I have a radical proposal for tackling the mental health crisis. Let’s just stop talking about stigma. I’m not suggesting stigma isn’t a problem. I’ve written about it myself. But all this talk of stigma has become a politically convenient red herring.
It is another way of locating the problem in the individual, “If only he’d felt able to talk …”, and in the attitudes of others towards the individual, rather than where a very large portion of it belongs: in government policy. From attempts to demonise people on sickness benefits as morally inferior scroungers, to the decimation of social care and mental health services, to repeated failures to heed the warnings of mental health professionals, activists and carers, to the devastating impact of welfare reforms, successive Conservative governments have failed people with mental health difficulties at every conceivable turn. Not surprisingly, Theresa May wields the great stigma decoy at every opportunity. “We can end the stigma that has forced too many to suffer in silence and prevent the tragedy of suicide taking too many lives,” she said last week at a Downing Street reception to mark World Mental Health Day, where she also announced the appointment of a new minister for suicide prevention (Perhaps we can all talk to her?), and “up to” £1.8m for the Samaritans.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, is also at it. “Some people find it hard to talk about mental illness. And our task is to make that easier, to break the taboo, to help everyone get the support they need. Because it’s good to talk,” he said at the recent Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit.
I don’t doubt that stigma does prevent some people from asking for help, but I’m not convinced that this is the overriding problem. What certainly does stop people getting help is a lack of available support. And, after all, if people are so reluctant to seek help, why are the waiting lists so long? Why is it that, according to a recent survey conducted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, some patients had waited up to 13 years to get access to appropriate treatment? As college president Wendy Burn says: “The failure to give people with mental illnesses the prompt help they need is ruining their lives.”
The summit was attended by theDuke and Duchess of Cambridge. They love talking about stigma too, aiming through their Heads Together campaign to “end the stigma on mental health once and for all”. As their spokesman put it: “Too often, they have seen that people feel afraid to admit that they are struggling with their mental health. This fear of prejudice and judgment stops people from getting help and can destroy families and end lives.” It’s certainly a lot more comfortable to focus on stigma than on the well-established correlation between levels of social and financial inequality and levels of mental ill health. But, no, let’s not talk about austerity.
For Hancock, “ultimately, this is about changing the way we think about mental health”. I agree. It’s about stopping seeing mental health as a discrete entity, and the mental health crisis as having nothing to do with government-imposed austerity: with the freeze on working-age benefits, with the housing crisis – rates of rough sleeping have more than doubled since 2010 – the slashing of council budgets, legal aid, Sure Start and education spending.
Let’s address that. Then we can talk about stigma.
