The growth in mental ill-health is staggering. But might it be that those who are suffering are being entirely rational? In a world that is set up to fail them, aren't they right to be stressed, anxious, depressed and afraid?
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Why do we have a mental health crisis in this country and, let's be honest, around the world?
The FT ran a series on mental health in the week before Christmas and asked people why they thought there was such a crisis and the answer came back, “There's too much social media.”
Talk about missing the point. That was spectacularly wrong.
And we do have a mental health crisis. The number of young people needing help for mental ill health has risen dramatically, maybe by 50 per cent, since the time of the Covid crisis.
The number of older people now likely to be suffering some form of mental ill health at any time is up to 1 in 4 of the population.
This is serious stuff.
Ten per cent or so of young people who should be in work, or education, or training aren't at all because they can't face any of those things. This is people dropping out of society because of mental ill health.
So what is going on here? I want to talk about something that I discussed with someone quite recently. We were talking about quite young children who have anxiety, and anxiety is a major problem amongst children, even in primary schools now.
And what would Wes Streeting's answer to that be, we wondered? If he had a perfect world, what would Wes Streeting provide? He would put a counsellor in the primary school.
What would the counsellor do? They would sit with the child for an hour, and at the end of the hour the counsellor would say, “This child has an anxiety disorder.” So now they have a diagnosis. Except it isn't a diagnosis at all, of course, is it? It's a description. Nothing has changed because the counsellor has told the child they have anxiety. All they've given is a label to what the child already knew. They were frightened.
And at this point we have a choice to make, and I think this is really important. We either say the child shouldn't be frightened of the world because the world is benevolent, or we look at the world and say the child should be frightened of the world because it is malevolent. And I really do think that the choice might now be as binary as that.
And I'm going to go for the choice which neoliberal economics would tell me I should make, and that is, I should assume that the child is rational. Because remember, neoliberal economics assumes that everyone is rational.
And if the child who is frightened of the world is rational, and their fear is well placed, then it must imply that the world that they can see in which they live, their parents and carers, and the people that they know live, is malevolent. It is out to harm them.
And they're right. Let's be clear. The evidence stacks up with this.
Twenty-five per cent of children in the UK live in poverty.
Far too many of them live in absolute poverty.
The children see their parents going without meals so that the child may be fed.
They know that they're living in temporary accommodation and whatever school they're at at the moment and whatever friends they've got right now may not be the friends that they will have soon because they'll have been moved on yet again.
They know that their parents can't get work.
They know that their parents are struggling to pay the bills.
And it's obvious that the stress of providing that child with a Christmas present is enormous. and will rebound sometime in the new year when the debt arrives that was used to pay for it.
The child is not crazy when it thinks that there's something wrong. The child is entirely right to think that there is something wrong. What is wrong, is the world in which we live. The world which denies that this is a possible outcome from neoliberal economics that says if only we can perfect the allocation of resources by overcoming the imperfections that the person has or their lack of training or skills or whatever else it might be - including the fact that they're an introvert, or that they've got ADHD or autism or whatever is the reason for the prejudice against them that society has stacked in their favour, including the fact that they too were born of parents in poverty - whatever neoliberalism says about that is wrong. Because neoliberalism cannot provide a perfect allocation of resources. Neoliberalism is designed by and supported by people who perpetuate a myth that the wealthy are virtuous and theirs shall be the reward. Everybody else can go by the wayside.
The child, with anxiety, has worked that out. Okay, not in the way I've just presented it perhaps, but in the way in which it impacts on them.
So, what is the point? Do we try to persuade this child, either through therapy or through giving them drugs, that they, the square peg, have to fit into the round hole that neoliberalism has ordained for them, which is probably a pretty rubbish job?
Or instead, why shouldn't that child be allowed to be who they are?
Why shouldn't their parent be supported to provide for that child in the way that they know they could if only the opportunity was available?
Why can't the resources that the wealthy command - but do not use - be made available to those who need them because they literally are in need?
This is the real cause of the crisis in mental health. Mental health - ill health that is, because mental health is a great thing by the way, we all want that - it's mental ill health that is the problem - mental ill health is not something that is appearing because of social media.
It's not something that's appearing because we now live in a more lonely society.
