Climate change, zero-hours contracts, student debt, sexualised society, social-media dependence, housing crisis, Brexit. There’s no doubt that we are living in an era of great uncertainty and so it’s no surprise that rates of mental ill health, especially in young people, are rising.
A fragile world makes for fragile hearts. 2015 UK data has shown that the proportion of university students who identify themselves as having mental health problems doubled between 2008–09 and 2013–14.
Snowflakes or support?
Statistics like these grab our headlines and lead to a politically polarised response. Some joke about snowflakes, and ask where’s the grit, the stickability, the stiff upper-lip of older generations. Others identify pressure on public services and societal deprivation. They ask, where’s the money and the support for such troubled people? Away from the headlines, however, there is another approach, one which doesn’t so much focus on treatment as prevention and which looks beyond blame to a more long-term hope. And in this model, it is perhaps unsurprising that we find a pathway to the gospel.
Misogyny, rights & Rowling
It might have seemed as if the isolation of lockdown was making people mad last month when the stars of …