The ‘staggering’ rise in childhood anxiety is not a mental health crisis

‘Do we have to reach the point where every child is on a clinic waiting list before we take appropriate action on root causes?’ Photograph: Alamy

The “staggering” rise in anxiety among children (NHS referrals for anxiety in children more than double pre-Covid levels, 27 August) deserves a more sophisticated response than installing counsellors in every school, useful though that may be in some cases, and I say this as a mental health professional – a consultant clinical psychologist.

Well-meaning awareness campaigns that encourage us to translate every feeling into a “mental health issue” convey the message that children have an individual deficit, while obscuring the reasons for their distress. And yet research consistently shows that their feelings are understandable in context.