Thanks Mike: I've been too busy attending my small sessions to poay much attention to other stuff going on--but am running this morning for the first time with the running psychologists.
Here is one quote from the piece, "However, the percentage of students with moderate to severe depression has gone up from 34 to 41 percent. These outliers often require significantly more resources and may contribute greatly to the misperception that the average student is in distress." So maybe a bit of availability heuristic going on? The more distressed ones make a greater impression and leave the average person with the perception of something more widespread than it is actually is--note that these are the percentages of students seeking counseling center services, not the overall percentage of students. And this one: "In 1998, 11 percent of the clinical sample reported using psychiatric medications, mostly for depression, anxiety and ADHD. In 2009, 24 percent of those attending counseling reported using psychiatric medications." Taken together, and the conclusion I gather from the brief report is that a higher percentage of students arrive at college with a pre-existing mental disorder. This seems to account for the higher percentage of young people going to college as it is a percentage of those in college; but with more people going to college perhaps we are now picking up the end of the spectrum that years ago would not have gone based simply on the pre-existing condition??? Hard to tease that out. I wonder how this affects all the other studies with college students suggesting that young people today, based on studies of college students exclusively, are more narcissistic and unhappy? Perhaps it's only the college students? (I still don't buy it...but these results might explain some of the variation.) Annette ps: IMHO stronger overall presence of clinicians; much less "science" at this meeting than past ones I've attended--I've had to seek out cognitive sessions. I suppose APS and other outlets are now drawing the nonclinicians. Lots of woo-woo booths in the exhibitors' hall. (woo-woo equals technical name for pseudoscience) Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 [email protected] ________________________________________ From: Mike Palij [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 4:36 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: [tips] APA Con San Diego: College Students With More Psychopathology A paper presented at the 2010 APA convention reports that there are are greated number of college students with "severe mental illness" today relative to a decade ago and more students coming to college have these as pre-existing conditions, that is, the illness did not develop during the course of college study. A press release from the APA describing the study is available here: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/apa-cse080510.php The paper presentation was made on Thursday, August 12. A reference and contact info are provided in the press release. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a21b0&n=T&l=tips&o=4184 or send a blank email to leave-4184-13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a2...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4186 or send a blank email to leave-4186-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
