As mental health problems are increasing in prevalence across many countries, psychologist Nick Haslam, of the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, argues that “rising attention to harm, coupled with the pervasive influence of the mental health industry has led to the concept of mental health and illness becoming increasingly expansive”.
In his latest open-access article Concept Creep and the Mental Health Crisis, Haslam explains that the process of ‘concept creep’ leads some to adopt “diagnostic identities” and to “over-pathologize experience and behaviour”. He proposes that this tends to “increase the number of people who are identified as having mental health problems and seek treatment for them”. It may also “worsen mental health through a range of self-fulfilling and iatrogenic processes”.
Haslam acknowledges that “conceptual change is inevitable and often well motivated” but explains that concept creep “runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood”.
He suggests a range of responses for policymakers including: greater accuracy in awareness campaigns; more focus on functional impairment rather than symptoms; and a reduced emphasis on diagnostic labels.
In his conclusion, Haslam warns that “historical shifts in our cultures, mediated by conceptual change, may be compounding our distress and making us unwell”.
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