On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 05:29:51 -0700, Annette Taylor wrote: >Thanks Mike: My pleasure.
>I've been too busy attending my small sessions to pay much attention >to other stuff going on--but am running this morning for the first time >with the running psychologists. Any sessions being held in hot tubs? :-) >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. If the presentation ever makes it into print, we'll probably have more details about the methods. That being said: (1) Not sure how the availability heuristic would be relevant because |Guthman and his co-authors looked at the records of 3,256 college students |who accessed college counseling support between September 1997 and |August 2009 at a mid-sized private university. Students, both undergraduate |and graduate, were screened for mental disorders, suicidal thoughts and |self-injurious behavior. Several tools were employed to make a diagnosis, |including clinical evaluations, structured interviews, and two widely used |tests of mood -- the Beck Depression Inventory and the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Since the researchers appear to be working from case records, it doesn't appear that memory distortions would be relevant -- only the quality of record keeping, the diagnostic evaluation process, and the coding of records. (2) I'm not aware of any college that evaluates the entire student population for rates of psychopathology or, more practically, randomly sample from the student population to estimate the rates (if anyone does know of a college that does this, I'd be interested in hearing about it), so knocking the study on the basis of using a clinic sample, though raising valid questions about representativeness, is a little unfair. Whether students would go to a university clinic or not is dependent upon a large number of factors, from issues of cost to cultural factors regarding the acceptability of seeking and getting clinical psychological help (I imagine that physical science and engineering majors might make least use of these services because of reservations about the scientific status of clinical/counseling psychology though the rate of mental illness in these groups would probably be similar to other majors). So, one does need to be cautious about generalizing from this type of sample but perhaps not more so than the same caution about generalizing from students in the intro psych subject/participant pool. |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. Yes. I've had students with schizophrenia but who were able to generally cope with the demands of college. I think that early diagnosis and treatment as well as a more positive attitude towards being "mainstreamed" has allowed more students with severe psychopathology to attend college than in the past though I don't really know of research on this point. >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. Yes, it is but perhaps there is additional research on the topic. >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.) I'm not familiar with the literature but it seems to me that you're referring to things that might at most be considered personality disorders while the original study I referred to focused on, in DSM terms, "Axis I" disorders. One would have to examine the studies to determine the extent to which students had Axis I and/or Axis II (i.e., personality disorders) diagnoses. Then again, since I'm not familiar with the literature, it could be that the narcissism and unhappiness are subclinical, that is, they're present but not severe enough to be clinically diagnosed. >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. Uh, I don't want to appear regionalist but the convention is being held in California. :-) >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) As for other outlets, I think it depends upon the reasons for making a presentation. I think many cognitive researchers might choose APS or the Psychonomics meeting because they know their relevant audience is there. Then again, if a person is making a presentation for "administrative purposes" (i.e., the presentation is made so that the person can put something down on their yearly scientific productivity report which is then relevant for raises, promotion, access to departmental resources, etc.), then making a presentation at APA would probably be considered to be a good thing since most people will be familiar with APA (the availability heuristic!). Any exhibitors showcasing hot tubs for group therapy (they're not just for Esalen anymore)? ;-) -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=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4187 or send a blank email to leave-4187-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
