Lucy is a Prudence Trust Research Fellow at the Department. Her research focuses on mental health and social development in adolescence. She is particularly interested in whether efforts intended to reduce mental health problems, may unintentionally increase these problems in some individuals.
From the back cover:
“Adolescence is the most formative yet misunderstood period of our lives. At a time of heightened concern about teenagers, Coming of Age draws on a decade of expert research to get beneath the stereotypes, expose the myths and reveal the important reasons why teens behave the way they do.”
Here, we asked Lucy to share her insights and what she hopes people will learn from her work.
Who is the book for and what do you hope your readers will take away from it?
The book is partly about why adolescents behave the way they do, but it's also about why we can be so affected by what happened to us in our own teenage years, even decades later. The book is for anyone wanting to understand adolescents in their life today, but really, it's for anyone wanting to better understand themselves.
Why do you think adolescence is so misunderstood?
I suppose I think it's oversimplified, rather than misunderstood. There are lots of cliches in the way adolescents think and behave – they're easily influenced by their friends, they're interested in having sex and taking risks, and they can be very cruel to each other in the form of bullying. So, all those stereotypes are true, but there are often very good reasons for these behaviours: a lot of things that teenagers do are thoughtful and strategic, and much of it comes down to the desperate desire to fit in with their peers, to not be ostracised. I think adolescents get dismissed too readily, as if social situations at this age aren't very serious, but often, these friendships and romantic relationships are the most intense relationships of people's lives. I hope the book is a bid to take adolescents more seriously – and that includes the adolescent that each of us used to be.
I hope the book is a bid to take adolescents more seriously – and that includes the adolescent that each of us used to be.
How did you decide what your book was going to be about?
I was very interested in the emotional impact that adolescent memories seem to have on people – both in myself and other people in my life. I wanted to write a book about that, and I wanted to do it by discussing the research on adolescent behaviour but also combining that with real-life interviews with adults reflecting on their teenage years. The resulting book mixes psychological research with 23 interviews that I conducted. I'm so glad I did it that way, because it was so fascinating and powerful what people told me, and it transformed my understanding of my own subject.
How did you get interested in this research in the first place?
Honestly, at the beginning it was circumstantial – the PhD supervisor I wanted to work with (Essi Viding) was working with adolescent populations, and then when I finished my PhD there was a great postdoc available with an expert in adolescence (Sarah-Jayne Blakemore). So, it was kind of a happy accident at first, but the more I worked in this area, and the more I spoke to other people about their own adolescent years, the more convinced I became that this period of life is fascinating and fundamental to understanding everyone.
Are you planning another book? If so, what will you focus on?
Not anytime soon, because I find it incredibly hard work, and want to give myself a break to focus on other things. I have said to my editor 'never again', but he tells me they all say that...
With all the research that you have done over the past decade, what would be the best advice you could give to your adolescent self?
There's loads of stuff, of course. In the process of writing this book to help other people understand their teenage years, I ended up better understanding my own. But without going into all the detail, here is one thing: I would tell my adolescent self just how lucky I was to have the friends that I did. My best friends today are the girls I went to secondary school with. We met when we were 11. Having read so much about how badly teenagers can behave to each other, including to their supposed friends, I have a better appreciation now of just how lucky I was to grow up with the people that I did. They made my adolescence immeasurably better – and even, occasionally, very fun.
Find out more about Lucy's research
Lucy's own website has further information on her publications and media contributions
Find out more about the Prudence Trust