Mental Health: Are We Treating Causes or Symptoms?
Updated: Sep 24
Why Are More Young People Struggling and What May Be Causing the Symptoms?
Reported psychological distress, mental-health diagnoses, psychiatric medication use and concern about the mental health of younger generations have increased across many countries.
Mental-health surveys measure reported experience. Psychiatric diagnoses classify symptoms. Prescription figures measure treatment. Suicide statistics measure deaths. Happiness rankings measure something different.
Greater recognition, reduced stigma, broader screening and changing diagnostic practices may account for part of the increase in number of people struggling with mental health. But more diagnosis does not necessarily mean greater understanding of why people are experiencing distress.
A diagnosis classifies a pattern of symptoms; it does not by itself identify their root cause. Rising prescription rates likewise show that more people are receiving pharmacological treatment, not that the conditions producing their distress have been resolved.
Antidepressants can relieve symptoms and reduce relapse for some people, but they can also produce unwanted effects including emotional blunting or apathy and prolonged use can lead to physiological adaptation and withdrawal difficulties. Increased diagnosis and medication use should therefore not automatically be interpreted as evidence that mental health itself is improving.
Looking at them together raises an interesting question:
Are we becoming better at understanding mental distress or mainly better at identifying and managing its symptoms?
The Happiest Country in the World
Finland illustrates this distinction particularly clearly. As of the 2026 World Happiness Report, Finland has ranked #1 as the happiest country in the World for nine consecutive years - from 2018 through 2026. That ranking is based on how people evaluate their lives overall on a 0–10 scale; it is not a measure of depression, anxiety or psychiatric illness.
At the same time, nationally representative Finnish surveys found significant psychological distress in 18.5% of adults in 2018 and 25.7% in 2024. Among 20–39-year-olds it rose from 24.6% to 33.7%.
In Finland, the proportion of adults reporting significant psychological distress rose from about one in five in 2018 to approximately one in four by 2024. The increase has been particularly pronounced among younger adults. Emotional symptoms among girls have also risen over the longer term.
That is a very different picture from the simple phrase “the happiest country in the world.”
A country can rank first in a happiness survey while many of the people are mentally struggling.
Estonia - the neighbouring country, shows a similar warning pattern. Around one in four adults has been assessed as being at risk of depression and around one in five at risk of anxiety. Psychiatric diagnoses have increased, particularly among children and younger people. Antidepressant use has also risen dramatically since 2000. Estonia's National Mental Health Study found 28% of adults at risk of depression and 20% at risk of anxiety disorder. Nearly a quarter of adults had received at least one mental-disorder diagnosis during 2016–2021, with young adults among the groups at greatest risk.
What Do the Mental Health Numbers Actually Show?
Suicide and mental distress are often treated as if they measure the same thing. When the figures are separated, an important pattern appears.
Globally, the age-adjusted suicide rate fell from roughly 15 deaths per 100,000 people in 1990 to around 9 in 2021. Finland, where the rate approached 30 per 100,000 in 1990, is now around 13–14. Estonia experienced an even steeper decline: from rates in the thirties and a peak of roughly 41–42 in the mid-1990s to around 13–14 today.
Far fewer people are dying by suicide than thirty years ago.
While this is a positive factor, suicide mortality is not a measure of how many people are actually experiencing life.
Academic pressure and mental health
School is becoming part of this picture.
Young people increasingly report pressure connected with schoolwork.
Estonia is particularly striking. Around half of students reported finding schoolwork stressful, while 72% of 15-year-old girls reported school pressure.
This does not mean that school alone causes anxiety, depression or other mental-health difficulties.
But it does establish that academic pressure is real, widespread and directly experienced by young people.
Why Are More Young People Struggling With Mental Health?
Young people themselves are reporting substantial pressure.
Across Europe, large-scale research has recorded growing school pressure, particularly among older adolescents and girls. In WHO's research across 44 countries and regions, 63% of 15-year-old girls reported pressure from schoolwork in 2022, compared with 54% in 2018. Family and peer support also declined. Similar concerns are visible across Europe. Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France and other countries have all reported substantial mental-health difficulties among younger populations.
What the statistics do show is that mental distress among younger generations deserves serious attention.
