The Psychological Cost of a Fracturing World Order
Right now, there’s an anxiety in the air that goes deeper than politics and beyond national borders.
It’s not only in the current wars or the daily news, I feel it as a human and see it as a therapist in sessions every week. For a while now, there’s been this assumption we could all work under the rules—that even when it was imperfect, and there were infractions, we believed there was an international order, that global behaviour had boundaries.
Now that sense of boundary is disappearing.
Everything is up for discussion.
As a therapist who runs a retreat space in Bali, I’ve been counselling with clients about the unravelling this brings. And it’s no longer just about money or jobs, personal issues or private trauma. There is a deeper, more subtle undercurrent of dread—of things going wrong. I find that the fear people express in therapy rooms—though not usually directly related to international relations—feels rooted in a subtle sense of destabilisation that comes from these geopolitical tremors.
And this fear? It’s reasonable.
After World War II, we decided to set something robust in motion. The United Nations, International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice were all built with the idea that they would impose order. Rules were on paper about not invading others, about protecting human rights, and about sovereignty. But ultimately, no one can enforce these rules on the world’s most powerful nations.
There is no global police, the entire system relies on voluntary cooperation.
When that willingness starts to fade, the system begins to break down. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was called illegal by much of the world, sanctions were applied, and arrest warrants were issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin. And still, the country sits on the UN Security Council—with a veto power.
When a great power decides not to adhere, it simply doesn’t adhere, and little actually changes.
Similarly, China in 2016 dismissed a ruling from the International Court of Justice on its territorial dispute in the South China Sea, saying it had “no legal force.” Even when rulings are made, they carry little weight if the aggressor refuses to comply.
This brings to the forefront two major international red flags:
>> Firstly, it sends a message to those outside these powerful spheres that the rules only apply if they benefit you, a signal of chaos if the rules aren’t absolute.
>> Secondly, it sends a psychological blow as well because we no longer operate with the quiet assumption we used to feel comfortable leaning on.
The U.S. has long championed a “rules-based order.” And while the U.S. has certainly bent the rules in the past to suit its political aims, there has at least been a general adherence to the idea of an order being paramount.
Now, with other countries flouting the rules and global competition intensifying, the West must decide, or will be forced to decide:
Do they hold to the rules and possibly risk being left behind by other actors on the international stage?
Or do they break the rules too and accelerate the unravelling?
If the West chooses the former, only one power is playing by the rules. If it chooses the latter, the system has already crumbled. It’s not simply a political quandary, it is also an existential one for global stability.
Here is where the real cost becomes evident for the ordinary person, such as the individuals whom I meet in therapy. While these are often not people talking about the state of the international order directly, they speak to this feeling: they come in with anxiety they can’t always define, they describe it as body tension, unease and instability, the feeling of being out of sync or not being able to make plans with future intention. The feeling is there of a ground which we used to rely on now cracking beneath our feet.
From a psychotherapist’s point of view, the nervous system reacts immediately when safety is compromised, the body goes into red alert, and even from afar, that information filters into our being, raising our stress levels.
As people tire more quickly, they snap or withdraw more readily and get overwhelmed for no discernible reason.
Working at my retreat centre in Bali, offers me a second perspective. It’s not just burnt-out executives who are travelling to seek respite from stress. It is now an array of different people: people with jobs, families and what appear to be successful lives who are seeking not just a holiday, but a stepping back and asking themselves, “How can I be grounded when the world feels unsteady?”
People are craving regulation, a pause, and relief from the global hum of crisis. This demand for quiet and presence has only increased and goes far beyond an individual concern; it reflects a deeper issue impacting the globe as a whole.
If we cannot rely on shared rules externally, how do we cultivate internal resilience without becoming cynical or disengaged? Because when law becomes optional, the risk is not only conflict, but also collective anxiety becoming our new baseline.
And that, over time, reshapes societies from the inside out.
Don’t get me started on the topical smokescreens that pop up to distract us from the real issues, Prince Andrew, Epstein et al, these are all topical issues, but the timings do appear to reflect the reality of the unfolding underlying global issues.
I ask you, is this all a ruse to subdue us into metaphorically looking the other way?
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