Mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders have become more prevalent, especially among young people . Demand for treatment is surging and prescriptions of some psychiatric medications have climbed. These upswinging prevalence trends are paralleled by rising public attention to mental illness.
Mental health messages saturate traditional and social media. Organisations and governments are developing awareness, prevention and treatment initiatives with growing urgency. The mounting cultural focus on mental health has obvious benefits.
It increases awareness, reduces stigma and promotes help-seeking. However, it may also have costs. Critics worry social media sites are incubating mental illness and that ordinary unhappiness is being pathologised by the overuse of diagnostic concepts and “ therapy speak ”.
British psychologist Lucy Foulkes argues the trends for rising attention and prevalence are linked. Her “ prevalence inflation hypothesis ” proposes that increasing awareness of mental illness may lead some people to diagnose themselves inaccurately when they are experiencing relatively mild or transient problems. Foulkes’ hypothesis implies that some people develop overly broad concepts of mental illness.
Our research supports this view. In a new study, we show that concepts of mental illness have broadened in recent years – a phenomenon we call “ concept creep ” – and that people differ in the breadth of their concepts of mental illness. In ou.
