No ‘snowflakes’: mental health review says today’s youth have it harder and harms are real

Peter Fonagy lauds courage of young people and warns of consequences of rising prevalence of mental illness

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Eighteen months ago, in an off-the-cuff remark during a discussion on disability benefit cuts, Wes Streeting said mental health conditions were being “overdiagnosed”, riding headlong into another culture war.

He later apologised for the comment, but at the time it seemed the then health secretary had endorsed a populist view that ordinary stresses and disappointments had become too often medicalised, resulting in a surge of bogus clinical diagnoses and creating a “snowflake generation” of fragile, avoidant and workshy young people.

I am in awe of their courage. Young people are contending with more powerful forces than I ever faced