ET-MAR22-PG32-33.qxp_Page 6 10/03/2022 10:42 Page 32
FEATURE: WELLBEING
“ You can’t think yourself to
wellness” Burkeman 2016
You can’t think yourself out of emotional pain. It’s a huge hormonal force.
With the support of an emotionally available adult, you have to go into it in order to come through it.
Ignorance about the causes of mental ill-health and recovery costs lives
D
r Margot Sunderland, Director of Education and Training at The Centre for
Child Mental Health (CCMH) and Co-Director at Trauma Informed Schools UK, examines some of the myths surrounding the causes of mental ill-health in children and young people and their recovery and calls for new approaches to recovery based on current research.
Myths continue to circulate surrounding the causes of mental ill-health in children and young people and their recovery. Now is the time to dispel the myths, change our perception of mental health and embrace effective approaches to recovery based on current research.
Myth: Mental health problems are caused by chemical imbalances and genetic vulnerabilities and so diagnoses and
32
www.education-today.co.uk
medication are necessary For decades there has been a search for those illusive ‘one or two genes’ that cause psychosis, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, clinical depression etc. No such genetic vulnerability has ever been found. It is now established that despite some temperamental differences, mental health problems are primarily caused by unprocessed traumatic life experience that has never been properly addressed with the support of an emotionally available adult (EAA), who can help make sense of the impact of the experience. “Much of what is written and spoken about
emotional distress or mental health problems implies they are illnesses. This can lead us all too easily to believe that we no longer have to think about mental health problems, because illness is best left to doctors. They, and psychiatrists, are the illness experts.” (Read and Sanders, ‘The
March 2022
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
