The Paradox of Mental Health: Over-Treatment and Under-Recognition

Mental Health Room Renovations

Among all the conditions in the world of health, mental health occupies a unique and paradoxical place. On the one hand is over-treatment and over-medicalization of mental health issues, often fueled by a pharmaceutical industry interested in the broadening of the boundaries of “illness” and in the creation of more and wider diagnostic categories and thus markets for “selling sickness.” On the other hand exists profound under-recognition of the suffering and breadth of mental health issues affecting millions of people across geographies, which is a global problem. (PLOS Medicine).