Young people's experiences of 'serious' romantic relationships in late adolescence: 'What is this thing called love?'

The stories behind stories: Reflections on the role of voice in research with unaccompanied refugee youth

Depression is common and increasing in young people, who seem especially vulnerable, both in the probability of developing depression, and in the resulting negative consequences across the lifespan. Unfortunately, available treatments rarely lead to full remission and even in cases of remission relapse rates are high. Different explanatory models have been proposed, and research indicates a multifaceted etiology. The descriptive DSM-5 has low diagnostic validity in this age-group, especially for depressive disorders, and limited attention has been given to young people's own experiences of becoming depressed. Hence, there is a risk of missing clinical information that is important for the therapeutic alliance and treatment. This study aimed to explore young people's experiences of becoming depressed. A qualitative study was performed. Six participants with clinical depression, currently in treatment at child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics in northern Sweden were recruited. Interviews followed a semi-structured manual, and data was analyzed with inductive qualitative content analysis. Participants described different reasons for their depression, and from their stories four categories were identified: "Being subjected to violence", "Suffering separation and loss", "Feeling abandoned", and "Feeling burdened and vulnerable". These categories were interpreted in the theme: "Dealing with an overwhelming life situation". The participants presented mainly stressful external and relational events preceding their depression. A combination of overwhelming stressors, lack of support and lack of time for recovery was described. This points to the importance of validating the narratives of young patients with depression and to offer trauma-informed treatment approaches in mental health care.

Background: Group programmes are a common component of treatment in inpatient child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) units. There is evidence for specific group interventions, however, comparison across a multidisciplinary group programme is under-explored. Aims: This research examines young people's experiences of, and satisfaction with, a multidisciplinary group programme on an acute inpatient CAMHS unit. Methods: Weekly surveys were distributed to young people, and 37 responses were gathered across four months in 2018. Rates of attendance, enjoyment and perceived helpfulness of groups were calculated. Content analysis was used to explore key themes in qualitative responses. Results: Young people rated a creative activities and games group (54.05%) and the art therapy group (48.95%) as the two most enjoyable groups. Art therapy was reported to be the most helpful group overall (45.65%). Young people also expressed their dislike for verbal psychotherapy groups (43.24%), finding these confronting relative to other modalities in the programme. Conclusions: Art therapy and arts-based groups received the highest positive feedback relative to predominantly verbal psychotherapy groups. A multidisciplinary group programme which integrates art therapy and other creative modalities has the potential to enhance engagement in acute inpatient settings which may result in improved mental health outcomes for young people. Implications for future research and practice: Future research should aim to foreground young people's perspectives and experiences of therapeutic programmes, and provide opportunities for clinicians to redevelop programmes responsively to service user feedback. Survey findings support advocacy for consistent art therapy roles and services within inpatient CAMHS units.

A rejuvenated approach to urban development and inequality: Young people's perceptions and experiences in Rio de Janeiro

Reports indicate a decrease in youth mental health in Sweden but at the same time research suggests that what is interpreted as mental ill‐health could be considered everyday challenges by young people themselves. The distribution of mental health and illness among young people is uneven based on inequities related to factors such as race, gender and socioeconomic status. Sweden in particular is a country with large socioeconomic inequities in youth mental health and in school results, compared to other European countries. The aim of this study was to explore young people's experiences of the role of race, gender and socioeconomic status in relation to everyday challenges. Sixty‐five young people aged 13–15 years old were recruited by student health services and participated in focus group discussions at schools in the southernmost part of Sweden. Data were analysed by secondary analysis with deductive qualitative content analysis using Ecosocial theory of disease distribution as theoretical framework. The analysis resulted in one main theme; Navigating inequities to gain and keep social status, with three underlying themes; Guided by social norms, Negative impact in everyday life and Importance of family influence. Participants were aware and critical of norms and expectations related to race, gender and socioeconomic status. Experiences of prejudice and unfairness was both own lived experiences by the participants as well as observed through friends and classmates. Young people spontaneously identify everyday challenges related to race, gender and socioeconomic status, even when not asked directly about these issues. Conforming to sexist, racist and classist, expectations is a way to lose and gain status in a school setting. Many of the inequities discussed related to socioeconomic status and the direct consequences of having or not having money. Young people's everyday experience of inequities is important to consider in youth mental health promotion aiming to tackle health inequities. Further research is needed on those experiences and how this affects mental health.

