There was a time when young children were allowed to be children. Primary school was about learning how to play, have fun and make friends. Happy children are more likely to learn and make the world a better place than unhappy ones. Childhood hasn’t been cancelled exactly, but it is under extreme attack, as I’ve written before (“Suffer little children”). Today's subjects: stress, self-harm, suicide. This week saw the launch of a campaign for universal access to school-based counselling services. Reports the story in Schools Week: “A motion being put to the Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ annual conference in Liverpool, which calls for better promotion of mental health awareness in schools and a campaign for all pupils in England to have access to a counsellor, is expected to pass with the backing of the union’s leadership.” There is certainly a need: • One in five children have symptoms of depression and almost a third of the 16-25-year-olds surveyed had thought about or attempted suicide. In Ireland, children as young as five are thinking of suicide. • A World Health Organisation survey in 2014 revealed a fifth of 15-year-olds in England said they had self-harmed over the previous year. • An ATL union survey of its own members revealed that 48 per cent of respondents had pupils who had self-harmed, and 20 per cent knew pupils who had attempted suicide “because of the pressure they are under”. General secretary Mary Bousted said it was “horrifying” that so many young people many are self-harming and contemplating suicide. Increase paperwork until standards improve! There is more testing, more homework, and it starts earlier. (Homework for 5-year-olds? Really?). Teachers are overworked and underappreciated (and underpaid), frantically trying to get results, write up reports, check all the boxes and generally enact the latest keep-up-with-China government initiative, all set against a backdrop of cuts in funding and services and in many cases financial hardship at home. The creative, nurturing, qualitative skill of teaching has been turned into a bureaucratic, morale-sapping, quantitative exercise in stress, low-grade trauma and Ofsted reports, one that kills joy in the classroom, erodes resilience and is creating a whole new generation of children who as adults will be susceptible to mental and physical ill-health. There are roughly 200 governments around the world—200 education policies (or lack thereof), 200 places to look for examples of good ideas and bad ones, 200 petri dishes. Why fawn over China—do we really want to look to an undemocratic communist government with a terrible human rights record for child-rearing tips? How about looking instead to the more relaxed approach of the Scandinavian countries, especially Finland, where education is free, safe and friendly, school starts at age 7, teachers are allowed to teach, and children are allowed to be children rather than treated as future economic units. Finland’s less-is-more education system has been described as the best in the world. Mental-health difficulties are the leading causes of disability worldwide—almost a third of people globally will experience mood, anxiety or substance-use problems in their lifetime. The best antidote is a happy childhood. As noted philosopher Whitney Houston put it: I believe the children are our future Teach them well and let them lead the way Show them all the beauty they possess inside Give them a sense of pride --John Barton Has the dawn of the internet age been good for our mental health? Or really bad? There is great optimism: the digital revolution heralds a utopian, democratic, postmodern world where we are all connected, resourced, empowered, heard, transparent, authentic and free to be who we are. There was even a theory that the internet might flatten a chronically unlevel playing field, though perhaps only for those that have a smart phone and good wifi. There is great pessimism: we’re entering a dystopian, virtual world where a person is reduced to an online profile to be swiped left or right, texts replace conversation, virtual friends replace real ones, “likes” replace activism, emoticons replace emotions (except for anxiety—lots more anxiety). Human intelligence outsourced to machines, vast amounts of time wasted, attention spans worse than a goldfish, retrograde evolution. We plug into a world wide web and watch helplessly as our humanity drains away. To stay alive, and truly connected, we sometimes have to unplug. One story this week highlights the internet as a problem for our inner worlds; another explores its claims to be a solution: Problem? Parent Zone’s report, The Perfect Generation: Is the Internet Undermining Young People's Mental Health?, contains the results of a survey of teachers and teenagers. Among the findings: • 44% of teachers think the internet is bad for young people’s mental health, compared to 28% of young people. • 91% of teachers believe the frequency of mental health issues among pupils is increasing. • Of these issues, schools report stress and anxiety (95%), depression (70%) and self-harm (66%) as the most common issues amongst pupils. • 84% of schools say they do not have adequate resources to deal with pupils’ mental health issues. Vicki Shotbolt, CEO of Parent Zone, says: “The internet has destroyed any notions we might have had about keeping some things away from children until they were ‘old enough to cope’. “All of the indicators suggest that the prevalence of mental health problems and the severity of those problems are increasing. Some people are linking the internet to the increase.” The report concludes that new problems require new solutions, that schools need much better resources for responding to mental health issues, and that tech companies “should recognise both their duty of care and their unique opportunity to create online spaces that are positive and inspiring.” Solution? Meanwhile, in “I tried to fix my mental health on the internet,” anxiety sufferer Joe Madden made himself a human guinea pig to see if computers could replace counsellors, subjecting himself to three varieties of e-help: text-based, social media and video-conference. Writes Madden (for the BBC): “Could e-counselling be the answer to the mental health issues escalating amongst under-30s? With cuts to mental health services really starting to bite, digitised therapy could be just the ticket for young adults who already filter nearly every aspect of their lives – friends, work, sex, entertainment – through a screen.” He concludes: “E-counselling still feels like it's finding its feet: there are useful tools out there for the mild-to-medium prang-brained, but, as yet, no killer app that feels destined to reinvent mental health care for the hashtag age. What form might that ingenious wonder app take? No idea. If I knew that, I'd be off making it, instead of here, recklessly toying with my mental well-being for your half-distracted amusement.” In “The psychodynamics of social networking,” therapist Aaron Balick quotes Kranzberg’s First Law of Technology: it is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. Concludes Balick, “The need to relate has not changed. The need to recognise and be recognised has not changed. The need to seek and be sought has not been altered. The architecture, however, of the ways we do all these fundamental things that ake us human has indeed changed, and that may be changing us.” We are increasingly addicted to our “electronic cocaine” and sometimes we must unplug, disconnect, such that we might return again to the real connections, the ones that are a primary human need—connections with self, with others, with nature. Traditional therapy, as old as the hills, remains untouched by technology, and untouchable. Two people sit in a quiet, spare room. One is there to serve the other. If all goes well the encounter facilitates acceptance, change and growth. For the better. It is not a cure, for there is no cure for life. But it helps. Therapy is a place where you can become who you want to be—who you are meant to be. Where you can learn to live—if not the life you imagined, then the life that has been waiting for you all along. --John Barton On June 23, citizens of the United Kingdom are being asked to vote whether or not we should remain faithful to the European Union. Should we try to patch things up and make it work? Or, perhaps citing “irreconcilable differences,” opt for a separation and divorce? Stay or go? Such a stark, black-and-white choice in a scenario characterised by multiple shades of grey. Does it feel too good to leave—but also too bad to stay? There are push and pull factors on both sides of the ledger: Stay: pull factors • We like Europe and the Europeans, and they like us. The way you wear your hat, the way we sip our tea. We learn from each other. Our doors are always open to each other. We’ve known each other such a long time. We’ve been through such a lot. We work well together. We’ve more or less kept the peace for decades and our joint finances are successful. Let’s stay together.
Go: pull factors • We’ll be free without you. You’ve been holding us back all these years. Unshackled, a great deal of joy and energy will be released and we will surely do great things. We can become the person we have always wanted to be. And we can see other people! Already we’ve flirted with China, Brazil. It’s all very exciting! Unchain my heart. Go: push factors • For the xenophobes, anti-immigrant hysterics, little Englanders, Daily Mail readers, empire nostalgists and Social Darwinists, the decision is easy. They’ve never liked you, and never wanted anything to do with the arranged marriage. And they think they’re better than you—“we” are surely good, whereas “you” are surely bad, lazy, criminal, dirty, weak, perverted, bankrupt, corrupt, attracted to peculiar foods. We don’t think those things, but we’re tired of being treated with contempt. We never get a say, our opinion doesn’t matter. We always have to compromise and do it your way. You are maxing out our joint credit card. You are too bossy, aggressive or passive-aggressive. You make