City must tackle the mental health crisis among our youth -Brian Wong

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City must tackle the mental health crisis among our youth -Brian Wong

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More than half of secondary school students in Hong Kong have experienced symptoms of depression, a survey conducted last year shows. One in four have displayed clinically high levels of anxiety. Among university students, the figures are worse: 69 per cent reported symptoms of depression, while 54 per cent suffer from anxiety.

To put things into perspective, the global average rate of depression among children is one in five, according to research conducted by Unicef. Worryingly, over 60 per cent of Hong Kong youth do not seek help when they experience mental health issues, partly due to a lack of awareness of the services they could draw on.
With 75 per cent of all mental disorders developing before the age of 24 and creating a lifelong impact, it’s high time that we as a city did some soul-searching to get to the root of what is ailing our youth. It is certainly true that teenage mental illness is a complex issue. Beyond the oft-cited causes of academic pressure, overuse of social media, and biological changes that are commensurate with the experience of adolescents worldwide, there are also locally-specific problems that amplify the plight of Hong Kong youth.

The first is the stigmatisation of mental health issues and patients. Mental illness is a taboo subject here, and those in need of help are often castigated as “lacking self-discipline and willpower”. Those suffering from psychological disorders may be denied access to health care, lack a supportive social framework, or face being penalised at work or school for their condition, and as such are unlikely to discuss it or seek help.

The second issue is the dearth of channels or resources providing accurate and non-embellished information on mental health. Popular media and entertainment platforms in Hong Kong often frame medical conditions as personality or character defects. Government sources are ambiguous and ambivalent over how we are to understand mental health, and much of their information is outdated or inconsistent.

The final problem is that Hong Kong remains a deeply divided society; socioeconomic inequality is extreme and rampant. Additionally, we are witnessing a rapid fraying of familial ties, induced by a combination of the pandemic, political radicalisation and intergenerational cultural divergences.

What’s the way out? Some solutions must be structural; we should not assume that mental health issues can be resolved by focusing purely on the individual. Yet we must equally allow individuals the agency to understand and address their own needs. The solution, as always, is to take a balanced approach – one that both empowers individuals and rectifies structural inadequacies.

First, it is imperative to get the facts right. By “we”, I mean not just the government, but also the media, the education sector, and civil society at large. We need to establish a consensus about the causes of mental illness to enable more constructive debate over the remedies. Consider, for one, the non-medical characterisation of mental health; the portrayal of certain mental health issues, which are biological and even genetic in nature, as exclusively the result of individual weakness of will is frankly offensive and erroneous.
Similarly, beyond recommending mindfulness programmes and well-being courses – which are helpful supplementary tools but can never fully resolve the biomedical roots of mental conditions – we must normalise the use of medical treatment for those suffering from mental health issues. There is nothing shameful about taking medication for depression, anxiety, bipolarity, and beyond.

Second, it’s high time that the government allocated more targeted resources to support communal health clinics’ diagnostic, outreach and engagement efforts.A core issue with existing mental health policy is the overcentralisation of medical institutions. Rather than depending exclusively on centralised public psychiatric clinics for diagnosis and treatment, the administration ought to consider diversifying the range of health clinics that can provide timely support at a local level.

Lack of funding is another problem. The chief executive’s allocation of HK$100 million (US$12.8 million) to 70 projects focusing on the mental well-being of citizens must be commended. In the long run, however, greater transparency on the funding application process and selection criteria, clearer performance indicators and an increase in public-private partnerships are needed to promote better mental health. When it comes specifically to the mental health of young people, the government must work closely with schools and youth-oriented NGOs to engage the most critical stakeholder in the matter: the youth themselves.

Finally, we must acknowledge the structural and medical origins of mental health issues, without dismissing the power of individual agency to drive recovery. An individual’s behaviour can and often does affect their prognosis, particularly when it comes to the self-care and reflection required for long-term recovery. We must resist the temptation to fatalistically dismiss mental health patients as victims of circumstance, or to attribute to them a fundamental powerlessness that is detrimental to them and their loved ones.

Hong Kong’s future generations deserve a city that respects and loves them for who they are, irrespective of their origins or ability. This entails an acceptance of mental illness as an existent phenomenon for which sufferers cannot be held wholly responsible.
The government cannot succeed alone; we need all hands on deck as we engage in this much-needed rethink of mental illness among our youth.

Written by Brian Y.S. Wong is a DPhil in Politics candidate at Balliol College, Oxford, a Rhodes Scholar (Hong Kong 2020), and the founding editor-in-chief of the Oxford Political Review

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