• Question: I heard that our generation is more likely to have mental health problems as we get older, how true is this?

    Asked by MCR to Tim, Suzi, Simon, Rachael, Damien on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Suzi Gage

      Suzi Gage answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi @theawakening
      Thanks very much for this question, I think it’s a really interesting and important one.
      It’s hard to know whether there are more diagnoses of mental health problems these days because there are more ill people, or whether mental health problems are better understood now. If this is the case, it means that until recently there were lots of people with mental health problems that were not diagnosed, so had no support, and little understanding of their problems. So it’s not that there are more people ill now, there are just more people getting help, in which case this is a good thing!

      I think this idea is more likely to be the case than that your generation is likely to have more mental health problems than previous ones.

      However, mental health is definitely linked to stress, and the stresses on young people are getting more and more these days (in my opinion). So it’s hard to know what is correct.

      I hope this answers your question a bit 🙂

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