When Cheering For Team USA Requires Therapy, Something Has Gone Very, Very Wrong

We have a late addition for "dumbest thing written by the media" during the 2026 Winter Olympics, and it comes from the Huffington Post. Actually, it's not even a late addition. 

"There's A Name For The Discomfort You're Feeling Watching The Olympics Right Now," the headline reads. 

HuffPo originally published the article near the start of the Games but decided it was just so good they had to publish it a second time right before Team USA faced Canada in the gold medal game for men's hockey. 

"If waving the American flag or chanting ‘USA!’ turns you off right now, you're not alone," the subheadline adds. 

Apparently the Olympics were not complete until someone in the left-wing media decided patriotism required a mental illness diagnosis. Which is fascinating, because these are the same people who believe that being "transgender" is an "identity" and not a mental illness, but that's beside the point. 

HuffPost’s therapist-driven Olympics coverage recasts patriotism as distress, turning a unifying event into ideological conflict and reinforcing a broader culture of emotional fragility.

(Getty Images)

"While President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda separates families, and federal agents detain 5-year-olds and kill unarmed civilians, American athletes are winning medals on behalf of the nation at the Olympics right now," the first paragraph states. 

Framing the deportation of illegal immigrants as "separating families" immediately alerts readers that the author has no interest in providing reasonable commentary, but is committed to the ideological agenda. 

In addition, casting Alex Pretti (who appeared to be armed at a protest) and Renee Good (who appeared to weaponize her vehicle) as "unarmed civilians" killed by federal agents is both misleading and wildly irresponsible. 

But that's not what we're here to talk about right now. 

Patriotism = Mental Illness? 

The Huffington Post interviewed three therapists for this "story" about rooting for the United States at the Olympics. 

"The cognitive dissonance of rooting for U.S. sports while hating the U.S. government is so common that ‘it continues to be one of the main topics I hold space for in therapy,’ said Los Angeles-based licensed clinical social worker Aimee Monterrosa. ‘As we continue to witness national and global atrocities in real time...it can trigger feelings of guilt, despair, shame, anger.’"

Color me shocked that a "Los Angeles-based" LCSW needs to "hold space" to talk with clients about how terrible it is to live in the United States. 

Tanisha Ranger, another therapist interviewed by HuffPo, said it’s "typical for people with this cognitive dissonance to feel a ‘weird mix of excitement and discomfort at the same time’ that might feel like ‘a tightening in your chest or stomach when you realize you’re cheering and cringing simultaneously.’" 

Yes, I can't imagine how many Americans experienced chest pains watching the United States capture gold medals during the Olympics. Emergency rooms must have been overrun with patients who couldn't quite sort out their emotions. 

Monterrosa echoed the idea that this "cognitive dissonance" could manifest itself in physical symptoms "like a tightness in the neck, shoulder or jaw areas, as well as digestive issues and trouble sleeping." 

Being the journalist that I am, I decided to reach out to Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and author of an upcoming book, Therapy Nation.

"The fact that watching the Olympics now requires a psychological explanation tells us how far therapy culture has gone. For most of human history, cheering for your country wasn’t emotionally complicated," Alpert told OutKick. 

Exactly. It's not complicated. Funny that HuffPo didn't bother to reach out to someone like Alpert, who might disagree with its premise. 

Instead, let's check in with their third expert, Lauren Appio. 

"If waving the American flag or chanting, ‘USA!’ makes us feel grossed out or ashamed, we can cheer for individual athletes," Appio said. "We can also learn more about their stories and the stories of athletes from around the world, and appreciate all they have done to get to the height of their sports."

Wow. Appio didn't say, "if waving the American flag makes YOU feel ashamed." No, she said, "if waving the American flag makes US feel ashamed." It's hard not to glean that our therapist friend is among those people "ashamed" of the United States. Of course, not enough to leave the United States. It's never enough to leave.

HuffPost’s therapist-driven Olympics coverage recasts patriotism as distress, turning a unifying event into ideological conflict and reinforcing a broader culture of emotional fragility.

(Getty Images)

Sometimes, I wish I could just sit in during a HuffPo pitch meeting. 

"Hey, I was thinking that… you know how we all hate America?" one eager HuffPo writer asks, probably. 

"Yes, of course," the rest of the HuffPo staff responds, probably. 

"Well, we should interview a bunch of liberal therapists who also hate America and ask them to tell us why people who don't hate America are actually sick," the eager HuffPo writer suggests, probably. 

"That is… the best idea I have ever heard," a senior HuffPo editor replies, probably a smile spreading across their face. 

To be clear, I'm using they/them pronouns not because I haven't picked a gender for my hypothetical senior editor at HuffPo. It's because my hypothetical senior editor at HuffPo is the one who hasn't picked a gender yet. Give them time, though, sometimes it takes 30 years to decide. 

What Is HuffPo Even Doing Here? 

While I won't pretend to know why HuffPo thought this article was a good idea, I'd venture a guess that it disguises its disdain for America by hiding behind the opinions of "experts." The problem, as Alpert noted, is that many therapists in the U.S. are just as entrapped by their political leanings. 

"What we’re really seeing is therapeutic language replacing honest disagreement. Instead of simply saying, ‘I don’t like nationalism,’ we’re told viewers are experiencing emotional distress that requires validation or analysis. This is nothing more than ideology dressed up as mental health," Alpert said. 

"Therapists themselves have helped create this problem. In my forthcoming book Therapy Nation, I argue that therapy culture has expanded far beyond the consulting room, encouraging people to interpret discomfort as damage, disagreement as trauma, and ordinary stress as pathology."

This is the key. Trauma is one of those 2026 buzzwords. Trauma used to mean something like "I saw my best friend get his arm blown off in Vietnam." Now it means, "That guy wearing a MAGA hat looked at me funny, and now I need a Xanax, or I'm going to have a panic attack." 

In this case, HuffPo has decided that it can be traumatic to watch Team USA win Olympic medals. It took something historically unifying and turned it into yet another potentially divisive event. 

"Sports, especially the Olympics, were… one of the few places where politics paused and people united around excellence, effort, and shared human achievement," Alpert said. 

But that's not good for HuffPo. It needs conflict. It needs its readers (the morally good people, in their minds) to hate its detractors (the morally bad people). 

Even more insidious is the dirty little secret: HuffPo knows its audience is filled with mentally-weak people. With stories like this, they are pretending to "help" their readers. However, they're doing the exact opposite.

"What’s happening here reflects a broader cultural shift in which America’s institutions increasingly teach people to view themselves as psychologically vulnerable rather than capable and resilient. Instead of encouraging confidence, responsibility, and shared identity, therapy culture often rewards grievance, hypersensitivity, and emotional fragility," Alpert said. 

That makes sense, when you think about it. If a therapist "fixes" their client, the money stops flowing. If a HuffPo reader becomes self-reliant, rational and emotionally-resilient, they stop reading the Huffington Post.

And that's just bad for business.