The Politics of Our Psychological and Emotional Wellbeing

Annual Mental Health Awareness week in the UK usually takes place in May; I think it’s around the same time in most of the so-called Western world. So yes, this musing is well overdue.

Taking myself back to that week, it was heartening to see how far the mental health wellbeing spaces have come.

It was heartening to see that the conversations are slowly shifting from hyper-individualised, isolationist perspective to the public recognition of the importance of community.

It was brilliant to see the space opening up to more holistic approaches that include the body – often referred to as ‘soma’ – of which I, myself, am a committed advocate (I feel called to point out that policies governing our spheres of life lag hugely behind scientific advancements, which, in turn, continue to ‘discover’ the old, but otherwise instinctively known truths).

It’s heartening to see that BPS (British Psychological Society) is slowly starting to open up to things like psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) and breathwork in the mental health conversations.

This ‘opening up’ of the ‘wellbeing space’ is to be celebrated, encouraged and nurtured, without a doubt.

But I cannot help lamenting that which was either not present or not visible enough. Neither in the events I attended nor on most social media platforms.

The politics of mental health.

‘As of April 2024, 10% of those still waiting for a second contact in Adult Community Mental Health services have been waiting at least 116 weeks (812 days)’ (reported by NHS England in July 2024).

A nurse on that list who is using food banks cannot ‘budget’ their way into paying privately.

In 2021, I was diagnosed with RA (rheumatoid arthritis). Upon diagnosis, I did some digging, as we do these days, and found that the dominating hypothesis for how autoimmune disorders come about/are triggered is that of prolonged exposure to stress. Made sense, upon reflection. Stress that could’ve been significantly alleviated by different social policies. Instead, I was put on lifelong meds funded by the NHS (I’ve since developed practices that allow me to manage it without the meds and took myself of them, but that’s not the point; the point is that no one systemically looks at the root causes, therefore, no one is looking at how to prevent it in the first place).

NHS funding for 2025/26 was £179.4 billion. Mental health got 8.71% of that – £15.6 billion. Regardless of the mounting evidence that many common physical health conditions start off with psychological and emotional health suffering (often either caused or worsened by social conditions and cultural discourse which, often, is also engineered in pursuit of a particular ideology that eventually becomes a political agenda).

‘Notably, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays an essential role, as its dysregulation is influenced by prolonged stress and psychological distress. Consequently, stress hormones, including cortisol, exert detrimental effects on immunological function, inflammation, and homeostatic equilibrium. It emerges as physical symptoms influenced by psychological factors, such as persistent pain, gastrointestinal disturbances, or respiratory complications, and is pertinent to highlight that excessive and chronic stress, anxiety, or emotional distress may engender the onset or exacerbation of cardiovascular disorders, namely hypertension and heart disease.’ (Chauhan and Jain, 2024)

‘There is considerable evidence on the role social determinants play in the causation and perpetuation of psychiatric illnesses. Political determinants along with geographical, economic, cultural and commercial tend to trump social determinants of mental health. Although various social factors such as poverty, poor housing, unemployment, lack of green spaces, poor public transport and poor access to healthy food or good education have been identified as contributing to poor mental health, it is important to recognise that all of these are in turn strongly influenced by government, its ideology, policies and politics.’ (Bhugra and Ventriglio, 2023)

I am not going to analyse the following articles here, but if anyone is either sceptical about the links I am making or want to better understand the mechanisms, below is a small list (out of countless out there) of suggested reading (full references at the bottom of this article):

(NOTE. I appreciate that not everyone who is curious will have access to some of the articles in full as they may be behind a paywall, but some are open access while those that aren't, often allow access to the ‘Abstract’ where the summary of the finding or the ideas can be found.)

