Emerging Adults, Unmirrored: Contextualizing “Social Anxiety”
Wednesday September 30th, 8:00-9:30 PM ET
(will be recorded for registrants)
Mike Langlois, LICSW
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Roman Rangel
Certified Life Coach, Private Practice
Twenty-first-century young adults have come of age in a uniquely disorienting social landscape. Researchers & clinicians increasingly call them the loneliest generation, reporting weaker everyday connection than older adults despite unprecedented digital connectivity. Ordinary social situations—meeting new people, speaking up at work—now provoke widespread anxiety. An estimated 12.1% of U.S. adults experience social anxiety disorder in their lifetime, with onset typically in adolescence. (NIMH, 2026) Many more carry a quieter, subclinical unease that shapes where they go & who they approach. Despite this, young adults haven’t given up on connection. Most want deep friendships & lasting partnership & work to build the confidence to pursue them, even when it feels overwhelming—even as dominant narratives label them “antisocial,” “awkward,” or “addicted to their phones.”
We’re back to subvert such paradigms again, arguing that social anxiety in this generation is not a private pathology but a rational response to a world reorganized against real connection. The “third spaces”—youth centers, casual hangouts, unstructured in-person time—where social confidence once developed have been steadily dismantled, while platforms optimized for engagement rather than intimacy fill the vacuum, intensifying comparison & fear of judgment. BIPOC & LGBTQ+ youth face compounded challenges from the intersecting impacts of racism, queerphobia, & systemic inequality.
Self psychology offers a further lens: Heinz Kohut argued that a cohesive self depends not on autonomy but on lifelong access to selfobjects—others whose mirroring, idealizing strength, & sense of essential likeness the self needs to feel whole. For a generation with diminished human selfobject availability, AI companions & algorithmic feeds have moved into the gap, mirroring back exactly the affirmation one seeks. The clinical question is not whether this is good or bad, but what happens to transmuting internalization—the gradual, tolerable-frustration process by which selfobject functions become durable internal structure—when that frustration is engineered away by design.
This webinar looks at working with emerging adults labeled with social phobia or awkwardness, with an eye toward the isolating, performance-driven aspects of late-stage capitalism & digital culture driving this withdrawal. We’ll discuss how the therapist & caregivers can queer the paradigm of the socially anxious adult; how AI & algorithms may function as substitute Kohutian selfobjects offering partial mirroring, idealization, & twinship without the frustration internalization requires; & how our own countertransference reflects our embeddedness in capitalist, platform-driven notions of sociability.
Mike Langlois, LICSW is currently a Teaching Associate in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, where he supervises interns and clinicians. He has served on the Massachusetts Commission for LGBTQ Youth. Mike serves as a resource on digital literacy & social justice issues such as dismantling racism, LGBTQIA awareness & safety, disability awareness, and non-traditional families. He has served in an advisory capacity to NASW on youth suicide prevention. Mike is a member of APsaA and APA’s Division 39 as well as the Board of Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility.
Roman Rangel (they/them) Roman (they/them) is a Life and Leadership coach who emphasizes holistic, person-first transformation and leadership– utilizing the connection between the mind, heart, and body to evolve clients’ relationships, businesses and creative pursuits. Roman has certifications in DBT Foundations, Motivational Interviewing and NeuroAffective Relational Model Level 1. Their background in accessible and trauma-informed movement, together with Complex Mental Health Coaching, Recovery Coaching, Career Coaching, Leadership Coaching, and Executive Functioning Coaching creates a cohesive healing model for each individual. Roman has worked across demographics including entrepreneurs, creatives, emerging adults and professionals. They are passionate about helping young adults create pathways out of stagnation, find clarity on goals, and take supported, consistent action.
Registration $50
Please Register in Advance at https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_D88vC6_hRmWnJFo6tml8Tg
Paying It Forward
Candidates, trainees, & early career please contact directly for reduced rate options. If you have significant financial privilege, & you want to support early career therapists from a variety of racial & class backgrounds, you are welcome to fund a full or partial scholarship.
