Most people who think they have anxiety and depression don’t, warns one of Britain’s most eminent GPs

Thousands of Brits are mistaking the ‘normal stresses of life’ for mental health problems — and incorrectly diagnosing themselves with psychiatric conditions, one of the UK’s most eminent GPs has warned. 

Professor Dame Clare Gerada, former president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, told MailOnline that Britain has a ‘problem’ with people ‘seeking labels to explain their worries’.

Professor Gerada’s concerns echo that of former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair’s, who yesterday warned against over-medicalising the ‘ups and downs of life’. 

Sir Tony, who served as PM from 1997 to 2007, said there was a danger of telling too many people going through life’s normal challenges that they are suffering a mental health condition.

‘There are people of all different ages wishing for a diagnosis or a label,’ Professor Gerada said. 

‘They’d rather have a label than consider why their life might be challenging, or where it could have gone wrong.’

Professor Gerada’s comments add to a growing chorus of concern among some of the UK’s top psychiatric professionals, who say self-diagnoses of mental illness are increasing pressure on an already strained NHS. 

Dr Sameer Jauhar, a psychiatrist and senior clinical lecturer at King’s College London, told MailOnline there was a ‘huge’ difference between the symptoms people ‘self report’ and the medical criteria for diagnosing mental illness. 

‘When many people talk about their mental health, they often describe something that isn’t what we call depression in the profession,’ he said. 

‘Clinical depression is not just low mood. It’s motor effects — someone’s body movements slowing down, for example.

‘It can affect your attention, your concentration, your memory. Just saying that you have low mood doesn’t necessarily mean that you have depression.

‘When Tony Blair says people are self diagnosing, he’s correct.’

Professor Carmine Pariante, an expert in biological psychiatry at King’s College London, also warned that a greater awareness of mental health conditions has led some to ‘think they have an illness rather than just experiencing difficult levels of stress or anxiety that come with life’. 

He told MailOnline: ‘Lots of people who have significant levels of depression don’t seek help which is a big problem.

‘But in the case of many others, we need to be brave and give people the assurance that what they’re experiencing is normal and help them to take responsibility for their wellbeing by doing things to improve their emotional health like exercising or seeing friends.’

Latest statistics show that the number of people seeking help for mental illness has surged by two fifths since before the pandemic, reaching almost 4million.

Meanwhile, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show almost a quarter of children in England now have a ‘probable mental disorder’ — up from one in the five in the previous year. 

Professor Gerada said a main driver of misdiagnosis is the widespread ‘inappropriate use’ of terms used to describe mental illness. 

She said: ‘Instead of saying “I’m sad today”, children will use the words “I’m depressed today or anxious”.

‘People wrongly think of loneliness, home sickness, exam stress, even stress at work as a mental illness. 

‘When you go to university or college, it’s normal to feel lonely, to feel that you don’t know where you are, to feel homesick. That’s normal. That’s not a mental illness.

‘We need to stop the expectation that we’re supposed to be miserable.’

While many find working a struggle when they feel low, Professor Gerada said, the routine of working life can be an effective mood booster. 

‘There has been a temptation to take time off work when life becomes challenging,’ she said. ‘But work is actually the thing that will protect you.’ 

Speaking on the Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future podcast yesterday, Sir Tony said Britain had become ‘very, very focused on mental health and with people self-diagnosing’. 

The former PM added: ‘We’re spending vastly more on mental health now than we did a few years ago. And it’s hard to see what the objective reasons for that are.

‘Life has its ups and downs and everybody experiences those. 

‘And you’ve got to be careful of encouraging people to think they’ve got some sort of condition other than simply confronting the challenges of life.’

Responding directly to his comments, Professor Dame Clare said: ‘We are spending more and more and more on mental health and seeing worse and worse and worse mental health.

‘Where the mental health resources need to be spent are on inpatient beds, patients with severe psychosis, severe depression, bipolar disorder, people with drug and alcohol problems.

‘What we seem to be spending more and more on is diagnosing 26-year-olds with ADHD and giving them lifelong medication which may cause addiction, psychosis, dependence and physical health problems.

‘We’re spending it in the wrong place.’

Yesterday, Professor Brendan Kelly, an expert in psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin also warned it was important that Brits avoid ‘over-medicalising things’.

‘The problems we face day to day, the problems we face at work, the problems with other people — they’re not necessarily mental health issues or mental illnesses,’ he said. 

‘I do think we need to think carefully so we don’t disempower people from finding solutions to problems in their lives by suddenly declaring that they are mentally ill’. 

He told The Hard Shoulder podcast: ‘Some problems in life, the ups and downs of life, the stresses, some of the relationship consequences aren’t mental health problems — they’re life problems.

‘There’s no benefit to labelling all these as mental health issues if it doesn’t empower the person to find solutions.’

In October NHS England said it was treating 55 per cent more under-18s than before the pandemic. 

At the time a spokesperson added: ‘We know there is much more to do to reduce unacceptably long waits for patients and ensure every young person who needs it is able to access specialist mental health support.

‘We have added an extra 40,000 mental health staff, and plans are in place to ensure more than one in two pupils and learners in schools and colleges have access to an NHS mental health team in the classroom by spring 2025, way ahead of the original target.’

Dozens of studies have recently highlighted how the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have hindered children’s development and may have exacerbated mental health issues. 

Youngsters from all economic backgrounds have suffered setbacks to their emotional and social development, researchers have found. 

Unprecedented stay-at-home orders and the closure of schools were among the key policies introduced at the start of the pandemic and hugely disrupted children’s lives.

In August, concerning new figures also showed the number of children referred for specialist anxiety treatment has doubled in just four years.

More than 200,000 children in England — or 4,000 every week — were waiting to begin treatment in the past year. 

This is up more than 100,000 on 2019/2020 when almost 99,000 were stuck in the queue.