Opinion: What we’re getting wrong in the conversation about mental health

Increased use of psychiatric language means ordinary distress is being medicalised, while the seriously ill are not being heard, says Honorary Lecturer Dr Lucy Foulkes (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences). Many years ago, in the fading hours of a house party, I sat outside in the garden with an old friend. From inside came the distant thud of music and pockets of laughter - a thousand miles from the conversation we were having. My friend's relationship had ended a few weeks previously, and that night his heartbreak was palpable and raw. He told me how disconnected he felt from the people inside the house, from his life, and then he said something that made my heart sink. "When I look into the future," he said, avoiding eye contact, "I can't see anything ahead of me." At that moment - I thought - something became clear: he was clinically depressed. Over the following days and weeks, I told my friend what I knew about the disorder, and the benefits of therapy and antidepressants, and encouraged him to go to the doctor.