. It lives in memory, sometimes in fear, and often in distorted thinking patterns. It clouds our ability to act, to feel joy, to simply function. Telling someone with clinical depression to find their purpose can feel like asking someone with a broken leg to just walk it off. It’s not that the suggestion is malicious; it’s just misaligned with what’s truly needed.

That’s where I believe meaning comes in. Meaning is different from purpose. It’s reflective. It’s how we interpret our past and integrate it into our present. It’s the narrative we construct about who we are and what has shaped us. And in my experience, this is the terrain where much mental illness is more likely to reside.

Healing often comes not from looking forward, but from looking inward and backward—with the support of therapy, community, and sometimes medication. This is not about rejecting purpose, but about recognizing that purpose isn’t a cure-all. It isn’t the primary treatment for trauma, or a chemical imbalance, or a lifetime of unprocessed grief.

Mental health care must be grounded in accurate diagnosis, compassionate support, and evidence-based interventions. That might mean exploring childhood wounds, reworking cognitive distortions, or adjusting neurochemistry with medications. It might mean learning to sit with discomfort, or grieving what was lost. None of that gets solved by simply pursuing purpose.

Purpose can be a beautiful outcome of healing. It can emerge once the fog lifts, once the weight has started to shift. But to present it as the solution is, I think, a mistake.

The answer lies not in chasing purpose as a panacea, but in doing the harder, often slower work of understanding and treating the roots of suffering to provide the clarity, strength, and support to someday live with purpose again.