Macrina Milcah
A mental health crisis is no longer confined to the therapist’s office or the emergency ward-it now unfolds across timelines, comment sections, and livestreams. The Psychological Foundations of Digital Coping: Mental Health Crises and Social Media Interventions examines this seismic shift in human distress and recovery, tracing how digital platforms have become both lifelines and labyrinths for those in psychological turmoil. Drawing from epidemiological data, cognitive theory, and crisis intervention models such as SAFER‑R and ACT, the book explores how individuals navigate trauma, loss, and identity fragmentation through online spaces that blur the boundaries between self‑expression and surveillance.Through frameworks like the Uses and Gratifications Theory, the OSROR Model, and algorithmic contagion, the author dissects how social media’s architecture amplifies vulnerability while simultaneously offering unprecedented avenues for support. From Reddit’s peer‑driven empathy networks to TikTok’s performative mental health culture, each platform reveals distinct behavioral typologies-rituals of posting, scrolling, and sharing that mirror ancient coping mechanisms in a digital age. The narrative moves beyond pathology to illuminate the neurobiological, sociocultural, and existential dimensions of online interaction, showing how digital immersion reshapes memory, emotion, and resilience.At once scholarly and urgent, this work confronts the paradox of connection and isolation in the era of perpetual connectivity. It asks whether the same algorithms that trigger anxiety might also hold the key to collective healing-and whether humanity can learn to cope, not despite technology, but through it.