·       Burns (2015)

·       Cresswell and Spandler (2009)

·       Howell and Voronka (2012)

·       Jenkins, et. al. (2011)

·       Kinnunen, et. al. (2010)

·       Kostić (2025)

·       Patterson, et. al. (2020)

·       Tribe (2014)

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Recently, one of my clients very quickly discovered what they needed to feel better, both psychologically/emotionally and, as a result, physically. There were several ways forward, but they couldn’t afford to invest more time beyond the time they had already assigned for ‘self-care’, because they felt if they didn’t continue working 60 hours a week, they’d risk not affording mortgage payments in a few months' time. They could become better; they know what they need to do, but they cannot afford it. Because of politics.

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If this sounds like a concoction of everything and nothing, that’s because everything is inextricably interconnected. And it is all politics.

But ‘politics’ is a big, all-encompassing thing. A bit like water to fish. So maybe it’s easier to appreciate what I mean by the ‘politics of mental health’ through an imaginary but, I’d argue, realistic case study.

NOTE. Potential trigger warning.

There’s a person named Xera. Xera is 36 years old. They are working in the supermarket that is located in a retail park 11 miles away. Xera is a single parent and has two children, a 7-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl. Xera trained as a primary teacher as that was all they ever dreamt of doing: teaching young children, being a positive role model for them and being a safe space when they needed. After qualifying as a teacher, Xera worked in their local primary school, living the dream. Not because it paid well or not because a teacher’s job would come without marking and lesson planning until midnight, but because, on balance, the reward of doing what they always dreamt of doing outweighed the cons of the job.

Four years ago, Xera came home with her young children from a day out and found that their home had been broken into and everything was not only burgled but absolutely trashed. While the children were too young to understand, the immediate anxiety when approaching the front door seeing that the lock had been broken and shock Xera experienced the moment they pushed opened door and saw the damage transferred to the children as if on cue.

Police arrived the following day; said they couldn’t get there any sooner due to the lack of resources. For the first month, Xera and their children stayed at Xera’s friend’s place as they no longer felt safe in their home. Eventually, they had to come back home as they had nowhere else to go. A few months later police closed the case without ever finding the burglars. They said that they investigated all the avenues with the resources that were available to them, and that they couldn’t do anything else.

The fact that the burglars were never found added further to the stress Xera was living with, making them feel yet more unsafe. Every and any sound at night would keep Xera awake, fearful of the same thing happening again; fearing about what would happen if the burglars came back when Xera and the children were at home. What if they, rather than running away, would harm them? Every time Xera would go out with their children, they’d be anxious to the point of terrified to come back and find their home broken into again. They’d park the car and sit there for a few minutes, just gazing forward; too frightened to look towards the door, in case they see the lock broken again.

Due to the effects of it all, Xera was unable to go to work. Eventually, they were diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder. While on the waiting list to be seen by a specialist, Xera lost her job at as a teacher and, to make ends meet, three years ago took a job at the supermarket, while hoping that, once they start the treatment and stabilise a little, they’ll be able to get back to teaching.

Xera waited for 12 months after first referring themselves to the doctor to be seen by a specialist to get a diagnosis, and a further 16 months on the waiting list to access treatment in the form of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). They were entitled to 10 sessions. The ten sessions helped during the period while Xera was receiving them, but the positive impact proved to be unsustainable after the programme had finished. For a while, Xera was receiving PIP – Personal Independence Payment – which they used to pay privately for a late-night – once the children were in bed – online therapy that worked better for them to enable themselves to function and go to work, but new policies by the new government led to Xera losing PIP and having to stop the private therapy. GP said they aren’t entitled to any more funded therapy.

Today, Xera also suffers with depression. Their dream to return to teaching is getting swept further and further away as time goes on. The few times they dared to apply, they were, in the end, told that, ‘We went for the candidate with more recent experience and no gap.’ The anxiety causing chronic tension in the body is starting to affect physical health; possibly IBS, headaches. Sometimes it gets so bad that Xera has to take time off work at the supermarket, leaving them with the total income of £123.25 per week that is the statutory sick pay. The rent alone is £700 per month. Because Xera’s wages only just about cover the rent, the utility bills and the very basic needs, they are already is in a lot of credit card debt accumulated through always having to buy food and petrol to get to work and take the children to school in anticipation of those periods when Xera’s mental and physical health ‘flares up’ to the point where they won’t be able to work for a while. The constant lack of safety and security, the not knowing if they’d have food on the table in a week’s time and a roof above their head, both experienced in real-time and anticipated, continues to perpetuate the chronic state of anxiety, further impacting both the mental and physical health.

