About Care Culture

Care Culture is a membership society for emerging leaders in mental health, spirituality, and community.

The crises often referred to as the “mental health crisis,” the “meaning crisis, and the “loneliness epidemic” are driving a new generation of community leaders and spaces, dedicated to building connection around spirituality and health practices.

These spaces and subcultures come in many forms. Online communities that manifest in physical space, new genres of church, social wellness clinics, and cultural tribes that form around treatment and diagnosis are all expressions of a movement toward meaning and togetherness.

These new subcultures increasingly shape how people conceptualize spirituality, mental health, and illness. As they do, they work with—and against—the existing mental health establishment and traditional faith institutions. The interactions between these fast-growing “alternative” communities and legacy institutions are already producing new hybrid organizations, and may even seed new paradigms for understanding mental health.

I'm Toby Shorin. I’ve spent a decade studying different kinds of communities and subcultures, and embedding myself in new technology movements. Today I'm working on connecting the emergent spiritual and wellness leaders across psychiatry, community organizing, philosophy, technology, and clergy.

I'm building a community of practice to connect practitioners and help us learn from one another. At the same time, I am working to foster a stronger intellectual discourse and conversation around this movement.

I believe these new social forms are critical to cultural renewal, and will lead, not follow, the revitalization of others critical areas of society, such as education and civic action.

Here are a few pieces that cover different aspects of my perspective:

The Loneliness Apparatus — on the cultural ramifications of the “loneliness epidemic”
Peoplehood Practice Review — on-the-ground research on commercial gathering spaces
Life After Lifestyle — how brands are being replaced by faiths and communities of practice

Care Culture is a learning community.

We’re working together to learn how to integrate the best of established clinical practice, faith wisdom, and technology. Care Culture members are spiritual innovators, experienced mind-practitioners, retreat leaders, social workers, wellness entrepreneurs, psychotechnology enthusiasts, and more.

Here are just a few examples of things we're thinking about on:

Building new kinds of hybrid clinic and community space.
Navigating the challenges of stepping into a role of moral leadership.
Trying out the latest social wellness spaces ourselves.
Practicing established therapeutic modalities in a group context.
Learning how to build an integrative clinic from scratch.
Figuring out financial models and reimbursement for informal care work.
Design methodologies for space creation.

We have a members-only private discussion Telegram where we chat about these things and more. We'd love to have you!

Become a Member

Hi, I’m Toby Shorin. As a researcher I've been documenting subcultures for a decade. I became passionate about emotional wellness through my own experiences with trauma, mental health, and spiritual growth. I founded Care Culture to share my research with others, and work towards building new types of clinical model. I believe that it's possible to change the culture of health care provision in the US, starting with clinicians and community organizers. Read more about my background here.