Experience of significant bereavement is reported by the majority of young people in contemporary western societies, but it receives little attention from mainstream services or academics, and this marginality is paralleled in young people's everyday bereavement experiences. Existing academic and professional work concerned with children and young people's experiences of bereavement largely centres on cognitive understandings of death, and individual intra-psychic processes and responses in the context of relevant ‘developmental tasks’. And yet some writers suggest that the key feature of young people's experiences of bereavement is their relative powerlessness, rather than any particularities of cognition or affective responses. At the same time, the meanings that young people themselves attribute to their experiences may be crucial to any explanations of ‘risk’ for negative ‘outcomes’ that may be associated with bereavement. Furthermore, as exemplified by new case studies discussed in the paper, it is clear that young people are active agents in their family and peer group contexts. This article offers a discussion of bereavement in the context of ‘youth’ as a relational and institutionalised social status, and explores some theoretical issues potentially raised by the themes of death and bereavement in the context of youth studies generally.

The issue of young people's experiences of sexual exploitation and sexual violence has received increasing political and media attention within recent years. However, whilst many studies have identified this to be an emerging issue of concern, the collation of prevalence data on the extent of these issues is still very much in its infancy. In this article we report on the findings of a large-scale project on the sexual exploitation of young people, undertaken in Northern Ireland from 2009 to 2011. The article primarily explores young people's self-reported experiences of sexual violence and exploitation, collated from their responses to a module of questions placed in the 2010 Young Life and Times Survey. The quantitative dataset from the survey covers both prevalence of sexually exploitative experiences and young people's reports about the type of individuals perpetrating these incidents. This dataset is illustrated and contextualised with reference to the qualitative findings from interviews with young people and professionals conducted as part of the wider sexual exploitation study. The article concludes with a consideration of the implications of the findings, with particular reference to the need for further preventative work in this field.

This study aims to assess young people's overall experience of political conflict, as well as the extent of these experiences in relation to gender, religious affiliation and residential location (high or low conflict). Second, this study assesses the impact that young people's ideological commitment and experiences of the conflict have on their self‐esteem and mental health. A sample of 96 Protestant and Catholic young people (mean age 15.2), drawn from four schools in two areas of Northern Ireland, completed self‐report measures of self‐esteem, mental health, ideological commitment and experience of conflict. The areas differed substantially in the amount of violence they had experienced. The results indicated that young people's experience of violence varied in relation to the town in which they lived. Boys’ experience of violence appeared to be related to their religious affiliation. Experience of conflict and ideological commitment, two attributes that were positively related, interacted to predict both mental health and self‐esteem. The importance of ideological commitment to our understanding of the impact of political conflict on young people is discussed.

This article derives from a project called Experience and Music Teaching (EMT) and concerns English and Swedish young people's experience of music. The perspective is that of the young people themselves, and the aim is to elucidate their musical experience, together with their view of music, from the point of view of social background, environment, identity and cultural norms. The three essential questions are these: How do they assign a value to music? What does music mean to them? Where does their experience of music occur? The investigation is based on interviews and conversations with six English and six Swedish 15-year-olds. It emerges that music in their lives is part of a broader context, occurring in different environments and playing an important role in various types of activity. Firstly, the young people draw attention to the importance of music to the individual, having to do with how the individual assigns a value it. Secondly, they draw attention to the function of music, to the part it plays in their lives. Thirdly, they draw attention to their musical environment, to (as it were) the spaces in which music appears. Thus the value of music, the role of music and the spaces for music emerge as essential categories when it comes to elucidating young people's musical experience.

