Report calls for focus on mental health services

The task-force set up by NHS England to report on mental health services reported back last week. It came up with some disturbing findings, for instance, that around three-quarters of people with mental health problems received no help at all. It also led to numerous statements by politicians and much coverage in the media.

It can only be good that mental health is talked about, however, am I the only person to find some of the approaches of the reportage rather overly medicalised? I kept hearing mental health issues likened to having a broken leg, ie, if as little help was given to someone with a broken leg there would be a scandal. And I suppose it perhaps helps normalise the way mental health is conceptualised to say this. However, it also appears to suggest that there is one easy diagnosis for all mental health issues and one easy treatment.

Diagnosis in the mental health field is a hotly debated subject. I know from personal experience, being 'diagnosed' can help to normalise a difficult situation. Somehow it was better to be told I have depression than to feel I was 'going crazy'. Diagnosis also assists people to access services. However, there are some who would argue that we are in danger of over-medicalising something which is part of the human condition.

Diagnosis also tends to cut a person into bits: this is a mental health issue, this is a physical health issue. But we are one organism - mind, body, spirit inexorably linked - the one effecting the other in a myriad of ways.

I prefer to think of the way I experience depression as a vulnerability I have. I take care of my body, I exercise, I rest, I try to eat healthily (which also supports my mental health). If I don't I may develop conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, joint pain. So I should take care of my mental health in small but significant and continual ways.

Perhaps for some people, they experience the breakdown in their mental health as a broken leg. It's a one-off occurrence which can be tracked back to a specific happening and can be treated discretely. For me it has not been like that, it is an on-going journey. I would have liked to have heard much more last week about ideas of how to support mental well-being. And not just for the individual, but as a society. Some would say we have a mentally ill society and most people are merely having a healthy response to what is a sick environment.

Any thoughts?