Introduction

This chapter explores the presence, and also the presumption, of mental health fragility among current undergraduates. While fragility and ontological insecurity appear to be emblematic of contemporary societies (Giddens, 1991; Stehr, 2001), mental health issues are deemed to be a growing and endemic problem among University students, with suicide being the most visible and tragic consequence. Undergraduates reportedly have a lower sense of wellbeing compared to young people as a whole (Neves and Hillman, 2018) and are thus often depicted as lacking in resilience and grit, the defining traits of the so-called ‘snowflake generation’. Yet, as we noted in the introductory chapter, accountability for rising mental health issues among students is also laid firmly with the University itself. The ‘epidemic’ rates of self-reported anxiety and depression have resulted in demands being placed on University mental health services, and calls for Universities to integrate ‘discipline-relevant mental health and wellbeing resources’ into the curriculum (Houghton and Anderson, 2017: 5; UUK, 2019b). Overall, mental ill-health appears to be a defining characteristic of the current generation of students and it is presented as one of the biggest challenges facing the sector.

In this chapter we review the available empirical data on prevalence rates and suggest that, despite conceptual and methodological problems around diagnosis (Cooke and McGowan, 2013), there is strong evidence to suggest that there is a mental health ‘crisis’, if this is measured by the proxy measures of increased student disclosure of mental health difficulties, and the inexorable demands placed on University mental health services. Our interviews with academics and students help to describe and understand some of the ‘new’ stresses associated with University study. Notwithstanding the evidence that many students struggle at University and require support, we suggest that it is also important to challenge the presumptions of elevated fragility in the current generation of students. In a context where disclosure is, rightly, supported, and where medical and pathological vocabularies frame life difficulties, the assertion that mental illness is at epidemic proportions should, we suggest, also be viewed with some caution.