Part 7/10:
In an alarming development, UK teachers have been instructed to avoid encouraging students to self-diagnose classic emotional states such as anxiety or depression. This guidance aims to prevent normal feelings from being medicalized as mental health conditions. Slater expressed concern that such policies reflect a broader societal trend of pathologizing everyday emotions.
He argued that decades of encouraging children to view themselves as mentally ill have contributed to a growing cohort of young people withdrawing from education and employment. Statistically, there’s been a surge in teenagers on disability benefits citing anxiety and depression, conditions that are increasingly nebulous and detached from clinical diagnoses.