”Kraven kommer från tusen olika håll” En kvalitativ studie om psykisk ohälsa bland unga ur kuratorers perspektiv

Sammanfattning: Current research and media tend to write about how mental illness among young people increases. Therefore it is easy to get the impression that there are many young people who suffer from mental illness nowadays. Counselors at schools and at youth clinics are in daily contact with young people who feel bad in some way. The main aim of this bachelor thesis was to present and analyze mental illness among young people from the counselors' perspectives. It also aimed to analyze the counselors' perspectives from theories of social constructivism. The questions of interest were; “How do the counselors define and construct mental illness among young people?” and “Do the counselors see any gender differences?”. Four counselors were interviewed. Three of them worked at schools with pupils mostly from prosperous areas in Sweden, and one of them worked at a youth clinic. The result showed that the counselors had a quite different point of view than the current research of interest. All the counselors that were interviewed considered that the apprehension within the research was excessive. The counselors meant that the problems they face is part of becoming an adult, and thus everyone have to deal with them, just not to the same extent. Saying this, they indicated that what they see, cannot be representative on how it generally is to be young. However, the counselors agreed that young people are exposed to high demands, at school and in general. Further, the result showed that the counselors believed that mental illness is more visible among young girls than among boys. The counselors discussed that it might have to do with that girls tend to seek help to a greater extent than boys. This is also something that current research point at. It is relevant to speculate about on however there are a lot of young people who do not see a counselor or seek help at all.