Tony Blair says we need a national conversation about MH as its costing too much

[B0xes]

Tony Blair said recently on Jimmy's Jobs of the Future Podcast (clip available on youtube) that we need to have a national conversation about mental health. Why are we spending so much on it. Why are people self diagnosing. He believes people are being encouraged to view everyday challenges we all face as mental health issues.

Is he being unreasonable? In one sense, I'm inclined to agree to an extent, in the other, I believe he led the charge for so many of the social changes that have made us less resilient and many of these issues are due to individualism which led to atomisation and loneliness and being encouraged to see the market as the entity that fulfills our needs rather than strong families and robust social networks.

YABU - Blair can do one.

YANBU - He might have a point

There is a horrible tendency now for people to chase labels and excuses and avoid accountability. And without the right help and interventions they can get sucked into a very deep spiral. I don't know where it's going to go. I seem to know far too many parents with post school kids at home who are not working because they can't cope with work. No sense of responsibility whatsoever. I have seen good people in the prime of their professional careers accused of creating / causing a toxic work environment for new starters that led to stress leave, and when delved into frankly the accusations were utterly baseless.

We are literally creating snowflakes - young and old.

I think the NYC example is interesting. Post 9/11, rather than use of therapists and counsellors going up it actually went down. People were galvanised and came together with a common purpose, and suddenly trivial problems seemed exactly that in comparison to not being burnt or crushed in one of the falling twin towers.

When lives are trivial, small and lack purpose, these problems increase.

There's a serious lack of compassion going on here. Unsurprisingly. Resilience is something you can't teach someone. It's an utter load of bollocks. You gain resilience from having a stable and happy upbringing. You stay resilient when minor shit happens to you if everything else in your life is OK. The issue now is that, for alot of people, the basics are not there. And, whilst I'm not Blair's biggest fan, I don't think we can be blaming him for essentially a massive crisis in living standards when we've just lived through the shitest 15 years of Tory shit show ever. All public services have been paired back to the bone. The safety nets just aren't there. Small problems become massively overwhelming problems. And, I'm aware I will receive flak for this, the Dispatches programme that people keep referring to was made by a privileged far right arse hole with an agenda. It stigmatises people who claim benefits. It's divisive. And so is this thread.

I do worry that there’s some ‘social clout’ now especially with adults self diagnosing for example we all know someone who proudly has a list as long as their arm on their social media bio of all their ailments….

its bizarre.

I think that the answer lies in the middle ground. There has to be a solution between using the mental health issues “card” and the buckle up and bear it and grind it. There are people with genuine issues that need support and there are others that just ride the wave. Sadly, how to weed these out is a rather difficult task.

This exactly

this is like obesity - bad eating habits run in families, as do pessimistic explanatory styles for example. But there is little evidence for a strongly causative genetic basis for most mental illness.

I’ve heard many claims of anxiety and depression as reasons for being unable to work but not ADHD. In fact I often hear of diagnosed ADHD sufferers struggling to hold a job down despite great efforts due to symptoms which make it hard to pass probationary periods or to function in a way a NT person does. It is an altogether different attitude.

I think that when people have genuine MH issues, they are not being treated. This is a huge problem and ends up with families being destroyed and social services and the police are eventually left to pick up the pieces.

I think that we have a society which is not at all conducive to good mental health, particularly being online and on social media or devices all the time. Locking everyone up for the best part of a year and preventing them from talking to each other didn't help.

I also think that we are encouraging our teenagers to pathologise normal adolescent feelings. Being a bit shy is now called "social anxiety". If they don't want to go to school or feel nervous about going, it's given a label and they just don't go. My SD is 15, if she doesn't want to do something, she just doesn't do it. She won't do any type of housework or eat anything that isn't her favourite, or talk on the phone, or do pretty much anything that makes her feel in any way uncomfortable. She says she can't because she has ADHD/Autism/dyslexia. She does have AuDHD and dyslexia, but she can do all of those things, she just doesn't like doing them, and she thinks that means she can't. We have to do things we don't want sometimes. We have to experience unpleasant feelings and deal with them sometimes.

The idea that it's easy to get a diagnosis for a MH condition, let alone use it as an excuse not to work, is laughable. Anyone who's tried to get an ADHD or autism diagnosis will be aware of this. Doctors won't diagnose, you need to get a referral and that's next to impossible. Yes, there are some bullshitters who use poor MH as an excuse but they are in the minority. Unlikely they've actually got any kind of diagnosis. There's an epidemic of poor MH because life is hard and because tech is making it even harder in a lot of ways. If the government wants to sort this out, they need to look at the symptoms and not punish people with MH problems even more.

Only 1/6 pip claimants work in any capacity

GooseMoose2

If you feel down after a break up this is not depression.

I'd agree.
I had to cover for a medical colleague's appointments for a fortnight because she and her boyfriend had a row (they got back together so, don't worry, happy ending).
This was during a psychiatric attachment.
So think of all those people with MH problems who couldn't get a full appointment (I'm not a time traveller, I have to fit in extra appointments in a given time) because she was sad.
She came back ebullient and handed out invitations to her wedding.
I didn't go.

