More than four in five mental health professionals in the UK believe normal thoughts and emotions are increasingly being medicalised, with conditions such as anxiety, depression, autism and, in particular, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) being overdiagnosed, according to a survey.

The majority of practitioners also believe that mental health conditions are being “glamourised” and that having a neurodevelopmental condition has become a desirable personality trait, The Telegraph reported.

The survey was commissioned by Sam Day, an experimental psychologist, who said the findings revealed widespread concern about the “pathologisation of the human mental experience”.

“Although other factors clearly play a role too, this societal tendency to ‘medicalise’ has no doubt contributed towards the related belief, also widely held by mental health professionals, that many conditions are being overdiagnosed,” he said.

“We must ensure that we don’t confuse being ill with being sad or worried, even if rates of poor mental health and neurodivergence are genuinely increasing.”

A government-commissioned review led by Peter Fonagy, a clinical psychologist at University College London, has also warned of a serious risk that ADHD and autism are being overdiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

The review suggested that demand for diagnoses had been fuelled by making them “the single reliable key to support”, including access to benefits and assistance in schools.

However, it also found evidence of a substantial increase in mental distress, estimating that around four million children and young people — one in five — are experiencing high levels of psychological strain.

The report warned that unnecessary diagnoses could harm a generation by “closing doors”, lowering ambitions and defining children by what they cannot do.

The latest research suggests that mental health professionals are more likely than the general public to believe that mental illnesses and neurodevelopmental conditions are being overdiagnosed.

The survey included responses from 108 psychiatrists, therapists and other mental health workers, alongside a representative sample of 1,521 adults in the UK.

Around 82% of the professionals agreed that “normal aspects of human thoughts and emotions have increasingly been medicalised”, compared with 53% of the general public.

Meanwhile, 74% of professionals believed ADHD was overdiagnosed, compared with 39% of the public.

Harmful eating behaviours and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) were the only common mental health conditions that more professionals considered underdiagnosed than overdiagnosed.

Almost two-thirds of those working in the field also believed that mental health conditions could become a “self-fulfilling prophecy” after someone self-diagnosed. Meanwhile, 60% agreed that such conditions were being “glamourised” by society.

Swaran Singh, a professor of social and community psychiatry at the University of Warwick, cautioned against applying the findings to severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, psychosis and bipolar disorder, for which early recognition and effective treatment remain essential.

Instead, he said, the findings raised broader questions about changing social attitudes towards psychological distress.

“We risk creating a culture in which every distress is regarded as a disorder, and every disorder as requiring a biomedical or technological fix,” he said.

“In doing so, we may inadvertently diminish recognition of resilience, human strength and the capacity for post-traumatic growth.”

He said compassion was essential but should not mean shielding people from the inevitable difficulties of life or treating all suffering as illness.

“The challenge is to distinguish disorder requiring treatment from painful but potentially meaningful experiences that are part of being human,” he added.

The Fonagy review found that although mental distress among young people had increased, underlying rates of ADHD and autism had remained broadly stable since 2000.

Speaking to MPs on Wednesday, Fonagy also criticised the use of mobile phones by parents during meals, saying it reduced opportunities for face-to-face interaction with children.

“One thing that we could all do in relation to discouraging children on the overuse of social media is to use our own social media less,” he said.

“The number of people who are engaged, rather than face-to-face interactions, with their cell phones over meals is actually appalling.”

He said children learned by observing adults and that parents' behaviour could influence young people's use of social media.

Fonagy also called for society to adopt a less hostile and less restrictive approach towards young people, describing the label “snowflake generation” as an insult.