Therapists Can Help Build Villages in Our World of Consumer Culture

A few weeks ago in Ljubljana, Slovenia, I stood before a room full of psychotherapists from 27 countries—from Slovenia to Spain, the U.K. to the U.S.—and, in my keynote address, shared an idea I’ve spent years researching, writing, and leaning into. I told these clinicians:

In our work, we explore our clients’ inner worlds and their early relationships. But there’s a third force we often overlook: the consumer culture that surrounds us. And that’s a big miss. Why? Because this culture is actively influencing us—it’s quietly isolating us and it’s reshaping our sense of self.

In this talk, I’ll address consumer culture head on. And then I’ll invite each of us to take part in creating something powerful: a new way forward, toward connection, belonging, and building the kind of village culture that once covered the Earth.

Here’s what I shared next.

Part 1. The Villages That Disappeared

I invited everyone to join me in a brief thought-experiment:

Imagine you’re not sitting in a conference hall, but at a long wooden table in the heart of an ancestral village. Children dart beneath the benches, laughing and playing catch-me-if-you-can. A plate of hearty stew and smoked fish rests before you. And as you begin to eat, stories of the day rise into the night air, shared under the soft glow of firelight. You’re surrounded by 40 to 80 others—not strangers, but fellow villagers you’ve known your entire life. And as you listen, as you offer your presence, something settles inside you—a sense of place; a sense of belonging; and the deep knowing that you’re not in this life alone. You’re part of something bigger, and you matter here.

For two million years, this was how we lived. Humans—and the ancestors who came before us—gathered in small villages, shared meals, raised children together, and came home to one another. This is the setting in which our minds evolved, shaped by connection, closeness, and community. It’s no wonder we arrive into this world with minds hardwired for relationship, ready for each other from the very first moment we exit our mothers' wombs.

But over the past 20,000 years, those villages have all but vanished. In their place, a global monoculture has taken hold: our modern consumer culture. And when we’re born into this world, we are not met by 40 to 80 pairs of eyes ready to satisfy our relational needs within seconds. Instead, we’re greeted by the tired eyes of two people, our parents, who bundle us up and take us home into a strange new world.

Part 2. The Parents Who Disappeared

Now, consumer culture didn’t just take our villages away from us—it took our parents, too. Our parents grew up in a world that demanded they do, alone, what entire villages once did: build work lives, tend to home lives, and carry all the demands of daily life on their own shoulders. And that wasn’t all our parents carried. They were also burdened by the traumas and losses of their own childhoods and adulthoods. These were pains they endured alone, with no one to help them.

It’s into these weary parents’ arms that we arrive, longing for connection, full of relational, emotional, and physical needs. These are the sorts of needs that would have once been met by an entire village but now land on just two people. It’s simply too much for them.

And that’s why, when we reach out for care, we’re too often met by a parent too overwhelmed to respond with the sort of presence we crave.

Part 3. The Culture Exploits Our Unmet Needs to Turn Us Into Its Consumers and Producers

What does our consumer culture do with our unmet needs? Rather than help us find ways to meaningfully satisfy them, it exploits them.

Consumer culture promises, through trillion-dollar ad campaigns, that our deepest relational needs can be met through what we buy. An ad for a fast-food restaurant really isn’t pitching burgers and fries. It’s promising that, if you unwrap this meal, you’ll find yourself in a world of belonging, seated at a table full of laughter and warmth. The take-home message is clear: The connection you crave is just one small purchase away.

We see these ads so early and so often that we mistake them for truth. And before we know it, we’re out there in the world trying to buy our way back to the care, closeness, and belonging we all need.

Part 4. What Therapists Offer Their Clients Today, How It Helps, and Why It Isn’t Enough

What we do as therapists matters deeply. We offer our clients stillness and compassion, creating a space that echoes what our ancestors once found in a village: a place where they are seen, supported, and cared for. And here, slowly, our clients begin to stitch together a renewed sense of wholeness within themselves. Here, they also learn to create deeper, more authentic connections with the people around them in their everyday lives.

But here’s what I also told therapists that day, in my keynote:

We can’t stop here. Not anymore.

It’s not enough that we help our clients rediscover their worth in our offices and in a few safe relationships beyond them. Why? Because the moment our clients step back into the world, they’re met by a consumer culture that insists value must be bought, earned, and proven ... unraveling the very healing we’ve worked together to achieve.

We need to take things one step further.

Healing must become a cultural act. And here’s my vision for it.

Every therapist begins a group—maybe even a handful of them. Each group is six to twelve people, and meets once a week for two to three hours. Together, this group shares in something real: truth-telling, honest feedback, compassionate confrontation, social learning, and relational repair. Over time, let’s call it six months to a year, something powerful happens: People feel free to be fully themselves and still feel connected.

And once that kind of connection takes root, the group begins to spill beyond its weekly meetings. Members start helping each other with the ordinary demands of life: making meals, watching kids, showing up when someone’s hurting. And everyone brings those outside experiences back into the weekly group gatherings—to reflect, to process, to grow together.

And in this way, we begin to offer our clients something more than individual healing. We offer them a chance to experience belonging—the kind our consumer culture asks us to live without; the kind we all still ache for; the kind that once thrived in the villages that blanketed the Earth.