Albert Einstein was a smart guy. Probably few people who would disagree.
One of things that Einstein is quoted as saying is “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” Einstein was talking about scientific research but the same also applies to our treatment of mental health.
There are consistent news reports of children and young people’s mental health services not working, not reaching enough people. The care systems in the UK and USA are often described as teetering on the edge of failure.
Yet there seem to be few questions about why and what can be done about it? There are lots of complaints about the current systems and treatments, which either do not work or leave young people dependent on medication or health services.
Why are we not exploring alternatives?
For children and young people particularly, this is urgent. If young people have poor mental health aged 14 years, there is a 75% risk of them having poor mental health throughout adulthood.
The irony of Albert Einstein’s quote around insanity, is the current solutions to mental health problems often don’t work. Often solutions focus on treating the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem, and we keep repeatedly doing the same thing over and over, despite people not recovering or going on to have long-term mental health problems.
Keep repeatedly using the same approach to treatment of mental health problems with only limited success, is by Einstein’s definition ‘insanity’.
There are alternative solutions to the traditional child and adolescent mental health services, which focus on treating the poor mental health of individuals.
Rather than seeing poor mental health as an ‘illness’ it’s important we recognise poor mental health as a reaction to the context and environment the child or young person is experiencing.
Poor mental health is often a symptom of the trauma and distress a child or young person is feeling because they do not have the resources, skills and experience to know how to respond.
Societal level challenges of poverty, misogyny, racism, inequality, toxic social media and climate change that governments need to do much more to overcome, is the root cause of so many ills.
Social media now exposes children and young people from an early age to these challenges, often when they do not have the knowledge or experience to know how to deal with it. The major action that we can take as a society is by helping children and young people build a support network of significant adults and friends in their lives.
A strong personal support network is one of the best protections against the trauma and distress of societal challenges.
That support network comes from having strong family, friend and school relationships where children and young people can feel connection, validation and trust in those immediately around them.
Having supportive relationships helps children and young people learn to manage their emotions and cope with change, which makes them more adaptable. Higher levels of adaptability lead to greater resilience in dealing with challenging situations and not ‘putting up’ or ‘enduring’ the bad or abusive behaviours of others.
We need a mental health system that focuses much more on building supportive relationships. Where parents and teachers can assist children and young people in learning about their emotions, how to regulate them and how to discuss and respond to challenging and traumatic situations.
However, this requires a fundamental overhaul of how mental health care is provided, so that we take a more systemic approach, which includes families and schools.
What’s essential is recognising that good mental health care is not about treating the individual, its mainly about giving individuals the skills they need to build healthy, supportive relationships.
Good mental health resides in our relationships with each other and our environment.
We therefore need to try something different in terms of mental health service provision because it doesn’t take an Einstein to work out that we will get something different and probably better outcomes for everyone involved.
My colleagues and I have founded our own company ‘LOHA’. LOHA is focused on providing something different to help young people build those strong supportive networks that will give them better mental health and wellbeing.
We are passionate about improving young people’s mental health – if you want to join us and want to know more how you might help,
We need to work together to create real change for our young people.