Guidance counsellors who are tasked with dealing with the wide range of mental health issues that impact secondary school students, need to arm themselves with the techniques necessary to cope with the demands placed on them by students.
That's according to top doctor and author Dr Harry Barry, who will address more than 500 counsellors at the Institute of Guidance Counsellors National Conference which will be held in NUI Galway tomorrow (Friday ) and Saturday.
Dr Harry Barry, renowned author and doctor, will deliver a workshop on ‘How to manage panic attacks and social anxiety’, as the keynote address at Saturday’s conference.
He told the Galway Advertiser this week that levels of anxiety and panic attacks among students seem to be on the rise, and that social media has a huge role to play in this increase.
"From talking to principals around the country, panic seems to be very common. It is understandable because our young people are living in a very different world. The levels of anxiety in young people has risen substantially, particularly in the last decade. The more likely you are to see anxiety in the school population, then the more likely you are to see panic attacks."
So what are the causes of this increase? Is it genetic?
"There is no doubt in my mind that a certain percentage of anxiety is genetic, but the feeling nowadays is that social media has a massive role in young people's lives because it is a world of rating. Young people are so anxious all the time because they are busy rating themselves all the time. So it is almost as if a number of things are working together. Social anxiety, where it matters what other people think of them; and general anxiety, worrying about all the different things that are going on in the world at the moment and these children are not very resilient."
Resilience
Dr Barry has written in his books about the skills that can arm young people in terms of resilience.
"My book details 20 skills which if we all have we would be much less likely to be stressed or anxious and be more likely to be resilient. These are things like how to cope with failure, how to stop being a perfectionist, how to stop catastrophising, how to deal with the physical signs of anxiety, how to stop rating yourself, how to deal with the reality of life, how to solve problems and so on. All these are practical skills that our young people who are very good at technologically solving problems, but they are not so good at solving what I would call the real world emotions."
He agreed that social media has the ability to bring bad news to our doorstep much more quickly and more intensely than in previous generations.
"When was the last time you listened to a good news channel, telling you all about the positive things that are going on in the world? All we are getting is a non-stop stream of negativity and pessimism. The doomsday scenario in terms of climate change. Children are being fed a lot of information, some of which is not proportionate to the issue in question.
"They are being fed this rubbish about being successful and being famous as things they should really be striving for. To be a perfectionist, to always be the best, to never make a mistake, to never fail.
"This is making them increasingly anxious, especially in the exam year. When they go to college they are thrown into the real world where they have to fend for themselves, and many of them lack the skills to actually do that. Many of them are picking the wrong college courses because they are being shoved in to pick their courses too quickly.
"Many of them also find themselves strugging with financial and accommodation issues and the way they cope is by using drink and drugs and they, of course, trigger more panic attacks," he said.
"So you can see why there is an epidemic of this going on. Social anxiety is becoming very common because these young people are losing the skills to deal one to one with people, to become uncomfortable in a social situation, so the risks of social anxiety are increasing as well."
But how do you know you are anxious and not just a worrier?
"There is that sense that there is one group who are anxious and everyone else is fine. This is for the birds. We all get anxious. We all worry we all get stressed about things. It becomes an issue in terms of panic attacks when you become so afraid of going anywhere in case you get one.
"Now, it is more than just worrying, and you worry about getting all these terrible physical symptoms and you don't know what to do with them.
"The second one is when you avoid going out to certain social situations because you are afraid of what people will think of you. The third one is when you get symptoms like fatigue and cognitive difficulties and catastrophising. Living all your life living in a watchtower, constantly looking for the next disaster, and it takes over your lives."
Does anxiety impact on the friends and family of the anxiety sufferer?
"Anxiety impacts on those around us. You take a young person who gets panicky and refuses to go to school. Suddenly the whole family gets upset. In college, if they are getting into real difficulty, maybe with anxiety or social anxiety or low grade depression, that begins to intrude on all the rest of the family.
"Parents often put up their hands when I am giving talks and ask 'how do I prevent my children from developing the anxiety that I have?' In other words, they are recognising that they are anxious in themselves. I would encourage them that it is ok to say to the child that 'I get anxious too'. Now you are talking about the same thing and you are dealing with it."
Praising the effort
As a society, do we overpraise?
"We need to move away from praising the child or young person and concentrate more on praising the effort they put into something. That means if a young guy or girl plays well in hurling/camogie and then a young brother/sister plays but is not naturally as good, the right thing to do is to praise the effort that both are putting in, not the results, not the person."
Are schools armed with the right tools to deal with anxiety?
"Every school I go to, the first thing the principal asks is, how do we cope with the levels of anxiety. To a certain extent, it is a self-feeding frenzy and remember that one of the consequences of anxiety, unfortunately, is self-harm. Sometimes, it is not the anxiety, but the consequences of the anxiety, that can be the issue.
"This week in Galway, I will be addressing 500 guidance counsellors and I will be going through the common mental health issues that young people are facing.
"I will also be giving them some warning in that they need to look after themselves because they are getting stressed too, because it is such a stressful job. I know they are overwhelmed by the numbers of young people struggling with all kinds of mental health issues.
"We know that 25 per cent of all children suffer from depression at some time between 15 and 18. And another 25 per cent between 18 and 25. So between school and college, half of all depression presents for the first time in this age group."
How would guidance counsellors cope with these numbers?
"I think most guidance counsellors would be involved in some form of therapy groups. For me it is about self-care. Making sure that the rest of their life is in harmony. That it is not just all about what is going on at school. That they're making sure that they're exercising, looking afert their own health, their relationship and family. That they are taking time out for themselves and ensuring they have the right techniques. The more techniques that a counsellor has, the easier it is for them to help a young person when they come to them for help."
While the counsellors at this week's conference come from secondary schools, Dr Barry believes that these skills should be taught from primary school onwards.
"We should be ensuring that they avoid social media and smartphones until they are at least 13 or 14. There is a lot of evidence that boys of 12 are watching hardcore porn on smartphones. What is that doing to those children? They then go into their adolescence thinking that this is the way relationships should be and that they should be able to perform accordingly. That puts pressure on the girls and they get forced into this activity and that causes self-harm."
The two-day conference, taking place on March 6 and 7, will include a series of 19 workshops focusing on the concept and delivery of compassion, guidance topics for second and third level, and professional development tools.
On day one of the conference, delegates can expect a range of talks dedicated to the conference theme, including a SMART consent workshop by Dr Pádraig MacNeela and Dr Siobhán O’Higgins, School of Psychology, and Dr Charlotte McIvor, drama and theatre studies at NUI Galway.
Highlights on day two of the conference include a panel discussion on ‘Careers in the Creative Industries’ which will see contributions from Sarah Lynch, technical recruiter with Renttherunway, Ian Brathwaite, manager of Romero Games, and award winning screen writer Will Collins who was nominated for an Oscar for Song of the Sea.
Attendance at the Institute of Guidance Counsellor Conference is open to members and non-members. For registration visit www.igc.ie
For more information on career guidance and course choice related issues, the Galway Advertiser Pathways event will be held at the Galmont Hotel on Monday March 30. For details see www.pathways.ie