The reason for our mental ill health crisis is that people are quite reasonably living in fear. And that fear is of a future where they know they aren't wanted. And that fear is created by the neoliberal myth that says only the wealthy count.
Listen to the child who's got anxiety syndrome. They know what is going on.
Deal with their problem by removing their causes for fear. Then we might have a better world.
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Richard,
From The Big Issue
https://www.bigissue.com/opinion/council-tax-debt-collection-stepchange-2/
And i
https://inews.co.uk/news/council-tax-debt-crisis-poorest-parts-england-3421542
Now prior to 2013 most of these people would have got 100% Council Tax Benefit, a national scheme paid for by central government but they abolished it and replaced it with locally run and funded schemes
The chickens are now coming home to roost in the form of increasing debt – I have looked at the numbers for the proposed post 2025 Somerset scheme and people on the lowest rate of Universal Credit will end up having to pay 10% of their income in Council Tax and even more if you rent your home.
It is accepted that financial pressure is the commonest trigger for mental ill health so whats happening is that the abolition of Council Tax Benefit might have saved The Government a headline 10% BUT has pushed up the incidence of mental health problems.
True Genius!
Worrying
Thank you
I wonder how much mental illness this has caused
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/27/nearly-two-thirds-of-working-private-renters-in-england-struggle-to-pay-rent
A great deal
The rentier economy has a great deal to answer for
You rightfully hone in on a fundamental problem in Western society because of Neo-liberalism – a lack of economic security.
Only yesterday I was discussing my 19 year old son’s student debt standing at £12,000 with him. He said he coped with it by seeing it as a tax. My response was that tax was a more positive thing than that and that he should not see it as a tax. My suggestion was that he accept it for it what it was – a failure by his country to invest in him.
This failure to invest is because of the wrong use of debt allocation. The state who could afford the debt to educate this talented young man and instead decided to personalise the cost of his education and place the debt on him and his generation and many of whom could not really afford the cost. This same state would then be able to claim any output for themselves in their GDP figures, essentially for free and claim to be managing the country efficiently in the electoral cycle.
His education was now also part of a system dedicated to providing rents for the capitalists through ‘investment’. This fake investment is not really investment. It was really a down payment of the buying of the rights to ownership to access the debt payments of others and turn that into an income stream for the purchaser. This is how modern Western capitalist markets work – it enables you to buy into other people’s hard work and output and turn nearly everything into liquidity for oneself.
The aping of the market mechanism in services like education, transport, medicine and else where is not a tax. Taxation is legal and beneficial to the commons – it redistributes to all for a start.
This ‘market appropriation investment’ is just legalised day light robbery for the unprincipled individual – a get rich quick scheme already favouring those with deep pockets. And you need deep pockets to sit at the big boys tables in the banks and the Treasury to be taken seriously.
This society has – through Neo-liberalism – got it all wrong. ‘Fucked up’ does not even begin to describe it. We are allowing ourselves and our children to be consumed and we are like lemmings in the casual way we seem to treat this.
A tax!! Bullshit. What does that tell you about what we know about tax eh?
Thus some of us are compelled to invest in ourselves – our futures – because the state is not going to provide for you anyway because it punishes those whom it says lacks any ‘get up and go’ and therefore you are catapulted into an exploitative system of debt before your life has even started. So to escape, you have to become enslaved to money debt!!! Ha! Perfect!
One word: sick. A sick system making people sick and unhappy as you suggest above, spot on.
We have to identify the problems to cure them
This is one of them
Unfortunately the politicians, the only ones with the power to cure the ills that affect our society have shown us in a few short months of government that we’re on our own. There is no help coming from this government – there’s even less help than from the previous Tory government.
Child poverty? Shrug
Mental ill-health caused by poverty? Shrug
Elderly freezing or starving to death? Shrug
Horrendous debts heaped on the young people who are the future of England? Shrug (Scots’ student debt is much, much lower. The average is about 1/3 of that of an English student)
Climate emergency wrecking our planet? Shrug
and on and on
Politicians are our problem. Their relationships with the wealthy are the problem; they are in thrall to them.
I think it more complex than that
Thank you, PSR.
PSR: “One word: sick. A sick system making people sick and unhappy as you suggest above, spot on.”
