THE LIMITS TO THERAPEUTIC CULTURE.

Earlier this month, we noted Sally Satel, a skeptic of much of therapeutic culture, nonetheless suggesting that despite its overuse, sometimes a psychotic is a psychotic.  That post concluded, "And so the research enterprise, the patient beavering away at ever more challenging anomalies not easily covered under a bright line rule, goes on."

Today's example: Jessi Gold's "Sometimes Stress Is Just Stress" in Inside Higher Ed.  Her warning: students might be quick to use the language of therapeutic culture, without the supporting therapy.

As a psychiatrist and a faculty member, I have noticed a growing trend among students: Everyday emotions are increasingly described as psychiatric diagnoses. Students are no longer simply sad—they are depressed. They aren’t just stressed—they are anxious. With this lens, normal developmental challenges like academic pressure, relationship struggles and social adjustment are now filtered through the language of mental illness.

While casual use of mental health terminology and self-diagnosis isn’t new, social media has dramatically expanded its reach.

It's likely that anyone in medicine has ample horror stories of people who come in with all sorts of fearful questions, that is, if they don't question what the practitioner is spelling out.

Faculty, who, no matter how fearsome a reputation they cultivate, are (or ought to be) active in higher education to help their students grow and thrive, might be too easily swayed by the self-diagnosis.

But many, if not most, of our emotional experiences are not disorders. They are part of being human. As Laura Erickson-Schroth, chief medical officer of The Jed Foundation (JED), explains, “Feeling stressed, mildly anxious or sad are normal human experiences that affect all of us—and they serve a purpose. They tell us that there’s something we need to pay attention to.” Stress, she notes, can help us perform on an exam or in a game, or it can signal that we’re working through more complicated feelings that deserve deeper reflection rather than a quick label.

With limited time and without mental health training, faculty members may feel compelled to immediately affirm a student’s self-diagnosis and jump right to referring them to counseling.

I'll leave it to colleagues still active in the classroom to determine whether so doing enables the students, who might already be seeking an easing of standards, to push for even more easing.  It doesn't have to be so.  Understanding and empathy, rather than immediately granting the request or acknowledging something needing therapy, might be more productive.  "Sometimes stress is just stress, and learning how to sit with it, understand it and grow through it is part of becoming an adult. I guess it is just another thing we can help students learn."  And anyone working in higher education likely has lots of stories, both involving erring on the side of kindness and enabling a weak student, and erring on the side of strictness and having reason to regret so doing.