the rules, we have to follow them. You’re just not very generous, and you're never going to change. And we’re just too different. We can still be friends, but if we stay married things will only get worse. Love will tear us apart. Your relationship referendum The EU referendum is powerful metaphor for your more personal, intimate relationships, partnerships, marriages. Are you unhappy? Should you stay or should you go? Again, there will be a tapestry of circumstances. Some push factors foreclose any other considerations, for example domestic abuse. Others can be big but not necessarily insurmountable, such as an affair or betrayal. And there are always pull factors keeping you together: your shared history, the convenience of the status quo, and, above all, children. And how will it be on your own anyway? The stereotype is that women feel the immediate emotional impact of a break-up more than men, but long-term fare much better on their own than men do. A piece of research from 1972 suggests that marriage is bad for the mental health of women, which given the power dynamics of some very traditional marriages isn’t surprising, although later figures show no gender difference. You imagine a glamorous bacherlorhood perhaps, free of obligation and duty, exploring all those things you wanted to do but never had the time. Maybe the reality is you are home alone in an indifferent world. There are no invitations to dinner or weekends away. Just you and the deafening sound of the phone not ringing. Who wants to be lonely? But maybe some loneliness would be good for you? Preliminary investigations • Jannah Walshe recommends a clear-headed assessment of the relationship—not so much the other person—first alone and then together, with questions like these: Is this relationship serving us both or just the other person? Do I spend more time questioning whether the relationship is right or wrong than enjoying it? Is there more to learn for me in this relationship, or can I best learn and grow outside of this relationship? Would leaving this relationship be an act of self-care? • Similarly, Bruce Derman Ph.D. offers 7 questions to ask if you’re thinking of divorce, starting with: Were you ever really married? Was there a time when you has an us, with reciprocal, mutual intimacy? Or have you always been a bit like flatmates who sometimes have sex? • Take Relate’s relationship MOT quiz. It’s good to talk The best advice if you’re not happy is to return once again to a simple, four-letter-word: talk. It’s not easy, especially if one of the problems in the relationship to begin with was not talking. • Relationship and marriage expert Dr. John Gottman claims couples wait an average of six years of being unhappy before speaking out. You will never get those six years back again. • Belgium has the highest divorce rate in the world, 71 percent, and the second-highest suicide rate in Western Europe. These facts are often attributed to “binnenvetter”—a characteristic Flemish personality who bottles things up inside. • It is so much easier to talk with a mediator, referee, coach, guide—a couples counsellor. Find one online or through organizations like Relate or the Tavistock Centre. In “Hold me tight,” Dr. Sue Johnson advocates “emotionally-focussed therapy”: “seven conversations for a lifetime of love” that explore and promote each partner’s emotional responsiveness to each other. “Emotion comes from a Latin word emovere, to move,” she writes. If a couple is going to reconnect, they have to “let their emotions move them into new ways of responding to each other.” Tough decisions can be made with compassion • In his book ”I love you but I’m not in love with you,” Andrew G. Marshall says “the ILYB conversation,” with 100 percent honesty, can lighten the path to a relationship renaissance—or to the exit sign. If the latter, the ILYB talk will help you to make sense of the breakup. Having a clear, truthful narrative about why the partnership ended is crucial to the mourning process—to be left, cheated on or suddenly “ghosted,” without explanation, can cause months and years of misery. • Whether you stay or go, it’s never black and white, and you have some control over what the shades of grey look like. In “Rewriting the Rules,” Meg John Barker writes that you don’t have to follow the old stereotypical rom-com/sitcom rules of a break-up which dictate it’s completely over, there’s a good guy and a bad guy, and the former will never speak to the latter again. Relationships don’t end, says Barker, they change. Breaking up with someone with love and respect can spare a lot of pain all around. Stay or go? Or something else? Perhaps if you listen, you might just hear the generous, loving voice of your own wisdom. It knows it's not all your fault. It knows it's not all your partner's fault, either. It has compassion for you both. It knows what to do. Trust it. To partners past, present and future—to Europe—let’s give thanks, and be grateful. We had some really special times together, didn’t we? We’ll always be there for each other, on some