As fans have pointed out in the past, many of the nations in
the series are not psychologically healthy. However, if I’m to use R.D. Laing’s
criteria of what differentiates a psychologically healthy person from someone
who’s not, three nations in particular stand out: America, England, and
Germany.

Psychological
Embodiment vs Disembodiment:

An embodied person is psychologically healthy. The person
experiences the world as if they’re “biologically alive” and develop a “sense
of being” in which they are acutely aware of their flesh, blood, and bones–
their body. Likewise, they understand themselves to be both a subject and an
object. In other words, their self and their body are one as they engage with the
outside world.

In a healthy
individual: (self/body) ↔ other

On the other end of the spectrum are those who are
consciously unembodied. These people experience a disconnect and divorce
themselves from their body. The body is felt like an object rather than part of
themselves and does not constitute the core of their being. This leads to
ontological insecurity. Essentially, they suffer from a weak, fragmented, and
unconsolidated sense of self.

The unembodied state:
Self ↔ (body-other)

There are three modes of ontological insecurity that an
unembodied person may experience but for the purposes of this post, I only need
to talk about one.

Implosion occurs when an unembodied person feels like a vacuum
and possesses an empty, unfulfilled sense of self. The external world is
overwhelming and crushes this empty identity. The individual then compensates
by attempting to fill this emptiness, albeit fearing what they could possibly be
filled with.

Some common examples of this would include the stress of
university. Unembodied individuals experience erasure under the pressure to
conform to uniform codes (standardized testing) and feel unimportant and insignificant
when they underperform. To deal with this stress, they turn to things like
fanfiction or Netflix to help fill the void of their disappointment and unmet
expectations.

That said, let’s tie this back to the strips.

America:

America’s fragmented sense of self lies in his inaccurate and
dichotomized perception of the world: everyone is either a hero or a bad guy,
and there are no grey areas in between [x] [x].

Ex: He tends to
include these clichés in the movies he makes [x]. 

While I may be reading into this too much, it’s still
interesting to look at it from the perspective that this is a coping mechanism
of his. America took on a lot of responsibility post–WW2 and became a
superpower. To deal with the stress, he adopted a hero persona to help him
forget about any misgivings or failures that would compromise this reputation.

I say this because even though America claims to be a hero, it’s
more of a persona than it is his true sense of self. I say this because America’s
actually quite the fraidy cat [x]. 

The hero persona helped fill in the gaps of any
grey areas that may have called the legitimacy of his actions into question. It
would have also consoled him in the times where he felt fear during war but
didn’t want to express it.

Overeating is also widely known as a stress-reduction
technique, something that America is notorious for [x]. 

Another instance of implosion would include America’s
tendency to overproduce. I’ve speculated before that this could be a result of
not only the poverty he experienced when he was younger but also as an attempt
to reduce any feelings of loneliness [x]. Longer post on that here [x]. 

England:

England’s experience of implosion falls with him turning to
the supernatural to avoid feeling lonely. He’s experienced chronic loneliness over
the course of the series. Some more notable mentions would include the American
Revolution and the Splendid Isolation strips [x].

After the Revolution, his relationship with America suffered
tremendously. Despite offering to become his friend in one strip [x], it took them
a while before they reconciled their differences. Although, it’s important to note that America secretly considered
England to be his friend, as mentioned in a Volume 2 character note.

Ex: During WW2, England’s still spotted talking to his fairy
friends, much to America’s confusion.

In modern times, we still see England favouring fantasy and
the supernatural over the real world [x]. 

Germany:

Germany experiences two forms of detachment.

The first one has to do with how he experiences himself as a
nation. As a “strange being” [x] that it is supernatural and not tangibly
explicable himself, I find it odd that he’s so transfixed on empiricism and
scientific data and is quick to dismiss anything to do with the supernatural [x]. 

The second form has more to do with how he experiences
emotions and establishes relationships with others. More detailed post here
[x].

The basic gist is that Germany treats his interactions with
others objectively [x], following manuals and guides instead of personally
[subjectively] forming emotional connections. He contrives his body as a
machine that can routinely follow social codes and, therefore, hinders his
experience in forming a connection with another person..