To agree with Wes Streeting's statement that MH issues are overdiagnosed?

[Locutus2000]

Pretty controversial stuff.

Who decides?

Life sucks and young people have nothing to look forward to. I don't think you can really blame them for having collectively lost their minds. Remember COVID when years of their lives were stolen for he benefit of old folks?

You must work in a very shit environment because I don’t see that where I work- at all!

So to you what is the grounds for a reasonable diagnosis though? Because many people around where I live are being diagnosed with MH issues through a telephone appointment with their GP fully based on what that person said and send to a pharmacy for antidepressants with a 1-2year wait for NHS counselling... no physical sight of the person no monitoring has been done, no clinical in house investigating or consideration for circumstantial factors. Are all these people ringing in actually depressed, etc and should be believed at word (not face) value? Because I bet an unreasonable % actually aren't but are getting away with a diagnosis because the GP system isn't fit for purpose anymore.

So what are genuine mental health problems?

Your workplace is very different to lots of people by what you've said. Strange

What this poster describes also happens in my workplace too.

Strange that some posters have such an anti view towards young people.

He isn't a clinician who's competent to have any view on whether a diagnosis is correct or not.

So I'm inclined to think he should shut the hell up.

What young people?

Anti view of what?

I agree the GP situation is dire, but diagnosis of common MH conditions like depression and anxiety is always based on what the person says. There probably are people faking it, but it’s always been that way - under Thatcher huge numbers were moved from unemployment benefit to sickness benefit, sometimes for questionable reasons.

I agree that people in their 20s seem especially lacking in resilience but that doesn’t mean they arent experiencing genuine mental health conditions.

I think people are very quick to label normal emotions / bad behaviour in children as ‘mental health problems’.

Particularly the vague labels of ADHD and anxiety, which seem to often involve a lot of self diagnosis.

It’s bizarre.

GPs are under pressure to get people in and out of their surgery (or off the phone) in 6 minutes, one ailment a time. No way can a discussion be had in that time about someones mental health and whether it meets clinicial need. They know this as well, we have had meetings at work with GP surgeries who are prescribing unnecessary medication (not necessarily for MH issues), due to pressures from parents, sometimes quite scarily so.

Am I allowed to be a bog standard person that just doesn’t like peanuts 😂

Permission granted 🤣

How else do you think depression or anxiety can be diagnosed but based on what the lerson says? 😵‍💫😵‍💫
As far as I’m aware there isn’t a blood test that shows depression.

Sorry @FumingTRex
I wanted to reply to @InALonelyWorld post rather than yours….

Doesn't it.

Ummmm... let me see...
Schizophrenia
Severe panic attacks
Severe anxiety
Bulimia
Anorexia
Bi-polar
Mania
Depression, Manic depression,
Anything that means the person isn't able to live a normal life.
Would you like to add any? There are plenty unfortunately...

What is severe anxiety and depression?

I completely agree with what your saying and there does need a middle ground for a fix to work but the question is how do you weed out those playing the system without taking it out on those who actually do need the extra support. However the government seem to only want a this or that, either/or solution rather than an actual fix.

It's annoying and I completely understand why people can't, or dont even want to, work at the moment. If I'm honest MH services and benefits would be the last thing on my list to tackle to fix the state of the nation but some people also need to realise that the more people who continue excuse poor behaviour and the odd difficult emotion/situation as a ND or MH crisis are actually helping the nation system remain broken rather than fixing it.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Look it up.

Your thread is very different to this one, which focuses on MH issues in general, you shouldn't believe everyone on this thread agrees with you and your blatant ableism. Yours is a run of the mill benefit bashing thread that focuses solely on ADHD and the free BMWs people with ADHD apparently receive.

Those that require significant doses of medication and reviews with hcps.

Not someone who gets a low dose of antidepressants on repeat and manages a full and active life.

Brain scans and brain activity measurements can detect changes when a person is significantly affected by depression, ongoing generalised anxiety state etc. These tests are increasingly sophisticated and would certainly be capable of identifying someone who was faking it, so to speak.

But, most people can't even access a simple GP appointment let alone the government paying for brain analysis on thousands of people.

No I’m not. It has been stated that people are saying they have anxiety and depression and taking away from people with genuine anxiety and depression. What does that look like?

Since this was actually for me. You know fine well a blood test or whatever isn't what I meant. Nor was I talking about general anxiety and depression. There are other mental health issues you know?!

This is a hill I'm prepared to die on. These days everything is alleged as depression or anxiety. Feeling a valid feeling like nervousness for a date for example is often passed off as anxiety now. IT IS NOT!! Feeling crap and eating only ice cream for a few days because you've been dumped IS NOT full blown depression.

Taking the time to see a person in the flesh would actually help assess the situation further and see if everyone is actually now anxious, depressed or mentally ill and would help form an accurate decision for diagnosis AND treatment where needed. A F2F appointment can benefit both scenarios more than a TP appointment and a script of antidepressants being thrown at you, don't you think?