I would say it’s designed that way and is working as intended. Please see my comment when it comes out of moderation.
A useful website is here.
https://mentalstateoftheworld.report/
Undoubtedly the 2024 report will be worse than their most recent 2023 study.
Thanks
Abraham Maslow developed a pyramid of needs. Unfulfilled needs can result in trauma, leading to mental health issues.
Esteem needs: prestige, feeling of accomplishment
Belongingness & Love needs: intimate relationships, friends
Safety needs: security, safety
Basic needs: Food, water, warmth, rest
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
I think they are less hierarchical than he suggsted though
We all have all of them
Precarious work, precarious housing… no possibility to get out of this position. This is the reality for most youngsters and it takes its toll on mental health. And it is getting worse; not only do they leave precarious lives, so do their parents (and even grandparents). The problem is cascading down the generations.
Agreed
The problem with ideas about mental ill health, you neatly sum up in the circularity in labelling. There’s an old example of this, which runs like a joke:
Patient: Doctor, why do I feel depressed?
Doctor: Because you have depression.
Patient: But… how do you know I have depression?
Doctor: Because you feel depressed.
There’s an absence of corroboration of any psychiatric diagnois (in DSM, or ICD), nothing that breaks the circle. No blood test, no brain scan, no biopsy, no signs, only “symptoms”. Every diagnosis is literally an invention (nothing has as yet been discovered, none of the labels are valid). Symptom-based diagnosis in medicine is, rightly, derided, since symptoms are the first step that prompts further investigation into what is causing the problem. Labelling doesn’t identify causes, and that’s as true of “ADHD” and so on, none of which have any identifiable signs to verify/corroborate their existence. People, obviously, do have problems, and our experiences are very real, they’re just not what psychiatry says they are. Labels flag something, but explain nothing. And this is a crucial point. Unless we accurately understand the causes of a phenomena, we’ll do the wrong thing to try and solve it.
Many people have expressed concern about the effects of neoliberalism (links below), over decades, including Foucault in the 1970s, and Mark Fisher in the 2000s (Capitalist Realism nails the lived experience of neoliberal capitalism) since it doesn’t describe the world as it is, but attempts to reshape into something that only satisfies those with endless greed.
I note in your blog and elsewhere a shift, for instance, someone mentioned the growing need to move from talking about/writing about what is happening, to action, to doing something. I think it was Mark Fisher who coined the term “interpassivity”, which connects to hopelessness and helplessness, but is about the directing of people’s efforts, by neoliberal capitalism into fruitless endeavours (which Aaron Bastani noted in a 6 July 2023 article on Novara Media, that social democracy has been replaced by increasing house prices and “remodelled kitchens”), which I think also strikes a chord with what Byung-Chul Han refers to as “frenzied stasis”, lots of action but none of it building anything – no community, no mutuality, no kin. None of the action changes the status quo, in fact strengthen its grip. Yanis Varoufakis has noted this, referring to the historical moment as a time of unfreedom like never before. This is systemic, since (for instance) I cannot participate in democracy, I can only “have my say”. The most I can expect is to “feel” involved, whilst decisions are taken elsewhere.
The pscyhological sciences are riven through with the dominant ideology of the day, yet never openly foreground this, instead they claim objectivity. The history of psychology closely tracks the concerns of capitalists and establishment interests, from an early focus on improving advertising and marketing (so we can see the extent of its ethics rightaway) through to excusing society and the adults who comprise it – ADHD, eating disorders, ecological anxiety disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, pathological demand avoidance, psychosis). They deliberately focus on/in the individual body, divert attention from the context, and overlook the agenda of the observer (one person’s “pathological demand avoidance” is another person’s rational refusal to obey a sick order).
