By Ulla Dubgaard

It’s a fact that the increasing statistics for anxiety, stress, and depression among young people are a cause for concern all over the globe. In the US, leading experts in pediatric health have issued an urgent warning declaring the mental health crisis among children and young people so dire that it has become a national emergency. In Denmark, politicians launch emergency plans, reforms, and initiatives to counter the negative spiral. Still, none of it seems to affect the reality young people are experiencing, and the negative curves continue to soar. Rector of University College Copenhagen, Stefan Hermann, has been a critical voice in the debate around mental well-being among young people for years, and he has one clear message: We can’t solve the issue if we don’t understand it.

The pressure of thriving

“The numbers for unhappiness among you people are too alarmistic. What does it mean when a young person checks a box saying they’ve been stressed within the last week? What do they understand that word to mean? We’re so busy making emergency plans and allocating more funds, but we need to understand the problem first.” says Stefan Hermann. He believes that a significant part of the problem is the changed role adults – from the parents to the teachers and coaches – have chosen to play in young people’s lives.

“Adolescence has always been an issue. What’s changed is that we (adults, ed.) keep asking how they feel, and we want them to feel good.  We’re constantly telling them to thrive and to make choices. Choose your friends, choose to perform well at school, choose who to be. Just do it as the ad says. We have put the emphasis on the parental and pedagogical relationship on emotions rather than on guidance and moral values. We’re missing the cultural part of our role in the mental health equation.”

Has adolescence always been “an issue,” as you say, or is that a term we’ve only recently started to use?

“Adolescence is consolidated as a term and a as phase of life with its own culture and rituals after World War II. Until then, broadly speaking, the confirmation was the transition from childhood to adult life. What’s changed is the psychologization of the issue of adolescence. In the 60s and 70s, it was about avoiding crime and making normal life habits. It’s an almost psychiatric issue today because young people mirror themselves in diagnoses and live in a hyper-communicative reality. Nearly all young people are fluent in self-diagnoses. They even form communities around it.”

You’ve previously written and spoken about the fundamental schism between the great awareness around young people’s social lives while we expect them to manage on their own in education. How do you tackle the potential pressure and loneliness at University College?

“We do a number of things. But what we don’t do is establish separate offices for well-being, hire coaches, etc. We don’t isolate the issue because it is part of the way we teach, the way we organize ourselves, and the way we practice pedagogy. We help form strong communities. We tell our students that it’s up to them to organize school events – and celebrate when they go well. We support their social activities and communities. We don’t implement loneliness programs but joint activities that allow them to forget themselves for a while. Instead of saying, “I feel sorry for you,” we help them reach further, for example, through extra lessons. We stick to what we’re good at instead of trying to do what we’re not very good at.”

What have been the reaction from the students to this approach?

“They’re mostly in agreement, I think. We haven’t received much criticism because they seem to understand and agree with the general direction. We choose the integral path. It’s the path of community-building, not individual treatment. It’s the path of pedagogy, not psychology.”

Standing on one’s own

Anna Asghari argues that the current generation of young people is taking more responsibility than ever before. The climate movement, the revolution in identity politics – do you agree?

“A small segment is taking responsibility for the climate, and I applaud them. Look at young people’s voting patterns; it’s not that green. But rather than teaching them “climate guilt,” we should teach them to be citizens and human beings with all the duties and opportunities that entails. They won’t learn that by being inserted into a rat race, but neither will they know it by being asked how they’re constantly feeling. Becoming a human being is different from becoming a person. Becoming a human means taking moral responsibility for others, your own civilization, and standing on your own. The discourse of thriving seems to interpret the process of becoming a human being as having the right ‘to be who I want to be.’ Yes, that is your right, but it is also your duty to become a human being and a citizen! An becoming that is not just expansive: That means also learning to moderate yourself and to learn to cope with loss and suffering as well as to grow and thrive.”