Dr Laura M Bennett

19/10/2026

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
- Commonly attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti

I stumbled across this quote yesterday and it reinforced something I find myself thinking about more and more.

In psychiatry, we spend a great deal of time considering how well people are functioning in their everyday lives. We explore our patients’ ability to cope, adapt, manage expectations and meet the demands placed upon them.

But… so often I wonder whether we are paying enough attention to the demands themselves…

We live in such a fast-paced, demanding world nowadays. We're expected to be constantly available, productive, adaptable and somehow still find time to rest, connect with others and look after ourselves.

These pressures have implications for our wellbeing that I think we too often overlook.

This is not to say that individual vulnerabilities and genuine psychopathology don’t exist. But I don’t think we can fully understand someone's difficulties without considering the world they're trying to navigate, at both a micro and macro level…

18/10/2026

This week, a client asked me this question…

She had been reading about different psychiatric diagnoses and had recognised aspects of herself in their descriptions. Understandably, she wondered whether those diagnoses might apply to her, too.

This got me thinking about how easily we can recognise ourselves in formal diagnostic criteria: difficulty concentrating, emotional reactivity, social exhaustion, impulsivity, a preference for routine, difficulties in relationships.

These are all very real experiences, but they're not necessarily unique to any one psychiatric condition. Many are also part of ordinary human variation, and can become more pronounced depending on what is happening in our lives.
There's also considerable overlap between psychiatric diagnoses themselves. The same difficulty can appear across several different conditions, and recognising a handful of characteristics doesn't necessarily mean someone meets the criteria for each of them.
Of course, diagnoses can be enormously helpful. They can guide treatment, improve access to support and help people make sense of longstanding difficulties.

But I think it's worth remembering that we don't necessarily need a separate diagnosis for every difficulty we experience in order to receive good psychological care.

We can recognise and work with someone's difficulties, understand how they're affecting their life, and develop meaningful ways to help, even when the diagnostic picture isn't entirely clear.

Sometimes, understanding what someone is struggling with is far more useful than trying to find a label for every part of it.

03/10/2026

Great post about PDA. Thanks The NeuroEducation Project 💜💜

30/09/2026

The more experience I gain as a clinician, the more skeptical I become of total certainty.

It’s not that we know nothing. Far from it!

But most days I am reminded in some small (or not so small) way that the more we learn, the more we need to respect how much remains just outside of our view.

27/09/2026

Just a short one tonight 🤎

When ADHD Medication Works a Little Too Well.

06/09/2026

The NeuroEducation Project said it perfectly… deep interests are one of our favourite things to talk about! 😅

04/09/2026

Let’s talk numbers! 🔢 The NeuroEducation Project

03/09/2026

ADHD is about more than just attention ✨ The NeuroEducation Project

A quick one to save or share!

Free factsheets on our website. Link in bio.

29/08/2026

Some common misconceptions about our neurospicy kids and/or teens ✨ The NeuroEducation Project

25/08/2026

Some simple ways to support reading 📚 The NeuroEducation Project