Why mental health awareness matters

We have run Mental Health Awareness Week since 2001. But recently questions have been raised about the value of mental health awareness. Have we gone too far in driving awareness of mental health and is it actually encouraging a ‘culture’ of poor mental health?

Are the sceptics right? Is increased awareness doing more harm than good? 

Firstly, we should talk about what we mean by ‘awareness’. At the Mental Health Foundation, we define mental health awareness as increasing understanding of how to protect and support mental health and the range of issues affecting it, while reducing stigma and discrimination.

We want people to understand how to manage difficult emotions in a healthy way, whether they are short-term responses to recent events, or a response to trauma in the past. But we also want to increase attention to the causes of mental ill-health and how to address them.   

Awareness efforts have played an important part in securing greater political attention on mental health and support for increased investment in recent years. Many people have been more open about their experiences, and many have told us this has been a profound journey. There is still much more to do, though.  Effective tools to live with good mental health or prevent issues developing into longer-term mental health problems are a skill we all need. Policy makers are only just recognising the range of wider action outside of the NHS needed to create the conditions for good mental health.  

Increased public interest and more open conversations about mental health have been a meaningful and important progress. But that doesn’t mean there aren't things to watch out for.  
 

Firstly, not all discussion about mental health has a positive impact and not everyone is being included in these conversations. 

There is a risk that the conversation about mental health isn’t reaching those who need it or including people from all backgrounds and stages of life. Stigma and shame still exist and there are real barriers to people speaking about their own mental health with friends and family. We need to be vigilant of content, especially online and on social media, that is misleading, shaming or inaccurate.

Secondly, some people have argued that increased awareness could be leading to an increase in mental health problems. We don’t believe that greater awareness is causing poorer mental health. In fact, it has been doing a vital role in lifting the lid on the extent of the distress people experience.  

However, there is some evidence that awareness can lead to over-interpretation of mental health struggles and questions about the possibilities of inaccurate self-diagnosis. We need a response that helps people respond to challenges in a measured way while upholding the precautionary principle to take all concerns seriously. 

Creating a dichotomy between ‘real’ mental illness and those who are ‘just struggling with normal life’ is not helpful if it means we don’t understand they are often linked, or we see some groups as deserving of support and others not. A diagnostic label or clinical help is not always needed or appropriate. But we also know that the risk of poor mental health is increased when difficult emotions are hidden, dismissed, or trivialised.

Finally, there is a risk that the awareness efforts neglect the more complex aspects of mental health or sideline the experience of those severely affected by mental ill-health.  This is important to acknowledge and address. There must be space for the full range of experiences to be seen and heard, and efforts made to reduce stigma for all.
 

All of these risks call for better awareness, not less. We need the conversation on mental health to be evidence-based, genuinely inclusive, embrace complexity, grapple with the root causes and challenge stigma wherever we find it. As with cancer, heart disease, or type 2 diabetes, we are not paying enough attention to prevention and how to stay healthy.  We need more investment in the social infrastructure that keeps us well alongside equipping people with the knowledge and tools to live well. 

We have seen from our experience of the Covid pandemic, cost-of-living crisis and the impact of global conflict just how damaging it is when the mental health implications are under-estimated or ignored.    

And this is a key point: it doesn’t take much to shame us into hiding our experience. We cannot allow mental health to be overlooked or the progress gained to be undone.  Our approach must evolve, but we can’t go back. This means more effective literacy about how to positively nurture our mental health (like this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week theme of moving more) as well as focusing on the building blocks of good mental health – things like financial security, good housing, and access to nature for all.  

This matters because mental health isn’t an equal playing field . While anyone can struggle with their mental health, it’s much more likely if you are poor, have faced racial or other discrimination, or had significant difficulties in childhood or as an adult.  But investing in building good mental health has the potential not only to alleviate distress but reduce inequalities, bolster the economy and reduce demand for services.

As Mental Health Awareness Week approaches, let's celebrate the huge strides we’ve made. Let’s re-double our commitment to foster awareness that drives meaningful change because everyone deserves good mental health.