An article Envisioning an Ideal Society: A Blueprint for Holistic Education and Wellness and Cultivating Joy, Safety and Spiritual Awakening article may offer interesting perspectives and possible solutions.
Mental health diagnosis symptoms versus causes
Statistics show the scale of pressure. Individual experience can reveal another layer.
In hypnosis work, people may return to years of pressure to perform, fear of failure, suppressed anger, feeling inadequate at school, family expectations, inability to express themselves or a continual sense that they have to function according to external demands.
They can reveal aspects of perception that the diagnosis itself does not explain.
The question should therefore not end with:
What disorder does this person have?
It may also include:
What has happened, what is influencing this person now and why is the distress expressing itself in this particular way?
Where a school or a home would prefer a shared pause rather than another programme, a five-minute peace meditation for the start of any hour is found here:
Can Hypnosis Help Identify What Is Causing a Symptom?
Hypnosis is sometimes misunderstood as a way of influencing another person. In my work, its purpose is very different: to quiet the ordinary activity of the mind enough to examine the belief systems, inner patterns and influences that may be shaping thoughts, emotions, behaviour and physical reactions.
Within the Higher Consciousness Hypnosis approach, a physical symptom is often the most surface-level expression of a wider process. Beliefs and inner patterns can influence emotional and mental responses; when something remains blocked, conflicted or unresolved, this may also be experienced through the body.
A diagnosis can identify a recognised pattern of symptoms and medication may help regulate or reduce some of those symptoms temporarily. But this does not necessarily reveal why that particular reaction appeared in that individual.
Hypnosis can therefore be used as a method of inquiry. During a session, the quieter state of mind may make it easier to recognise beliefs, fears, pressures, recurring patterns or other influences that are normally obscured by continuous thinking and habitual interpretation.
Once something becomes visible, the person still remains free to decide what to do with that information. The insight may point towards releasing a belief or blockage, approaching a situation differently, changing an aspect of daily life, addressing a relationship or pressure, or following guidance that arises through the Higher Self - soul.
In my experience, there have also been situations where work carried out with a parent appeared relevant to difficulties experienced by a child and where information arising during hypnosis pointed towards a wider family or emotional pattern. This does not replace appropriate medical assessment when a child has physical symptoms, but it can offer another level of inquiry into what may be influencing the situation.
Sometimes recognising the cause or pattern itself creates a shift. At other times, the recognition gives a clearer direction for what may need to change.
The purpose is not to suppress the surface reaction, but to understand what may be causing it.
What Can Vedic Astrology Show About Mental and Emotional Patterns?
Vedic astrology, or Jyotisha, begins from a very different way of looking at psychological influences.
A planetary influence does not necessarily define a person's character. Nor does one influence mean that a person must behave in one particular way.
The same influence can find constructive or challenging expression.
Mars may contribute to high energy, courage, enthusiasm, initiative and the ability to carry something through. Under different conditions, that energy may appear as impatience, anger, conflict or frustrated passion.
Mercury may support intelligence, communication, learning, adaptability and rapid thought. Similar mental activity may also appear as nervousness, scattered attention or difficulty in focus.
The Moon may contribute sensitivity, intuition, receptivity and imagination. The negative aspect is over-sensitivity, confusion and may be experienced as emotional fluctuation, insecurity.
Rahu and restlessness
Rahu provides an especially clear example. Its influence can express through intense searching, fascination with what is new or unconventional, ambition, innovation and the drive to move beyond established limitations.
The same influence if unbalanced can also appear as restlessness, fixation, dissatisfaction or an inability to feel settled.
The person is not Rahu, Mars, Mercury or the Moon.
Within Jyotisha (Vedic astrology) these are influencing expression, which depends not just on the wider chart, the planetary relationships with each other, houses, signs, strengths, aspects and planetary periods but being aware of what is happening within.
That leads to a very different question:
Perhaps we could ask what factors are influencing behaviour, what are the suppressed expressions, why are these expressions showing up that way and whether the force identified can be directed positively?
Does a Mental Health Diagnosis Explain Why Someone Is Suffering?
A psychiatric diagnosis identifies a recognised pattern of symptoms and impairment. It may help with communication, access to services and treatment decisions.
