Anxiety triggered

Over the past decade or so, it has become commonplace in the UK for celebrities to speak out about their mental health difficulties everyone from Prince Harry to the most obscure reality TV star has come forward to testify to their struggles with one or other mental disorders.

- Andrew Anthony

There is a widespread belief that this is a good thing, that it helps destigmatise mental illness and foster an atmosphere of greater understanding. Certainly, if I think back to growing up in the 1960s and 70s, when people spoke about “mental cases” who should be shipped off to the “loony bin”, a sober appreciation of mental disability was long overdue.

But as society has learned a whole new language of neurodiversity and psychological disorders - bipolarity, ADHD, OCD, autism, anxiety and depression - something quite noticeable is happening: more people are seeking diagnosis for mental illness, particularly since the pandemic.