|
News Information and Media Site
A website for News, Information, and Media. by Steven Magallanes
Monday, May 6, 2024
🐤 3 Stocks Getting Boosted by Analysts
The Morning: Talking mental health
Good morning. My colleague Ellen Barry offers a fresh way to think about growing mental health problems among young people. We're also covering the Israel-Hamas war, women in China and abstract art. — David Leonhardt
Too much talk?
For years now, policymakers have sought an explanation for the mental health crisis among young people. Suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations were rising even before the pandemic. Then the rates of anxiety and depression doubled worldwide. Why is this happening? The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt points to smartphones, and the algorithms that draw kids away from healthy play and into dangerous, addictive thought loops. No, his critics say. The real problem is a grim social landscape of school shootings, poverty and global warming. Or academic pressure. Or insufficient health care. A group of researchers in Britain now propose another, at least partial, explanation: We talk about mental disorders so much. I cover this notion in a story The Times published today. This hypothesis is called "prevalence inflation." It holds that our society has become so saturated with discussion of mental health that young people may interpret mild, transient suffering as symptoms of a medical disorder. This is a problem, they say, because identifying with a psychiatric diagnosis may not be helpful. Students who self-label as anxious or depressed are more likely than similar students who don't self-label to view themselves as powerless over the disorder, recent studies have shown. They may respond by avoiding stressful situations like parties or public speaking, which could make their problems worse. One of the psychologists behind the prevalence inflation theory, Lucy Foulkes of the University of Oxford, traces her skepticism back to 2018, when she began teaching undergraduates. They were "bombarded" with messages warning that they might be in crisis, she said. "It seemed like the more we were trying to raise awareness about it, it wasn't getting better, and in fact, it only seemed to be getting worse." She grew critical of curricula that teach children to recognize and manage their emotions, sometimes referred to as social emotional learning. Schools have introduced an array of programs, teaching children the basics of techniques like mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy, which have proved beneficial in adults. Several recent studies have found lackluster or negative effects for students who received trainings, especially those who started out with more severe symptoms. That evidence has done little to dampen their popularity, Foulkes said. An urgent needMany experts in the field of adolescent mental health defend awareness campaigns and school-based trainings. "Especially with teens, we need more universal interventions, not less," said Zachary Blumkin, a child psychologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The main reason, they say, is that traditional, one-on-one therapy and psychiatric care is not easily available. Teenagers in crisis can wait months to see a clinician. They often land in emergency rooms as a last resort. For that reason, the field has gravitated toward preventive models. These teach all students — not just the troubled ones — to manage distressing emotions. A 2023 meta-analysis of 252 such programs concluded that, generally, children benefit from them. There is also promise in a more tailored approach, one that lets schools focus on kids with the most acute needs. Some experts also disagree that over-diagnosis is a problem. Andrew Gerber, a child psychiatrist, says we should think of mental illness as a spectrum: Disorders like anxiety or depression occur in a bell curve distribution, so they're more like hypertension than appendicitis. And like hypertension, he said, they're worth treating early in their progression, with medication and therapy. "Anyone who tries to define a sharp line between 'real' illness and what is not real, no matter where they put the line, is doomed to get it wrong and do damage in the process," said Gerber, the president and medical director at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Conn.
Foulkes disagrees. Even when we have good treatments, we're bad at identifying whose disorder is likely to deteriorate, she said. And some children struggle because something is wrong at home, like domestic abuse or poverty or bullying. Mindfulness trainings are unlikely to help these kids. "A lot of the time, what's causing the problem is not something that's going to improve with medication or therapy," she said. "You're running the risk of just telling people they have a problem without helping alleviate it." A generation is growing up fluent in the language of mental health, something that will benefit teens who badly need treatment. But others may apply medical diagnoses to the painful, normal adversity of growing up. The "prevalence inflation" hypothesis asks us to keep an eye on those excesses. People hurt after breakups and struggle to adjust to new schools; negative feelings aren't always a sign of mental illness. They can even teach us resilience. For more
Israel-Hamas War
Campus Protests
More International News
Business
Other Big Stories
Opinions We should welcome the emergence of this year's cicadas with wonder, Margaret Renkl writes. Ross Douthat suggests books and essays that could improve the intellectual diversity of university curricula. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss campus protests and Donald Trump. Here are columns by Maureen Dowd on the three faces of Trump and Thomas Friedman on Israel and Saudi Arabia. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today.