Nitrous oxide (N2O) use for intoxication among young people has increased in many parts of the Western world, including Denmark. The literature, however, primarily focusses on harms related to N2O use, and not on other aspects, for example modes of administration or effects such as different forms of pleasure or fun. Therefore, despite this increase, we still know very little about how and why young people use nitrous oxide for intoxication, including their experiences of N2O intoxication. Based on 45 qualitative interviews with young Danes age 18-25 years, who all were former or present N2O users, we explore their experiences of N2O intoxication. We do this by analyzing in-depth descriptions of where, how and with whom they use N2O. When analyzing these descriptions in relation to different modes of administration, intensity of use, combination with other substances (e.g. alcohol, cannabis), and use in different settings, we argue that N2O intoxication is experienced differently by the young participants. Some of the participants also searched for particular intoxication experiences with N2O. We unfold the participants' various descriptions of intoxication by differentiating between moderate and intensive use. Overall, our study shows that these differences in N2O use for intoxication are not equally risky or harmful. In general, young people's own perspectives and experiences with (illegal) drug use is increasingly emphasized as important to include when developing preventive interventions. Our analysis of the young participants' differing experiences with N2O for intoxication can inform future prevention initiatives in relation to harms of N2O intoxication.

The aim of this systematic review was to synthesise qualitative evidence on young people's conceptualisation, utilisation and experiences of the therapeutic alliance in individual psychotherapy or counselling and its role in bringing about change. The thematic synthesis method was used to synthesise data. The methodological quality of included studies was assessed using the CASP checklist for qualitative research. Four superordinate analytical themes were generated: (1) valuable therapist qualities, (2) conditions for the development and maintenance of the therapeutic alliance, (3) therapeutic processes and (4) barriers to the development of the therapeutic alliance. Findings indicate that young people appreciated the uniqueness of the therapeutic relationship that provided a sense of safety, choice and autonomy. Flexibility and accessibility were noted as important elements of therapeutic alliance building as they elicited a sense of agency. Young people emphasised the non-linear nature of therapy and prioritised process variables such as improvement in self-understanding, self-efficacy and self-worth. The current systematic review is a comprehensive overview of qualitative studies of experiences of therapy from young people's perspectives. Important practical implications derived from this review as the role of autonomy in the change process and the formation and maintenance of the therapeutic relationship were outlined as important elements in youth therapy.

In Britain, teenage pregnancy is seen as both a cause and a consequence of social exclusion. The emphasis on ‘prevention’ of teenage pregnancy and a limited conception of ‘support’ within the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy (Social Exclusion Unit, ) positions parenthood for young people as a negative choice; this dominant discourse is likely to influence young people's reproductive decisions and experiences. With this in mind, this article focuses on a key finding from a multidisciplinary empirical research study, conducted in a city in the West Midlands of England, which considered and explored young people's experience of support before and following termination and miscarriage. Data were collected via in-depth interviews with professionals and practitioners (n = 15), young mothers (n = 4) and one young father. Although termination and miscarriage are generally perceived as distinct and different issues, the data suggest that the issues become more blurred where younger women are concerned. The experiences of young, ‘inappropriately pregnant teenagers’ often remain unacknowledged and devalued. This analysis highlights the social and political context in which young women experience termination and miscarriage, and suggests that termination and miscarriage should be acknowledged as significant medical, social and emotional events in the lives of young people.