level. Things die, love lives on. Forecast: Unexpected outbreaks of sunny spells in remote Scottish islands. Fair becoming good in Cornwall. Unending downpours in Liverpool and London. The Office of National Statistics last week released its figures on the state of the nation’s emotional weather: happiness, anxiety, life satisfaction and how worthwhile life seems. It’s the culmination of three years of data collection. The highlights • Liverpool and Wolverhampton are supposedly the unhappiest places in Britain (average happiness scores of 6.96 and 6.99 out of 10) Wolverhampton also has the second-lowest “life satisfaction” score. The lowest life satisfaction—where life is also ranked the least “worthwhile”—is in Harlow, just off the M11 in Essex, famous for being the site of Britain’s first modern residential tower block and first pedestrian precinct. • Derry and Strabane in Northern Ireland have the highest levels of anxiety in the U.K. with a score of 3.73 out of 10, closely followed by and Belfast, Liverpool and a string of London boroughs Northern Ireland is however the happiest part of the U.K, followed by Scotland, Wales and England. Is it possible to be anxious and happy? It is. Chesterton wrote of the Irish: “All their wars are merry / And all their songs are sad.” And the converse is true also: you can be free of stress yet really miserable—unhappy Wolverhampton has the lowest levels of anxiety in all of Britain (1.95 out of 10). This perhaps suggests that trying to eliminate stress from your life in order to be happier may not work—you may just get depressed instead. People who achieve their dream of early retirement often make this confounding discovery: six months down the road they are bored and fed up. A certain amount of stress sharpens the focus, motivates people, boosts the heart and immune system—it enlivens. Too much of the wrong kind for too long, however—you get fried rather than fired up. This is the principle of hormesis—a little bit of hardship is good. In one experiment, mice that were given a small dose of poison outlived those who were given none. We are drawn to our cities not in spite of their stressful demands but because of them. • Top of the happiness table—and the “life satisfaction” and “worthwhile” rankings, too—is Eilean Siar: the Outer Hebrides The sample sizes for various remote Scottish islands were too small to be statistically significant, yet places like the Hebrides, Shetland and Orkney consistently crowd the opposite ends of these kinds of rankings from the likes of Liverpool, Wolverhampton and London. The Eilean Siar tourism website says: “This is a lively and challenging place. It’s a place where community matters...The sheer diversity of the landscape is remarkable. Endless machairs and dunes. Mountains and stunning beaches. Vast expanses of moor and lochs. Vertical sea cliffs and stacks... Little wonder that visitors to our islands are enchanted by what they find here.” Where incidentally should you be living? The BBC has devised a quick personality test which tells you where in Britain you would be happiest, and where you would be least happy. It’s nonsense of course but fun. You can take the test here. I was advised to move to somewhere called Craven, and to avoid at all costs relocating to somewhere called Spelthorne, where I could expect a life satisfaction score of only 32 percent, whatever that means. • Women are slightly happier than men (7.41 versus 7.35) Women are also almost twice as likely to seek psychological help than men, who are conditioned instead to do a Clint Eastwood impersonation if ever they feel anxious or sad. Men are more than three times as likely than women in the U.K. to be alcohol-dependent, or commit suicide. Plus, women in the U.K. live on average four years longer than men. The debate about gender equality quite rightly focuses on gross injustices in terms of violence and sexual violence, pay, political and corporate power, and cultural representation, but those four lost years—four summers, birthdays, anniversaries; a thousand nights to sleep perchance to dream—rarely warrant a mention. • Married people are happier than singletons (7.67 versus 7.11); the divorced or separated are the least happy (6.89) Does marriage make you happy—or are happy people more likely to get married? A review of the literature from the National Bureau of Economic Research claims that there really is a cause-and-effect relationship between marriage and happiness. Marry, live happily ever after, right? The authors of the report suggest that this is especially true if you marry someone who, you know, you actually like: “We explore friendship as a mechanism which could help explain a causal relationship between marriage and life satisfaction, and find that well-being effects of marriage are about twice as large for those whose spouse is also their best friend.” On the other hand, marriage is the source of much misery for many. Untold sleepless nights lie behind the fact that 42 percent of marriages end in divorce in the U.K. There is some old evidence that marriage