03/04/2026
We talk a lot about the mental health crisis
But almost never about concept inflation
Tse & Haslam (2024) found that in a nationally representative US sample:
About 60–61% had self-diagnosed themselves with a mental disorder at some point
But only around 43% had ever received a formal diagnosis
So self-diagnosis is outpacing clinical diagnosis.
Crucially, this wasn’t just about distress or impairment
Those mattered, of course
But how broad your personal definition of “mental disorder” was
became a major predictor of whether you decided you had one
They also showed that younger and more liberal participants:
Had broader concepts of mental disorder
Were more likely to self-diagnose
And that this link was partly explained by concept breadth
In my own randomised controlled trial
17% of applicants who believed they had a mental illness
didn’t even meet the threshold for mild anxiety
This doesn’t mean people are faking it
It means the language and concepts have shifted
On the plus side
Broader concepts can reduce stigma and encourage help-seeking
On the dark side
They can also fuel prevalence inflation
Where normal distress gets relabelled as pathology
Which can lead to over-treatment
Identity fusion with diagnoses
And people feeling less in control of their own minds
Some of us need treatment
Some of us need tools
Some of us just need to stop calling every hard feeling a disorder
