Excessive screen time is often cited as one of the main causes of poor mental health among young people. To address the problem, some experts suggest taking advantage of another space where minors also spend a few hours of their daily lives: school.
There are more and more initiatives in this regard. For example, in September of last year, Aula Siena and the Camilo José Cela University (UCJC) launched an online master’s degree for educators in child and adolescent mental health, aimed especially at teachers.
Javier Urra (doctor in Psychology and Health Sciences, full academician of the Academy of Psychology of Spain, first Ombudsman for Minors in this country and director of RECURRA GINSO, a mental health clinic for children and young people) is its pedagogical director; Carlos Valiente (doctor in Psychology, professor and researcher at several universities, educational psychologist, neuropsychologist and general health psychologist, and director of the Clinical and Interdisciplinary Research Institute in Neurosciences) and Maite Garaigordobil (doctor in Psychology, expert in psychological intervention in educational environments, and several times included in the ranking of the most important researchers in the world, prepared by Stanford University) will teach some classes.
We wanted to speak with all three, to ask their opinion on the youth mental health crisis, and specifically on the role that school can play.
As for whether the situation is as alarming as the news describes, they agree that, although the media focus may have caused a greater sense of alarm, the evidence indicates that more disorders are occurring, and especially among the young population. For Spain, Garaigordobil points, specifically, to the data from the ANAR Foundation or the PSICE study, promoted by the General Council of Psychology and which indicates, for example, that 14% of boys and girls between 11 and 18 years old suffer from severe anxiety, or that 5% have attempted suicide. At the international level, the report Health at a Glance It also detects an increase in suicide attempts and eating disorders (in both cases, more in girls than in boys), with Spain among the most affected countries.
Screens, covid and lack of sleep
Screen abuse and the Covid pandemic (what it meant for social interaction) are frequently cited as decisive causes of the worsening of youth mental health. For Garaigordobil, it is true that some studies show that the trend came from before (for example, the report Health at a Glance), or that the increase in suicidal ideation has continued since 2021 (Youth, Health and Wellbeing Barometer 2023), but there is no doubt that the two factors have been key in the explosion of cases.
According to Javier Urra, lack of sleep among minors is not a problem sufficiently valued in Spain
Valiente agrees with the “objective” role of confinements in the crisis, although he warns that, when establishing correlations, it is also advisable to take into account the subjective sensation of the passage of time: for many young people, who have lived less, that era begins to be mentally more distant, which, together with greater brain plasticity, has perhaps led to adults tending to overestimate the psychological impact it may have left on them. On the other hand, Valiente is categorical about the use of screens in the educational process. In his opinion, these produce a level of brain stimulation – through several simultaneous sensory channels – with which the teacher finds it very difficult to compete.
Another threat to young people’s mental health, largely related to screens, is lack of sleep. According to Urra, it is not a problem sufficiently valued in Spain, perhaps because there are deeply rooted cultural habits (large dinner, going to bed late). Garaigordobil highlights, for his part, that the relationship between the quantity and quality of sleep and mental health is bidirectional; That is, disorders such as anxiety or depression can cause you to sleep less and worse.
As an expert in neuroscience, Valiente highlights the importance of sleep as an “eminently active and productive process” (for example, for hormonal, immune, thermal and synaptic regulation, or for the elimination of free radicals). For this reason, he explains, establishing an adequate sleep pattern should be “a non-negotiable red line.”
The psychologist, one more at school
But beyond supporting families with screen use (increasingly restricted in classrooms in different countries) and sleep, how can schools get directly involved in the mental health crisis of young people?
For Urra, Garaigordobil and Valiente, the presence of psychologists in educational centers is absolutely essential. In fact, Valiente comments, this should be common wherever any human activity takes place, if only to optimize the functioning of the people involved. In the case of schools, he recommends that psychologists have more weight in the psycho-pedagogical and guidance departments, and that there be a permanent dialogue between them, teachers and families. Specifically, Valiente thinks that schools should involve parents in the programs or methods chosen for mental health care; for transparency, but also for them to be actively involved.
For Garaigordobil, the time has come to incorporate an educational psychologist into the staff of each school
For Garaigordobil, rather than mobilizing “external” psychologists or psychiatrists, we must commit once and for all to the figure of the educational psychologist, who would be part of the school’s own staff. The creation of this specialty, called for by numerous experts, has not yet received official support from the Ministry of Education.
