I have been concerned for some time about how many people and institutions have been pathologising young people. I share this concern with my good friend Lisa Martello-Hart from Kojonup, who is working with young people with impressive results. I’ve been thinking for a good while, and talking with and learning from Lisa, about how to work with young people to help facilitate connection and help them build resilience. And then today I read these three letters from The Guardian.
‘Pathologising young people is less effective than tackling the social causes of their worries, suggest clinical psychologists Dr Lucy Johnstone and Dr Helen Care.
The “staggering” rise in anxiety among children (NHS referrals for anxiety in children more than double pre-Covid levels, 27 August) deserves a more sophisticated response than installing counsellors in every school, useful though that may be in some cases, and I say this as a mental health professional – a consultant clinical psychologist.
Well-meaning awareness campaigns that encourage us to translate every feeling into a “mental health issue” convey the message that children have an individual deficit, while obscuring the reasons for their distress. And yet research consistently shows that their feelings are understandable in context.
Your article mentions pressures from target-driven education, online bullying, poverty and uncertainty about the future. None of this will be resolved by funding extra mental health professionals, helplines and support hubs. Indeed, that is likely to perpetuate the cycle, since these are not fundamentally medical problems – they are social ones.
It is particularly disappointing to see Labour failing to make these obvious links. Do we have to reach the point where every child is on a clinic waiting list before we take appropriate action on root causes?
Dr Lucy Johnstone
Bristol
As a clinical psychologist, and like anyone who has contact with young people, I have seen that anxiety rates have risen. But it is important not to pathologise young people more, only focusing on increasing crisis treatment.
That is essentially paying people like me to be an even more expensive sticking plaster. I would argue that a lot of what is happening is not a mental health crisis, but an empowerment crisis. No matter what age they are, people can handle incredibly stressful things if they know they have the resources and the social support to handle it.
Young people feel disempowered; they are aware of the stresses and dangers in the world, but don’t feel they are being listened to or given the tools to handle those stresses. Most don’t need more of me; they need more focus on community, fun, support, connection and engagement far earlier.
Dr Helen Care
Woodstock, Oxfordshire
That British children and teenagers are suffering significantly greater anxiety and unhappiness is deeply troubling. Several plausible reasons have been proposed, but I believe a potential one has been overlooked. There is a fashionable trend in ultra-gentle parenting, where children are offered high levels of comfort for feelings engendered by every setback. I recognise that my large haul of grandchildren is still a tiny sample, but the happiest and least anxious of them by far are those who have learned that not all their negative feelings will be soothed and solved by others. The support of loving parents is of course invaluable, but learning resilience is important too.
Name and address supplied’
I hear mental health services crying our for more money to help young people. But mental health in Australia is dominated by a biomedical model—give drugs to alter brain chemicals. This is NOT the answer. It only causes more problems. I say that from someone who was an award-winning neuroscientist working in the mental health and addiction fields. I walked away from that!
Today, I emphasise the urgent need for a shift from focusing on ‘What’s wrong with you?’ to asking ‘What happened to you?’ and/or or ‘What is happening to you?’ More of this in future blog posts.