BARRIERS TO LEARNING

Contemporary Challenges

The concept of mental health as a distinct focus is gaining increasing credence. This is especially so within the professional fraternity of mental health care givers, where the role of healer has predominantly been related to the treatment of mental illness, as distict from promoting mental health. Clearly, the presence of mental health has implications for the emergence of mental illness (psychiatric disorders), since healthy emotional development is likely to be a protection against the emergence of certain psychiatric disorders. Mental health may contribute to a better recovery from a disorder.

While mental health awareness and promotion would appear to be a process ensuring that those who are well remain so, it also involves attempting to ensure that those with illness and emotional difficulty recover sufficiently in the short term to experience mental health in the long term. Mental health is not simply the absence of mental illness. Although the apparent focus of this article is mental health, it should be understood that this is but one aspect of adolescent health and should be seen as a component of healthy adolescent development which may impact on mental health an vice versa. Such development incorporates the attainment of health and education, a commitment to family and friends, preparationn for entry into the workplace and the ability to participate appropiately in a democratic society (Hamburg, 1997).

PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS

Adolescence is a time when many of the major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia or anorexia nervosa, begin to manifest. Fortunately, such conditions are relatively uncommon, and the vast majority of adolescents are most unlikely to experience the trauma or devastation of such conditions. Yet there are a significant number of adolescents who, while not suffering from a major psychiatric disorder, experience sufficient emotional difficulty in their daily lives to warrant professional intervention. It is important to emphasise that there is no hierarchy of presentation; i.e. an adolescent who presents with a problem, no matter the basis, constitutes a youth at risk and is treated accordingly.

The data on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in this age group is not particularly accurate, as the studies conducted to date have varied so widely in terms of methodology that arriving at a conclusive figure is difficult. Suffice it to say that the qualified consensus points to a prevalence rate of 15% for psychiatric disorders during adolescence, and there has been no apparent increase of these conditions in this age group from the 1950s to the present time (Roberts, Attkisson, Rosenblatt, 1998). A concern relates to under-recognition, with the majority of adolescents suffering from a possible psychiatric disorder not receiving treatment. It has been found that very often adolescents who suffer from a psychiatric condition present with repeated physical rather than emotion-related symptoms (Kramer, Garralda, 1998). Furthermore, it has been found that South African health services in the public sector do not generally meet the needs of adolescents and are thus not user-friendly for this age group (Dickson-Tetteh, Pettifor, Moleko, 2001). This has obvious implications for help-seeking and may contribute to an adolescent´s reluctance to present for treatment, further compounding the issue of under-recognition of psychiatric disorders when they do present for treatment.