037 - Prof Nick Haslam
Concept creep and the inflation of mental health language
Today’s episode is with Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne. He completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and then taught at the New School for Social Research in New York City before returning to Australia. Nick's research interests are in social, personality, and clinical psychology and he has published 11 books and more than 300 articles or book chapters in these and related areas.
We focus on Nick’s paper titled:
Ill-defined: Concepts of mental health and illness are becoming broader, looser, and more benign
We work through the notion of ‘Concept Creep’ and the INFLATION OF MENTAL HEALTH LANGUAGE, the expansive idea of what mental health is, blurred boundaries between mental health and wellbeing, and the problems associated such as growing trends of self-diagnosis which may ultimately be hurting more than helping.
The importance of conceptual clarity is something that we’ve covered across lots of episodes, and this conversation was joy to have. Thank you again to Professor Haslam, and enjoy the episode!
Show notes:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560324000318?via%3Dihub
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/mental-health-wellbeing