Austerity 'Damages Mental Health'

Austerity is damaging to mental health and wellbeing, according to psychologists and experts.

Hundreds of academics and counsellors have signed a letter, printed in the Guardian newspaper, outlining their concern over the implications of Government cuts to welfare. They say that measures such as foodbanks and the so-called 'bedroom tax'  are causing people severe anguish, and that further "unacceptable" budget proposals will make life more difficult. The letter states:

"Counsellors and psychotherapists in the public and private sectors find themselves at the coalface in responding to the effects of austerity politics on the emotional state of the nation.

"The past five years have seen a radical shift in the kinds of issues generating distress in our clients: increasing inequality and outright poverty, families forced to move against their wishes, and, perhaps most important, benefits claimants (including disabled and ill people) and those seeking work being subjected to a quite new, intimidatory kind of disciplinary regime.

"More generally, the wider reality of a society thrown completely off balance by the emotional toxicity of neoliberal thinking is affecting Britain in profound ways, the distressing effects of which are often most visible in the therapist’s consulting room."