Mental Health in the Digital Age with Professor Simon Wessely - S1E2

Everybody has mental health, just as we all have physical health, but the ways in which we perceive mental wellbeing in the modern age are ever-evolving.
The pace at which this is happening owes itself to a number of factors, some less apparent than others, and Professor Simon Wessely’s expertise in the area provides remarkable insight in this episode of King’s Conversations.
We hear from Simon as he discusses the intriguing link between films’ representation of PTSD and our experiences of it, how social media really affects our mental health, and the devaluation of common terms like OCD and bipolar.
This episode of King’s Conversations covers:
- The historically perceived stigma around the psychiatry field
- Social media’s impact on mental health compared to other stimuli
- Whether trigger warnings and avoiding conversations is effective
- The role of therapy and counselling after crisis events
- Fascinating links between PTSD and how flashbacks are represented in visual media

[@stephenhocking9467]

The irony - thousands of people have PTSD from the medical system thanks to this man. This abuser hides in plain sight. Just google his name if you don’t know what I’m referring to.

[@robokill387]

He also claimed that gulf war illness was a psychological disorder for decades. It's now conclusively proven to have been caused by sarin poisoning.

[@gwilkins4617]

Does Simon recommend graded exercise therapy for long COVID?

[@jackf8450]

He is the reincarnation of Dr death.

[@zatakification]

Well, I have had PTSD. I am also an investigator developing neuroimaging methods at the University of Oxford. In that sense, I often inhabit the same world as Wessely, even as I have also inhabited the same world as his patients. I must say that even though I do not disagree with everything he says, I would not want Simon Wessely to treat me. In fact, I was treated by psychiatrists in SLaM, and it took a great deal of care from clinicians in another trust to recover from that experience. I found SLaM arrogant, ignorant, poorly trained and abusive. Psychiatry a terrible system, SLaM in particular is awful, and I think we should think seriously about abolishing it and starting from scratch. Psychiatric diagnosis doesn't bear any relation to science at all, and admitting that might be a good start. Dressing up your crude subjective impressions as objective "science" is a recipe for disaster, and disaster is what we have.

[@MyFriendPeter]

If he doesent pay in this life he will pay in the next

[@andyscot4844]

bad guy the worst !!

[@gwilkins4617]

Evil man