According to Garaigordobil, teachers do not have sufficient training for this task. In this sense, he is not surprised that the figure of the “welfare coordinator”, introduced by the latest educational law – the LOMLOE – and which is usually carried out by teachers, has not been especially effective. The teacher, Garaigordobil comments, can have a role in initially detecting mental health problems, but must then refer cases to the educational psychologist. Sometimes, the latter will have to refer the student, in turn, to an external psychologist or psychiatrist, if the matter exceeds his or her competence or requires hospitalization.
Thus, it can be said that there is consensus among experts that mental health care at school must be professionalized. In this sense, it is worth remembering that also in the field of psychiatry a few years ago it was decided to create a specialty in “Child and Adolescent Psychiatry”.
This professionalization of care does not mean that teachers cannot and should improve their knowledge about mental health; something, according to experts, increasingly necessary. The initiative of Aula Siena and the UCJC is an opportunity for this. But, in Garaigordobil’s opinion, all teachers should be trained in this area. For this reason, he proposes that these contents have an important weight in the master’s degree for access to teaching staff.
Excess visibility or pathologization?
For a long time it has been said that one of the obstacles to progress in mental health – for youth, and also for adults – was the social stigma associated with these problems. That is why a strategy of visibility and normalization was insisted on. However, lately the issue is very present in the media, politics and, in general, in the “public conversation.”
Youth culture, especially, has turned mental health – poor mental health, especially – into one of its favorite topics: music or film stars who publicly expose their anxiety or their “OCDs” (short for obsessive disorders). compulsive), influencers who give advice on social networks on how to cleanse “dark thoughts”, series where mentally fragile characters abound, extension of therapeutic language in everyday life, etc. There are those who speak of a certain “glamurization” of psychological problems: as if, in the attention market that is social networks, recognizing a mental disorder had become a form of “chic victimhood.” That is, as if the problem were being trivialized and, at the same time, normal life was pathologized.
Faced with a certain trivialization of mental health on social networks, the school can offer more reliable and professional references
On the other hand, some studies have warned about the risk that mental health programs aimed at young people generate a certain “contagion effect.” This is specifically stated in research published last year. The authors collect data from previous analyses, which document how some students said they had experienced dark thoughts or concerns about their psychological state as a result of some of these school interventions; some feelings they didn’t have before.
In an article of New York Times Regarding this possible “contagion effect”, published last May, Dr. Jessica L. Schleider, director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health at Northwestern University (USA), pointed out that in general the evaluations show a positive effect of the mental health programs in schools, although he acknowledges that “perhaps we need to go beyond the universal, school assembly-type approach and focus on specific, gentle interventions,” aimed at the most vulnerable students or who show signs of a problem.
Garaigordobil and Valiente consider that, although there is a certain tendency in youth culture to pathologize or overstate common situations, sometimes as a way of receiving attention on social networks, it is important that mental health problems are addressed bravely in the school – in part, Valiente points out, to help students sift through their sources of information on the subject. Garaigordobil also believes that many of these supposed cases of “social contagion” would have ended up happening anyway, sooner or later.
A social problem
Urra, who is in favor of professionalizing mental health care in schools – for example, incorporating a nurse specialized in mental health into each center – believes, however, that it is necessary to address the cultural root of the problem.
Specifically, he denounces that “our society damages the psyche more,” and that at the same time it has become “complaining and victimizing.” For this reason, she thinks that “children must be prepared to face real life. “That happens by getting out of the ego, by pouring yourself into others.” Also for cultivating the spirit: “beyond the specific programs [de salud mental]”, that social gatherings, theater, sports, spirituality, the use of correct language, a sense of humor are encouraged… All this is a balm for the human spirit.”
Without downplaying the importance of this indirect way of addressing the problem, Garaigordobil insists on the figure of the educational psychologist – who must pay special attention to bullying and cyberbullyinggrowing problems–, while Valiente emphasizes the necessary coordination and cooperation between families and educational centers.
The truth is that the two approaches, the cultural and the professional-therapeutic, are compatible. Facing cultural factors is necessary in the medium and long term; But it is also, in the short term, caring for minors within their own schools, where they spend so much time and where they have the opportunity to receive the support of teachers and friends.