Why connection matters for young people’s sexual and mental wellbeing 

Sexual health and mental health are undeniably linked, but how does that show up in Brook’s services? Designated Wellbeing and Mental Health Lead, Helen Corteen and Designated Neurodivergence and Counselling Lead, Anna Bailey, reflect on their work for Sexual Health Week: Let’s Connect. 

From your experiences at Brook, how are sexual health and mental health interconnected in the lives of the young people that you see?

Helen: When Brook first started and we offered counselling to young women who were unintentionally pregnant, that counselling quickly became person-centred and holistic, not focused on just decision making and pregnancy choices, because their whole lives were impacted by the events that had led up to it. Their pregnancy and their choices linked to their morals, social values and circumstances, and of course their physical health.

So right from the start, although our focus has been on sexual and reproductive health, it’s always been underpinned by the fact it fits into the whole of a person’s life. 

Anna:  When talking specifically about the clients that we see coming for counselling, it’s not so often that the direct reason for a referral is sexual health related. They’re very much mental health-based reasons for the referral, anxiety being one of the most common. But what coincides with that is anything that is going on in their life is impacted by their relationships. And in turn, any impact that we have on their mental health in counselling is likely to then impact decisions that they make about their relationships, from platonic to sexual to romantic, and their health.   

Are there particular life stages or transitional periods when young people are especially vulnerable to the challenges that affect both their sexual wellbeing and their mental wellbeing?

Helen: There’s something around those bigger expectations; social media input has a huge impact on those developmental shapings of what it means to be mentally healthy and well, what it means to be sexually healthy, sexually responsible to yourself and others. I think there’s definitely something in that key stage around adolescence, the plasticity of the brain, the exposure to different social groups, the exposure to social media with not always a critical, supportive, protective adult to help them figure it out. They’re exposed to a lot and there’s a lot of expectations without necessarily the context. There’s a lot about adolescence and puberty and the brain aspect and the hormonal aspect that young people aren’t always literate about. And definitely in the mental health literacy work that we do, they’re not necessarily coming with a lot of mental health literacy or emotional literacy.  

Anna: Our hubs are working with 11- to 25-year-olds and it’s such a phase of transition from child to adolescence. The whole of adolescence is decision making about things that are going to impact you for the remainder of your life – it feels like that at least. It’s that phase when all that change is happening in the brain, where the hormones are developing alongside that. And then the change from school to college, from college to whatever’s next, from child to adult, there’s just such a lot of transition in there and a lot of identity searching, trying things for the first time, forming and searching and wondering. That’s where both sexual health and mental health really coincide. 

How do issues such as anxiety, self-esteem, trauma, even things like hormones, affect young people’s ability to connect with themselves and with other people?

Helen: 

Self-esteem and sense of self-worth affects body image, eating, relationships, friendships, and more – there’s that ripple effect anxiety can have which can feel so overwhelming.  

Anna: I would say that certainly when we’re talking about trauma, that disconnect is likely to be stronger, even when the trauma itself might not be very well understood by the person. But also, that would apply where self-esteem is really poor, that sometimes the connection to self is also fragmented because it feels so hard to think about yourself in real terms, when actually your sense of self-esteem is so negative and potentially damaged by the experiences that you’ve had. So I think sometimes this is where you might get into masking or doing other things to fit in, being somebody else to the world to manage that. And that can take you a long way from who you actually are. 

Helen: I think with anxiety people can be hyper-focused on themselves and I think with trauma, in my experience, people can be immersed in the traumatic response, but distant from understanding it or being in control of it. I think they can be subject to it and know when it’s coming but not particularly know what to do about it. There’s an element of that, whereas I think anxiety, people can be so aware of any little thing that makes them anxious and worried and what being anxious and worried feels like that they can’t possibly cope with it. It’s really strengthened in me the importance of psychoeducation because it helps connect all the dots. 

Blackburn Hub client feedback: “This service has done more for me than any other mental health service I’ve utilised so far. I actually didn’t like the sound of counselling at first, but I really connected with my counsellor. I felt the sessions were focused on my individual needs and goals and I’ve been able to think more clearly and make better decisions in my life.” 

What key messages or tips would you like professionals, parents, carers, anyone working with young people, to take away about supporting young people’s holistic wellbeing so that connection can thrive in their lives?

Anna: I feel like it sounds really obvious, but actually listening to where the young person is, to not meet them with your own preconceived idea of what’s going on for them, but to actually listen. I think that initial point of just listen and be open to what this person’s experience is, not having a predefined sense of what’s going on for them. 

Helen: My first thing is strap in, get ready for the mess and the chaos, because I think there is something about if you’re going to do that, you’re going to get involved in things that you don’t relate to as an individual yourself, because the world changes, and it changes so fast. So it’s really about empathy, understanding the world as young people see it. 

Don’t superimpose your own view of the world. 

I would say as well as listening to them, make time for them. One of the best pieces of advice I got as a parent was from my friend’s dad who had five kids and I said to him, “how do you manage with five?” And he said, “I give them all 10 minutes a day because 50 minutes I can do and then I know I’ve given them all 10 minutes. When you’re busy, give your child 10 minutes. Because as they get older, it becomes more and more significant to find 10 minutes.” I think when they’re at these stages and when they’re naturally separating from adults, they need you to keep that connection because they’re drifting away from it naturally and rightly, so you have to work to keep it.  

Is there anything else that you want to say about mental health and sexual health, the connection between those two things or the connection that you see in your work?

Helen: I think sometimes when the circumstances are so complex, so difficult, no one quite knows what to do to make any of this better, that actually, the connection is enough and is the most powerful thing. And sometimes you’re instinctively looking to fix things, and you want to make things better when actually it’s the connection that does its own thing. It might be momentary, and that’s why it doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re on reception or if you’re in a lengthy therapeutic relationship. You’ve done nothing at all, but you’ve done absolutely everything because of that real human connection. 

Anna: Related to that, I think, we hear frequently many of our practitioners in the hubs say, so we played a game of Jenga just to get things rolling or we played this kind of card game just to start to build that rapport. We have music-based, art-based, play-based approaches to the counselling work, poetry even, all of which are different ways for the young person to connect. 

Sometimes just having a conversation isn’t going to be enough for everyone, so it’s just about finding different ways of making that connection.