Young people's wellbeing and autotelic practices: a narrative and go-along inquiry of youth activities.

Promoting young people's good mental health and wellbeing is a priority area for institutions and organisations working with young people in response to concerns that more young people are reporting mental health issues, particularly depression and anxiety. A recent YouGov (2016) survey found that 24% of university students (18-24 years old) reported a mental illness and 60% reported that feelings of depression and/or anxiety disrupted everyday activities.
This project will develop a practice-based approach to self-care and wellbeing. That is, it will identify the kinds of activities that young people may engage in to take care for their mental health. This practice approach to wellbeing draws extensively on the principles of positive psychology, particularly Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) theorisation of 'flow'. According to Csikszentmihalyi individuals are happiest when their 'body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile' (1990, 3). Beneficial practices that are entered into to enhance wellbeing rather than achieve a defined goal are termed autotelic practices. Examples of autotelic practices include, sport, musical, artistic or spiritual activities. These ideas have been influential in more populist accounts of wellbeing and dominate self-help literature on the pressures of time in late modernity (see for example Crabbe, 2014). Yet Csikszentmihalyi's account of flow also has resonance in academic accounts and there is considerable scope to develop his ideas with reference to young people's wellbeing (see for example Asakawa, 2010). Crucially, one of the criticisms of positive psychology is that it emphasis the role of the individual and does not consider the relevance of context. For young people the kinds of activities that might be defined as autotelic, such as sports, learning a musical instrument or artistic skill are increasingly used as a badge of distinction and are therefore increasingly engaged in for the teleological rationale of standing out from the crowd (Holdsworth, 2015). One of the key questions for this research is whether it is possible for young people to engage in activities from a non-teleological perspective. Is it possible for young people to do things for their own wellbeing rather than the requirement for self-promotion?

The research carried out for this PhD will consider young people's engagement in autotelic practices. For the purposes of this research youth will be defined as aged 18 to 25. I will compare the experiences of young people engaged in higher education and those in other forms or training or employment. The specific research questions to be addressed are:
1. What form do autotelic practices take for young people and do young people articulate different experiences according to the type of activity, comparing for example physical activity with craft accomplishments?
2. How are autotelic practices valued by young people, their families and practitioners?
3. How are autotelic activities accessed and what are the barriers to engaging in these? Barriers could be associated with time, cost and opportunity.
4. What forms of autotelic practices could be supported for young people and what is the role of institution in facilitating these practices?