I particularly like the fact that you hoist neoliberalism by its own petard – if we’re rational beings, our feelings must be based on that rationality, and the assessment of the situation must be an accurate one, based upon that rationality. That’s precisely what psychological sciences have sought to undermine (until more recently, with the Power Threat Meaning framework for instance), people’s rational view their own situation, and replace it with a model of individual pathology.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8145185/#:~:text=Neoliberal%20Influence%20on%20Mental%20Healthcare,and%20treatment%20of%20mental%20distress.
https://theconversation.com/how-neoliberalism-is-damaging-your-mental-health-90565
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/our-economic-system-is-making-us-mentally-ill
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9605858/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/10/britain-mental-health-society-neoliberalism-politicians
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953609002135
https://neweconomics.org/2020/10/this-is-your-brain-on-neoliberalism
Many thanks for that
In the US most medical treatment is paid for by insurance companies who will only pay out for a diagnosed condition. This may make sense with physical illness. With emotional/ mental dis-ease, it it does not. So the American Psychiatric Association issued the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual -we are up version 5, which listed symptoms and descriptions were created. It is a process of reification -making something concrete out of the abstract. In Europe we have the International Classification of Disease ICD which is similar but not identical.
It is however, still useful in creating a language to describe and address patterns of pathology. Some individuals present with very complex conditions.
In my counselling charity I was known for placing more emphasis on social context. But it is a mistake to reduce all ‘mental illness’ to societal causes.
I once saw a middle aged man whose wife had sent him for counselling. He told me a story of neglectful parents. He had joined the Air Force and on his passing out parade following basic training, he was the only man to have no family to turn up. He was released by the RAF.
He retreated into a world of reading when not at work. He was his wife’s third husband. ‘What did she marry you?’ I asked. ‘ Because, I wasn’t like the other two.’
We worked together for only a few months. But he began to build a new hobby and to learn how to communicate more deeply with colleagues. As my supervisor and I agreed, there was no diagnosis -other than depressed and emotionally withdrawn, hardly rocket science. But I took him seriously and was concerned for him. This was a new experience, and he realised he could do this for himself. He learnt how to make a better connection with others. And, essentially, the one with himself. Others noticed the changes and responded, creating a virtuous circle. He said I had done it for him. No, I replied. ‘You had to do the work for it to work.’ It was part of the magic of a good therapeutic relationship.
We must not lose sight of the individual.
Your last line is so true
But we live in a society that has chosen to do just that
This is a huge subject. However, there is no one size fits all explanation – or remedy. Neo-liberalism is a major, perhaps the main reason but there other important factors depending on the individual, early trauma or unresolved loss.
A hundred years ago capitalism was even more exploitative. The 1902s saw the trauma of just having got through the Great War to be followed by the Depression. Unemployment hardly ever went below 10%. External circumstances are important but are not the whole story.
Mental illness is IMHO mainly emotional illness. One difference today is the extent of local and family relationships to provide support. In the 21st century families are smaller and more scattered. We change jobs more often. The traditional gender and social roles could be very limiting and restrictive. People have been able to liberate themselves from but they also gave a sort of security. I have seen this in some of our immigrant communities. Some are unable to cope with the range of choices and even if they do choose, many are not able to attain them. We are often told we can achieve our dreams if we try hard enough. ‘Inspiration’ and ‘motivation’ are terms which are bandied about but for many, it s a lie. And it can create a feeling we have failed.
Many schools, usually in poor areas, are told they are not up to standard and if they do reach it, they are told not to ‘coast’. People have limits we have to accept that without devaluing them. Our schools have become exam factories. And this may be unpopular, but many children lack discipline ( sometimes because they do have ‘conditions which are untreated ) which limits what they do and it also affects those who have it.
It was seeing so many people ‘not achieving their work targets’ that alerted me to the extent of the problem at work. The neo-liberal hype about ‘mission’ , ‘leadership’, ‘efficiency’ , ‘innovation’ (scrapping workable systems for ones that don’t work ) etc seemed to me to indicate management which was uninformed and out of touch, preferring to blame the workforce for any failings. Unfairness destroys morale. Uncertainty does the same. I often saw people having to re-apply for their own jobs. It seemed an exercise in setting one employee against another.
Professor Paul Hoggett said he thought ‘shame’ was the method used to discipline a modern educated workforce.
In these cases we see -and you’ve put your finger on it- fear. Fear of not being good enough and fear of failure. With few safety nets.
Working as a counsellor, I would often see a lack of meaning and purpose in people’s lives. If people have these they can survive some really challenging circumstances.
What gives that? Secure personal relationships. A ‘philosophy’ of life. Hope that things can improve. Feeling one has a part to play in society. A society which has as its common purpose, the welfare of the whole society. Leadership which seeks to take people with them.
