Infodemics and Challenges of Human-Centered Psychotherapy Practice in Times of the «Perfect Storm»

Abstract

The rapid expansion of digital communication technologies has fundamentally transformed the dynamics of collective psychological processes, giving rise to the phenomenon known as the infodemic. Infodemics represent an intensified form of mental epidemics in which excessive, distorted, or manipulative information spreads rapidly through digital media, amplifying uncertainty, anxiety, polarization, and psychosocial vulnerability. This process unfolds against the background of multiple overlapping global crises, conceptualized in this paper as a «perfect storm» encompassing armed conflicts, pandemics, technological acceleration, erosion of institutional trust, and structural uncertainty. The aim of this study is to conceptualize infodemics as an evolutionary stage of mental epidemics in digitally mediated societies and to analyze their psychological impact on individuals and populations, as well as the challenges they pose to contemporary psychotherapeutic practice, particularly within person-centered and humanistic approaches. The paper employs a theoretical and interdisciplinary methodology combining historical-comparative analysis of mental epidemics, conceptual modeling, and critical synthesis of research from psychology, media studies, and mental health. The article proposes heuristic conceptual models for assessing infodemic intensity and its psychological impact, highlighting the interaction between information-technological affordances, crisis-related stress, psychosocial vulnerability, and levels of institutional trust. It is argued that infodemics contribute to the reconfiguration of mental health norms, therapeutic demand, and modes of psychological distress, increasingly characterized by fragmentation of meaning, affective dysregulation, and erosion of shared reality. Special attention is given to the implications of these processes for person-centered psychotherapy. The paper suggests that infodemics challenge core therapeutic conditions–empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence–while simultaneously underscoring their critical importance as non-algorithmizable resources for maintaining human subjectivity. The study concludes that person-centered psychotherapy can be understood not only as a clinical practice but also as a protective humanistic framework capable of supporting meaning-making and psychological resilience in digitally saturated and crisis-prone environments.