Majority – other than a very few – people tell Xera to just ‘suck it up’ and ‘get on with it’; that they ought to ‘pull themselves up by the bootstraps’, sometimes leading to Xera thinking that maybe something truly is wrong with them.

‘Why can’t I just pull myself up? What is wrong with me?’

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Is it not a political decision that the police didn’t have the resources – and, maybe, the institutional will owing to demoralisation through years of underfunding – to investigate until they found the burglars? Maybe that would’ve been the point in time where Xera’s anxiety would’ve NOT taken the turn for the worse?

Is it not a political decision that the resources in the healthcare system are so stretched that the waiting lists for both seeing the specialist and then waiting for treatment are so long that it creates conditions for the mental and physical suffering to become deeper entrenched?

Is it not a political decision to privatise – outright or stealthily – the training that people who would like to train in a particular specialty and would be good at it because their heart is in the right place cannot afford to train? Maybe, if there were more specialists, Xera wouldn't have had to wait for so long and the suffering wouldn't have entrenched itself quite so deeply and the 'work gap' would've been less.

Is it not a political decision to allow big corporation to pay their employees such small wages that they hardly cover the roof above one’s head?

It is not a political decision that allow the utility companies to charge households so much that hardly anything is left, further perpetuating the very conditions that harm people’s mental health?

Is it not political rhetoric that creates and perpetuates the narrative of ‘shame’ and ‘laziness’ and ‘inadequacy’ around mental health?

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The first time I came across the notion of ‘politics of mental health’ was when I signed up to John Wilson’s, Phd (https://johnwilsononline.org/), lecture about grief. I was intrigued as I could not get my head around the connection between these two things. But then he shared a story how after one of the wars – I cannot remember which one – when the fallen soldiers would be brought back and newspapers commended their heroism, the voices of their mother, sisters and lovers, who expressed their grief and anger over the fact that their loved ones shouldn’t have been sent to war in another country in the first place, would be silenced as it went against the political narrative that aimed to create the kind of atmosphere in the nation where young men would grow up striving to ‘fight for their country.’ So sending them out there was a political decision, glorifying their sacrifise (how often was it really one’s choice when most of the countries heavily penalised those refusing to serve?*) was political agenda and, finally, preventing the public from getting the feel and the understanding of the other side of things – the one that those who loved the fallen soldiers – was also a political agenda. Would we not develop a 'complicated grief disorder' as per DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) if the world around us forced us to hide our grief or reframed it and used it in the way that was not acceptible to us?

(*NOTE. This is based on my miniscule understanding of how things worked; if I am mistaken, I would love for someone to correct me and help me get a better understanding about how conscription worked in the 20th century.)

Once I saw it - 'the politics of mental health' - I can never unsee it.

There are also plenty of examples from more recent times, such as many of us now feeling that we cannot speak our truth in the face of the atrocities and injustices livestreamed through our screens because we risk losing our jobs or becoming ‘unemployable’ or even arrest. We – I know I do – choose to censor ourselves in the face the danger of losing our livelihoods while sustaining moral injuries every day. We may choose to self-censor, but how real a choice is it when the political atmosphere is such that choosing otherwise may put us and our loved ones and those dependent on us at risk of losing our ability to meet our basic needs?

Over time, this self-censorship will damage our self-image which, inevitably, will affect our individual and collective mental health. It already is doing that.

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Actually, allow me to track back. This musing isn’t overdue.

This needs to be talked about every day in the ‘wellbeing space’. Because, if continue to preach ‘healing’ while ignoring the lived realities of most people and only exclusively put ourselves in front of those who ‘can pay what we're worth’, then it will illustrate that we are in this space for motivations other than those we publicly preach.

