Guest Post: Jodie Benveniste on Mental Health Healing In Teen Fiction

Do you remember being a teen? Or are you a teen now? The potency. The potential. The first times. The relationships. The self-doubt. The adventure. The freedom. 

The excitement of anything’s possible crashing into the I don’t know if I’m good enough or worthy enough questioning.

It’s a lot! And it’s meant to be. Because the only way to get from childhood to adulthood is through. Living it all. Experiencing it all. Feeling it all. 

That’s why teen fiction is fertile ground for exploring big issues and an avenue for navigating common challenges. 

Mental health is increasingly a common challenge for teens. Social media and screen-based living have highlighted and exacerbated social-comparison, FOMO and self-criticism, and it’s in the teen years that many people experience their first mental health incidence of anxiety, depression, eating issues, overwhelm and stress.

I write in the YA contemporary romance genre and over recent years there have been many more stories featuring characters with mental health struggles, which has helped to normalise, de-stigmatise and validate those who are experiencing similar problems. This is a giant leap forward from the time when mental health wasn’t discussed at all or it was only associated with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest type ‘crazy’. 

But dealing with mental health is very different to healing from mental health issues. The dealing with narrative tends to portray mental health issues as fixed, inherent character traits where there is limited self-development over the story. In contrast, the healing narrative acknowledges that mental health issues have an understandable source and that personal transformation is possible. 

My experience as a psychologist in private practice taught me that personal transformation is not only possible but that mental health symptoms are, in fact, an invitation for healing. That’s why in my books, I weave an evidence-based healing modality called Internal Family Systems seamlessly into the narrative so teens can experience the struggle but also the realise the transformation.

My first book, Never, Not Ever, is a friends-to-lovers romance where 16-year-old Tilly is faced with the sudden arrival of the dad she’s never known and her sudden feelings for the boy next door. But Tilly is also transforming the raging anger she feels towards her mum and healing from the grief of losing her beloved grandmother. 

Romance is the perfect forum for exploring such struggles as falling in love for the first time is humbling and vulnerable work, heart-contracting when things don’t work out and heart-expanding when they do. Plus, through the process of giving and receiving love, we inevitably must embrace some self-love too, which is a balm for those mental health struggles.

We now know that mental health problems are a part of the human experience. Common. Normal. But dealing with and healing from mental health issues are two very different activities. In young adult fiction, we’ve been successfully exploring how to deal with mental health struggles and now it’s time to focus on showing how healing happens. Because it’s true for all of us, whether you were once a teen or you are one now - the only way is through.

Jodie Benveniste writes young adult contemporary romance that helps you to new levels of self-understanding and emotional healing. She’s been a psychologist in private practice, trusted parenting expert, organizational consultant, academic researcher, and Chair of the Board of an Independent School. But, at heart, she’s always been a writer. She now writes entertaining, unputdownable and heart-expanding fiction that has healing at its heart. Her new novel, Never, Not Ever is out now.

 Follow Jodie on Instagram or get in touch with her via her website.