Completely agree.
I have a MH disorder but we just learnt to live with it, it diesnt affect my day to day now unless i do not take the necessary steps.Depends on what MH is classed as. My son had ADHD (he really really does) but it won't impact his life because we are making him learn to live with it. Dealing with it young helps.
My parents weren't very aware of MH and I think therecis just so much research into how it negatively impacts a lot of areas of people's lives.
Our country expects us to go at 100mph all the time. Never expects anyone to crack or need time out. Living a lot a slower pace would solve a lot of these issues imo. (Which I'm aware means not much in the grand scheme of things)

There are masses of “coaches” on TikTok, YouTube etc telling people what to say in mental health assessments. Of course these may be beneficial to genuine claimants (I quite understand that it’s difficult to navigate officialise) but there are so many gaming the system. Perhaps they genuinely believe they have mental health issues, but also it can be a simple case of economics.

I have a relative with three dcs, social housing property, two dogs, and she gets PIP for anxiety. She even gets a motability car. Her mental health diagnosis enables her to live very well.

I challenge you to Google any condition or illness, however minor, and one of the immediate hits will be, “Can I get PIP for (eg) arachnophobia?”

I feel anxious about you only providing two options for my answer. It's all so black and white and I feel very grey. My stress levels have peaked and I need to go and lie down.

The flipside of that is that, when I was a teenager (in the 90s), and started experiencing severe anxiety and what I now know is OCD and ADHD, I didn't get a diagnosis, despite going to the doctors repeatedly. I was left with the impression that I was going completely mental and unable to cope with life and was just 'difficult.' It ruined my 20s, especially as I then started self-medicating with alcohol and drugs. It wasn't until I was older, and there was much more understanding about MH, that it all started to make sense. Sometimes, this stuff is pathologised because it needs to be. Your niece, having a diagnosis and at least knowing why she feels the way she does, and being able to explain it to others, is much more advantaged than I was at her age - and that IMO is a very good thing.

And he was responsible for sure start the single most effective government initiative to reduce life cycles of poverty and improve outcomes for children.

No but life can be hard and challenging for all of us and it will knock you down time and time again so to slowly build resilience can be effective

Totally agree. The long spectrum of totally normal emotions, the highs, the lows, the indifference, have been picked over and the result is a whole bunch of questionable diagnostic nonsense and/or of self certified labels. Its embarrassing.

It’s such a shame and a massive disservice to people who are really struggling with their MH.

What kind of source is that?

The reality is, New Labour was all about the community and all Blair's early speeches promote that, he was all about the collective action of communities and many of their policies reflected that. The way you have phrased your opening post, conveniently excludes all that, it is in inaccurate picture of what motivated New Labour led by Blair, whatever you think of him and his subsequent actions, the picture you are painting is inaccurate.

Looking at more recent history, Brexit impoverished people and the country, low productivity, low wages and the Conservative's austerity measures did not help anyone's mental health and the impact of the Conservative's decision to hold an EU Referendum will continue for a long time yet!!

I would also add the extra time in exams factor. Extraordinary number of kids benefiting from this. 20 out of 25 in DD’s English class were on extra time, many for “exam anxiety”.

🙄

Well absolutely we need a conversation. BUT the key thing is that it should be a conversation where the politicians and schools and medical professionals actually listen to what people are telling them about the causes of their poor mental health and what actually might help them rather than just saying they are malingering and it costs too much money.

He is absolutely correct.

We over diagnose and treat mental health issues and offer appalling support for more serious mental illnesses.

I’ve lost count of the threads where I’ve read a response to a poster questioning bad behaviour saying ‘maybe they have ADHD/autism etc’

Maybe people are not behaving nicely, full stop.

Mumsnet is a real eye opener into how some people think;
-WFH because I’m anxious rather than it’s harder to go to the office
-Messy house. I’ve ADHD rather than yes I’m naturally messy and need to focus on organisational skills more. Or I’m lazy (this is my house btw so not casting aspersions!)
-My DC won’t do XYZ. They are neurodiverse rather than they are behaving badly and I’m not leaning into parenting (again I’ve a neurodiverse child and we struggle daily so I can tell the difference between can’t do and won’t do)

Pathologising everything means that we never look for ways of dealing with our challenges. We just hide from them and excuse them

My DD has amongst other issues dyspraxia and we purposefully got her to learn a racket sport so she could understand that she can overcome anything with enough work. Sure things might be harder but you can do it and I feel this message is getting lost these days

what's Blair's end goal usually when they say something like this its part of a bigger picture ?

much as it pains me, as I detest the man, he does have a point. Resilience is simply not allowed now, kids can’t be told work is wrong, no red pen, focus on positive only, learning is now middle of the road as you can’t sort tables and give different stuff to higher achievers. Covid was a classic example, all these kids suddenly not able to do stuff and the outpost of it’s affecting MH was ridiculous. The6 have to have latest gadgets, etc etc.

Parents don’t want to say no, expectations are not set that the6 may fail and it’s not a end of the world event you pick yourself up, but no it’s affects my MH

The MH card is played a lot, so much so that something does need to be done