Thanks, Ian.
Much to muse on.
Community, Ian. Roots and attachment, not just to people but to place, purpose in survival, celebration, communal action. That’s why all neoliberalism since 1979 in this country has been divide and rule. Hiraeth, perhaps for an imagined past, but an ideal.
I regularly quote this when speaking about anxiety and stress, it helps to go back to what it is that people are initially ‘worried’ about in order to help prevent the onset of anxiety and ultimately stress. It also helps to identify just how much people have to ‘worry’ about, and in the current and recent climate it hammers home the amount of bad news circulating which has a massive negative impact on people’s lives, especially the younger generation with access to ‘opinion leaders’ via social media. No wonder we have an epidemic of stress related conditions in such an uncertain world….. work out for yourself what people of any age might be ‘worried’ about…..
‘Worry’ is an uncomfortable feeling where you think about something bad that might happen.
‘Anxiety’ is being worried a lot of the time, causing you to have trouble learning, having fun, and sleeping.
‘Stress’ is the physical or emotional strain on your body from too much worry or anxiety.
Thanks
Thank you, Richard.
One could add the demographic collapse, too.
Further to AC Bruce’s comments, I have come across City managers, politicians* and wannabe politicians* who think this is a good sign / thing. It keeps employees on their toes, makes voters not raise their heads and look around, makes mass mobilisation more difficult etc. These sociopaths need to be driven out of corporate and public life. *Not just Tory, but New and New New Labour.
It almost looks as though they (city managers/politicians) think we, the people, are their enemies.
None of this ‘in it together’ or ‘working together for the benefit of all’ then – more like keep the little people down whilst they get on with creating wealth for themselves.
How can a few hundred people make lives miserable for many millions and get away with it? And yet, that’s exactly what they are doing.
Debate their enemy.
People are a cost. Costs are the enemy.
Thank you for this blog, and for stimulating some insightful comments.
As others have said, diagnoses of mental ill-health are mostly really just descriptions of the symptoms – albeit ones which meet the technical needs of psychiatry. They are rarely the same as identifying the underlying problem.
Your example of anxiety is pertinent. It may be reactive, in other words less of an illness than a response to an anxiety-inducing situation. A medical treatment isn’t going to deal with the root cause. In other cases symptoms of anxiety (and related depression) seem to be internally generated and treatment needs to be directed at the individual; however even then it seems there may be multiple underlying conditions judging by the way all of the available treatments (different talking therapies and different medications) only seem to be effective in a subset of cases.
The apparent rise in mental ill-health is a huge issue. Some of that may be an increase in societal situations that cause reactive health problems. But a lot of it may be a decrease in our ability to resolve problems when they first emerge and are small. In part it needs a change in medical practice: GPs are very poorly equipped to deal with mental ill-health, but it is very difficult and slow to get someone seen by a specialist. But I think there also seem to be shortcomings in the non-medical support of those suffering early symptoms, the largely informal help provided by families or colleagues or leader figures (e.g. teachers in the case of children). And poor understanding of what underlies individual resilience and whether it can be improved.
From the Mental State of the World Report 2023:
“As mental wellbeing has remained largely static across the world since 2021, so too have the rankings of countries. At the top of the rankings are many Latin American and African countries while much of the core Anglosphere ranks in the bottom quartile. With national wealth indicators such as per capita GDP negatively correlated with average mental wellbeing scores (see our 2021 report), this year we have made substantial progress in our understanding of why this is so. Two key findings published in Rapid Reports in 2023 show that younger age of first smartphone ownership and ultra-processed food consumption are two major contributors to our mental health challenges. In wealthier countries, the age of first smartphone ownership is much younger and ultra-processed food consumption much higher. Other contributing factors are the relatively diminished family relationships in wealthier countries that are highlighted in our 2022 annual report.”
https://mentalstateoftheworld.report/2023_read/
Interesting that it references ultra-processed food.
To be clear, I agree that economic insecurity must be a big factor in the mental health crisis among the over 20s.
