Governing Through Potential? Interrogating the Promises of Mental Health Materials for Young People

Abstract In this article, we examine how EU-funded youth mental health materials construct young people as subjects of vulnerability and unfulfilled potential. Drawing on Carol Bacchi’s (2009) What’s the Problem Represented to Be? approach, we analysed 11 mental health resources produced within eight EU-funded youth projects. We demonstrate how these materials frame mental well-being as a matter of internal development, encouraging young people to engage in continuous self-reflection and emotional regulation to realise their latent potential. Our analysis identifies three interrelated problem representations: youth as incomplete; therapeutic techniques as necessary instruments of self-formation; and a normative horizon that links well-being to culturally valued qualities such as authenticity, balance, and resilience. While framed as empowering, these practices function as subtle forms of biopolitical governance. We argue that the logic of potential embedded in these materials narrows the horizon of possible futures, positioning young people as individually responsible for aligning themselves with predefined ideals of whom they should become.