Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Are students really nuts?

A new study claims that 1 in 5 young American adults has a personality disorder that disrupts their lives and 1/3 abuse alcohol and drugs.  

The study also goes on to claim that only 25% of those seek treatment.

I suppose this means the researchers think that an even larger percentage have disorders that don't yet affect their daily lives.

If our students are a disfunctional as the researchers claim, where does this leave us?  Should we all be replaced by guidance councillors?  

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think this largely reflects the primitive status of our knowledge of our own species. Near as I can tell, psychology and much of the social sciences are just a few steps ahead of voodoo in their scientific rigor. Do we really understand the mind and how it works? Do we understand what is "normal" at a given stage of development? Is it really reasonable to construct a single "norm" to describe a population of 300 million people? Young adulthood is a naturally stressful time. Is it unexpected that "disorders" would manifest themselves at this time?

Working To Make A Living said...

We need to add, gambling, sex addiction, workaholism etc. I would bet that our current social structures and institutions, are not very conducive to great mental health. "it is no sign of great mental health to be well adapted to a sick society". Forgot who coined the quote, but i always enjoyed it.

Anonymous said...

That's a good point, Working. It may be that the folks who enjoy the best mental health are those who do NOT try to embrace every aspect of modern society quite so avidly. Chasing after every "latest thing", keeping up with the Joneses, worrying about owning all the latest technology, watching all the hot TV series, scanning umpteen celebrity news channels, caving in to mindless consumerism and materialism.

Folks who sort of kick back and march to their own tune, who are pretty clueless about most current pop culture and celebrity "events", who live within their means and cherish personal relationships more than Stuff probably are a lot healthier that way.

gypsywinds said...

The assessments in study were conducted by "interviewers", not psychiatrists. So diagnoses were not certain for personality disorders. However, that said, the institution does create an atmosphere of compulsiveness, paranoia, narcissism - not just with students -there are a few questionable faculty walking around.