Are we diluting the meaning of ‘mental health’?

What does ‘mental health’ mean? Is the answer to that question undergoing a generational change, as younger people become more aware of – and likely to talk about – their mental state and to discuss it in terms of ‘mental health’? And will that cultural change have economic effects? These are some of the questions I’ve explored in a Radio 4 Analysis show that’s broadcast on Monday night. 

It includes the voices of several fascinating people, but in particular I’d draw readers’ attention to the psychologist Dr Lucy Foulkes of Oxford University. She told me that after a lifetime of study, she’s starting to worry that society-wide mental health awareness campaigns might be doing more harm than good. Her fear is that the well-meaning move to destigmatise mental health conditions has effectively diluted the term ‘mental health’ such that some people are starting to describe ordinary human experiences and problems (sadness, worry, stress) as mental health conditions.