Dr Dominique Thompson is a United Kingdom-based multi-award-winning general practitioner, TEDx speaker, author and educator, with two decades of clinical experience, and is in Dunedin on a Chaffer Visiting Fellowship to meet staff and advise on issues related to student mental health/wellbeing and supporting students.
During her short visit, she will also give a public lecture for parents, teachers and anyone else who works with teenagers, at the St David St Theatre on Thursday at 7pm.
Dr Thompson said her lecture aimed to help people who were connected to teenagers, by showing them how to make sense of teen behaviour and support them through difficult times.
"Normally when I give talks to parents of teenagers, they say to me afterwards that it’s really changed how they see their child, how they talk to them, why they lie in bed so long, why do they seem prepared to do really crazy risky stuff without thinking about the consequences, why is it they get embarrassed about having parents around — all those things get explained in my lectures in a really practical way.
"It shifts how people think about their teen, and hopefully builds their relationship.
"What I want is for families to get on better, and I also want young people to feel supported and understood.
"Then if they have a mental health problem, they might feel more able to talk to their family about it."
Dr Thompson said even before the pandemic, the world was beginning to see more young people coming forward with distress, stress, anxiety, depression, self harm, and eating disorders.
"And then unfortunately, the pandemic came along and has just made that even worse.
"So the big themes we’re seeing now are anxiety in young people and isolation/disconnection from their peers.
"The latter has had a really negative effect on their ability to make friends, and of course that’s so important in their young years.
"Young people have become more likely to be depressed or anxious and have suicidal thoughts, but fortunately to date, no evidence has shown that suicide rates have increased."
Dr Thompson will spend much of this week speaking to staff in various University of Otago departments on how to prevent student suicide.
"I was invited to come over so that we could share ideas... see where we’ve got common themes, can we come up with some solutions, can we learn from each other — that’s the idea of the fellowship.
"Although it can feel like we’re all very far apart from each other geographically, we share so many of the same common themes."
