Difficult Lives
Difficult Lives: In recent years, mental health has gained attention worldwide and in Pakistan. People often discuss anxiety, depression, trauma and well-being on social media. In Pakistan, talking about mental health now feels modern and acceptable. Awareness campaigns and reduced stigma look positive. Online counselling, helplines and telepsychiatry have made help easier to access. However, this trend raises an important question. Are we turning normal human suffering into medical problems and ignoring social causes?
Turning Pain Clinical
Dr Sami Timimi’s book Searching for Normal challenges how we view mental distress. He argues that systems now label emotional pain as illness. Instead of seeing distress as a response to poverty, pressure or insecurity, professionals treat it as a personal defect. Timimi calls this system a “mental health industry.” Diagnoses, therapies, medicines and self-help markets all benefit from expanding illness labels.
Growing Diagnoses
Over time, psychiatric labels have increased sharply. ADHD, autism and trauma diagnoses now appear everywhere. These labels help some people, but they lack clear medical tests. Doctors rely on symptom lists, not biological markers. Cultures define these symptoms differently. Social and economic forces shape what society calls a disorder.
Timimi links the rise in ADHD and autism diagnoses to profit-driven systems. Pharmaceutical companies and expanding markets encourage more diagnoses. Pakistan now shows similar patterns. Many people diagnose themselves online. They then ask doctors for medication. This practice turns complex life struggles into simple medical conditions.
Real Suffering Exists
This view does not deny real suffering. Mental pain, suicide, anxiety and depression harm individuals and families. Some people need clinical care. Serious mental illnesses do exist. But when doctors treat grief, stress or youth restlessness as disease, problems arise. We must ask what mental health care should focus on.
Mental health systems often treat symptoms instead of causes. Medicines and therapy do not fix poverty, unemployment or violence. Societies in crisis need food, jobs, housing and safety. Over-medicalisation ignores prevention and social change.
The medical model places responsibility on individuals. It promotes self-care and chemical explanations. This focus shifts attention away from injustice and inequality. It avoids debates about rights, reform and fairness.
Rethinking Normal
Timimi urges us to rethink the idea of “normal.” He asks how normal can exist in a broken society. Mental well-being should not depend only on clinics. Schools, workplaces, mosques and communities should support emotional health.
Pakistan faces deep social pressures. Poverty, unemployment, violence and corruption drive distress. Inequality and insecurity damage mental health. In many communities, suffering reflects harsh conditions, not personal failure.
Symptoms Persist
When society treats distress as illness alone, solutions remain limited. People receive medicine or counselling. Their living conditions stay the same. The distress continues.
A humane approach sees suffering as a response to real life. It addresses poverty, exclusion and violence first. It also provides care that respects culture and context. Mental well-being reflects the health of society. Healing requires justice, care and collective responsibility.
Published in Dawn, 12th January 2026
