The Great Mental Illness Grift

An audience member asked a recent Policy Exchange panel discussion into ‘Building Resilient Generations‘: “Who makes money from diagnosing and doping children, just out of interest?” I was watching online and couldn’t see the questioner but it sounded as if she was genuinely curious. Of the panellists that included, Amanda Spielman former Head of Ofsted and Sir Stephen Houghton CBE, it was Richard Tice MP who answered: “Big Pharma.” He’s right in part – ADHD prescriptions for instance have increased 18% since 2020, but there is much more indeed that needs to be explored about the grift involved in the current mental illness paradigm.

Elon Musk made a helpful observation in his recent interview with Joe Rogan when discussing the homelessness crisis in San Francisco. He explained:


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Grahamb
4 months ago

That is quite a disturbing article. How has this policy become so prevalent?

mickie
mickie
4 months ago
Reply to  Grahamb

Follow the money.

EppingBlogger
4 months ago
Reply to  Grahamb

Failure by Ministers to challenge demands (decisions ?) by the blob. Complete lack of strategy or common sence all exacerbated by lock downs as many said it would at the time.

stewart
4 months ago
Reply to  Grahamb

By creating a state bureaucracy with no effective boundaries to stop its relentless growth.

This is not unique to the mental health sector. You could write the exact same article about pretty much any sector in which the state is heavily involved.

Gezza England
Gezza England
4 months ago
Reply to  Grahamb

Because it provides employment and makes the figures look good.

Grim Ace
Grim Ace
4 months ago
Reply to  Grahamb

See above

NickR
4 months ago

Study after study shows no evidence that pharmaceuticals have any discernible positive impact on mild symptoms of anxiety, depression etc.
Likewise, there is scant evidence that any of the practices detailed in this article have a positive effect.
The whole thing is largely performative.
But I don’t see much prospect of this cycle being broken.

stewart
4 months ago
Reply to  NickR

That’s true of a lot of things. COVID measures, NetZero, government economic policy, policies that promote “equality”. None of them can be justified by their results. They are all justified instead by their supposedly good intentions.

Hester
Hester
4 months ago

Ita a con supported once again by the virtue signalling higher archi from Williamand Kate, through to Politicians. These children their lives are rendered useless by the Parent with the aid of the state, breeding another poor human who cannot fend for themselves. Can you imagine if there were to be another war?, these children would be sitting ducks.
Like Climate change, Covid, Trans,Mental health is just another grift wherby these whited sepulchres gain money, and narcissistic self virtue from its promotion. The children, they are just the host they live off.

For a fist full of roubles

With the right training he could become a social media influencer.

For a fist full of roubles

It is not the child who is ill, it is the parent in so many of these cases. Clearly both need treating and the application of money is not the answer.

Arborvitae23
4 months ago

One bonus is that Connor probably won’t breed.

Gezza England
Gezza England
4 months ago
Reply to  Arborvitae23

But sadly the immigrant communities will breed plenty to make up for it and continue our path to becoming a Turd World shithole like their ghettos.

Frances Killian
Frances Killian
4 months ago

In Victorian novels all these mental health issues occurred but only in sufficiently wealthy households. For most people it was cope or the workhouse or lunatic asylum. I get that we can’t quite go back there but time for the pendulum to swing back somewhat. Rewarding unwanted behaviour never works.

transmissionofflame
4 months ago

For sure – maintaining a healthy perspective is a top challenge

stewart
4 months ago

Forget about Victorian times. Not longer than a few decades ago, mental illness was something people would want to do everything possible to conceal. Now, we’re relentlessly mining for it.

I blame Princess Diana. She made being weak and helpless cool in a country that had until then prided itself on its stiff upper lip.

Gezza England
Gezza England
4 months ago
Reply to  stewart

And look at the irrational outpouring of affected grief for somebody they had never met that followed her dying because she did not wear a seatbelt. A person was attacked for washing their car instead booing their eyes out at the sad news. A late friend of mine had not seen or heard any media and went to the local shop and was treated to a sea of astonished faces when she said she did not know.

