Prince William says society needs to become better at encouraging people to talk about their mental health.
The Duke of Cambridge, who has had support for his own mental health issues, said the attitudes of previous generations who lived through the World Wars had entrenched a culture of “not talking”.
He added that British people were embarrassed about talking about their emotions.
“It (the war) was so destructive and devastating that I think a whole generation just decided that this was the best way of dealing with it,” he said.
“They then, completely by accident, passed this on to the next generation. We all want to learn from our parents, we want to learn from how they deal with things.
“So, a whole generation then inherited that this was the way you deal with problems, you just don’t talk about them.
“I think now there’s a generation here that is finally realising that this is not normal, that we should talk about it.
“We’ve got to start tackling it now so that our children and grandchildren don’t have to go through this process, and they can be a lot more open about it,” he added.
Emotional
The Duke was taking part in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum at Davos, when he also spoke about his mental health struggles.
He said one incident he dealt with as an air ambulance pilot with the left him with issues and needing to speak about what he had experienced.
“I still find it very difficult to talk about it,” said the father-of-three, who flew with the RAF and East Anglian Air Ambulance. “I get very emotional about it because it relates very closely to my children.
“I know that if I hadn’t taken the action that I did then, I would have definitely gone down a slippery slope and I would have been dealing with mental illness on a different level.”
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Photo credit: This Can Happen