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    Mental Health

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    Article

    Raising Teens Is Hard. Lisa Damour Has Some Answers.

    As the mother of two daughters, ages 12 and 19, Dr. Damour knows first hand that parenting is hard and sometimes scary. And that has been especially true over the last few years, as the mental health of children, particularly teenage girls, has suffered.

    But a reassuring thread runs through Dr. Damour’s work: You’ve got this, it seems to say. “Mental health is not about feeling good,” she writes in “The Emotional Lives of Teenagers.” “Instead, it’s about having the right feelings at the right time and being able to manage those feelings effectively.”

    Aug 29, 2023
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    Article

    The truth about teens, social media and the mental health crisis

    Back in 2017, psychologist Jean Twenge set off a firestorm in the field of psychology.

    Twenge studies generational trends at San Diego State University. When she looked at mental health metrics for teenagers around 2012, what she saw shocked her. "In all my analyses of generational data — some reaching back to the 1930s — I had never seen anything like it," Twenge wrote in the Atlantic in 2017.

    Twenge warned of a mental health crisis on the horizon. Rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness were rising. And she had a hypothesis for the cause: smartphones and all the social media that comes along with them. "Smartphones were used by the majority of Americans around 2012, and that's the same time loneliness increases. That's very suspicious," Twenge told NPR in 2017.

    NPR

    Jun 3, 2023
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    Article

    Eating disorders are exploding, hurting adolescents who have trouble finding care

    From the early days of the pandemic, researchers worried that the heightened stresses of lockdown and the limits on mental health care would intensify the risks of eating disorders for adolescents and young adults. As a medical student rotating in the psychiatric emergency room, I witnessed firsthand how those fears have been realized.

    Eating disorders among young people have exploded across the nation.For many, the inability to get timely care is spiraling into increasing self-injurious behaviors by cutting or burning and worsening suicidal ideation.

    At the beginning of my rotation in April, I met a 16-year-old girl who attributed her new eating disorder to virtual schooling. Staring at a computer screen for several hours a day, she became preoccupied with her appearance and hated how she looked. Feeling a general loss of control over surrounding events, the only way she could reclaim a sense of agency was by altering her dietary habits.

    The Washington Post

    Jun 1, 2023
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    Article

    Loneliness in youth could impact mental health over the long term

    The review, which synthesizes over 60 pre-existing, peer-reviewed studies on topics spanning isolation, loneliness and mental health for young people aged between 4 and 21 years of age, found extensive evidence of an association between loneliness and an increased risk of mental health problems for children and young people.

    "As school closures continue, indoor play facilities remain closed and at best, young people can meet outdoors in small groups only, chances are that many are lonely (and continue to be so over time)," said lead author, Maria Loades, DClinPsy, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of Bath, UK.

    "This rapid review of what is known about loneliness and its impact on mental health in children and young people found that loneliness is associated with both depression and anxiety. This occurs when studies measured both loneliness and mental health at the same point in time; when loneliness was measured separately; and when depression and anxiety were measured subsequently, up to 9 years later," Dr. Loades added. "Of relevance to the COVID-19 context, we found some evidence that it is the duration of loneliness that is more strongly associated with later mental health problems."

    Science Daily

    May 17, 2023
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    Article

    I Answer the Phone at a Mental Health Hotline. Here’s What I’ve Learned.

    “Oh my, you picked up the phone.”

    The caller sounded genuinely surprised and held her breath for a moment before telling her story. For more than a year, she and her husband had been largely trapped in their home by their 25-year-old son, who suffered from psychotic episodes. He refused any treatment, he had been making threats, and most nights he holed up in his room doing drugs while his parents tried to sleep behind their double-locked bedroom door.

    “Is there someone who can come out to help us?” she said. “I mean, what do we do?”

    I didn’t have a quick answer. It was my first call at a brand-new volunteer job.

    When a family is upended by a suicidal son, a bulimic daughter, addiction or psychosis, it’s a rare person who knows whom to call for help or even how to ask. Try searching online, and you’ll no doubt find an assortment of out-of-date directories, random advice and dicey-looking services that may or may not provide what’s advertised.

    The New York Times

    May 17, 2023
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    Get urgent support from a crisis service:
    If this is an emergency, please call 911    .

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    If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. Here are some other resources you may find useful.

    For more information on navigating a crisis, see our Navigating a Crisis page.

    Medical and Health Disclaimer: ShineTogether does not provide medical advice. All content on this website is for educational and informational purposes only. Please contact a medical professional if you are seeking medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment.

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