Mental health in focus at Harpenden Society meeting
Many families in the Harpenden area enjoy a standard of living noticeably higher than the national average. But whether that relative local domestic prosperity brings with it, in the 21st Century, a corresponding level of family-wide harmony and contentment is more open to question. For today’s young people especially, the worries that in days of yore centred around poverty or even hunger, have been replaced by quite different concerns which in their own way are arguably just as threatening.
Those concerns afflicting the younger generation, as well as their families, schools and other youth organisations, are incapsulated in what has come to be termed their mental health, whose manifold issues were addressed at the Harpenden Society’s Autumn Public Meeting by Dr Alison Cowan, a Hertfordshire GP specialising in young people’s mental wellbeing.
She holds regular twice-weekly youth-focussed surgeries and holds the post of medical officer for a community eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia etc) service. She pointed out to her audience, in the lecture hall at Katherine Warington School that, of passing relevance, she was the mother of three adolescent daughters.
In order to define her terms of reference Dr Cowan said it had become useful to categorise ‘adolescence’ as the ages from 10 to 20 and ‘young people’ in the extended 10 to 24 age group, the latter numbering some 11.7 million in the UK, or roughly one in five of the population.
Studies in recent years had indicated, she said, that 50% of mental illness was initiated before the age of 14 and 75% before the age of 24. In 2021 it was widely asserted that one in six of 11- to 16-year-olds and one in five of 17 to 22 year-olds were ‘probably’ subject to mental disorder of some kind, young women more than men being especially vulnerable.
Among the key issues were anxiety and depression (often sleep loss aggravated), in extreme cases leading to self-harm and thoughts of – or actual – suicide. Eating disorders, often related to an individual’s perceived body image, were further manifestations, as well as behavioural disorders and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). All of those factors contributed to the likelihood of young people being drawn to the physical risks associated with drugs, alcohol, smoking and unguarded sex.
As well as the biological, neurological and therefore psychological changes happening through adolescence, there was now a greater influence than ever before on what Dr Cowan categorised as ‘sociocultural pressures’, notably within peer groups.
Under the heading of ‘social changes’, she said young people’s sense of belonging to and within a (home based) family had declined, to be supplanted by conformity to, and establishment of intimate relationships within, a peer group. Though conferring a welcomed feeling of ‘independence and autonomy’, it opened the contrasting possibility of ‘hypersensitivity to social exclusion’, with potentially damaging or even tragic mental health consequences.
Dr Cowan then broached the often controversial but clearly vital subject of young people’s increased access to, and relationship with, the internet and social media, especially over the last decade. She highlighted such consequent resulting issues as the detrimental impact on sleep and exercise, ‘cyberbullying’ and pornography.
As a first step in dealing with a young person’s mental health challenges, she said it was important to listen ‘non judgmentally’ and to acknowledge their distress, while endeavouring to explain their reactions to ‘trigger’ events, while seeking to analyse causes, particularly of anxiety.
Though anxiety was a normal human response to stress or fear, it could become a pernicious problem when it was prolonged or occurred too often, to trigger a self-perpetuating vicious cycle. Research had shown, she said, that such a vicious cycle of an anxiety-driven low mood usually needed to be addressed through a changed way of thinking by a young person about how they feel, implying the need for outside help.
Dr Cowan rounded off her presentation slide show with a listing of the many local and national organisations now in place which young people and/or their families and loved ones can turn to for help and guidance on issues directly or indirectly related to mental health. Those included numerous relevant websites and social media apps as well as perhaps more traditional telephone helplines, grouped under the heading of ‘Crisis Support’.
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