The time it takes; How do we understand personal growth in an age of instant solutions.

One source of the mental health challenges facing contemporary people, especially younger people, is the increasing commodification of experience: phases of life, human encounters and so on, which were once part of a connected narrative are seen as items to be purchased/acquired/accumulated by a curiously contentless desiring ego. But the effect of this is a sense of pervasive loss – characterised as loss of rhythm, narrative and future. There is a loss of connection with the processes and agencies of the natural world, a loss of a continuous narrative of the self and a loss of a manageable or desirable future (individual and social). Creating the conditions for mental health (not simply providing ambulance services) requires cultural resistance in all these areas; it is important to identify and nurture signs of such resistance as part of any strategy for improving mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]