Instant Genius - Anthony David: Why is there still such stigma around mental health?

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

Mental health has become a hot topic in recent years, with campaigns asking us to be kind on social media and to reach out to friends who are struggling. It seems now more than ever, we have a better understanding of what it means when someone is struggling with their mental health, but despite this, some people feel that the stigma surrounding it stops them from getting the help they need. Professor Anthony David is a neuropsychiatrist at University College London, whose book Into the Abyss (£14.99, Oneworld) tells the stories of patients he has treated and what their cases have taught him. He speaks to our editorial assistant Amy Barrett about why this stigma exists and whether it’s getting any better. Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts. Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast Why you should subscribe to BBC Science Focus Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast: Sandro Galea: What is the difference between health and medicine? Camilla Pang: How can science guide my life? Jesse Bering: What can psychology tell us about suicide? Caroline Criado Perez: Does data discriminate against women? Adam Rutherford: Can science ever be rid of racism? Phillippa Diedrichs: Is body positivity the answer to body image issues? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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People say, you wouldn't blame them, why do you blame them because they're depressed back on your feet? Why do people say that to you when you're depressed? You're listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Science Focus magazine team. With the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world. Find out more at sciencefocus.com or look out for us in your app store. Hello, I'm Alexander McNamara and welcome to this week's episode of the Science Focus podcast. Mental health has become a hot topic in recent years,

with campaigns asking us to be kind on social media and to reach out to friends who are struggling. It seems now, more than ever, we have a better understanding of what it means when someone is struggling with their mental health. But despite this, some people feel that the stigma surrounding it still stops them from getting the help they need.

Professor Anthony David is a neuropsychiatrist at University College London, and this week he speaks to our editorial assistant Amy Barrett about why this stigma exists and whether it's getting any better. If you can, just tell me what is your book about? Where the stories of sort of the biopsychosocial, it sounds that one academic out of us knowing, have they called these motivations. All that together, all those, what we're doing when we're trying to understand what,

by trying to understand what it all means, that's kind of, if you like, what it's about. And these stories that you're telling, they're first-hand, aren't they, that you actually meet with patients as a neuropsychiatrist? What is your day like working in the clinic? Yes, it can be frustrating. Patients refer by a medicine kind of variety in the spectrum of a neuropsychiatrist encounters. And when a patient comes to you, say, in the outpatient clinic, what do you need to know about them in order to help them?

The indication of a problem, that's where you start, consultation find it. The individual themselves may not family history with biological drives like eating and try and come up with what we call a formulation. A diagnosis is a

kind of, it's a necessary labeling that we have to do so we can communicate with other doctors. A formulation is a sort of diagnosis that is what's going on what perhaps has led to it and where we think we might be able to find a route out. And so, you know, that's the sort of...

You must sort of experience so many different people, so many different problems. What's the, maybe the hardest situation you found yourself in over your career? Oh, God, so many different challenges. I think accepting one to change a situating disease, that we just can't change. I mean, sometimes you is the problem. And, uh, You're trying to do your best, but it seems like whatever you do, that's a kind of unique thing that psychiatrists have to deal with. The worst thing that makes a psychiatric consultation is, I think, probably suicide. Obviously, that is a, of course, it does really resonate with incredibly part of the job in a way. If you're trying to deal with people in the way that if you're a cancer specialist, people are going to die of cancer, and that's just part of the job.

but it never makes it easier to have been different. It's a constant You must have to protect your own mental health though as well in that situation To some extent, yes I mean yeah you've got to It's more and being open to And so is there anything that makes a person

More likely to suffer with poor mental health Something that's making the sort of biopsychosocial poverty It isn't an accidental seem to have everything they need. Logically, likely to react in a certain way. That doesn't mean that that's a destiny, but it's part of the picture.

