By Critical Psychiatry Network
This letter, signed by members of the Critical Psychiatry Network, GPs and doctors from other specialities was initially submitted to the Guardian and subsequently to the Times. Both newspapers declined to publish it without giving any reasons. We are posting the text unchanged on our site.
Wes Streeting’s announcement of a review into mental health diagnoses has prompted fierce public debate.1,2 Many psychiatrists and GPs share concerns about the increasing medicalisation of everyday distress and personal difficulties — a process accelerated by social media, economic pressures, and rising life demands. As a network committed to critical reflection on psychiatric practice, we reproduce this letter here to amplify voices questioning the expansion of diagnostic labels and the risks of iatrogenic harm.
The Letter
Dear Editor,
Wes Streeting’s review of mental health diagnosis has prompted fierce public debate. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/03/wes-streeting-orders-review-of-mental-health-diagnoses-as-benefit-claims-soar.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/04/wes-streeting-mental-health-problems-review
Many psychiatrists, as well as GPs, are concerned about the increasing medicalisation of distress and personal difficulties. This is partly driven by social media, leading people to reinterpret common habits and real distress (often stemming from financial strain, work/school pressures and rising daily demands), as medical problems.
A frequent misunderstanding is that a diagnosis provides an explanation. It does not. Psychiatric diagnoses, including autism and ADHD, are, in fact, simply labels for groups of complaints. They are inherently subjective and therefore vulnerable to expansion.
Undoubtedly, some people need support, but this does not always need to be medical in nature. Lifestyle adjustments and psychosocial interventions can be helpful and some people will need financial benefits and help with work or studying. Such support can be provided on the basis of need, and not of a medical diagnosis, which may limit people’s agency and aspirations and lead to unnecessary medical treatments.
Stimulant treatment for ADHD may provide net benefit for some people who are significantly impaired, but for those functioning reasonably well, the harmful effects (e.g. cardiac, neurological and psychiatric complications) are likely to outweigh the benefit. Yet the prescribing of stimulants is rapidly increasing, risking an epidemic of drug-induced harm.
Doctors are also concerned because current demands are undermining the ability of mental health services to support people with more severe and disabling conditions.
We, as psychiatrists and GPs, hope the review will consider how to reverse current trends and how to provide appropriate support to those who need it that avoids the negative consequences of unnecessary medicalisation.
Signatories
- Professor Joanna Moncrieff, professor of critical and social psychiatry, UCL, and consultant psychiatrist, NHS, London
- Dr Graham Behr, consultant psychiatrist, Central North West London NHS Foundation Trust
- Dr Jonathan Chick, consultant psychiatrist
- Dr Tom Costelloe, consultant psychiatrist
- Dr Anna Crozier, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist
- Dr Hosam Elhamoui, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist
- Dr Robert Freudenthal, consultant psychiatrist
- Dr William Hopkins, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist in private practice, London
- Dr Mark Horowitz, clinical research fellow in psychiatry, NHS, London
- Dr Bob Johnson, consultant psychiatrist (retired)
- Dr Tahir Jokinen, higher trainee in psychiatry
- Dr Maria Kelly, consultant psychiatrist
- Dr Karin Krall, consultant psychiatrist
- Dr Evgeny Legedin, core trainee in psychiatry
- Dr Gary Marlowe, GP
- Dr Sarah Marriott, consultant psychiatrist
- Dr Hugh Middleton, associate professor emeritus, University of Nottingham and consultant psychiatrist (retired)
- Dr Anthony Molyneux, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist
- Dr Simon Opher MBE, MP for Stroud
- Dr Pino Pini, consultant psychiatrist
- Dr Jessica Robinson, independent and NHS psychiatrist
- Dr Sven Román, child and adolescent psychiatrist (Sweden)
- Dr Kirsten Shukla, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist in private practice, London
- Dr Sami Timimi, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist
Dr Maria G. Turri, FHEA, DPhil, PhD, MRCPsych, Senior Lecturer, Queen Mary University of London
- Dr Anayo Unachukwu, consultant psychiatrist, Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust
- Dr Jeremy Wallace, consultant psychiatrist
- Dr Benji Waterhouse, consultant in emergency psychiatry, North London Mental Health Trust
- Dr Cathy Wield, emergency medicine (retired)
- Dr Rachel Wright, higher trainee in psychiatry
- Dr Venetia Young, GP and family therapist (retired)
- Dr Safia Zaffarullah, CAMHS ST4 psychiatrist
- Dr Khalid Zaman, GP
- Wes Streeting orders review of mental health diagnoses as benefit claims soar. The Guardian, 3 December 2025.
- I realise now that my view on mental health overdiagnosis was divisive. We all need better evidence | Wes Streeting. The Guardian, 4 December 2025.
About the Critical Psychiatry Network
The Critical Psychiatry Network (CPN) is a group of psychiatrists and trainees who are critical of the current predominantly biomedical approach to psychiatry and who advocate for the highest standards of clinical practice and professional ethics. We are concerned that psychiatry has been corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry and that diagnostic inflation and over-treatment are harming patients and undermining public trust.
