Radical with Amol Rajan Who Is Responsible For Over-Medicalisation? (Your Radical Questions with Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan)
Mar 30, 2026
Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan, neurologist and author of The Age of Diagnosis, brings decades of clinical experience. She explores when anxiety becomes a medical disorder. She examines costs of overmedicalising and how underdiagnosis can coexist with diagnostic inflation. She discusses impacts on women, neurodivergence in prisons, and who drives medicalisation.
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When Anxiety Becomes Medical
- Anxiety becomes a medical disorder only when it is disabling, but there are no biomarkers to draw a clear line.
- Suzanne O'Sullivan recommends assessing how much anxiety stops normal functioning to decide when medical intervention is appropriate.
Overdiagnosis Harms Everyone
- Over-medicalising mild distress can harm both groups: it diverts resources from severely ill people and reinforces lesser symptoms.
- Suzanne argues medical labels can make problems seem less possible to overcome and attract limited resources away from those who need them most.
Labels Aren't The Only Route To Support
- Questioning diagnostic growth doesn't mean abandoning support; clinicians can help without strict labels.
- Suzanne notes studies often conflate formal autism diagnoses with self-identification and autistic traits, inflating suicide statistics.