is good for men and bad for women. There is other evidence that nowadays the happiness boost from marriage is identical for both genders—feminism has redefined married life. For all its ups and downs, imperfections and frustrations, marriage for most is better than the modern-day scourge of loneliness. Humans need other humans as much as they need food and water. • Life satisfaction and happiness on average are lowest in the 45-59-year-old age bracket; Those aged 65-79 tended to report the highest levels of well-being This is in accord with the “U-bend of happiness” pattern across the lifespan, which I have written about before: one day you find yourself trapped in an unsatisfying job, marriage or town, struggling to pay the bills, stressed, sandwiched between looking after your kids and looking after your parents. You are miserable. You are at the bottom of the U-bend. “And you may ask yourself,” as the Talking Heads song goes, “how did I get here?” One study of happiness data in 72 countries reported that the global average bottom of the U-bend is 46 years old (though this of course masks enormous variety and individual differences). But then, after a midlife crisis or two, things get better. Midlife is an opportunity to return to the changing room, review what went wrong in the first half of the match, chat with coaches, colleagues and counsellors, attend to any bruises, fortify yourself and then, renewed, refreshed and utterly changed, charge back out into the pitch for the second half. You might play a quite different game until the final whistle. • The employed are quite a bit happier than the unemployed (7.42 versus 6.89) This is hardly surprising—so much unhappiness is dictated by socioeconomic misfortune. Western governments tend to blame the poor and the unwell for their fate so as to divert attention away from their own policies that maintain poverty and inequality. Corporate happiness is top of the agenda. If you’re a divorced, unemployed, middle-aged man in Liverpool, with your dreams tossed and blown, it would be insulting in the extreme to suggest happiness can be achieved with a few sessions of CBT. It’s not his thoughts that need changing so much as his economic environment. The happiest countries, of course, are egalitarian, truly democratic and with high levels of social capital. • The happiest religion is Hindu, followed by Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish and Muslim (the happiest ethnicity is Indian; the least happy is “Gypsy / Traveller / Irish Traveller”). People with no religion are the least happy. A conviction that you’ve been pencilled in for a good karmic afterlife or a place in heaven probably does make a lot of people quite happy. Atheists might regard such believers as deluded, cocooned in blissful ignorance. In the film “The Truman Show,” Jim Carrey would have stayed blissfully happy if he’d never discovered he was living in an entirely artificial town—an unwitting pawn in a reality TV show. Buddha became very unhappy when he left the palace to discover a world beyond the confines of his walls of privilege—a world that included poverty, illness and suffering—but thank goodness he did or the valuable philosophy, art and culture of Buddhism wouldn’t have happened. The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is not that life is about happiness. It is that life is suffering. Questions for you What to make of all this? Is it meaningless—just an example of “lies, damn lies, statistics”—and, worse still, happiness statistics? Or is this an opportunity to take stock and maybe make some changes? How happy are you—how “worthwhile” is your life? Do you have good stress to contend with, or bad? If your new year’s resolutions didn’t work out, should you come up with new ones today, the first day of the Chinese New Year? Should you marry your best friend, join the Hare Krishna, move to Stornaway and find a job? Or stay exactly where you are but change your attitude—turn your own personal Wolverhampton into some kind of heaven on earth? Should you talk things through with a therapist? Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll live the life you imagined, or maybe your dreams will forever elude you. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Your glass is neither half empty or half full. The existentialists believe life is not about the pursuit of happiness. It is the pursuit of itself—to live to the full. Nietzsche famously argued that “god is dead”—there is no heaven, no afterlife, so you might as well throw caution to the wind and live intensely, making brave choices, feeling deeply, fully present, right here, right now. Get to grips with the ups and downs, advise Echo & The Bunnymen, "because there's nothing in between." Or as Anaïs Nin wrote: "I must be a mermaid ... I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living." |
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AuthorJohn Barton is a counsellor, psychotherapist, blogger and writer with a private practice in Marylebone, Central London. To contact, click here. |