Young people's knowledge and experience of the youth justice system was examined to explore self-reported factors that influenced their decisions regarding assertion versus waiver of rights to silence and legal counsel. Participants were 50 adolescents from Toronto, Canada ranging in age from 12 to 18 (mean age=15.6 years). Results of semi-structured interviews indicated that while over 60% of participants recalled being told of their rights to silence and counsel, three-quarters did not contact a lawyer at the police station and half of those asked by police answered their questions. Findings suggest that the awareness of due process rights is not sufficient to mitigate the atmosphere of coercion that characterizes the police station. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

Young people's knowledge and experience of the youth justice system was examined to explore self-reported factors that influenced their decisions regarding assertion versus waiver of rights to silence and legal counsel. Participants were 50 adolescents from Toronto, Canada ranging in age from 12 to 18 (mean age=15.6 years). Results of semi-structured interviews indicated that while over 60% of participants recalled being told of their rights to silence and counsel, three-quarters did not contact a lawyer at the police station and half of those asked by police answered their questions. Findings suggest that the awareness of due process rights is not sufficient to mitigate the atmosphere of coercion that characterizes the police station. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reviewed by: Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War ed. by Maggie Andrews, N. C. Fleming, and Marcus Morris Ashley Henrickson Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War. Edited by Maggie Andrews, N. C. Fleming, and Marcus Morris. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. xiii + 257 pp. Hardcover $119.99, paper $84.99. Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War explores the experiences of young people during the war and how the conflict has been presented to young people in the century that followed. The edited collection was developed from a 2015 conference at Manchester Metropolitan University titled "Being Young in World War One." Editors Maggie Andrews, N. C. Fleming, and Marcus Morris have broadly defined both children and youth (including people up to the age of twenty) and welcomed essays that explore the diverse perspectives and experiences of young people. The editors aptly note that the collection does not and cannot cover the entirety of young people's experiences; however, the contributors should be commended for putting a notable dent in the historiography. The chapters cover many different topics, including children's and young people's experiences in education, the workplace, and organizations like the Navy League. Examining such a breadth of topics inevitably means that the authors describe numerous and sometimes contradictory wartime experiences. For example, in her chapter, Ruth Percy suggests that young, working-class women viewed the war as a time of opportunity rather than a time of loss and sorrow. Conversely, Melanie Tebbutt describes how young people often found refuge from the sadness of war in darkened movie theatres. Marcus Morris illustrates yet another unique experience by drawing attention to the desires of some young women to subvert gender norms and fight on the front lines. These varied descriptions of young people's experiences may appear inconsistent, but as Maggie Andrews, Hayley Carter, Lisa Cox-Davies, and Anna Muggeridge explain in their chapter, "there were numerous home fronts just as there were numerous battlefronts," and furthermore, "a national narrative of the conflict, even in relation to children, is not the national narrative" (55). By highlighting a variety of perspectives, this edited collection embraces the inevitable complexity of wartime and childhood. [End Page 441] The collection works to center the experiences of children and young people in a field where their experiences are often studied only in relation to other histories. In doing so, the authors demonstrate how the history of childhood helps paint a more complete picture of the past. For example, by focusing on the experiences of urban children, Rebecca Ball's chapter challenges the belief that the home front was a predominantly female space and questions the assumption that relationships between civilians and soldiers were largely defined by separation. The latter half of the collection examines contemporary understandings of the war and children's place within it, along with ways that the war was presented to later generations. Jane Rosen considers how children's novels produced over the past four decades preserve myths about the war in an attempt to tell morally instructive tales. Sam Edwards discusses how the war has been portrayed and commemorated through television. The collection concludes with a fascinating chapter by Maggie Andrews that will interest both academic and public historians. Andrews reviews the numerous accommodations that were undertaken to make the centennial commemorations of the First World War palatable for consumption by young people in the United Kingdom. She outlines the various political, historiographic, and economic factors that shaped and ultimately limited the histories of the war that were shared with young people. Overall, this collection provides a wealth of insight into the experiences of young people in World War I. Melanie Tebbutt's analysis of how children experienced the darkened space of the cinemas is especially innovative. As a whole, the book demonstrates that growing up during a time of conflict had enormous effects on young people's lives; however, these effects were diverse and sometimes contradictory. Ashley Henrickson Know History Inc. Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press