Misleading the public about mental health

Matthew Parris’s Times article entitled ‘Mental health industry is cheating the public’ led to some overdefensive responses from mainstream psychiatry (see Letters). Parris may have overstated his case but, for example, the diagnosis of neurodivergence is out of control (see eg. previous post). It’s legitimate to question whether psychiatry is a science, considering the pseudoscientific claims made by biomedical psychiatry (see eg. another previous post). There have been serious problems with the application of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) since it replaced Disability Living Allowance (see post on my personal blog). Although the economically inactive may not be choosing not to work, as ineptly expressed by Parris, why so many people are not working is a legitimate social question. Mental health problems are definitely being overmedicalised (see eg. yet another previous post) and people do not want to hear that message.