Last week, a client sat in my office describing how she had stopped taking her prescribed medication after reading online that it would “rewire her brain permanently.” Another client, a teenager, came in convinced he had multiple personality disorder based on TikTok videos, despite no clinical evidence supporting this self-diagnosis. These scenarios, once rare, have become routine in mental health practice—and they are exactly why this book matters for every clinician and social worker.
Kenen, Morales, and Sharfstein have written something essential: a book that treats health misinformation not as an abstract policy problem, but as a lived experience affecting real people in real pain. For those of us working in mental health and social services, their insights offer both a mirror reflecting our daily reality and a roadmap for more effective practice.
Understanding the Wounded Information Seeker
What strikes me most about this work is how it reframes people who embrace health misinformation. Rather than dismissing them as “non-compliant” or “difficult,” the authors help us see them as individuals doing their best to navigate overwhelming circumstances with inadequate support. This perspective aligns perfectly with core social work values of meeting people where they are and understanding behavior within context.
The book reveals that people typically encounter misinformation during moments of crisis—illness, family emergencies, or mental health struggles—when their usual coping mechanisms are already strained. As mental health professionals, we know that crisis narrows cognitive flexibility and increases susceptibility to black-and-white thinking. Understanding this dynamic helps explain why even intelligent, educated individuals can fall prey to obviously false health claims when they are scared or desperate.
The authors demonstrate that users who shared COVID-19 misinformation experienced approximately two times additional increase in anxiety when compared to similar users who did not share misinformation. This finding has profound clinical implications: misinformation isn’t just wrong information—it’s a risk factor for deteriorating mental health that we need to assess and address therapeutically.
The Therapy Room as Battleground
Every day, clinicians navigate the tension between respecting client autonomy and providing evidence-based care when misinformation has influenced treatment decisions. This book offers crucial insights for these challenging moments. Rather than approaching misinformation as something to combat directly, the authors advocate for understanding its psychological function for the individual.
Often, embracing alternative health information serves important emotional needs: providing a sense of control during medical uncertainty, offering hope when traditional treatments have failed, or creating community with others who share similar struggles. As trauma-informed practitioners, we understand that many clients have experienced medical trauma or systemic discrimination that makes trusting traditional healthcare feel unsafe.
The book’s emphasis on “connection over correction” resonates deeply with therapeutic principles. Just as we wouldn’t directly challenge a client’s defensive mechanisms without first understanding their purpose, we can’t effectively address health misinformation without exploring what needs it is meeting. This requires the kind of curious, non-judgmental stance that effective therapy demands.
The Social Justice Dimension
From a social work perspective, this book illuminates how misinformation intersects with existing health disparities. The authors note that women, racial minorities, and individuals with lower levels of education in the United States experienced a disproportionate impact when exposed to misinformation. This isn’t coincidental—these are often the same populations who have been failed, dismissed, or harmed by traditional medical systems.
Understanding this context is crucial for ethical practice. When a client from a marginalized community expresses distrust of mainstream medical advice, we must consider whether that distrust is actually a rational response to their lived experience of discrimination. The book helps us see how misinformation can flourish in communities where legitimate medical trauma has created understandable skepticism about expert recommendations.
This perspective challenges us to examine our own biases and consider how we might inadvertently perpetuate harm by dismissing clients’ concerns about medical institutions. Social work’s commitment to social justice demands that we address both individual misinformation beliefs and the systemic inequities that make such beliefs appealing.
Youth Mental Health in the Digital Age
Perhaps nowhere is this book more relevant than in working with young people struggling with mental health. The authors reveal that when TikTok users searched for top mental health videos, more than half contained misinformation. For adolescents and young adults seeking help for depression, anxiety, or trauma, this means their first encounter with mental health information may actually be harmful.
I’ve seen teenagers arrive at therapy convinced they have rare dissociative disorders based on viral videos, or young adults who have delayed seeking help because social media told them therapy would “suppress their authentic self.” The book helps us understand these presentations not as manipulation or attention-seeking, but as genuine attempts to understand confusing internal experiences using the tools available to them.
The authors’ insight that individuals with higher levels of depression literacy were better equipped to resist mental health-related misinformation has direct practice implications. This suggests that psychoeducation—teaching clients about how mental health conditions actually work—serves as both treatment and prevention. By helping young people develop sophisticated understanding of psychological processes, we can protect them from both current symptoms and future misinformation.
Applications for Practice
This book offers several concrete strategies for mental health professionals:
- Assessment Innovation: We need to routinely ask about information sources and health beliefs, understanding that a client’s relationship with misinformation may be as clinically relevant as their relationship with family or substances.
- Collaborative Exploration: Rather than directly challenging false beliefs, we can explore them with curiosity: “Tell me more about what you’ve learned about that treatment. What aspects feel most important to you?” This approach honors client autonomy while creating space for reflection.
- Trauma-Informed Information Sharing: When clients have been influenced by misinformation, we can explore whether past medical experiences have shaped their current information-seeking patterns. This helps us address root causes rather than just symptoms.
- Community Building: The book emphasizes that misinformation often fills a need for community and belonging. Helping clients connect with accurate peer support—whether through support groups, community organizations, or online communities with professional moderation—can address this underlying need.
Limitations and Future Directions
Although the book effectively identifies the problem, it could offer more specific guidance for healthcare providers managing misinformation in clinical settings. Future work might explore how electronic health records could flag misinformation-related concerns, or how clinical teams can develop protocols for compassionate conversations about false health beliefs.
The book also doesn’t fully address the ethical complexities clinicians face when clients’ misinformation beliefs directly conflict with evidence-based treatment recommendations. More guidance on navigating these situations while maintaining therapeutic alliance would be valuable.
Essential Reading for the Field
For mental health professionals and social workers, Information Sick is more than timely—it is essential. It helps us understand that health misinformation isn’t happening around our practice; it’s happening within it, affecting our clients’ presentation, treatment engagement, and outcomes.
The authors remind us that behind every false health claim shared online is someone seeking the same things our clients want: understanding, hope, community, and relief from suffering. By approaching misinformation with the same empathy and curiosity we bring to other clinical challenges, we can transform these encounters from frustrating obstacles into opportunities for deeper therapeutic engagement.
In our current era of information chaos, this book offers something precious: a framework for maintaining both our commitment to evidence-based practice and our fundamental belief in human dignity. It challenges us to be better clinicians, more thoughtful advocates, and more effective healers in a world where information itself has become a source of trauma.
For mental health professionals seeking to understand and address one of the most pressing challenges facing our field, this book provides both insight and hope. It is essential reading for anyone committed to healing in the digital age.
Reviewed by Dava R. Wilson, EdD, LCSW, Assistant Professor, Social Work Department, Austin Peay State University, and Lead Clinician at Wilson Teletherapy LLC.