Take it from a psychologist: Rishi Sunak’s heartless crusade against social security will have disastrous consequences | Jay Watts
WWhen does crude election fraud become a threat to public health? Rishi Sunak and Mel Stride’s brutal attack on people with disabilities, with specific targeting of those demanding mental health care, will have damaging and potentially deadly consequences. Those of us who work in acute psychiatric units and community services can testify to the serious impact their suggestion to cut disability benefits would have, and to the pain caused by the callous way in which they have delegitimized mental suffering.
Sunak has accused the benefits system of “medicalising life’s everyday challenges and concerns”. Stride, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has labeled depression and anxiety as conditions that may not be worthy of prosperity. He proposes vouchers, one-off subsidies and improved access to treatment and support as an alternative to benefits. This approach not only complicates the process with additional bureaucratic hurdles, but also insinuates that long-term needs can be addressed with temporary solutions, which is not feasible.
Embedded in this policy proposal is the idea that people with anxiety or depression often make deceptive claims. With this rhetoric, Stride is playing a well-worn card and dividing a few worthy victims who deserve our support, from the majority who, it is implied, “abuse the system”. Here, claimants with “mild” mental health problems are portrayed by Stride as pretending to be disabled, or deluded by a modern cult of mental illness, into refusing to deal with the consequences of their illness. ‘ups and downs’ of life. I speak from experience when I say that politicians who promote these obscenely simplistic and false narratives have the potential to drive vulnerable patients to self-harm and increased suicidal tendencies. They can also cause acute episodes.
To understand why, we need to know two things: one about it personal independence allowance (Pip), and the other about mental illness. Pip, the target of the latest attack, receives benefits because disability has been shown to increase the cost of living. Because Pip helps with these costs, yes acts as a lifeline by giving claimants the tools to function. It has nothing to do with sick notes or unemployment benefits, but the Tories tend to discuss all three together – a smoke-and-mirrors tactic that plays to undermine fears that undeserving ‘skivers’ will steal us from robbing essential resources and taking an unnecessary share of revenue. the pie.
Depression and anxiety are easy targets for Stride, as he plays on the existing biases patients face. This is the view that clinical anxiety is akin to the nerves you feel before a party or an exam, and that depression is sadness rather than inescapable horror and emptiness. The implication – that one should be able to overcome these problems with sufficient willpower – is nothing less than the denial of disability. Delegitimizing these conditions is extremely important and there is clear evidence: the number of suicides among men in this country has been steadily declining over the past few decades, largely because depression has been transformed into something serious that deserves help.
In 2019, that average was approximately 2,200 new Pip awards per month in England and Wales, where anxiety and depression were the leading condition – last year that number more than doubled to 5,300 per month. This increase is not simply a result of greater mental health awareness, nor is it a result of “snowflake culture,” but rather because these diagnoses are the talkative ways of labeling the very real impact on the body and psyche as a result of hardship, a pandemic and a lack of healthcare. of opportunities. It is then compounded by the Tories’ demolition of the mental health infrastructure needed to recover.
Stride sells us a story where people just go to their doctor and list a few symptoms they Googled. They are then given, with their diagnosis in hand thousands of pounds a month. This couldn’t be more of a misrepresentation of how hellish the process of claiming Pip often is. No one gets Pip for a specific condition, whether that’s depression, cancer or back pain. Not only does Pip require a high level of disability with frequent assessments and a barrage of professional evidence, but it is awarded on the basis of functionality and not diagnosis. Someone diagnosed with schizophrenia may not have any lasting daily disability and therefore not qualify, while someone with debilitating anxiety may need a caregiver to not only leave the house, but also to prepare food and therefore receive Pip.
Pip can be a traumatizing asset because it creates a constant fear of reappraisal in its recipients. “It is the sword of Damocles. It just hangs there, and you never know when it’s going to fall on you,” said one plaintiff. That threat is now even greater thanks to the government’s proposed reforms. Some of my patients often have to decide between “heat or eat”, with only the few hundred pounds Pip provides to mitigate the increased costs associated with their disability. Why are they being attacked?
This administration’s “moral mission” to reform welfare is an attempt to blame individuals for a problem that can only be explained systemically. The rising disability bill is not due to duplicitous claimants, but to widespread and disastrous budget cuts that have left our mental health care system emaciated and failing. It’s a clear point to make, but the severity of mental health wait times only worsens conditions like depression and anxiety, and goes against the fundamental principle of medicine that early intervention prevents long-term complications decreases. Instead of providing an honest assessment of their own failures, all the Tories can do is blame the victims. It is a grotesque distortion that callously sacrifices vulnerable people for political gain.