When I was a child growing up in the UK, much of my knowledge of the US came from reading comic strips likePeanuts, which were published in the Sunday newspapers. I remember reading the series in which Lucy, the female nemesis of the insecure Charlie Brown, set up a makeshift shack offering psychiatric counseling for five cents a session (no insurance accepted, presumably). Having no clue what a psychiatrist was, I asked a friend’s elder brother, who often knew about adult things, for an explanation.

“I think that’s the person they send you to see if you’ve gone completely nuts,” he said.

Although the UK’s awareness of mental health care has improved radically since back then, there is still an associated stigma that would surprise most Americans. For instance, a visit to a psychologist in the US is perceived as somewhat routine, but that’s not so in Britain, where seekingtherapyis a big step – it’s an admission of an illness that is considered shameful, so therapy sessions would probably be kept secret.

Much of this has its roots in Britain’s reserved culture – the idea that someone who is, for example, depressed should “just get on with it,” “sort it out,” and not under any circumstances “make a fuss.” Those seeking treatment would not tell their colleagues at work, fearing it would hamper their careers. What’s more, to claim that the work itself was contributing todepressionoranxietywould be viewed as an admission that you simply weren’t up to the job.

Fighting Stigma in the UK

“I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well,” Prince Harry told the Telegraph. “My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help [I thought] it’s only going to make you sad, it’s not going to bring her back.

“So from an emotional side, I was like ‘right, don’t ever let your emotions be part of anything…and then [I] started to have a few conversations and actually all of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront and I was like, there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with,” said Harry, who finally took mental health counseling on the advice of his brother, Prince William. “I know there is huge merit in talking about your issues and the only thing about keeping it quiet is that it’s only ever going to make it worse,” he said.

Comparing the British and US Mental Health Care Systems

Stigma isn’t the only difference in mental health care between the US and the UK. Americans may be surprised to discover that mental healthcare in the UK is free for everyone, regardless of their income, as part of the country’s much-loved National Health Service (NHS). The governmentformed the NHSin 1948 to bring quality free health care to all, and it encompasses mental health alongside access to general practitioners (GPs), surgery, hospital stays, and all other forms of medical care.

Both problems result from government cuts in funding to the NHS, rather than being a deficiency of the system itself – there is no dedicated NHS tax, and its funding comes from overall government taxation. So it is vulnerable to government budget cuts, which negatively affect services. Overcrowding and waiting times could be improved with extra funding to pay for, say, more beds in mental health institutions, which have been reduced in the last decade due to government funding cuts.

Although free mental health care is well established in Britain, how it should be funded is a debate not too dissimilar to the one happening right here in America. Increasing access to care is something that both countries should be obliged to improve.

Our goal at Talkspace is to provide the most up-to-date, valuable, and objective information on mental health-related topics in order to help readers make informed decisions.

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