this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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Mental Health

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‘What I see in clinic is never a set of labels’: are we in danger of overdiagnosing mental illness? (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 day ago by dazerl@lemmy.world to c/mentalhealth@lemmy.world
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[–] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

it wouldn't matter as much if we didn't expect so much of people.

  • ADHD wouldn't be this much of a problem in children if we didn't expect them to sit still in a classroom for 8 hours as a ten year old.
  • depression wouldn't be as much of a problem if people weren't expected to have the energy to stand in one place getting verbally abused for 8+ hours a day.

and don't get me started on homelessness. literally just fix homelessness and about 1/2 of the healthcare system would instantly right itself even before dealing with the health insurance issue. especially the ERs.

literally just tax the fuck out of empty housing. each person is allowed to have 1 house they don't live in (which is extremely generous). anything after that should be nearly impossible to afford taxes on. And no corporate landlords. I'm fine renting; if I take a 12 week contract in another city I'm not buying and in not staying in a hotel and I'd also rather be paying somebody who actually lives there.

[–] dingus@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

literally just fix homelessness

Dude, I know everyone makes it out to be a simple thing, but it's really absolutely not. Homelessness and mental health issues are associated...usually a combination of addiction with one or more other mental illnesses that are severely disabling...be it PTSD, schizophrenia, etc. It is absolutely not as simple as just "give everyone some money" or "give everyone a place to live". Obviously that sort of stuff helps way a lot, but it is really not the easy fix people think it is. Many of these people even end up wandering away from housing that is given to them exactly because of their multiple overlapping severe mental illnesses.

Basically, the majority of homeless people are also severely disabled by often multiple overlapping mental illnesses which are difficult to treat even in people with stable housing. We should always always strive to find them food and shelter, but it is NOT the easy fix that people think it is. It's a multi-layered issue that requires an insane amount of different types of resources.

[–] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago

Yes that's why they're clogging up the hospitals. If most of them at least had a roof they'd be able to self-manage most of their disorders a lot better. Even if they ultimately wind up back in the hospital it would be easier to discharge them much faster. Home care with a roof is still cheaper than the hospital and would be adequate in sooo many cases, and give so much more space to care for the ones for whom it isn't.

And using drugs in their own house would keep them from having to take enough uppers to stay vigilant for their safety simultaneously with with enough opiates to level that out. They could keep using or do MAT until they're ready to quit and in the meantime they wouldn't be out in the street yelling at passing cars. We have more empty houses than homeless people just put them in em for free.

I said what I said because my face is directly in the issues you're talking about every single night I work and every single one of them would be so much easier to manage if every one of those people just had a roof to go home to. Literally just a roof. Do you know how hard it is to keep a leg wound the size of a grapefruit clean on the street? Even if it's not getting regular dressings at home at least it's not soaking in a mud puddle where the best thing happening to it is maggots.

[–] gid@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Basically, the majority of homeless people are also severely disabled by often multiple overlapping mental illnesses which are difficult to treat even in people with stable housing.

Do you have a source for that? I know the issues within homelessness are complex but I haven't seen any data to suggest that a majority of homeless people are severely disabled.

We should always always strive to find them food and shelter, but it is NOT the easy fix that people think it is.

It's a really good start though. Stable housing is a huge benefit for a whole array of treatment paths to tackle underlying issues.

[–] dingus@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Do you have a source for that? I know the issues within homelessness are complex but I haven’t seen any data to suggest that a majority of homeless people are severely disabled.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8423293/

A peer reviewed article of a meta analysis of many studies shows a whopping 76% of all homeless people have a mental illness. The majority are alcohol or other substance abuse problems followed by schizophrenia. These can all be incredibly disabling conditions. Something like social anxiety disorder, for example, while can be very disabling on the extreme end, does not cause difficulty caring for basic functioning of yourself. Alcohol/substance abuse problems and/or untreated schizophrenia are incredibly significant conditions which are severely disabling.

I have a friend with schizophrenia which has been thankfully successfully managed. I have known her for a long time and it was very scary watching her develop it and at first and for professionals to struggle to help her treat it. She would also periodically do this thing where she felt she didn't need her medications because she felt better. So she would stop taking them periodically and go back to having severe issues before everyone managed to convince her to go back on them. It's actually an incredibly common phenomenon and one of the reasons why it's a difficult disorder to treat. She is one of the success stories because she has had a lot of help and support and access to very intensive mental health care. Many do not, unfortunately.

[–] gid@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Thanks, that's really helpful.

I agree that giving all homeless people homes isn't just going to fix any underlying mental health problems, but I think there's an argument for recognising that in some cases mental health conditions are a response to environment, rather than having a purely pathological cause. Addressing those environmental factors (like no access to stable housing) can make a huge difference.

And even if access to stable housing doesn't resolve the major cause of someone's mental health issues it's still going to be of benefit alongside other treatment options.

Edit: also I'm glad your friend is doing well in her treatment. I've seen how difficult it is to treat.

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The mental health epidemic is just a symptom of late stage capitalism, I don't think the analysis needs to go much deeper. It's not at all surprising to me that mental health is worse, because so is everything else. The ruling elite ignore this obvious truth because they don't want you to know the solution: revolution.

[–] dingus@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I'll admit I only read the first several paragraphs. I do get a bit frustrated at times with the number of people nowadays that claim to have ADHD just because their house is messy or autistic because they have one thing they are passionate about.

The tricky part is that like the article states...yes, basically all mental illnesses are essentially a part of the normal human condition! So it actually really is a spectrum between "normal" and "mental illness". So where do we draw the line? That's the problem. It's blurry. It's not a binary.

Where the line is theoretically supposed to be drawn is when the issue is severe enough to have an impairment of functioning or severe distress in an area of your life. Do you have mild social anxiety where you get a little bit of butterflies in your stomach before an event but are able to attend and function just fine? You don't have a disorder. It's natural...some people just have more or less of this than others. Do you have anxiety so intense that you have a panic attack at the thought of ordering food at a restaurant so you never go out to eat? That is functional impairment. You have a diagnosable disorder.

But again, this line is blurry. What I will say is that even though the first example shouldn't technically be classed as having a disorder, it is always a good idea to try to improve your happiness in life by seeking out how to cope with things like therapy! That's always a good thing and we should strive for everyone to live their best life! But if the first person were to receive medication for that, I'd say they were overmedicated. The second person would heavily benefit from medication.

It's just dumb to me how people go around and are like "I have trouble paying attention to boring things. I am so quirky with my ADHD, guys"! Yet they have always been able to function just fine. People often get overmedicated this way and two other things happen. 1. They are pathologizing normal human reactions and 2. They almost "cheapen" (not the word I'm looking for) people who really really struggle with "actual" ADHD because they make it look "easy" to live with the condition, while those who "actually" have the condition struggle.

I will say that a lot of this in the US at least is insurance related. Often, a provider needs to tack on a diagnosis, even if not necessarily accurate, in order for insurance to pay for anything. If they just said that a patient was seeking help for "life improvement" (which is a good idea!), insurance is going to be like "fuck no, you're not getting any money". So like in my case, my providers immediately diagnosed me with both of your standard "anxiety and depression" for billing purposes, when really it's kind of innacurate.

Anyway goddamn I am always so wordy on the internet lol. Just my views is all.

tl;dr - I both agree and disagree with the artilce

🙃

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 14 hours ago

I have mentioned this so much and sometimes get the oh what are your qualifications. All sorts of mental illness are important parts of a health persons cognitive function but its over or under represented beyond a certain level where it inteferes with function. People think they are nothing like people with mental illness or conversely that they have it but all our brains have these functions.