In European youth policy discourses, young people are frequently positioned as the future, carrying the hopes and responsibilities for shaping better societies (Nikunen, 2017). However, growing concerns over youth mental health have led to an increased focus on well-being as a crucial aspect of youth development (COM, 2018; 2023, Mertanen, 2020). Consequently, European youth organizations and EU-funded projects have taken on a key role in promoting mental health by providing young people with resources to manage their well-being. These materials frame mental health not as a clinical issue but as an individual responsibility tied to personal growth and self-actualization.

This study critically examines how young people are guided to regulate themselves and cultivate their potential through EU-funded mental health materials. Our research question asks: How do these materials problematize youth mental health, and what forms of subjectivity and self-governance do they promote? By analyzing mental health materials (n=11) produced in EU-funded youth projects (n=8), we investigate how young people’s mental health is framed in terms of self-improvement and personal responsibility.

Our theoretical framework builds on Michel Foucault’s concept of problematization (1997) and the notion of ethical self-government (Foucault, 1983, 2008, du Plessis 2021). Problematization allows us to explore how mental health challenges are constructed as issues requiring intervention, while ethical self-government helps us understand how individuals are encouraged to shape themselves according to normative ideals (Rose, 1999; Binkley, 2014). Additionally, we draw on critiques of therapeutic culture (Nehring et al., 2020, Illouz, 2008), which highlight how psychological discourses have permeated everyday life, positioning well-being as a personal obligation rather than a structural issue.

Our findings demonstrate that mental health materials commonly construct problems as various forms of inadequacies—emotional instability, lack of self-awareness, or poor resilience—that must be corrected through continuous self-improvement. Young people are encouraged to adopt self-reflective techniques, emotional regulation strategies, and cognitive frameworks that align with dominant psychological discourses, particularly positive psychology and humanistic psychology. This positions youth as incomplete subjects who must engage in constant self-monitoring and self-optimization.

However, a paradox emerges: while these materials promote individual autonomy, they simultaneously impose predefined pathways for self-actualization, structured by external authority. The subject is guided toward a vision of fulfillment that aligns with neoliberal ideals of productivity, emotional resilience, and adaptability. Thus, rather than enabling genuine self-discovery, these materials govern youth potential by defining what constitutes a desirable future.

In this article, we analyze mental health materials produced by European youth organizations, which are offered to young people and those working with youth as part of European youth work. Our methodological approach is a discursive reading (Foucault 1983), through which we examine how these materials construct and shape understandings of youth mental health and well-being. Our analysis is grounded in Michel Foucault’s theory of problematization, which allows us to explore how mental health materials define and frame both problems and solutions. The concept of problematization helps us understand how youth mental health is represented and what kinds of subjectivities are produced within these materials (Foucault 1997). The selection of materials focuses on those produced by European youth organizations, as they reflect broader EU funding priorities and policy emphases on promoting youth mental health and well-being. A discursive analysis enables us to critically examine these materials in relation to prevailing mental health narratives and intervention models.

We conclude that mental health materials operate as biopolitical tools of governance (Foucault, 1978, 2009), shaping youth subjectivity in ways that align with existing power structures and economic demands. Rather than expanding the potential for alternative futures, these materials reinforce predefined ideals of the self, positioning well-being as a moral and economic imperative rather than a collective or structural concern. This study contributes to critical debates on youth mental health governance, responsibilization, and the intersection of therapeutic culture and neoliberalism. By interrogating how mental health is problematized and how youth are governed through their potential, we highlight the tensions between self-actualization, autonomy, and external control in contemporary European youth work.

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