Kate Middleton encouraged young people to open up about their mental health days after Prince Harry’s ghostwriter said the duke’s “family actively discourages talking.”
The Princess of Wales has backed the “Let’s Talk About Anxiety” project, run by charity Anna Freud, during the latest in a long line of initiatives by the royals aimed at promoting discussion about emotions.
She wrote on Twitter: “Anna Freud does incredible work supporting children, young people and families with their mental wellbeing. Their new ‘Let’s Talk About Anxiety’ toolkit raises awareness and provides even more access to invaluable coping strategies for managing anxiety.
“It was lovely to meet with the students who co-created this toolkit, hearing more about what we can all do to look after ourselves this #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek and beyond.”
The event, part of Mental Health Awareness Week, will have been in the diary for months but the timing is awkward for J.R. Moehringer, Harry’s ghostwriter, who 10 days earlier gave a very different appraisal of the royals.
In an essay for The New Yorker, he wrote: “That imperious Windsor motto, ‘Never complain, never explain,’ is really just a prettified omission, which my wife suggests might have prolonged Harry’s grievance.
“His family actively discourages talking, a stoicism for which they’re widely lauded, but if you don’t speak your emotions you serve them, and if you don’t tell your story you lose it—or, what might be worse, you get lost inside it.
“Telling is how we cement details, preserve continuity, stay sane. We say ourselves into being every day, or else.”
