The "snowflake generation" of young people who lack resilience does not exist, they are just better at admitting to their feelings, mental health experts have claimed.

In recent years, millennials have been criticised for their over-sensitivity to confrontation and unwillingness to consider controversial or opposing views.

Some universities have even introduced "safe spaces" and "cry closets", where students can retreat to get away from what has been dubbed "micro-aggression".

But speaking at a briefing ahead of the British Association for Psychopharmacology summer meeting, experts said that young people are no more emotionally brittle than older generations, they are simply “more likely to talk about anxieties and worries".

Asked by The Telegraph whether the term was "fundamentally wrong", Professor Matthew Broome, director of the Institute for Mental Health, at the University of Birmingham, said: "Probably.