<p>If you read my posts, you will see that I believe counseling is an excellent thing, in all cases of emotional discomfort. </p>
<p>If you read that post, you will also note that I believe the pressure we, as a culture, are putting on kids is pathologizing adjustment phases and labeling feelings as mental illness when they are simply feelings.</p>
<p>If you would stop with the unwarranted hostility and knee-jerk assumptions, though clearly you are in the mood to attack, so have at it, you will see that I am speaking of the “fact” that many of these kids who come into college with a diagnosis, now, do so because: 1. In order to pay for counseling, insurance companies require a diagnosis. 2. More people seek treatment earlier and therefore end up with a diagnosis, than in the past.</p>
<p>Couple the immense pressure we are putting on kids, today, with no reprieve, with a higher willingness to seek counseling (and, therefore GET a daignosis of mental illness for insurance purposes) and you will end up with a population which LOOKS as if it has more mental illness than it did in the past. I say there is no more real mental illness now than there was 20 years ago on college campuses. We have pathologized and labeled it, and now we are comparing it to the past populations from before the same situations were pathologized and labeled.</p>
<p>As for thinking things were “better” in the past? I think a kid used to be able to make a mistake or two, or get some help, or even have a bad year or two, without it turning into the parental and cultural drama it turns itself into today. I don’t think this catastrophizing of adolescent mistakes is healthy. No. But don’t extrapolate that to mean I think kids shouldn’t get counseling when they need it in order to deal with this cultural phenonemon.</p>
<p>poetgrl, my assumption, and what I got from the original NYT article, is that there are indeed more students with mental illnesses on campus because these illnesses are far more treatable now. Someone who might have been totally unable to cope with college demands 20 years ago can manage it with appropriate medication. The other factor the NYT mentioned was our greater openess as a society to dealing with mental health issues and significant traumas, meaning those outside the angst of adolescence. Do you think these are significant factors? I’m asking honestly, without any agenda. </p>
<p>And I think that posters here were responding especially to barrons’ post with blame put on “too many mollycoddling parents, schools and cell phones.”</p>
<p>Here is a well articulate statement of the issues and problems relating to the mental health of children (including adolescents) and the process of emotional growth and maturity.</p>
<p>SlitheyTove-- the only reason I even think the question of whether or not the population has MORE clinically diagnosable mental illnesses is even relevent would be to get the counseling department more money to provide better and more services, which, obviously, I would support. However, given the cutbacks in almost all state budgets, I find this will be a highly unlikely outcome.</p>
<p>Asking if there is more mental illness on a college campus now than there was 20 years ago is like asking if there is more rape, or asking if there is more incest, today, then there once was. It’s a useless comparison. It does not tell us the truth.</p>
<p>Given what I know now about what some of my peers were dealing with during college, I sincerely doubt there is more mental illness. There is simply more reported distress, and it is simply much more common to arrive on campus with a diagnosis. Are there more kids who warrant that diagnosis now than in the past? We will never know the answer to that.</p>
<p>Whoa, whoa, whoa. What did the cohort of college students in the 1930-1940’s look like? What % of the pop in those years was even going to college? I’m willing to bet that that was an incredibly socioeconomically privileged group of young people back then compared to now. I don’t think it could be an apples to apples comparison.</p>
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<p>As an “I” on Myers-Briggs, I’m always amused by this because this is a very “E” way of looking at the world. I like to keep to my own self, I really don’t know my neighbors (I’ve lived in the same house for 18 years and don’t know any of them beyond a general how-do-you-do, have never been to their houses for dinner and vice-versa) but I don’t see how that has anything to do with mental health. That could be stressful for the E’s of the world, but not the I’s. </p>
<p>And I find the idea that the divorce rate is a “marker of social disconnection” ridiculous. For some people, there’s far more mental health in divorcing and moving on from a bad situation, rather than living your life in a lie. I feel like this advice is straight from the 1950’s.</p>
<p>Wealthy college aged WASP’s (mostly male) as a group are more mentally stable than non-wealthy, non-WASP, non-males? Is that the idea/explanation?</p>
<p>Socioeconomically privileged in the1930s? Remember, HYPS was not where the majority of students attended college even back then. State schools. The Depression.</p>
<p>My Dad earned his way through college after he graduated from a consolidated school district in rural North Texas in 1929 (class of under 100). He worked on road gangs laying tar. Got zero money from his parents because they were having trouble getting by.</p>
<p>Well, the report also stated:</p>
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<p>Seems not to square with the mental health change being due to affluence or college.</p>
