Mental health culture has gone too far, says Mel Stride
Britain’s mental health culture is in danger of having “gone too far” and “normal anxieties of life” are being labelled as an illness, the Work and Pensions Secretary has warned.
Speaking as he unveiled plans to make 150,000 people signed off work with “mild” conditions look for a job, Mel Stride said that the UK’s benefits bill was being pushed up by the problem.
In an interview with The Telegraph, he suggested an increased public focus on talking about mental health had led to people effectively self-diagnosing conditions.
It's revealing when a public figure puts his or her head over the political parapet to state an opinion which has been commonplace beyond the parapet for a number of years. It indicates how tightly narratives are controlled and highlights the efforts made to suppress worthwhile public debate.
Also revealing are scattered Conservative attempts to sound like conservatives and put some political distance between Conservative and Labour. Far too late of course, but it may sway some.
2 comments:
A very dangerous path he's treading: saying to self-appointed victims that their suffering is less than they think. He's absolutely right, of course, but it's difficult to see how he can prove it. If someone is off sick and claiming benefits, there is a huge incentive (i.e. free money and a life of ease) not to back down. They've got all day and nothing to lose. He presumably has all the rest of his job to attend to. It will be interesting to see whether this one progresses, or whether that's an end of it.
Sam - yes there is a huge incentive not to back down and because it is a mental disability it isn't easy to see how any official would have to time to disprove it. As you say, the claimant has all day and nothing to lose.
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