But the smartphone and poor diet factors are more persuasive for me when it comes to teenagers, many of whom spend up to five hours a day on what is laughably known as “social media”. Early this year the American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published “The Anxious Generation” in which he makes a good case against giving smartphones to young teenagers. Recently schools have banned smartphone use during the school day with notably good results for concentration in class and social interaction among pupils.
https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/
I’ve already talked about the work that’s done on animal food which doesnt seem to be applied to human – apart from Astronauts and servicemen.
In the same way there is all sorts of literature about how to keep animals.
If I want a dog/cat/chicken/horse/whatever I can go and get all sorts of guides which will allow me to look after them properly so they don’t get stressed/sick/play up etc (except sheep, nothing stops them trying to die – see Caleb Cooper)
So why isnt these some sort of guide for politicians ‘Keeping your country healthy and happy?’
Most of it isnt difficult just like keeping cats but it involves things like planning, equality, concern for wellbeing, in fact everything that’s not on the political agenda right now
Excellent question.
Might the word-concept “Dehumanisation” be relevant to this important conversation?
“Dehumanisation: to deprive anyone of decent living conditions, human qualities, personality, grounded self-confidence, dignity or respect and/or to address or portray anyone in any way or ways that obscures or demeans that person’s humanity, individuality or self -respect.”
“Dehumanisation: to remove or reduce appropriate involvements or inter-actions such as those concerning process or place.”
“Human structures dominated or defined by obsessions with financial economy, linear power, intolerance of innovations and initiatives and obsessive consistency, stratification and the like, are forms of, and machines for, dehumanisation.”
(From Audre Lorde)
An excellent descriptive term.
You are right that social media isn’t the root cause, but there is plenty of evidence that (IMO) it is certainly a main cause of the increasing ferocity of the downward spiral. Misinformation, poisonous posts from deeply disturbed and under educated reactionaries, shallow thinkers – yes I’m going to say it, the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBN consumers, the rising ranks of Reform converts have created a maelstrom of discontent and bubbling fury that lies just below the surface – as was clearly demonstrated by the violence on the streets last summer.
I have created a Green Party News and Views facebook page for my local group and the bile that I get from posting the Green Party’s views on poverty, winter fuel payments, 2 child cap, social housing, wealth tax, redistribution of wealth, local transport, arms sales to Palestine, our Govt’s refusal to name what is going on in Gaza for what it is, etc etc etc, is shocking evidence that community cohesion and empathy has been severely dislocated in the hearts and minds of the underclass – the new Unworking class – lacking hope, lacking encouragement, lacking compassionate leadership.
If I wasn’t an atheist I guess I’d be saying ‘God help us’, but as I’m certain God doesn’t exist we must work to find and rekindle that hope in ourselves, in our communities and in our world. And starting that conversion must be to spread the word that neoliberalism is truly dead, and it’s up to all our generations right now to seize the moment and renew our global vision.
I feel sorry for those who post this vile hate filled stuff
Much the same as I feel sorry for the trolls who arrive here often. Have they nothing better to do?
What always staggers me is the fact that the people at the top (in all spheres), keeping their foot on the neck of the majority, don’t seem to have taken into consideration that these are the workers through whose labour they have become rich and therefore powerful.
What are they going to do when a majority of those workers are unable to work because of stress? Who is going to produce the goods and services that they need to live?
Excellent questions
[…] By Richard Murphy, part-time Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School, director of the Corporate Accountability Network, member of Finance for the Future LLP, and director of Tax Research LLP. Originally published at Fund the Future […]
Your analysis of mental ill-health reminds me of a book I read in the mid 1980s, for personal not professional reasons. It is called ‘Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety’ By David Smail, 1984.
This is a description of the content:
“This work challenges the notion that anxiety and depression amount to a mental illness denoting that something is wrong with the individual sufferer. Instead, anxiety and depression are described as perfectly rational responses to difficulties in the sufferer’s world, experienced subjectively by that person. An essential contrast is drawn between objective conceptions of normality (what reality ought to be as per commercial and other objectifying sources) and the reality of the individual’s subjective experience of the world (abuse, unemployment, and so on)…”
As far as I remember, David Smail was discredited in the psychoanalysis world, so this book became niche reading (I’d love to be corrected.) He was, of course, writing while the country was under the ‘tender’ stewardship of the Thatcher government…
It very much sounds like I agree with him.