Childhood is not a mental illness

Another week goes by, and another report comes out highlighting the plight of children and young people’s mental health. The latest arrives from the leftist think tank Resolution Foundation and paints a disturbing picture. It found that the number of children in England and Wales whose families receive Disability Living Allowance (DLA) has more than doubled in the past decade, to 682,000. The numbers have increased significantly since the Covid epidemic.

This is not because of the increase in physical disabilities among young people. As figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show, the post-pandemic surge in DLA claims has been driven by a rapid increase in the number of children diagnosed with disabilities. a behavior, such as attention deficit disorder (ADHD) . Around 182,000 children with mental health conditions now receive DLA, which is more than double the number before the pandemic. As a result, it means that young people in England and Wales are more likely to claim disability benefits than adults in their forties.

The Resolution Foundation’s findings are not surprising. NHS statistics tell a similar story. The 2023 figures suggest that 20.3 per cent of children and young people – one in five – may have a mental health problem. That’s almost double the number said to be suffering from mental illness in 2017.

There are many explanations for this explosion of mental health problems among young people. Since there has been an influx since the outbreak, many are pointing the finger of blame at the closure. And it is true that closing schools and physically isolating young people for a long period of two years will hurt them a lot.

But it is also true that the diagnosis of mental health problems and the increase in behavioral problems among young people predates this epidemic. One academic study conducted by the University of London found a 20-fold increase in ADHD diagnoses between 2000 and 2018. Another paper found that autism diagnoses rose by 787 percent over the same period. the same. In fact, every longitudinal study of youth mental health consistently shows the same thing – that rates of mental health and problems increase over the years. tens. That their mental health has been declining since at least the 1950s.

Looking for a specific cause for the so-called youth mental health crisis, be it an epidemic or the advent of smartphones and social media, is a fool’s errand. The reason why more and more young people are suffering from mental health problems is not because they are mentally disturbed by this or the global event, or they have been revived by some technological innovation. The reason is much simpler and deeper than that. That’s because adults, from policymakers and teachers to many parents themselves, are increasingly inclined to understand and plan their own and their children’s behavior. see through the mind.

This has been a long time coming indeed. The psychology of everyday life – the expansion of diagnostic fields to include the classification of an ever-increasing range of human behavior – has developed from the beginnings of psychoanalysis onwards. In this case, the publication of the American Psychiatric Association’s Handbook of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1952 was an important time. Known as the bible of psychiatry, it provided the growing treatment industry with a group of ‘problems’ and ‘syndromes’ that would change the way people now understand and experience themselves.

In recent decades, this separation of behavior has had a profound effect on young people. Disturbed and insecure children are now diagnosed with depression or anxiety. Children who are active and disruptive are considered to have ADHD. Children who express anxiety or worry about events in the news are considered to be anxious about life. And so on. As Frank Furedi, author of Paranoid Parentingput it spiked by 2022, ‘children’s emotional responses to everyday experiences are being reframed through therapeutic language’.

It is the growing tendency to isolate and control children’s behavior and feelings in therapeutic terms that is the main cause of the increase in claims of ‘disability’ among young people. It is this tendency to frame young people’s experiences as psychological problems that fuels ‘youth mental health problems’. And it damages these young people a lot. These labels and categories are like self-fulfilling prophecies. They shape the personality of young people, they inform the opinions of young people. They successfully infect young people.

Telling a 13-year-old boy that his extreme or disruptive behavior is due to a mental illness is pretty much telling him that there is something wrong with him. That his behavior is a medical issue and not an ethical one. That it is not something that he can fix by using discipline; it is something he must be able to do with counseling or medication. Similarly, calling a 14-year-old girl’s feelings ‘depressed’ encourages her to feel ‘depressed’. That those feelings don’t go away; it is a permanent part of his identity. It’s no wonder that many young people show their mental health symptoms on their social media profiles. It is a statement of who they are. An expression of their identity. Not to mention, apparently, the grounds for a disability claim.

This is a very avoidable tragedy. The classification of many adolescent behaviors as mental illnesses makes it even more difficult to identify and treat those who actually suffer from mental illness. With tens of thousands of young people seeking disability benefits, it also provides fewer resources that could be better used to help those struggling with truly disabling conditions.

Encouraging more and more young people to see themselves in mental health categories hinders their development. It reduces their moral dilemma, encouraging them to behave in their own way instead of living up to their potential. We have turned the youth generation into mental patients.

Tim Black I am a spiked a journalist.