A diagnosis may name the pattern. It does not automatically identify its origin.
Restlessness does not automatically mean something is inherently wrong with a person.
Strong energy does not have only one expression.
Sensitivity is not inherently illness.
One practice that works with layers, rather than with a label, is further described here: Cosmoenergy Healing for Mental Health: Remote Therapy Solutions
Do Psychiatric Medications Treat the Cause or Manage Symptoms?
Psychiatric medication can be valuable in acute or severe situations and may reduce symptoms for some people.
But symptom reduction is not the same as resolution.
Some people using ADHD prescription medicine long term describe the effects in hypnosis similar to the symptoms of the street drugs - experiences they understand in spiritual terms, including external presences, entities or energetic influences, alongside significant emotional or psychological distress.
Such reports do not by themselves establish an objective external cause.
Furthermore, there is no need for such experiences to be discarded simply because they are not contained in a diagnostic code, simply because the person's experience is still valid. It may contain dimensions of their current situation to be firstly acknowledged and once identified, possibly released.
Medication may change sleep, mood, anxiety, attention, agitation or emotional intensity and for accute distress it can be very relevant.
Yet the effect of medication does not by itself reveal why the distress developed.
Nor does it necessarily remove the circumstances, experiences or unresolved conflicts that caused it.
Long-term treatment may also bring its own difficulties. Antidepressant research has documented emotional blunting or apathy in some patients, while NICE recognises persistent side effects and withdrawal symptoms that can sometimes last weeks or months.
More prescriptions therefore show that more symptoms are being pharmacologically managed. They do not, by themselves, demonstrate that more people are becoming mentally well.
Management and resolution are not the same outcome.
Can Drug Companies Influence Research on Their Own Drugs?
Clinical evidence also needs to be examined critically.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers fund research into products from which they have a direct commercial interest. That does not automatically make a clinical trial false, just that commercial sponsorship cannot simply be treated as irrelevant.
A Cochrane review examining 75 studies found that industry-sponsored drug and medical-device research was 27% more likely to report efficacy results favourable to the sponsor's product and 34% more likely to reach favourable overall conclusions than research funded by other sources.
The review concluded that the difference could not be explained by standard methodological risk-of-bias assessments.
Antidepressant research provides an especially revealing example.
Clinical Trial Bias
Researchers compared 74 antidepressant trials registered with the US Food and Drug Administration, involving 12,564 patients, with what subsequently appeared in published medical literature.
Looking only at the published literature made 94% of the trials appear positive.
The FDA's assessment of the complete registered set classified only 51% as positive.
Thirty-one percent of the trials had not been published. Most studies the FDA regarded as negative or questionable were either unpublished or appeared in publications that the researchers believed conveyed a positive result. The published literature increased the apparent overall treatment effect by 32%.
The researchers could not determine how much of this arose from authors or sponsors not submitting unfavourable findings and how much arose from journal publication decisions.
The published literature gave a substantially more favourable picture of antidepressant efficacy than the complete regulatory record.
Pharmaceutical companies have a financial interest in successful products and larger markets. That is precisely why independent research, publication of negative as well as positive findings, long-term follow-up and transparent access to trial data matter.
Questioning commercial influence on medical evidence is not rejecting science.
It is asking that science itself be examined critically.
When distress is managed only as a symptom, the same pressure often looks for another way to escape - a negative habit, a substance, a trance of functioning. A complementary view of that pattern and possible support can be examined further in the article:
Mental Health Research & Consciousness
Historical comparisons require caution.
We cannot prove from today's surveys that everybody is more psychologically distressed than people were in the 1980s or 1990s.
Mental distress was not measured then with today's surveys, diagnostic systems or openness.
But this uncertainty does not erase what current evidence shows.
Psychological distress is currently high and has increased in important groups over the past years.
Young people are reporting substantial school and academic pressure.
Psychiatric diagnosis and medication use have expanded.
A diagnosis does not necessarily identify the origin of someone's suffering.
Medication may reduce or manage symptoms without resolving what produced them.
Commercial sponsorship and selective publication have demonstrably influenced how favourable parts of pharmaceutical research appear.
High national happiness rankings or other measures of social success do not cancel any of these facts.
