Ms Mary Logue:

I was struck by the Senator's question because it was like she was talking about systems in a sense, and about the link between adults accessing psychotherapy and children. We have been talking a lot about youth in schools and in third level education.

The Senator mentioned how people find it difficult to talk about grief and that maybe adults do too. In a sense, we can also destigmatise the availability of psychotherapy generally so that people are able to access services. At the moment, access to counselling and psychotherapy is a private thing for many people in terms of affordability. I spoke to a colleague in Germany in the summer where citizens have access to psychotherapy as part of their health system. They can attend a psychotherapist and it gets paid for because it is seen as something valuable. I was thinking about how if we want to encourage children to access mental health services, we also need to be thinking of the family, where parents are also encouraged not to carry serious mental health issues. When I say serious mental health issues, I mean just the stress, anxiety and pressure that people feel. One of the ways to do that is perhaps by looking at health insurance, where at the moment, some of the health insurance providers do not cover psychotherapy and counselling. They are all areas to be looked at as well.