The ‘staggering’ rise in childhood anxiety is not a mental health crisis | Letters

Pathologising young people is less effective than tackling the social causes of their worries, suggest clinical psychologists Dr Lucy Johnstone and Dr Helen Care. Plus, letters from a concerned grandparent and Linda Karlsen

The “staggering” rise in anxiety among children (NHS referrals for anxiety in children more than double pre-Covid levels, 27 August) deserves a more sophisticated response than installing counsellors in every school, useful though that may be in some cases, and I say this as a mental health professional – a consultant clinical psychologist.

Well-meaning awareness campaigns that encourage us to translate every feeling into a “mental health issue” convey the message that children have an individual deficit, while obscuring the reasons for their distress. And yet research consistently shows that their feelings are understandable in context.

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