Every time we have a Mental Health Awareness Week, my spirit sinks. We don’t need people to be more aware. We can’t deal with the ones who already are

“Every time we have a Mental Health Awareness Week, my spirit sinks. We don’t need people to be more aware. We can’t deal with the ones who already are.” Sir Simon Wessely, newly elected President, Royal Society of Medicine, 2017.

The bluntness of his assessment, the candour in its expression, and the counter-intuitive nature of his conclusion generated predictable controversy.

Could it ever be right to say we should limit awareness about a condition, simply because the state lacks resources?

Could staff shortages, service pressures, or clinician burnout justify restricting people’s understanding of their own health?

In a system like the NHS, where healthcare is guaranteed, can the same state suggest awareness has become unaffordable?

If we answer plainly, the answer is ‘No’.

None of us would argue that awareness of cancer, diabetes, or hypertension should be shaped by waiting times or workforce availability.

And yet, Sir Simon’s discomfort remains very relevant.

Writers like Satnam Sanghera and Martha Gill have highlighted the blurring between normal emotional extremes and severe mental illness, a blurring that often harms the most unwell.

Psychologists Lucy Foulkes and Jack Andrews explored this further in their prevalence inflation hypothesis.

They suggest awareness campaigns raise reported mental health problems in two ways:

First, through improved recognition — a welcome effect that helps reduce stigma.

Second, through over-interpretation — where people begin to mislabel extreme but normal emotions as illness.

It reminded me of a walk with Cody this weekend.

Ten years old now, he’s slower to get going, but on this day, something lifted. He trotted ahead, tail high, alert to every rustle in the hedgerow.

There was nothing clinical about it: no diagnosis, no change in condition, just a good day.

And it struck me how easily, if he were human, that energy might be seen as ‘recovery’ or ‘relapse’.

But maybe it was just what it was: a passing feeling, nothing more.

Blurring the line between distress and disorder doesn’t just confuse things. It increases stigma and reduces care for those with severe, enduring mental illness.

We don’t need less awareness, but we do need better awareness.

Human emotional extremes and serious mental illnesses may appear to cause comparable suffering, but they are certainly not the same.

We need meaningful campaigns that highlight that difference.