Is it time for the over-medicalisation of mental health to recede? Pivotal legislation before parliament could free a swathe of "mental health" outcasts to serve as MPs, jurors and company directors. A private members bill from Tory MP Gavin Barwell seeks to roll back decades of discrimination against those who may have been diagnosed as mentally ill, yet are competent to play a normal role in "civil society". It has just enjoyed its second reading in the House of Commons. A time for celebration? Not quite yet perhaps, but certainly cause for significant optimism. Writing in Independent Voices , Ilona Burton said : "Today, I grinned as I learnt that it was 'ayes' all round in the Commons; the Bill now through to committee stage and changes to the law becoming tantalisingly close". For instance, as the law currently stands, someone deemed mentally ill and who "regularly attends for treatment by a medical practitioner" is automatically ineligible for jury service. The new bill seeks to rectify this. Barwell's bill could not have come at a better time because this trend is about to accelerate. A so-called "mental health bible" is undergoing a significant revision that will further expand the boundaries of what constitutes mental illness. The tome, relied on by professionals around the world, was first published by the American Psychiatric Association in 1952. Since then it has been revised four times and its fifth draft revision has attracted a storm of criticism. British mental health practitioners were so concerned