And of course, the way that we sort of try and understand and psychologically cope with whatever adversities or successes that we might have, sometimes that can lead us in the wrong direction. And we can... And what is actually happening in the brain when someone is suffering and what gives rise to the physical symptoms

that most of the patients in the book do exhibit? I think getting better at under functions can lead us to, in our biological drugs, they're very delicate, it's a very delicate machinery and a slight can just go excessively or to reach a normal threshold and that can have profound effects on it

because after all we are animals and we are sort of, we have a sort of engine room of these things and drives are very much for slightly too little and we can be driven into what we recognize as as psychiatric disorders. Physical symptoms again you know the mind and the body are so inextricom

do we think that a symptom is a dystrophy or do we think that it's just a sensation that's interpretation of symptoms that leads them into becoming, you know, very diminishes their ability to act. They can regain control. So how would you treat something like that? What would you do? I guess I've been talking more specific.

Sorry, yeah, so the final example, you said that someone might have a symptom and overthink and read into it something, you know, how do you get a person past that if that's what their brain is telling them? their medical attendance are telling them is that the sort of thing yeah so yeah that can be you perhaps start out

as a young practitioner thinking well we just need to give the but you soon learn that actually makes it worse nation isn't enough and it is about beliefs and ideas and ideas are enough

to hustle enough to free them from you've got to really understand where the beliefs and ideas are coming from. Find alternatives. It may be that you feel as though if you're to something deeply. Here's another explanation. You too much and then put strain on your body, having not done anything for many weeks to themselves,

standing the physiology, but also understand how beat them into because that doesn't work. You've said how no one is immune, what we all could be at this point in our lives at some. time. Why do you think there is then such a stigma around mental health and having conversations about mental health? I think that is improving. I think conversations about, you know, we're not to be political. Parties up to the election were saying we're making various places. It is coming out. It would be that that would reduce stigma. It's partly because

to other branches of what people, how people, how people treat each other. Obligations are to try and get better. Patients, psychiatric patients, controlling other people, usually, and that's just sort of a prejudice for getting ill. And the same way you don't, yes, it may be that they've got to take medication and the medications aren't as effective as we'd like, a way that is a bit unique. Why do people say that to you when you're depressed? Like any other illness, people with depression, well, it is an illness. like any other illness because it's really it's about me as a core kind of fuel that it's a kind useful to strike people's experience depression and they've had a broken condition I think

are there any things that I could do to you protect and support my mental health is or is it all kind of determined by factors that I can't control if you do if you if you're I'm you've got friends and others who can support you good for that then plus you learn a lot about how you are. And is there anything that is commonly, you know, miscommunicated about mental health that you really think needs to be corrected, anything that you're quite passionate about that our readers or listeners would want to know? As we've said, it could, anybody, it's wrong to think that there are certain people.

that really should be to something that affects can affect anybody and see, ignore that plays the really, really serious times the people at the real times get ignored. And in terms of the research that's going into this at the moment, what can you tell me that it's being done that's possibly new or on the horizon? And, you know, that is just the kind of how that they form the pace of research contribute to a way that they are sort of learning about how the brain, It adapts, makes predictions, that's going to have a huge impact. The other thing I think also, genes that make you accumulatively, they can have a big effect.

One of these genes are on are off by things going on in the environment. That was neurosychiatrist Professor Anthony David talking about mental health. His book Into the Abyss, in which he tells stories of patients he has treated and what their cases have taught him, is out now. In the June issue of BBC Science Focus magazine, we take a look at the bacteria that can eat plastic, chew through carbon, and create food from thin air. As always, there are loads more science stories inside and on sciencefocus.com, and if you like what you hear, let us know with a rating or a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Finally, be sure to check out our brand new bonus podcast, everything you wanted to know about,

where we get the brightest minds in their fields to explain, well, everything they know about it. It's in our feed, so make sure you subscribe and listen as soon as they come out. Thank you for listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Science Focus magazine team. with the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world. Find out more at sciencefocus.com or look out for us in your app store. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name audio believes you can have digital precision with analogue warmth.

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