Psychiatrisation of School Children: Secondary School Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices on Mental Health and Illness

Abstract

Much of western media has promoted the idea that we are facing an epidemic of mental illness and psychiatric emergencies in contemporary western society and worldwide and that young people are a particularly vulnerable group. Schools have become a prominent site of concern and focus for this discourse as mental health problems are said to start early in life, thus targeting intervention at people in their early years is perceived an important mental disorder prevention strategy. Drawing on interviews with 19 UK secondary school teachers, this chapter explores changes in their beliefs concerning mental health over the last decade and how this informs changes in their practice. All teachers' felt that awareness of mental health and disorder had increased. This had led to an expansion in the numbers of students thought to have a mental health problem that required professional intervention. Teachers identified many behaviours and experiences they previously deemed ordinary as likely mental health problems that required professional expertise that they lacked. Teachers have thus been co-opted into becoming agents for the growing market of the troubled person's industry. Rather than preventing mental health problems it's likely that this discourse and the resulting practice it fosters are creating them.