This book has a modest aim – know our youth and understand the mental health challenges and stigmatization they face. It endeavours to compare notes with anyone who cares about the mental health and well-being of youth. It wants to remind us with the latest data why youth is a vulnerable period going through major neurobiological and psychosocial transitions. It explains why many mental disorders emerge during adolescence and young adulthood. It alerts you to the fact that we now have safe and effective treatment for these disorders but why our youth are still not getting the treatment. It highlights that the artificial split at the age of 18 between services for children and adolescents and those for adults is simply missing the point that youth with mental disorders need continuity relevance and user-friendliness in the care they receive from service providers, whether it is the government, NGOs or indeed any stakeholders who want to help. And last but not least it argues we can have youth mental health only if we have youth mental health specialists and specialised youth mental health services.
It is in this spirit that this book on youth mental health has been put together. It is of the youth, for the youth and by the youth. Readers are invited to dialogue with the authors to explore how youth mental health is best understood and promoted.
Editors: Eric YH Chen is Chair Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Hong Kong. He is author of Case Studies in Psychotic Disorder (in Chinese, 2014) and co-editor of Coaching Intervention for Psychosis: A Lifestyle Redesigning Approach (2018). Youth Mental Health is one of his key clinical and research interests.
Michael TH Wong is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Hong Kong. He is author ofRicoeur and the Third Discourse of the Person: From Philosophy and Neuroscience to Psychiatry and Theology (2018) and co-editor of International Perspectives in Values-Based Mental Health Practice: Case Studies and Commentaries (2021). His Neuropsychiatry Program at Queen Mary Hospital has a Youth Mental Health focus.
