News

Social exclusion is a well-worn phrase, but what does it really mean to be socially excluded?

It may be a sign of the times that about one-third of us feel isolated. But something is wrong when four in five people with a mental health problem feel alienated and say that their isolation is an obstacle to overcoming or coping with mental distress.

There have been great advances in public understanding of mental health issues in the past 30 years. Yet, even today, people with mental health problems face such prejudice that, were it to be exercised on the grounds of ethnicity or religious faith, it would provoke outrage, if not recourse to legal action.


My knowledge of the tabloid media is borne more of professional rather than personal interest. So I was interested when The Sun recently ran a piece on panic attacks. To be more accurate, on one panic attack in particular. The piece was not interesting so much for any understanding it provided on why people might have panic attacks, how common they are or how awful it must be to experience one. Nor did it pay homage to the millions of men and women who battle mental distress daily without incident. No, it was interesting because of how it demeaned an air stewardess, whose panic attack resulted in the apparently cardinal sin of delaying holidaymakers on their flight to Mallorca.

Attitudes like these reinforce social isolation and impede individual recovery. We need to question why people with mental health problems are often excluded from the basics of life. Why is it so difficult to get adequate insurance cover or a decent mortgage? Why, when it has long been recognised that leisure and sporting activities have a positive impact on mental health, are local authorities so reluctant to extend direct access payment schemes to service users?


Sometimes complex problems have straightforward solutions. The government must increase its commitment to anti-stigma activities. Social care guidance must be amended to ensure that service users have access to public transport, telephones and the internet. And no longer should national newspapers be able to get away with belittling people simply because they have a mental health problem.

Richard Brook is chief executive of Mind.