Instead of looking at how efficiently distress can be diagnosed and managed, it seems that most important factor is whether we are willing to understand why it is arising in the first place.
Science looks far and measures. Life evaluation, suicide registers, school surveys and drug trials each see through a particular screening. They do not explain consciousness, why restlessness occurred in the first place and how to be in balance.
A Brief History of the Universe by Tharapita Tam was discovered through years of meditation, analysis and direct exploration of consciousness. It offers a higher-consciousness view of returning to balance.
Available as a Kindle eBook https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Universe-Tharapita-Tam-ebook/dp/B0H7FH448X/ ,through Kindle Unlimited and in paperback.
Questions About Mental Health Causes, Symptoms and Wider Influences.
Can academic pressure affect adolescent mental health?
Academic pressure can affect stress, anxiety and emotional wellbeing during adolescence. The article looks at current research and school-pressure data, to examine how this pressure may be affecting young people.
Why can mental distress rise while suicide rates fall?
Suicide rates and reported psychological distress measure different aspects of mental health. The article compares both sets of data and explains why lower suicide rates do not necessarily mean that distress has been declining.
How can Finland be the happiest country while psychological distress has risen?
The article looks at what the World Happiness Report actually measures and compares it with Finnish psychological-distress data.
Does a mental health diagnosis explain what caused the symptoms?
Not necessarily. The article looks at the difference between identifying a recognised symptom pattern and understanding what may be causing that pattern.
Do psychiatric medications treat the cause or mainly manage symptoms?
Psychiatric medication can reduce or regulate symptoms, but that does not by itself reveal what caused them or offer liberation from the patterns involved. The article examines this distinction more closely.
Can hypnosis help identify what is causing a symptom?
The Higher Consciousness Hypnosis section explains how hypnosis may be used as a method of inquiry into beliefs, pressures and patterns influencing mental, emotional or physical reactions.
Can pharmaceutical sponsorship influence clinical-trial results?
The article examines published research on industry sponsorship and antidepressant publication bias and considers what this means when interpreting evidence.
What can Vedic astrology show about mental and emotional patterns?
Jyotisha can reveal specific planetary influences on thoughts, emotions and behaviour. The article looks at how you can regulate how these influences are expressed, both positively and negatively.
What does Rahu mean for restlessness in Vedic astrology?
Rahu is often associated with searching, desire, dissatisfaction and movement beyond familiar limits. The article explores why the same influence may appear as restlessness in one expression and as ambition, discovery or unconventional thinking in another.
What is Cosmoenergy and how does it help with healing?
Cosmoenergy uses specific high-frequency energy channels and works with physical, emotional, mental and energetic layers rather than isolating one symptom. Read more on the Cosmoenergy Healing page.
Where can I find holistic healing services near the centre of Amsterdam?
Private sessions are available in Amsterdam East, around twenty minutes from central Amsterdam. See the Healing Services page for Reiki, Cosmoenergy, hypnosis, consultations and other sessions.
Are remote spiritual consultations effective compared with in-person sessions?
Many services are naturally offered remotely and do not require being in the same room. Remote sessions are available worldwide for Cosmoenergy, Reiki, hypnosis and spiritual consultations. See Healing Services for the different remote options.
References
Badura, P., Eriksson, C., García-Moya, I. et al. (2024) A focus on adolescent social contexts in Europe, Central Asia and Canada. Health Behaviour in School-aged Children international report from the 2021/2022 survey. Volume 7. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe.
Elovainio, M. et al. (2024) Analyses of nationally representative Finnish MHI-5 / FinSote surveys of adult psychological distress, 2018–2024 (18.5% to 25.7% of adults; 24.6% to 33.7% at ages 20–39).
Helliwell, J.F. et al. (eds.) (2026) World Happiness Report 2026. Oxford: Wellbeing Research Centre, University of Oxford / SDSN. Finland 7.764; first for the ninth consecutive year; Cantril Ladder life evaluation, 2023–2025 average.
Konstabel, K., Tulviste, J., Laidra, K. et al. (2022) Eesti rahvastiku vaimse tervise uuring. Tallinn: Tervise Arengu Instituut and University of Tartu. Adults at risk of depression 28%, generalised anxiety 20%; registry diagnoses 2016–2021.
