Although Brian Holden's concerns are understandable, the article could do with a few more reference points..

Various bodies track the incidence of mental health admissions, and have considerable useful information on such matters.. The Austrlaian Institute of Health and Welfare (if I have remembered the name correctly).. then there is the Ausralian Institute of Criminology (that might have something on psychiatric admissions).. You may find that the ABS and the Federal department of health have statistics/reports on these issues..

But of course, stats are one thing and what's actually happening is another.. you'll find that the psychiatrists have an association .. is there anything on their site?

It's an interesting idea that the mind can be 'ill', or 'healthy' because who can possibly decide this.

Anyone prescribing anti-depressants to a 1 year old should be jailed for a start. Though I have heard a lot of the ADHD medication is taken as the new Super Mommy's little helper.

' It worried Gosden that a failure to pay homage to the dominant culture could become a recognized mental illness.'

Isn't it already?

As far as I can see we've been drugging up anyone slightly introverted for years, it's about time we started drugging up extroverts. Used to be that there were loners, quirky people, hyperactive people, all sorts of people.

Now there is sick people and well people.

Most Goths used to grow out of it but the new 'emos' somehow need prozac and hours of extra soul searching (haha! like that's what they need).

Now we drug boys because they like to run around, whereas they used to drug them because they read books and kept to themselves.

I have also noticed the two camps. The pragmatic drug pushers and the touchy feely lot who one suspects would like people pouring their hearts out weekly for the rest of their lives and luxuriating in every neurosis.

The thing is it's a nice little earner for both, and nobody steps back and ponders 'is there really a problem at all?'. Now you want to 'open the door to life-style changes which raise the risk of mental illness'? If 1% of kids cant handle a video game nobody gets to play it? Control freak much? Ever heard of parents?

The human mind adapts. Courage, adversity, tragedy, anxiety, uncertainty, they're all part of what used to be life.

Remember risk? I think that's what's missing most these days!

We seem to have adapted from town criers to books to newspapers to TV, I think the internet generation will adapt. Why? Because old codgers will always codge-on about the old days, and people will slowly transition keeping some old traditions, like baked turkey in December at lunch when it's 35 degrees.

The article starts describing a process of aging and perceived dementia. One school of thought thinks that some dementia is associated with nutrition and an aging digestive system not absorbing certain necessary proteins essential for normal brain function and memory. Another believe it's a case of simply not challenging the brain, with enough cognitive problem solving or learning. A case of use it or lose it? Another blame aluminium cookware and leaching of aluminium into the bloodstream.
I don't prescribe to any position; albeit, I use only stainless steel cookware and supplement my diet with multivitamins and particular amino acids like lysine, which seems to diminish in the system with age.
I believe the mechanistic model of brain function is supported by missing chemistry, which when replaced adjusts brain function to within so called normal parameters? Recent advances also hold hope for avoiding altziemers altogether?
In an interesting case in Scotland in the late sixties early seventies, a paedophile appearing before the same judge for the third time was given two choices, incarceration for the term of his natural life or a period in an institution, where certain non life threatening experiments could be performed on him.
Subsequently various electrodes were placed in the back of his brain, where all sex function, desire and so-called preference are controlled. They found all four of his sex centres were firing, meaning he was simultaneously attracted to both sexes, and probably explains why prepubescent boys, were preferred?
Two of his inappropriate sex centres; those that caused him to be attracted to males, were burnt out, with tiny unfelt trickles of electricity. The end result was, he no longer felt any sexual attraction to members of the same sex! He was pronounced cured, released and went on to meet and marry a woman, raise kids and live what most would regard as a normal life.
Sorry, I can't provide any links, but court records are kept indefinitely for any who actually believe; preferences are procured though any element of free will or choice! Rhrosty.

Well, whilst the article is somewhat deficient in a large number of areas i.m.o., it does raise some interesting points.

All things said and done, in my experience, there is a huge range of different types of medical issues in the area of mental health, but as a generalism, both pills and shrink science like C.B.T. as well as some alternative therapies and an overall balance in terms of general health are all extremely important.

Having said that, education via 1st Aid with a minor in mental health should be taught in our schools i.m.o. as, one of the big problems is that often people who start to experience mental health pathology do not actually recognise what is occurring to them. Couple that with the fact that prompt treatment usually provides far faster and far better recovery outcomes and it makes good sense to me to encourage this approach.

Of course, I have heard it said that too few people experience mental health issues to justify it, but I think that assertion is based on clinical certification, as distinct from the huge range of shades of grey that exist in between. Of course, people with minor issues can be the most difficult to deal with, and the ones who are least likely to accept that they have a problem, as distinct from those who are obviously in desperate need of assistance.