STRESS, anxiety and a loss of direction are sending people to self help groups more than ever, says Mr Mike Watts, newly appointed national co-ordinator of the mental health group, Grow.
"Levels, of anxiety are on the increase, says Mr Watts. "People are mixed up. They don't know where they are going."
Grow has about 90 self help groups and Mr Watts hopes his appointment grant aided by the Department of Health will mean further expansion for what is, along with Recovery and Aware, one of the main groups of its kind in Ireland.
The bulk of the people who come to Grow have had, some contact with the psychiatric services but the groups are open to anyone who wants to join.
Grow encourages members to take action to help themselves. To those concerned it means real progress in the real world. "If somebody is very depressed we would start them off with getting up a tiny bit earlier, maybe one or two days a week," he says. "We break it down into manageable chunks."
He notices a good many people reporting panic attacks. Others have come to the conclusion that they need something more than medication to help them.
"We get quite a lot of people coming who have professions," he says. "They find it's a programme for personal development they can use.
Referring to what has been called "the new addiction to counselling", he says that "in all of us there's something saying, God I think there must be more to life than this".
Both Mr Watts and his wife, Fran, suffered from mental illness and recovered with the help of Grow. "Many of our best leaders are people who were exceptionally sick," a recent Grow publication says. Grow has launched a poster campaign and is to publish a book this year.