There is a strand of opinion that is concerned about what they see as the medicalisation of ordinary life. They fear that people are being overdiagnosed with syndromes and declared to have conditions which, in fact, are part of the everyday, if unpleasant, reality of existence. Suffering, they will insist, is inevitable; treatment or medication isn’t necessary for every setback we encounter in life. This week, Ireland’s football manager Heimir Hallgrimsson spoke again about how Ireland are suffering from “second game syndrome”, a condition which prevents Ireland from playing well in the second of the two-game series of matches that…

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