[sowhatquestion]

> It is clear that the United States in particular is, especially in recent years, churning out unprecedented numbers of severely psychologically ill individuals.

Is it clear? Or have we gotten better at diagnosing conditions that people have been experiencing all along? (Not to mention reducing stigma and making people more likely to admit to having these conditions.) In any case, citation needed.

[phineastcat]

When I got diagnosed with manic depression, I did some research on my family medical history going back several generations. Many of them through two lineages (my father's mother's family, and my mother's father's family) in my family exhibited symptoms of manic depression, but have no corresponding diagnoses.

Not anything scientific, but it does point toward the fact that destigmatizing mental illnesses and our better understanding of them is leading to more diagnoses, not anything else. Everyone's quick to forget how horrifying psychiatric care in the US was up until quite recently.