“Can it really be that this generation’s teenagers are inherently more sad, anxious or vulnerable than those of the past?”
In July of this year (2019) a TV broadcast titled “Young, British and Depressed” was screened on Channel 4 in the UK. It was produced by Dispatches, an investigative current affairs programme.
In the broadcast, reporter Sanah Ahsan explores Britain’s youth depression crisis, to find out what’s fuelling it and to examine what treatment is available for young people.
As Eleanor Morgan has written in The Guardian newspaper:
“Last year, there were 700,000 referrals of children and young people into mental health services – a 45% increase in two years. What questions should we be asking about such a sharp rise? Can it really be that this generation’s teenagers are inherently more sad, anxious or vulnerable than those of the past?
Bringing together critical voices in psychiatry and psychology – clinicians who look towards social change as a means of preventing mental distress, rather than always seeing people as fundamentally disordered or damaged – Young, British and Depressed asked if we are too quick to medicalise young people’s emotions. As a headteacher in a highly deprived area of London said on camera: ‘It is a difficult time to be a young person, particularly in areas of deprivation and poverty.’ …”
You can watch the TV programme here.
