Can you bring a claim for emotional distress?

Are you a litigant in person, running your own case?

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The short answer is, "No". Policy considerations as much as for any other reason mean that bringing a claim for damages in the civil courts where you have suffered mental distress is not possible.

There are a number of exceptions, but it is worth pointing out that there have to be exceptional circumstances. For example, the contract specifically provided for mental health and happiness or there was a specific duty by the Defendant in this regard. There is a tort for intentional causing emotional distress, but this is where the matter is very deliberate or malicious. It is described by the courts as an "obscure" tort, so do not expect to rely on it unless the case is exceptional.

There are possibility of claiming for injury to feelings in employment cases, of course, but there you are talking about unfair dismissal claims and the like, where there is a clear case of an employer/employee relationship.

In crime there is the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 which allows a civil claim to be brought, but you are therefore looking at an actual criminal offence, far more serious than most claims in civil courts. Harassment means a course of conduct, not just one-off hurt or injury.

You can claim for distress in misuse of private information cases, or Data Protection Act cases, where your data has been misused. And of course there are the privacy laws and libel and defamation, but these are not quite what we are focusing on here.

Do not forget of course, that where you are looking at a personal injury cases, where there is physical injury, then you can increase the amount of award by pointing to additional emotional distress on top. But there has to be that physical injury. The courts may allow such a claim where there is a recognisable psychiatric disorder. But here you are in many ways looking at a sort of physical, personal injury claim. Simply needing therapy because someone had caused emotional distress would come nowhere near.

Finally, you may well not be looking at a very substantial amount of money, even if you do make a case through one of the above exceptions and convince a judge in a county court. Is it going to be worth it? To win £500?