Help at hand for troubled teens

By Catherine Masters

Low self-esteem and depression are plaguing our teenagers and blighting their futures.

By the age of 18 about one in four young people will have experienced a significant bout of depression, but most will not be treated, says Auckland Medical School child psychiatrist Dr Sally Merry.

It can recur and play havoc at school and home.

Dr Merry is behind a pilot study in which 500 students aged 13 and 14, from unnamed Auckland schools, will try to retrain their minds in order to prevent depression, which shows itself in a variety of ways.

"With very severe depression you can get major fall-off in function at school," she says.

"Kids find they can't cope with their social group, they substance abuse, they feel suicidal and some of them will kill themselves.

"With some of the most severe depression it will interfere with sleep and eating and even their ability to get around."

Dr Merry says more than 90 per cent of people who kill themselves have a diagnosable mental disorder, and a high percentage of that is depression.

The school trial aims to change teenagers' negativity towards themselves through changing the way they think.

"Everything is interpreted negatively, so people who are depressed take notice of their failures and don't notice their successes," says Dr Merry.

"They interpret things that happen around them in a negative way.

"What our programme is trying to do is change that mindset ... We talk about using helpful thoughts and unhelpful thoughts and ways of interpreting situations and looking at other reasons.

"For example, if somebody walks down the corridor and doesn't say hello, a depressed person might think, 'He doesn't like me. Quite right. I'm awful.'

"What we do is encourage them to look at other possibilities: the person might be feeling miserable or might be getting the flu."

Other skills to be taught are problem-solving because most depressed people are not good at working through to solutions.

Dr Merry says she does not know if the programme will work but it is worth a try.

One teenager who has done a similar programme, but as an individual, came through with flying colours.

The teenager, who does not want to be named, says that when she was depressed for four years she could not handle anything in her life.

"Everything and anything would get on top of me and I would feel lost and insecure."

Her schoolwork started to suffer and that compounded the problem.

"It made me feel like I couldn't do anything. I never wanted to talk about it so I never got myself help.

"I know now that talking about it would have helped a lot."

She eventually found she could learn to "catch her thoughts."

"Every time I found myself thinking a bad thought I just adjusted it so that it became a good thought."

The school trial begins early next year.

* This weekend is the Vodafone Save Our Kids Appeal, a mass mobile phone fundraising appeal to boost child and adolescent mental health services.

It is organised by the Auckland Downtown Rotary Club. Proceeds will be split between the Starship children's hospital and the Auckland University Medical School Foundation.

To make a $20 donation, call 0900 69-543, and to volunteer to help with the appeal, call (09) 300-9811.