074 Since the time of Socrates people have been opining and pearl clutching about the wayward state of the youth. For better or worse, Millennials and Gen Z have received a tremendous amount of attention and public scrutiny from professionals and social media influencers. With labels like ‘the anxious generation' more young people find themselves defined through a mental health lens and aggressively treated for conditions that previously may have been considered adaptive challenges of adolescence.

Rather than focusing on a perceived fragility of young people or finger pointing at over protective parenting, the origins of the youth mental health crisis might be sourced in common issues we all struggle with in the digital age and the anxieties of professionals and policy makers.

In this episode of Awake In Relationship I speak with Dr Nevin Harper, nature based clinical therapist and coauthor of Kids These Days: Understanding and supporting youth mental health. In this conversation we talk about the societal and cultural origins of our current thinking around the youth mental health and 3 common disruptors in modern life that negatively effect the developmental process. We also discuss how to shift focus from an interventionist approach to returning to the basics of mental health, including healthy attachments, connection to the natural world and encouraging risk tolerance to create the conditions for young people to thrive.

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