mentalhealth

That explains a few things. Or it could just be the normal pressures of life are now being considered “mental illness.” Wouldn’t the government love that! Classifying every person as mentally ill, giving special protections to students who are “unwell.” Yeah, what could go wrong?


Via CBS Boston.

New concerns arise about the mental health of students on college campuses all across the country.

Dr. Gene Beresin, a psychiatrist and Executive Director of The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital, says 50% to 60% of college students have a psychiatric disorder.

“What I’m including in that is the use of substances, anxiety, depression, problems with relationships, break-ups, academic problems, learning disabilities, attentional problems,” says Dr. Beresin. “If you add them all up 50% doesn’t seem that high.”

Some undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) agree…

Dr. Beresin says the suicide rate in college in astronomical. “A college student kills himself every day,” he says.

Maddie is also concerned about the higher than average suicide rate a MIT. “I think that’s something unique to MIT,” she says, “you can’t blame the institute itself. The type of student that goes here often puts a lot of pressure on themselves.”

Dr. Beresin says the brain doesn’t fully mature until age 26 so college students are put in a difficult situation.

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3 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. Maynard says:

    When someone is designated “mentally ill”, the authorities have a legal handle on how that person can be coercively controlled. Dangerous stuff.

    Adult life is inherently stressful, and it knocks us all for a loop. It’s the notion that there’s an easy, painless path that’s killing us.

  2. Charles_PA says:

    This article has a ring of truth about it. There have been incredible changes in the mental toughness of students over the past 28 years (the time I’ve been a physics prof). In the 1980’s, students came to college expecting to have some difficulty with math and science, but also had an attitude that they could get better results by working harder. Now, the students come to college expecting that they will get straight A’s because that’s what they got in high school. If they don’t get the A they felt was their birthright, then a meltdown ensues. For some students that meltdown is simply groveling for a better grade. Other students start developing physical problems. Many students simply start crying uncontrollably, and need assurance that all is not lost. The absolute worst are the overachievers who feel like the instructor is stealing their raison d’etre by giving them a low grade in an unimportant subject like physics – their meltdowns can be quite spectacular. If there is anywhere in the country that is populated by overachievers, it would be MIT.

    Sadly, the American educational system has created a generation of precious snowflakes. Most young people (hashtag #NotAll) have been raised with nothing but participation trophies and Self-Esteem A’s, They expect that trend to continue for the rest of their lives. Today’s students don’t understand that an occasional failure is actually a good learning tool: if you have the mental toughness to pick yourself up off the ground and keep going. Failures teach you what not to do in the future. The self-esteem A’s have also taught the young that they know more than they actually do.

    IF we could change magically imbue our current students with extraordinary mental toughness, it would still take several generations for the negative effects of the last few decades to be purged from our population. The first step is to get rid of the 60’s Generation’s penchant for psychoanalyzing everything. Not everything is an illness.

    Enough of that rant. Time for some Sinatra to calm down before bedtime.

  3. VelvetHammer says:

    An entire generation of children have been raised to believe that life is fair and that they deserve a fair shake or stake. Mentioning the word fair in this context where I came from got you “which fair, state or county.” And then you were given a job to do. Pretty much took care of that.

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