Why Understanding Kids’ Mental Health Is Everyone’s Business - What a psychotherapist turned professor wants you to know

When Professor Kosmas Smyrnios speaks about child and adolescent psychotherapy, it comes from deep experience, not just as an academic, but as someone who’s worked in the trenches of community mental health.

In this conversation, we explore what’s really going on behind the rising rates of mental health issues in young people, and why the answers go beyond diagnoses and medications.

🧠 From Psychotherapy to Academia, and Back Again

Before becoming a professor of entrepreneurship and family business (with over 150 peer-reviewed articles and 30+ PhDs supervised), Kosmas worked as a child and adolescent psychotherapist. His career reflects something rare: the ability to move between deeply emotional, clinical work and high-level academic thinking, without losing sight of the human underneath.

“I’ve always looked at how individuals navigate uncertainty—and how that shows up in both therapy and business.”

📉 The Decline in Resilience

Kosmas notes something confronting:

“Young people today seem to have fewer psychological resources to deal with adversity.”

It’s not just about rising diagnosis rates, it’s about what’s missing underneath. Resilience, connection, reflective capacity.

We dive into what’s contributing to this:

• Family dynamics where emotional expression is shut down

• A medical model that often rushes to label or prescribe

• A culture obsessed with achievement and productivity over presence and play

👂 What Kids Really Need

When working with adolescents, Kosmas never tried to “fix” them. Instead, he listened. Sat with silence. Gave them space.

“You have to stay with the not-knowing. That’s where the good work happens.”

This approach is both simple and radical in today’s world. It demands time, presence, and trust, not just in the child, but in the process.

🔄 Links Between Family, Business & Mental Health

One of the most fascinating parts of our chat was how Kosmas connects his past in psychotherapy to his current work in family business and entrepreneurship.

Families break down in similar ways across contexts—whether it’s around the dinner table or the boardroom table.

“How we communicate, how we manage emotion, how we navigate change—it’s all transferable.”

It’s a reminder that mental health isn’t siloed. It shows up in every area of life.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Listening is a skill. One we need to practice, especially with kids.

• Resilience isn’t built by removing struggle, but by helping people move through it.

• There’s power in staying with uncertainty. Not everything needs to be solved right away.

• Mental health, family dynamics, and entrepreneurship are more connected than we realise.

🧠 A Practice Worth Trying

Next time a young person in your life seems “off” or distant—try this:
Don’t fix. Don’t rush.
Just sit with them. Listen. Wait.
Let them know it’s okay to not know.

🎧 Listen to the Full Conversation

Watch me on YouTube

https://youtu.be/z2V8cy4C2Gs 

Listen to the True From Podcast

https://trueform.buzzsprout.com