Community: For generations of immigrants, Sunday soccer in a park in Queens is more than a game. Health: Ultraprocessed foods are linked to poor health. But what are they exactly? Loneliness: Social connection experts offer advice on cultivating a sense of belonging. Ask Vanessa: "How do I know if my untucked shirt is too long?" Kocktails: As nonalcoholic cocktails become a staple on American menus, some children have begun to partake. Metropolitan Diary: A necklace rescue in Midtown. Lives Lived: Bernard Hill was a British actor who incarnated humble masculine leadership as Capt. Edward J. Smith in "Titanic" and as Théoden, the king of Rohan, in two "Lord of the Rings" films. He died at 79.
Formula One: McLaren's Lando Norris secured his first victory at the Miami Grand Prix. No punches pulled: At a live Netflix comedy roast, former Patriots players and Kevin Hart among others roasted Tom Brady about his divorce and Deflategate. N.H.L.: The Dallas Stars eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Las Vegas Golden Knights in a thrilling 2-1 Game 7 win. N.B.A.: Donovan Mitchell's 24 second-half points led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a comeback win in their own Game 7 against the Orlando Magic.
The artist Frank Stella, who helped usher in the Minimalist movement of the 1960s, died on Saturday at 87. His career began during the Eisenhower era, when artistic tendencies — much like ideas about gender and sexuality — fell into fixed categories: one was either a figurative artist or an abstract one. Things changed, the critic Deborah Solomon writes, but Stella did not. "He never stopped insisting on the inherent superiority of abstract painting," she adds. Read her full appraisal of Stella. More on culture
Make Dolester Miles's famous coconut pecan cake. Watch the Met Gala red carpet tonight. Stargaze with a telescope for beginners. Clear your phone's camera roll. Take our news quiz.
Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was maypole. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Correction: Yesterday's newsletter named two different Kentucky Derby winners. The winner was Mystik Dan, not Sierra Leone. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
|
Page List
Blog Archive
- May 2024 (522)
- April 2024 (3104)
- March 2024 (3192)
- February 2024 (3006)
- January 2024 (3261)
- December 2023 (3176)
- November 2023 (3188)
- October 2023 (3191)
- September 2023 (2961)
- August 2023 (3120)
- July 2023 (3024)
- June 2023 (3042)
- May 2023 (3205)
- April 2023 (3030)
- March 2023 (2986)
- February 2023 (2584)
- January 2023 (2694)
- December 2022 (2745)
- November 2022 (2899)
- October 2022 (2916)
- September 2022 (2970)
- August 2022 (2981)
- July 2022 (2814)
- June 2022 (2759)
- May 2022 (2768)
- April 2022 (2692)
- March 2022 (2851)
- February 2022 (2550)
- January 2022 (2715)
- December 2021 (2641)
- November 2021 (2745)
- October 2021 (2836)
- September 2021 (2847)
- August 2021 (2756)
- July 2021 (2572)
- June 2021 (2738)
- May 2021 (2579)
- April 2021 (2698)
- March 2021 (2789)
- February 2021 (2532)
- January 2021 (2617)
- December 2020 (2664)
- November 2020 (2637)
- October 2020 (2824)
- September 2020 (2745)
- August 2020 (2704)
- July 2020 (2749)
- June 2020 (2669)
- May 2020 (2199)
- April 2020 (4060)
- March 2020 (5898)
- February 2020 (6963)
- January 2020 (7455)
- December 2019 (10)
Search This Blog
🐤 3 Stocks Getting Boosted by Analysts
Wall Street analysts reconsider their views on specific stocks and sectors every earnings season. Investors should keep up with ratings a...
-
You've probably heard that potentially it's possible to turn a small stake into millions in the stock market. That's usually...
-
Dear Investor, Recently, the Dow hit another record: longest losing streak in more than 20 years. You ...