Beyond Awareness: What Mental Health Campaigns Are Missing

This blog is written by Gigi El-Halaby, a Leader with our Mad Youth Organise campaign.

This week marks Mental Health Awareness Week. I spent much of my early twenties dedicated to raising awareness of mental health issues in my free time. I studied psychology, partly as a predictable consequence of experiencing intense periods of mental distress as an adolescent.

As a society, we have certainly progressed in our perception of mental health; most of us are remarkably more aware of it than we were 20 years ago. We only have to look at the emotional repression and ignorance many of our parents have lived through, compared to the generally much more open and liberal approach our generation takes to discussing emotions.

But over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in what ‘awareness’ means. In its most basic sense, awareness suggests knowing or perceiving a situation. In this way, mental health awareness campaigns have achieved their goal. In the same way, many of us are aware of a multitude of atrocities happening in real time across the world—but most of us have no idea what we can do to change them, or how we even got here.

And, like every year, we will see an onslaught of mental health awareness posts and campaigns appear on our screens. Some of these will undoubtedly come from a place of genuine goodwill, such as those led by mental health charities and advocacy groups. Others feel like superficial PR strategies—a tick-box exercise to maintain relevance among Gen Z.

As with Pride Month, climate change, and most public ‘awareness’ campaigns, they are often seen as golden opportunities to capitalise on the appearance of being progressive while often exacerbating the very issues they claim to support. This is otherwise known as ‘pinkwashing’ or ‘greenwashing’, and I fear a similar phenomenon is happening with mental health.

This may sound cynical, but over the years, as my understanding of mental health has become more holistic and systemic, I can’t help but question the motivations and utility behind the vast majority of awareness campaigns we’re bombarded with on a rolling basis.

In many ways, our understanding of mental health is still in its infancy. The rhetoric around self-care is becoming increasingly tiring, as is the overly individualistic view of mental health, and the unfair burden we place on people to simply “get better.”

I’ve seen this dynamic play out in various settings, such as corporate environments that proudly advertise their ‘progressive’ mental health budgets. A £60 massage voucher only soothed my woes for the short time I was relieved from the shackles of an environment that fundamentally drained me of meaning and autonomy. Given the average 40-hour working week (and if we’re including unpaid labour, the onus of which falls most heavily on women this number because much larger) and the ableist structures of most workplaces, this surface-level solution feels painfully inadequate. We live in a society that celebrates exceptionalism and turns every passion into a money-making side hustle—where productivity and economic contribution are the ultimate goals.

I also see well-known high-street fashion stores advertising their support for Mental Health Awareness Week. “Support a particular charity, and we’ll give you 20% off—this week only!” A plaster over the wound, at best. Because my online spending will only feel good until the dopamine hit fades, and I’m left staring at my drained bank account in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

And perhaps most ironically, social media conglomerates put out ads promoting mental health awareness—despite a growing body of evidence showing they are among the leading drivers of the mental health crisis we are now living through.

The cherry on top? Mark Zuckerberg’s recent suggestion that the loneliness epidemic can be solved by curating AI friendships. As if what we really need is more disconnection from community.

It’s clear to me that the society we live in is making us sicker and sicker.

That said, I’m wary of falling into the trap of binary thinking about mental distress. The truth is complicated, intertwined, and grey. I don’t believe the cause is entirely societal or entirely biological—there is a complex interplay at work that even psychiatrists are still trying to unravel.

But I do know that we live in material conditions unfit for humans to thrive—unless, perhaps, you are part of the 1% who unapologetically hoard most of the world’s wealth.

Awareness is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s the first step in an ascending staircase that can feel daunting. We will continue to go in circles until we collectively recognise that the system itself is broken—and needs to be rebuilt through holistic and inclusive means.

So, this Mental Health Awareness Week, consider joining Mad Youth Organise’s campaign to hold corporations and the government accountable for the harm they are contributing to the epidemic of mental distress. We need to confront and change the system, or we’ll remain stuck in a hamster wheel of awareness campaigns that do little and keep us trapped.

Take a closer look at the world around you. It’s no wonder we’re mad.