Boris Johnson’s idea that hard work cures mental illness is totally absurd – and a worrying indication of things to come As someone who lost a loved one to depression, the idea of strong-arming sufferers back to their desks rather than to therapy is offensive

Boris Johnson’s latest column for The Telegraph puts forward the idea that the UK can “improve mental health, save money and boost the economy all in one go”. In it, he suggests that what helped Winston Churchill cope with his depression wasn’t his alleged dependence on alcohol, but the fact that he worked hard.

“It was with work that he pitchforked off his depression; and what was true for Churchill is basically true for all of us: that to a very large extent we derive our self-esteem from what we do,” he writes.

“It is often from our jobs – from being engrossed in our daily tasks – that we get that all-important sense of satisfaction.”

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Using a genial tone, Johnson goes on to acknowledge that work may be the thing that “stresses us out” but says it can also be the cure. He even refers to it as “therapy”.

‘Irresponsible and distasteful’

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it shares traits with a speech made by Harry Potter’s Dolores Umbridge – the Ministry of Magic bureaucrat. When she first arrives at Hogwarts, she performs a long address about the role the ministry will play which everyone writes off as harmless waffle. But hidden between the lines lies her true intention – that the ministry will become more controlling to everyone’s detriment.

As the frontrunner for Prime Minister, Johnson’s column is similarly sinister, and a worrying precursor for the future of mental health in this nation, should he – and it looks very likely he will – come to power.

“I saw first-hand how much shame and guilt [my late husband] felt. When he really should have gone into a detox facility to get help for his addiction issues, he couldn’t because of the time he’d need to take off work.”

And as someone who lost their husband to depression, a man who felt deep shame at the impact his illness had on his ability to work, Johnson’s conflation that work can cure depression is irresponsible and distasteful.

Firstly, there’s his skewed idea of the state of mental health services in the UK, which reads like propaganda in the extreme.

He credits Theresa May’s government with the stellar work the government has done to champion mental health. While the Health Service Journal acknowledges that May’s views about mental health may have helped NHS England secure more funding for services, mental health budgets have been cut by millions under the Conservative government.

And, while her focus on mental health is said to have centered around prevention, austerity policies have formed a whole new set of problems by negatively impacting people’s mental health and created a wider gulf in income inequality.

Funding pressures have led to longer waiting times for people who need treatment, according to 80 per cent of NHS trust finance directors. Research by the Royal College of Psychiatrists last year found that 1 in 4 people with a diagnosed mental illness had to wait over three months to receive any help.

Yet, despite these facts, Johnson claims the problem with the way we are approaching mental health in the UK isn’t underfunding or lack of resources, but that those who are suffering simply need to work harder – and to stay in work longer.

Context is crucial

Secondly, it is deeply worrying that our potential prime minister cannot distinguish that there is a difference between mental distress and illness. Or that within illness, there are spectrums of severity that require medical attention, rather than sending sufferers back to the office as quickly as possible.

“Multi-layered, societal change coupled with adequate services is what is needed, not chivying people back to their desks.”

While one of the fundamental pillars of a person’s mental health is productivity, it is only part of it. Work can provide purpose and distraction, and it can impact a person’s mental health positively and negatively, but that context is crucial. Work, for instance, will not “cure” people going through psychosis, OCD or schizophrenia

My late husband Rob, for instance, had chronic depression, and it was a key component that led to him taking his own life in 2015. I saw first-hand how much shame and guilt he felt. When he really should have gone into a detox facility to get help for his addiction issues, he couldn’t because of the time he’d need to take off work.

Johnson talks about incentivising companies with tax breaks so that they look after their employees’ mental health and can get them back to work as soon as possible. What about the many people who freelance, like Rob did? Or are on zero hours contracts?

“I feel like I can’t catch up,” he once said. He, like most people, wanted to work, but felt like he was failing, not just because of mental health stigma, but because of how our society is wired. Our entire economy is geared towards people being as economically productive as possible, and our self worth is contained within that.

Economic productivity over wellbeing

When I was writing my first book, Chase The Rainbow, about life with my late husband, I interviewed an anonymous senior member of staff who works in policy at Public Health England. They told me that this was the entire problem.

Most of our policies, they said, are driven towards economic productivity, not individual wellbeing: health insurance at work, improvements to the NHS and public transport. We measure success on our GDP, not on whether we are actually thriving as people – and what on earth is a country without people?

We live in a time when young people are killing themselves in record numbers. Where NHS mental health units are running at full capacity, and the system is buckling under the pressure.

Multi-layered, societal change coupled with adequate services is what is needed, not chivying people back to their desks.

Despite this misguided policy by Johnson – who took credit for male suicide rates going down under the Conservatives rather than acknowledge the thousands of people, grassroots organisations and charities such as CALM and Mind who helped drag mental health into the mainstream – there remains a bright spot. Mental health advocates aren’t going anywhere, and this continues to be something we’ll put pressure on the government to handle in an empathetic and effective way.

The kind of leader we deserve – and more importantly, need – should live and breathe compassion for sufferers of mental health problems. Being told we simply need to get back to work is, frankly, not going to cut it.