Kozlovski, D. (2024a) ‘5-Minute Peace Meditation for Schools, Institutions, and Homes – A Path to Global Harmony’. Higher Consciousness Energy, 5 July. Available at: https://www.higherconsciousnessenergy.com/post/5-minute-peace-meditation-for-schools-institutions-and-homes-a-path-to-global-harmony (Accessed: 23 September 2026).
Kozlovski, D. (2024b) ‘Envisioning an Ideal Society: A Blueprint for Holistic Education and Wellness’. Higher Consciousness Energy, 29 July. Available at: https://www.higherconsciousnessenergy.com/post/envisioning-an-ideal-society-a-blueprint-for-holistic-education-and-wellness (Accessed: 23 September 2026).
Kozlovski, D. (2024c) ‘Cosmoenergy Healing for Mental Health: Remote Therapy Solutions’. Higher Consciousness Energy, 19 September. Available at: https://www.higherconsciousnessenergy.com/post/cosmoenergy-healing-anxiety-stress-mental-health-remote-therapy (Accessed: 23 September 2026).
Kozlovski, D. (2025) ‘Holistic Addiction Recovery: Breaking the Trance & Healing the Aura’. Higher Consciousness Energy, 19 May. Available at: https://www.higherconsciousnessenergy.com/post/holistic-addiction-recovery-meditation-energy (Accessed: 23 September 2026).
Lundh, A., Lexchin, J., Mintzes, B., Schroll, J.B. and Bero, L. (2017) ‘Industry sponsorship and research outcome’, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2, Art. No.: MR000033.
Mishina, K. et al. (2024) ‘Twenty-year changes of adolescent mental health and substance use: a Finnish population-based time-trend study’, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Use only if you keep the sentence on girls’ emotional symptoms over the longer term.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2022a) Medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal symptoms: safe prescribing and withdrawal management for adults. NG215.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2022b) Depression in adults: treatment and management. NG222.
OECD (2023) Health at a Glance 2023. Paris: OECD Publishing. Suicide comparisons; Estonia antidepressant consumption rise since 2000.
OECD (n.d.) Suicide rates. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/suicide-rates.html (Accessed: 23 September 2026).
Parāśara (n.d.) Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra. Planetary significations (Mars, Mercury, Moon; Rahu as a later interpretive expansion).
Statistics Finland (2011) Suicide mortality in 1921 to 2010. Helsinki: Statistics Finland.
Statistics Finland (2025) Causes of death 2024. Helsinki: Statistics Finland. Recent Finnish suicide mortality after the long post-1990 decline.
Tam, T. (2026) A Brief History of the Universe. English edn. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Universe-Tharapita-Tam-ebook/dp/B0H7FH448X/ (Accessed: 23 September 2026).
Turner, E.H., Matthews, A.M., Linardatos, E., Tell, R.A. and Rosenthal, R. (2008) ‘Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy’, New England Journal of Medicine, 358(3), pp. 252–260.
Värnik, A., Wasserman, D. and Eklund, G. (1994) ‘Suicides in the Baltic countries, 1968–90’, Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. Use with later national/OECD series for the mid-1990s peak near 41–42 per 100,000 and the fall to the low teens.
Weaver, N.D. et al. (2025) ‘Global, regional, and national burden of suicide, 1990–2021’, The Lancet Public Health. Age-standardised rate about 14.9 per 100,000 in 1990 and 9.0 in 2021.
WHO Regional Office for Europe (2024) ‘Rising school pressure and declining family support especially among girls, finds new WHO/Europe report’, 13 November. 15-year-old girls: 54% (2018) to 63% (2022).
World Health Organization (2025) Suicide worldwide in 2021: global health estimates. Geneva: WHO. Age-standardised rate about 8.9 per 100,000 in 2021.
This article contributes to a public-interest discussion of published health statistics, research and differing approaches to understanding mental distress. It does not diagnose, prescribe or replace care decided between an individual and a qualified clinician. Complementary practices referred to in linked pages are described separately on those pages. Sources for the published statistics and research discussed here are listed below.
Freedom to receive and impart information and ideas is protected under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and, where applicable, Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Council of Europe (1950), European Convention on Human Rights, Article 10; European Union (2012), Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 11.
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