Operating under an illness model of care doesn’t just carry powerful implications for the way we conceptualize perfectionism, it impacts the way we conceptualize every aspect of mental health. The slightest pang of sadness, a drizzle of frustration—we register any decline in positive emotion with an assumption of pathology. It’s a cultural tic. The

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That ‘individual responsibility’ idea is present in so many messages from awareness campaigns: the idea that it is our duty to reach out to loved ones and services for help; the suggestion that mental health support should come in the form of a ‘service’ at all; the emphasis on individual tools like therapy, meds, self-help, mindfulness and apps to

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it’s not just individuals making individual choices that make them ill. Socially and politically, we’re promoting policies, regulations and lifestyles that are making people ill to such a degree that stress, trauma and anxiety are being woven through and through the social fabric. Indeed there is a strong case to say that stress, anxiety and depres

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