Most days my mood is good but occasionally I’m less motivated than others. My wife has moods similar to mine. Some days she has more energy than others. For that matter, my dog seems to feel better some days than others. This all sounds normal to me, but do we really need mental health intervention? Or are small day-to-day variations in mental wellbeing normal in healthy individuals? Furthermore, does ruminating on feeling a little sluggish make matters better or worse? This from The New York Times:
In recent years, mental health has become a central subject in childhood and adolescence. Teenagers narrate their psychiatric diagnosis and treatment on TikTok and Instagram. School systems, alarmed by rising levels of distress and self-harm, are introducing preventive coursework in emotional self-regulation and mindfulness.
Is there a crisis of mental health among the nations’ youth? If so do we make it worse by talking about it too much? That is the subject of an article in the The New York Times:
Now, some researchers warn that we are in danger of overdoing it. Mental health awareness campaigns, they argue, help some young people identify disorders that badly need treatment — but they have a negative effect on others, leading them to over-interpret their symptoms and see themselves as more troubled than they are.
The researchers point to unexpected results in trials of school-based mental health interventions in the United Kingdom and Australia: Students who underwent training in the basics of mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy did not emerge healthier than peers who did not participate, and some were worse off, at least for a while.
And new research from the United States shows that among young people, “self-labeling” as having depression or anxiety is associated with poor coping skills, like avoidance or rumination.
Years ago, I read about a study that found ruminating over negative thoughts made people feel worse than those who tried to put negative thoughts out of their mind. Another study found that the conventional wisdom that throwing a tantrum to “get it all out” made people feel worse than if they tried to contain their emotions.
In a paper published last year, two research psychologists… coined the term “prevalence inflation” — driven by the reporting of mild or transient symptoms as mental health disorders — and suggested that awareness campaigns were contributing to it.
“It’s creating this message that teenagers are vulnerable, they’re likely to have problems, and the solution is to outsource them to a professional,” said Dr. Foulkes.
Another problem with talking more about mental health awareness is that “labeling” your symptoms may be counterproductive to mental health.
Jessica L. Schleider, a co-author of the self-labeling study, said this was no surprise. People who self-label “appear to be viewing depression as a biological inevitability,” she said. “People who don’t view emotions as malleable, view them as set and stuck and uncontrollable, tend to cope less well because they don’t see a point to trying.”
Other experts disagree, believing there should be more focus on teen mental health:
“The urgency of the mental health crisis is so clear,” she said. “In the partnerships that I have, the emphasis is on the kids truly struggling right now who have nothing — we need to help them — more so than a possible risk for a subset of kids who aren’t really struggling.”
Another take on this topic is that many mental health providers may believe there is no such thing as someone who would not benefit from therapy and that counseling is similar to an annual physical for the mind.
Going back to when we were kids, some mothers over empathized with small children who skinned their knees or had some minor problem and cried about it. By contrast, some mothers believed showing too much empathy for trivial problems would legitimize negative emotions.
Like most things in life, there is probably a middle ground between coddling teens with normal emotional variation, versus mental health interventions for those truly struggling. Perhaps what is missing in the mental health crisis debate is explaining to teens that some amount of teen angst is normal and they are the ones in charge of their own emotions.
Read more at NYT: “Are Schools Too Focused on Mental Health?”