Talking therapy won't solve the mental health crisis

[dreamydell]

There's a mental health cross among children and young people. What's the only solution that's ever suggested? Talking therapy.

This is ridiculously expensive to deliver en masse and there is no evidence that it even works.

Instead of endless calls for more therapy, can we start looking at some real solutions. And don't say banning smartphones/social media. If anyone seriously thought that was the cause of poor mental health then the first line of treatment would be remove a person's phone. This costs nothing so would be a cheap and effective intervention.

Across the board reforms are needed - economy, employment, housing, education, health, social care, welfare, the whole shebang. And services need to collaborate so that issues are dealt with holistically rather than firefighting problems as and when they crop up.

It would cost £££ though so here's some talking therapy and why don't you have a nice cup of tea and a hot bath instead...?

What's your solution?

It'll be chatgpt therapy in a few years. Sort it out with a robot.

If the basics of CBT - thoughts create feelings which lead to behaviours and you have the ability to change any part of that equation - was taught in schools then people would understand themselves a lot better.

Child mental health deteriorating can be linked to so many things.

• an increase in connectivity meaning they know more and worry more about the world
• increased academic pressure
• social media and smart phones
• photos and videos meaning silly dances, daft haircuts, snogging the wrong person all suddenly live forever rather than being an embarrassing moment
• increasingly digital social lives
• a lack of opportunity for risk taking behaviour from baby years and above to build confidence self esteem and resilience
• life being so busy from hobbies to visiting friends and family to all the ‘making memories’
• helicopter parenting and being ‘all in’ on your children’s lives
• less family time as both parents work
• a loss of third spaces to socialise in independent of their family unit and for free/very cheap
• a lack of indepedence and a very elongated adolescence
• babying of children and doing everything for them
• too much telly for young children because their parents are busy and extremely tired due to bringing up kids with no village and two jobs
• having to be ferried around by car and everything being a play date instead of just knocking on a neighbours door to play
• too Many cars on roads
• a lack of part time jobs for young people
• a very dire outlook of their future with wage suppression and climate change and the university to job pipeline being broken
• parents phone use providing a blueprint for kids phone use leading to poor attention spans and dopamine dependency

talking therapy can certainly help a lot more than CBT can for many children. Adolescence is hard and having someone to talk to can help stop problems spiraling into bigger ones.

To all the posters: what is the cause of the mh crisis?

If we knew we might have a chance of targeting effective treatment.

I see lots of teen anxiety and school refusal in my local community. Quite wealthy and middle class. No obvious cause. Ideas?

I absolutely agree with your bullet points. Kids are way too sheltered nowadays and it turns them into non resilient, immature adults. There's a reason they're called the snowflake generation.

@LochKatrine I don't have a solution but it definitely won't be talking therapy for every person who wants it. Impossible to deliver and it doesn't work. Does anyone know one young person who got a CAHMS referral and actually improved or was cured? Because I don't.

What do you categorise as real solutions?

@soupyspoon a real solution but would be a solution that improves mental health. What do you consider a solution? Is it different?

I agree with many of these points. I would also add the ever increasing self absorption and obsession with the sense that a feeling is the priority, instead of seeing that you are not the centre of the world and that feelings are unreliable at times

If you think that everything is all about you, and people respond in respect of you and you are central in everyone elses lives, that causes huge anxiety. Social media encourages this, our trend to analyse and handwring over things and naval gaze also encourages this and I think its hugely damaging for children

Conversely by teaching children to think about and focus on their feelings and that they are special and different and important, we have cause the tendency for grandiosity and therefore poor MH

Well I asked you the question because you said that talking therapy doesnt work and referred to real solutions so I want to know what these solutions are

You then mentioned that taking away phones or removing social media isnt an option. I think theres lots of evidence that online activity/social media etc is a huge contributor to poor MH and parents see a huge difference when phones are restricted.

I think there are also other issues around food and nutrition, but people never want to hear that either.

@soupyspoon Why don't CAHMS insist on removing smartphones as a first line of treatment if the evidence is that strong? It would be a great first intervention.

I think most parents work full time nowadays and it's a highly unnatural environment to stick babies in a nursery with a rotation of caregivers at the time in life they're meant to learn to form a primary attachment to just one main caregiver.

It's bound to impact them for their whole life, in my honest opinion.

But I wouldn't say this in real life, as not sure what the solution is.

I also think kids need a lot more downtime sitting at home laying around and daydreaming, than they currently get in our society.

@dreamydell Speaking as a MH nurse, CAMHS can’t “insist” that parents do anything, only suggest-and CAMHS will often suggest pretty firmly that social media use is reduced in kids that are struggling. Children in psychiatric hospitals don’t have access to phones.

Early years needs looking at.

Sure start needs reintroducing and forcing UC parents to work from their child being 3 needs to change to 5 . I see far too many threads on here about awful care in nurseries and also hear in rl about issues and it damages babies and toddlers to be away from their primary carer of the early years setting they are in is not up to standard.

A lot of these stressors are universal, eg social media, parents working, but I get the sense that some countries do better. The Scandi countries usually score highly for well being, yet in these countries it's been the norm for both parents to work, and children to be in nursery, for decades.

I completely agree with this. One thing my kids never say to me is 'I'm bored'. Odd that this now seems a negative, but I think it is. Bored time used to mean time to relax or time to create your own activity, or time to reconnect with parents or friends irl.

I would like to see more community groups set up with a range of different people helping the community. Litter pickers, gardeners and park garden groups, nature reserve wardens, painting and decorating groups. Add in some food, drink and socialising afterwards. Do some good for your local area, get fit and make new friends.

@JennieTheZebra
Do you feel that smartphones/social media is a cause of metal health issues? If it is, then what's the point of spending thousands in expensive therapy if the actual cause isn't being addressed?

Everything I've read is that child mental health issues are on the rise globally in every developed nation, including in the Scandi countries

Well they're not parents of the child

@soupyspoon
Do you think it should be a condition of receiving treatment?

I think social media is a part of this and it’s parental responsibility. My DS is 15 and doesn’t have social media but I know people with 10 year olds etc that have FB, TikTok etc.

I also think there’s a narrative from adults that doesn’t always help relating to negativity about current affairs and the current younger generation that isn’t helpful.

Lots of people these days are utterly self serving so the sense that people will help eachother etc isn’t there.

I do think there’s something to be said for trying to sit around a table at dinner and have a chat, which as a single mum working FT I appreciate is challenging but still try to do this.

Also for a sense of routine to be in place whatever format that takes.

There’s also something about building resilience though, I’m not sure it’s always helpful to keep going over and over things and feeding it or trying to make it better.
Sometimes you just have to say this feels like it sucks right now, and it does suck, but it will pass like a cloudy day does and in the meantime let’s do X, Y and Z.

No, not a condition, theres lots of evidence it could support childrens anxiety to have less online time

But you seem to have taken the phone thing and run with it, I said it was a huge contributor, not 'the' cause.

There are other issues at play as well, other posters have also mentioned these.

Basically our whole society would need to change to be less inward looking and isolationist and individualist, but people dont like that, they dont want to be more social or socialistic. They dont want to have more responsibility but they do want more rights. Emotionally, while people might think that is preferable, it actually leans toward more pressure and expectation, hosility and anger.