Howard Arnaud
Howard Arnaud
4 months ago

Along with support for mass immigration and climate hysteria, this is another expression of an excess of compassion, and as the article says, symptomatic especially of middle class women.

The feather bedded middle classes always seem to have a blind spot when it comes to identifying opportunists, or as those down the order would say, chancers.

Not surprising when so few of them have occupations which involve doing anything productive and not dependent on the state.

The feminisation of western societies is leading to their inevitable downfall.

stewart
4 months ago
Reply to  Howard Arnaud

Yes. But recently I’ve come round to the idea that men are as much if not more to blame. Men seem to have lost the ability to stand up to shrill, nagging women; have allowed the concept of masculinity to be spoken of as something toxic; have basically lost the ability to stand up to challenge and adversity.

The western man has become soft and weak.

Howard Arnaud
Howard Arnaud
4 months ago
Reply to  stewart

True enough. It’s a feedback loop once soft professions start to dominate. Once the sisterhood gets control of anything the only recourse for most men is to move on or retreat to the shed. The weak ones who stay just nod along.

Gezza England
Gezza England
4 months ago
Reply to  Howard Arnaud

Stand up to the nagging shrews and they will play the ‘sexism’ card. Happy International Mens Day chaps.

stewart
4 months ago

Anything that is not subject to market forces is plagued by grift.

Even if it starts out with good intentions the lack of market discipline practically guarantees that sooner or later it becomes grift.

Gezza England
Gezza England
4 months ago
Reply to  stewart

Just imagine how damaging it would be to many people’s ‘careers’ if it was declared that the battle against racism was won.

RTSC
RTSC
4 months ago

All those social science and psychology graduates need a regular and permanent source of income.

Someone who is cured no longer provides it.

GlassHalfFull
4 months ago

Here in the UK, there are so many children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) that it is costing local authorities (ie tax payers) a fortune dealing it.
The government and local authorities should provide “means tested” assistance to all those that need it with wealthy parents paying more.
To alleviate future damage to children and the costs involved there should be a government or “independent” investigation as to why there is a big increase of children with SEND.
Once the reasons or likely reasons have been discovered then something drastic should be done so that future parents, babies and children avoid the toxins that cause many of the health problems to protect the children in the future.
Even if the harms are due to a genetic disposition to a particular toxin, then that toxin should obviously be avoided regardless of whether the toxin is in a vaccine or not.

Grim Ace
Grim Ace
4 months ago

Take away the money and they’d all disappear. Most of these kids, and their often single muvvers, just need a major reality check. There is no mental health crisis: we have invented it. We cannot afford this boondoggle anymore. Its all driven by women’s psychology; women cause most of these four letter isms, with their constant anxiety and worry about what we all fell. Feelings are generally irrelevant to reality. Tough shit time. Get involved in the real world or starve. Same goes for benefits. All benefits claimants, especially the rather large population of generally large, single muvvers, should have to clean the streets everyday to earn their dole. Enough.

Covid-1984
Covid-1984
4 months ago

Working from home equates to being a “skiver”…pure and simple.

Myra
4 months ago

Thank you for writing this article.

Just Stop it Now
4 months ago

Added to all this should be the contracts with taxi firms to take each individual SEN diagnosed child many miles to school and back every day. The bill is footed by local council taxpayers and run to hundreds of thousands (if not more) each year.

As the cost is someone else’s money and these contracts are incredibly lucrative, it goes without saying that the tendering and renewal of such contracts do not receive enough scrutiny and there is ample temptation for corruption

V Detta
V Detta
4 months ago

The mother does not, of course, have any interest in her son’s welfare while his being “ill” provides her with a good income. So it is unlikely that he will ever be able to contribute to society and his situation will continue. In fact it’s in nobody’s interest that he gets better.