The Neuroliberal Wellbeing Agenda - A Trojan Horse? An enquiry into the potential space for repositioning responses to wellbeing intervention strategies as intrapersonal resistance

There has been a reported increase in the number of children and young people (CYP) in England identifying as having mental health issues. The most recently commissioned national survey (NHS Digital, 2018) identified prevalence rates of 1:8 5-19 year olds having at least one mental disorder. When published, this created alarm across the media resulting in the reporting of a ‘crisis’ in CYP’s mental health, which impacted public perceptions of student wellbeing. As a consequence, the mental health narratives within education, (in respect of the ‘affective turn’) intensified, leading to an increase in wellbeing intervention strategies and school-based practices. However, despite a raft of intervention measures in educational settings, CYP’s mental health issues appears to be growing exponentially, with waiting times for referral to services like CAMHS getting longer. When CYP are seen by clinical services, this often involves treatment interventions that include medication and psychological therapies. This research enquiry involves a search for ‘gaps’ and ‘spaces’ outside of the current wellbeing narrative, which seeks to reposition explanations for reported ‘mental health disorders’ as intrapsychic defences, a response to threats around the core identity. The research enquiry critically assesses the constructs of the Wellbeing Agenda around four specific themes. (1) Representation of mental health in CYP - through an evaluation of the 2018 report findings and assessment of what this says about mental health issues in CYP. (2) Alienation - CYP are experiencing the same types of alienation found in adult populations working within monopoly-capitalist economies, created by education marketisation which in turn creates mental distress. (3) Resilience - the implementation of wellbeing strategies that use concepts based upon positive psychology are harmful and dehumanising. (4) Resistance - using a combination of sociological and psychological theories of resistance ‘intrapersonal’ resistance is explained, as a means to defend against intrusive wellbeing measures that seek to use resilience as a means to ‘fold back’ resistance. The approach taken to this issue is ‘pure’ research (Patel and Patel, 2019) utilising applied Resistance Theory as method (Matias, 2021). The critical evaluation has been completed using a modification of Evaluative Inquiry (Fochler and DeRijcke, 2017). This evaluation has reflected Bacchi’s (2016) comments relating to political ontology and the ‘positioning’ of problems to serve specific political agendas, in this regard the neoliberal trope of ‘personal responsibility’.