Our children are very aware of mental health issues. . . They need help now

Following two suicides and a suicide attempt at the University of North Carolina, Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz said: “We are in the midst of a mental health crisis, both on our campus and across our country. . . “The Chancellor is right.

Six months after the start of the pandemic, according to The Healthy Minds Study: Fall 2020, 21 percent of undergraduates suffered from severe depression, while 19 percent suffered from moderate depression. The same study showed that 16% of undergraduates suffered from severe anxiety and another 18% experienced moderate anxiety.

A study from the Student Experience at Research University found that the prevalence of major depressive disorder among graduate students doubled from 15% in 2019 to 32% in the first four months of the pandemic. Generalized anxiety disorder fell from 26% to 39% over the same time period.

Although it has intensified exponentially during the pandemic, the mental health crisis on our campuses is not new. Tracking student mental health over a ten-year period from 2007 to 2017, Healthy Minds found:

  • -The use of mental health services by students increased from 19 percent to 34 percent.
  • -Life-time mental health diagnoses increased from 22% to 36%.

The response to this crisis for over a decade has typically included retreats, encouraging students with signs of mental illness to seek traditional (often unavailable) help and outreach programs.

It seems quite clear that our students are brutally aware of the mental health crisis they are experiencing – and some are dying – through. Awareness is not the problem. Neither approach the crisis with traditional mental health treatments.

What is the solution?

Despite the enormity of this challenge, neuroscience gives us reason to be optimistic. The application of neuroscience, colleges and universities can solve this large-scale crisis to both treat and prevent increasing levels of mental illness among students, faculty and staff. They can develop resilience in place of anxiety and depression. Resilience is defined as the ability to thrive in the face of adversity.

  1. Recognize the need for a new solution

There will always be a need for psychotherapy, psychiatric medication, and other established treatments and prevention. But offering each person in a sampled university community eight sessions of psychotherapy in a year would be very difficult.

Even if a university could afford such a large organization of psychological counseling and services, it just couldn’t find so many therapists.

Half of those already suffering would wait more than six months to receive treatment, while the number of those suffering continues to increase.

  1. Accept the challenge globally

While many universities have a mission to develop the whole person, none could have foreseen the need to include mental health treatment and prevention on such a huge scale.

Why should universities accept the challenge of treating and preventing mental illness on such a scale?

For the simple reason that they are the communities that students, faculty and staff belong to and rely on. Mental illness undermines these communities and all aspects of the student experience.

Universities should not be the only institutions facing this challenge.

Businesses are also affected. With a third of the emerging workforce suffering from severe anxiety or depression, companies will simply find value creation and growth impossible to sustain.

Society has an even bigger stake. If our most talented people are weakened by mental illness, who will solve global warming, systemic racism, hunger and poverty?

  1. Adopt a population mental health solution

A population mental health solution is an intervention that engages all members of the university community, whether they are currently suffering from anxiety, depression, or other mental illness.

The pandemic has triggered an astonishing increase in mental illnesses, as the multitude of threats it poses has kept our brains in a constant state of wakefulness. Over time, this constant arousal hardwired our brains so that anxiety, depression, and other emotions became our default state.

Research has identified behaviors that, practiced consistently over time, will rewire our brains to make resilience our default state. Resilience is defined as the ability to thrive in the face of adversity. These behaviors replace the behaviors associated with anxiety and depression.

The basic behaviors for becoming resilient can be learned in less than five hours synchronously or asynchronously.

  1. Leverage existing resources

Recently there has been a call for teachers to play a role in improving the mental health of students. Exactly how they should do this has not been specified.

Faculty members can include resilience-building behaviors in their teaching and research, improving both mental health and academic performance. Here are four simple examples of how this can be done:

  • -Start each class with a 90 second breathing meditation
  • -Promote pragmatic optimism (the belief that the future will be better and that everyone can play a role) during conferences and discussions
  • – Emphasize the use of fact-based decision making in homework, lectures and discussions
  • -Build students’ agility by teaching them to formulate and evaluate several solutions to problems

Residential and career guidance staff can use resilience techniques to counsel and counsel students.

In February 2021, the CDC reported that 4 in 10 American adults suffered from anxiety and / or depression. Therefore, any campus solution must meet the mental health needs of faculty and staff as well as students.

  1. Have a penchant for systemic action

Innovative approaches to improving mental health are on the rise. They use digital applications, a fast connection with advisers, telehealth and artificial intelligence. Universities often look for the best approach. This strategy is doomed to failure.

Mental health is at least as complex as physical health. As with most physical illnesses, prevention and treatment will not rely on a single approach. A systemic framework of mental health interventions is needed to overcome this crisis.

Above all, we must act quickly. The lives of our children depend on it.

Leo F. Flanagan, Jr., PhD has over 30 years of experience studying and developing resilience at the individual, team, organizational and community level. It has responded to many disasters, including September 11, the Sandy Hook Newtown shooting and Hurricane Sandy. He led the development of a county’s first psychiatric emergency department.

Leo also has extensive expertise in the corporate sector and consults in a wide range of industries. He has held senior positions at Merrill Lynch, Willis Holdings and The Forum Corporation.

Connect with Leo F. Flanagan on LinkedIn and visit www.centerforresilience.com.


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