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<p>Actually, its not “advice,” its research data based on 76,000 participants over 69 years.</p>
<p>In the 1930s? That is verifiably incorrect. As a general proposition, college is a “middle-class” activity. And, it was in the 1930s. In fact, the junior college movement in the 1930s was for the working class with a promise of providing a pipeline into the 4 year college/university world of the middle class. </p>
<p>“Asking if there is more mental illness on a college campus now than there was 20 years ago is like asking if there is more rape… today, then there once was. It’s a useless comparison. It does not tell us the truth.”</p>
<p>Wait, so if you were trying to tackle the problem of sexual assault on campus, you wouldn’t care whether there was more or less of it today than 20 years ago? Why not? If the rate is already plummeting on its own, then probably whatever you’re doing to combat the problem is working. If it’s on the rise, then you know you need to change your strategy to attack it. How is that useless?</p>
<p>I don’t view linking to a page where I can purchase a book as support for an argument. Am I supposed to buy the book and search it for content that supports your position? If there’s no publicly available online mention of the research you’re relying on (which makes me suspicious in the first place), a citation supporting your argument would look something like this: “Researcher X of the University of Washington did DSM-IV diagnostic interviews with 100 randomly selected adults and found that 85% of them met criteria for at least one condition.” Then we could argue about whether the study was constructed properly, etc. When you just throw a statistic out there, I give it as much weight as any other anonymous assertion on the internet.</p>
<p>I went to college back in the dark ages. My kids went in a more enlightened time. There are so many kids in college right now who never would have been candidates for campus living “back in the day”. Eating disorders, depression, anxiety… teenagers suffered from those things back in the 70’s, and those kids graduated from HS and lived at home and either commuted to a local school- frequently taking a light course load, or didn’t go to college at all. That’s just the way it was. The drug culture of the 70’s helped mask some of this- I remember a couple of the “stoner” kids from my HS who typically got jobs in the neighborhood or headed off to a cool town in Colorado to “figure things out”. Who knows, maybe they weren’t drug users after all, just kids experiencing mental health issues and we were too barbaric to understand.</p>
<p>My own Freshman year roommate threatened suicide. The lone psychiatrist at the health center called her parents and told them to come take her home. (and my college was enlightened in even having a psychiatrist on staff.)</p>
<p>There was minimal support for kids at the time, and so parents who realized their kid needed support didn’t send them off to college. </p>
<p>I am amazed when I hear from college kids today about how open they and their friends are about the support systems in place for mental health and how they are able to access them without fearing that they’ll be expelled or ostracized. I think it must be very tough to be away from home if you are struggling with more than typical “adolescent angst”. I don’t know if I would have encouraged a teenager to move out if I knew my child needed mental health services.</p>
<p>A friends child was just diagnosed as bi-polar. Diagnosis answers so many questions about the very tough childhood, but of course is so hard for everyone involved. The college was great- supportive, encouraged the kid (who is over 18) to include the parents in every meeting and discussion but made it clear that they would respect the students privacy as the law requires. I have no doubt that it indeed takes a village (physicians, psychologists, counselors, deans, professors, administrations) to create a culture where a kid with such a devastating diagnosis feels supported.</p>
<p>Thank you Hanna, for that enlightenment regarding what a citation would look like. Having two doctoral degrees, I’m aware.</p>
<p>The point is that I have read those books, and many more, much drier books.</p>
<p>It’s a bad professional move for you to argue in this type of fashion with potential clients on a message board, though I do have to say, living in Chicago, and having been considering getting in touch with you, I’m glad you got involved in the conversation. I’ll stick with Gershman, like for my first.</p>
<p>TTFN, as Tigger used to say. And good luck.</p>
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<p>Rape, mental illness, and emotional discomfort were all so incredibly under-reported 20 years ago that to compare the reports made today to the reports made 20 years ago and say “it is on the rise” is not relevent. There is no way to compare the mental health climate of 20 years ago to the mental health climate of today. It’s simply not possible.</p>
<p>"Rape, mental illness, and emotional discomfort were all so incredibly under-reported 20 years ago that to compare the reports made today to the reports made 20 years ago and say “it is on the rise” is not relevent. There is no way to compare the mental health climate of 20 years ago to the mental health climate of today. "</p>
<p>So then how can you say that making a big fuss of normal adjustments is on the rise? Maybe this is the right level, and the treatment 30 years ago was woefully inadequate.</p>