And yes, of course, I appreciate the fact that we, too, need to keep roofs above our heads and put food on our tables in the systems as they currently are.

However, that should not stop us from speaking about and advocating – out loud – for change for everyone.

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Also, all I said will have come as a surprise to absolutely no one; it’s obvious. Yet nothing changes. Every day, the political priorities are drifting in the opposite direction to that which we know they need to move in to better both the individual and collective wellbeing.

Those of us in the ‘wellbeing space’ need to collectively remember we’re a part of and operate in the ‘bigger picture’, and act on it. By acknowledging it out loud, by questioning the validity of diagnostic manuals and the notion of 'normality' upon which they are built, by engaging in whatever scale, small or big, activism our individual circumstances permit and by making speaking publicly about the factors impacting mental health an integrated part of our practice and of our showing up for those we serve.

If we don’t, we’ll just continue patching up until there’s nowhere left to patch up.

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Many will have heard or read the phrase attributed to Krishnamurti: ‘It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’

Below, he expands on his famous phrase:

‘Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?’

‘To help the individual to fit into a society which is ever at war with itself – is this what psychologists and analysts are supposed to do? Is the individual to be healed only in order to kill or be killed? If one is not killed, or driven insane, then must one only fit into the structure of hate, envy, ambition and superstition which can be very scientific?’

The above from: https://kfoundation.org/it-is-no-measure-of-health-to-be-well-adjusted-to-a-profoundly-sick-society/ (accessed on 19/08/2026)

I would like to offer my own version of Krishnamurti’s wisdom; the one aimed at myself and others in the ‘wellbeing space’: ‘It is no measure of sustainability of the help we provide by helping people to become ‘functional’ in the dysfunctional society and, by doing so, failing to challenge the systems that often lead to poor mental health.’

It’s not as elegant as the original, but that’s my best attempt.

All of us who describes ourselves as being ‘in the wellbeing space’, carry a responsibility to also be vocal in the social justice ‘space’ by, at the very least, acknowledging and validating the realities of people we serve rather than continue to be complicit in the pathologising paradigm of mental health and just ‘sticking to our lane’ with diagnostic manuals based on a very narrow and siloed premise of ‘normality’ on our desks.

It was never going to be easy.

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References:

Bhugra, D. and Ventriglio, A. (2023). Political determinants of mental health. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 69(3), 521-522.

Burns, J. K. (2015). Poverty, inequality and a political economy of mental health. Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 24(2), 107-113.

Chauhan, A. and Jain, C. K. (2024). Psychosomatic disorder: the current implications and challenges. Cardiovascular & Hematological Agents in Medicinal Chemistry, 22(4), 399-406.

Cresswell, M. and Spandler, H. (2009). Psychopolitics: Peter Sedgwick's legacy for the politics of mental health. Social Theory & Health, 7(2), 129-147.

Howell, A. and Voronka, J. (2012). Introduction: The politics of resilience and recovery in mental health care. Studies in social justice, 6(1), 1-7.

Jenkins, R., Baingana, F., Ahmad, R., McDaid, D. and Atun, R. (2011). Social, economic, human rights and political challenges to global mental health. Mental health in family medicine, 8(2), 87.

Kinnunen, P., Laukkanen, E. and Kylmä, J. (2010). Associations between psychosomatic symptoms in adolescence and mental health symptoms in early adulthood. International journal of nursing practice, 16(1), 43-50.

Kostić, M. (2025). The Impact of Psychosomatic Disorders on Quality of Life.

Patterson, A. S., Boadu, N. Y., Clark, M., Janes, C., Monteiro, N., Roberts, J. H., ... and Wipfli, H. (2020). Investigating global mental health: contributions from political science. Global public health, 15(6), 805-817.

Tribe, R. (2014). Culture, politics and global mental health. Disability and the Global South, 1(2), 251-265.