In our newly aware world, serious conditions such as psychosis and schizophrenia are overlooked
The psychiatrist Simon Wessely once said his spirits sank every time there was a mental health awareness week. “We don’t need people to be more aware. We can’t deal with the ones who already are aware,” he said.
Yet awareness spreads and propagates, even as queues outside psychiatrist offices trail around the block. This year’s big week, run by the Mental Health Foundation, starts on Monday. Its theme is anxiety, a disorder affecting a quarter of adults, according to the foundation – a statistic that sounds unbelievably large until you read its description of the condition, which seems almost broad enough to take in the full sweep of human experience.