<p>poetgrl, potential clients may see this kind of conversation and come to a variety of conclusions about me. Some think it is a good thing that I view novel claims about the needs/troubles of teenagers with a skeptical eye, and that I call 'em like I see 'em whether it’s good news or bad. If you want a counselor who doesn’t challenge you when she thinks you’re making a mistake, I’m not the right fit. But thank you for the concern.</p>
<p>I really hope that if I posted a shocking, shattering statistic about a critical topic that is deeply important to you and your clients, and backed it up with “I read this book and lots of others,” you wouldn’t simply assume it was true. Especially if you didn’t know my name or have any other verification that I have any credentials or ever read any books at all. But that’s the position I’m in right now with regard to your statements on the thread. What reaction should I have when I read that kind of claim?</p>
<p>If you meant that a comparison over time was “useless” due to changing reporting standards in particular areas, that wasn’t clear from your post. It sounded like a blanket statement about the uselessness of historical baselines. Sorry for the misunderstanding.</p>
<p>I agree that the level of treatment is right, and I can see what Blossom was saying in terms of kids being kept home if they had something difficult to treat like bi-polar, back then…</p>
<p>What I disagree with is labelling a lot of emotional discomfort and adjustment as mental illness, when it is simply coping issues, or sad periods, or difficult transitions. I think these, and also grieving issues, can really use a therapist in the mix. But, I also think we are having a symantic argument which is relatively pointless.</p>
<p>I believe there isn’t one person on the planet who wouldn’t benefit from some therapy at some point in time, for various reasons, even as simple as confusion or goal setting…So, yeah, a lot of times people will end up with a diagnosis of mental illness in order to get insurance to pay for this, and they are not mentally ill. I think this is the case on a lot of college campuses, which is why when they say they are getting more students who have a previous diagnosis, I just question that as a reason to say mental health issues on the campus are on the rise. </p>
<p>Blah, blah, blah.</p>
<p>Hanna: It’s the condescending and sarcastic tone I think you ought to check out, not the argument. As I said, good luck to you.</p>
<p>But Poetgrl, wasn’t your link to a book on Amazon in response to my request, in post # 24, for a cite supporting your statement that “85% of the population qualifies for a diagnosis in the DSMV”? I agree with Hanna; an Amazon link is not what I was looking for, and I was surprised at your response. If you know what a proper cite is, could you please provide it?</p>
<p>Sodium Free: this is from the TOS of this particular site, and, quite frankly, it is very commonly ignored, however:</p>
<p>Copyrighted Material & E-mail Content. Please do NOT post copyrighted material in our forum. Examples of copyrighted material include articles from publications or websites, book excerpts, or any other content which you have not created yourself. Fair use allows brief excerpts, e.g., a sentence or two, from copyrighted material for the purposes of review and commentary; please do not post massive excerpts from any source.</p>
<p>Well, I was more condescending and sarcastic than I meant to be, and I’m sorry for that, but I DID mean to express frustration. The mental health of young people is the defining issue of my life, and I view discussion of it as a dead serious matter. There’s a movement afoot to discredit psychiatry and psychiatric treatment across the board, and I react especially strongly to arguments that fall in line with that movement. If 85% of us qualify for a DSM diagnosis right now, then most people will conclude from that that the DSM is garbage. If I see that kind of claim in print, I want to be able to respond to it at its roots, and if I don’t get a cite that enables me to do that after repeated requests, I get frustrated, and I will dismiss it as specious.</p>
<p>If you google my full name, which is in my profile, you’ll find my testimony before the FDA regarding black box warnings on antidepressants for young people. I will have a very strong reaction to anything that I fear could potentially discourage young people from seeking psychiatric treatment.</p>
<p>poetgrl, LINKS to copyrighted material are allowed – the moderators and owners of the site post them all the time. We’re not asking you to paste the text of the entire study into the thread (which would indeed violate the TOS).</p>
<p>Edited to add: I think it’s plausible that 85% of us will qualify for a DSM diagnosis at some point in our lives. That’s consistent with my understanding.</p>
<p>The TOS in no way prevents you from giving the kind of cite that Hanna described. If there has been some study showing that 85% of the population meets DSM criteria, you would be permitted to cite that study and describe its results. I’m not asking for “massive excerpts.”</p>
<p>And, treating adolescents is my mission. Most, however, are not mentally ill, and very much appreciate having it explained to them just how “normal” it is to have adjustment issues at this point in life. The ones who are really mentally ill? They are still in better hands now then 20 years ago. Once they get the medication they need, many can use talk therapy to have incredibly productive lives.</p>
<p>But, it is also helpful to keep in mind that “gay” was once a diagnosis in the DSM, just to keep it all in perspective.</p>