Psychiatrist: Half of College Students Suffer from Mental Disorder
"...50% doesn’t seem that high.”
8.30.2016
21
A Harvard psychiatrist at the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital is concerned about the mental stability and heath of America's college students.
Dr. Gene Beresin, the Executive Director of The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Mass General, says that anywhere from 50-60% of college students have a psychiatric disorder.
“What I’m including in that is the use of substances, anxiety, depression, problems with relationships, break-ups, academic problems, learning disabilities, attentional problems,” says Dr. Beresin. “If you add them all up 50% doesn’t seem that high.”
Beresin also points to the suicide rate for college students, “A college student kills himself every day,” he says.
Also of note is that the college-age brain is not fully developed until 26-years-of-age.
“Living alone, not being prepared to be on your own,” says Dr. Beresin. “Peer pressure. I mean, the ability to kind of freely use alcohol or drugs and make those decisions on your own without supervision.”
Universities like MIT are being proactive, requiring new students to take an simulation program that teaches them to recognize the warning signs of depression and other psychiatric illnesses.
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