Speaking about the BBC on Sunday with British Health Secretary Wes Street Laura Quensberg, has expressed concern that some mental health conditions have been overdiagnosed. The conversation asked two experts to comment on Streeting’s claims. Is the Health Secretary correct?
Mental pain has not been diagnosed, but medical care is excessive
Susan McPherson, Professor of Psychology and Sociology, University of Essex
A year ago, the then-Prime Minister of the UK, conservative Rishi Snack, announced “Sic Note Culture” It was going too far. His work and the pension secretary claimed “Mental Health Culture”Melstride was going too far.
These statements merged with concerns about affordable benefits of disability and ideas about overdiagnosis of mental illness. This seemed to respond to a Report from the Resolution Foundation,think tank.
The report said people in their 20s are more likely to be on the way to work than people in their 40s. This report is attributed to an increase in young people reporting mental distress (from 24% in 2000 to 34% in 2024).
This was used by some journalists. Young people as snowflakes like work I pretended to be a mental illness that made many angry Disability activists, mental health activists, and members of the opposition Labour Party.
A year later, the UK now has a labour government. Wes Street, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, faces criticism for what appears to reflect conservative ratios. In an interview on the government’s plan to reduce benefits for people with disabilities, he agreed that overdiagnosis takes into account increased benefits from mental illness. This appears to reflect these media stereotypes about millennials like work.
If that is the meaning of the street, then the evidence is not on his side. Ten years ago, UK National Survey of Mental Symptoms We found that a third of people whose psychological symptoms are severe enough to be diagnosed were not diagnosed.
More recent studies using A longitudinal study of households in the UK People grouped according to whether they had a psychiatric diagnosis and whether they had psychological symptoms that were severe enough to be considered a diagnosis. This study was discovered 12 times the “Undiagnosed Distress” category (severe symptoms but no diagnosis).
The study also identified significant inequality. People with disabilities were almost three times the risk of undiagnosed distress compared to people without disabilities.
Women were 1.5 times more risk of undiagnosed distress than men. Lesbian, gay and bisexual people were 1.4 times more likely to experience undiagnosed distress than heterosexuals. People aged 16-24 were at the highest risk compared to all other age groups.
All this suggests that undiagnosed inequality of distress is a much larger problem than overdiagnosis in the UK. Given that many forms of support in the UK rely on getting diagnosed, undiagnosed distress probably means people are not getting the support they need.
but, Street also said Too many people “we just don’t get the support they need, so if we can get that support from people sooner, we can help people stay or return to work.”
Given this nod to the prevention and importance of non-medical support, it is likely that street feelings may be about the “overmedicalization” of mental distress rather than overdiagnosis. The difference is important.
The term “diagnosis” reflects a medical model of mental illness. Many will agree that the medical idea of ”diagnosis and treatment” is not very useful to people in mental distress. This is because there is an a Lots of evidence It suggests that the underlying cause of mental distress is the result of social, economic, environmental, or past trauma.
If Streeting had said “overmedical care,” he would have been in harmony with growing global concerns about overmedicine and overuse to treat mental distress. united nations and World Health Organization.
Despite UK guidelines, prescriptions of antidepressants have despite recommendations of psychological treatment as a first line intervention for depression Over 85 million people rose 46% over the past seven years Prescription for 2022-23. This is with An Increased long-term use of psychiatric drugs There is no reduction in mental distress at the population level. If Street had said “overmedical,” the evidence would have been on his side.
Stephen Barnes / Medical / Alamy stock photos
Mental health diagnosis is merely a label and is usually useless
Joanna Monrief, Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at UCL
In recent years, there has been a dramatic escalation in the number of people seeking treatment for mental health issues. From April 2023 to 2024, 3.8 million people had contact with mental health services in the UK alone. It’s 40% more expensive than before Covid Pandemic. The numbers include 1 million children. One in five 16-year-old girls are in contact with service.
Statistics reveal a trend towards overmedicating a variety of human issues that are overcharged by the pandemic and likely to have detrimental effects on physical and mental health.
What many people don’t realize about mental health diagnosis is that it’s not something like a diagnosis physical condition. For example, it is not named as a fundamental biological condition or process that can explain the symptoms someone is experiencing, just like when someone is diagnosed with cancer or arthritis.
A mental health diagnosis does not explain anything. This is just a label that can be applied to a particular problem. The process by which this label is given is not scientific or objective; Commercial, professional, political interests.
In most situations, giving diagnostic labels to people with mental health problems is useless. People are convinced that they have biological defects, ineffective and often lead to harmful treatments, and in most cases they miss real problems.
Being diagnosed means there is a medical condition, which misleads people to believe there is a fundamental biological abnormality, such as chemical imbalance, despite the lack of good evidence that mental disorders are caused by brain or physical dysfunction. Research has made people pessimistic about the potential for recovery; It’s unlikely to improve.
Being diagnosed often leads to being prescribed psychotic medications, such as antidepressants. Approximately 8.7 million people in the UK I’m taking antidepressants nowhalf of them are a Long-term base.
Prescriptions for other drugs such as stimulants (prescribed to diagnose ADHD) It will rise rapidlyIt even leads Medication shortage. However, evidence that any of these drugs improves people’s well-being and ability to function is minimum. Moreover, it poses side effects and health risks, as well as any substance that interferes with normal biological composition, especially brain function.
Antidepressants can cause severe, long-term withdrawal symptoms, sexual dysfunction (which may last), emotional paralysis and indifference Unwanted effects. Stimulants can cause Cardiovascular problems and neurological conditions. The widespread and unfair prescribing of these drugs has a negative impact on the health of our population.
Giving a diagnosis to people can also obscure the nature of the underlying problem for a person and prevent these from being addressed.
Mental health issues are often meaningful responses to stressful situations, such as finance, housing, relationship issues and experience. Abuse, trauma, loneliness, lack of meaning. Reducing over-medicine does not necessarily mean less service is required. What you need is not medical label treatment, but a variety of services that provide appropriate support for people’s real problems.
They also need a way to excuse people from responsibility when necessary. They don’t make them feel they have to take on the “sick” role, which means they are sick and helpless forever.
That’s the case for many of today’s employment Inadequately paid, unstable, boring, exploitative, pressured. You should not be surprised that some people find it difficult to endure. We need to improve working conditions for everyone, but we need to support those who find these conditions particularly challenging, without being labelled like illness.
