Highbrow Magazine - depression https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/depression-0 en Why Universities Should Help Prevent the Onset of Mental Illness https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/17039-why-universities-should-help-prevent-onset-mental-illness <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 10/25/2021 - 16:09</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1depression.jpg?itok=6pBGbC_N"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1depression.jpg?itok=6pBGbC_N" width="480" height="318" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Lucy* hadn’t quite realized how severe her problems were.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">She’d fallen in love with the university, in the south of England, as a teenager while visiting her big sister there. When she applied to go there herself, on a geography course, she had high hopes of what she’d do with her career.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“I wanted to help people in the Global South and fight climate change,” she says.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">She dreamed of joining the UN or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change once she’d done her degree.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">She’d had problems with her mental health before arriving at university, a range of symptoms that she thinks may have been undiagnosed bipolar disorder but generally describes as depression and anxiety.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Over the course of her first year, her mental health got much worse. But she put off going to a counsellor because she struggled to fill in the required forms. In her second year, she finally made that step.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But Lucy didn’t feel the counsellor listened to her. “She didn’t really understand work as a student at all. There was a highly toxic culture of studying so much, but she didn’t seem to understand or give me anything to counteract that. She just said what I was doing was wrong.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">So when Lucy decided she needed some time out, the counsellor refused to recommend it to the university. Her mental health wasn’t deemed bad enough. “By this point,” Lucy says, “I was suicidal.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Without a note from her counsellor, there was no guarantee Lucy could come back if she took a break. She shared her worries with a tutor. He was an academic, but someone she trusted, who saw pastoral care as part of his role. He suggested she ease up on the effort of studying for a while and see how she felt after term ended.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">That summer, he gave her a call to check up. They talked through how she was feeling. A couple of weeks before her final year started, she decided to drop out.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">UK universities are in the middle of a mental health crisis. Five times as many students are disclosing a mental health condition to their institution today compared with ten years ago, and the number of students seeking mental health support has also risen – by 50 percent between 2012 and 2017.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“This isn’t about worried well,” says Gareth Hughes, a lecturer and psychotherapist who is research lead for student wellbeing at the University of Derby. “There’s an increase in students who are significantly mentally ill.” The majority are seeking help for depression or anxiety.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The rise in mental illness among students reflects a broader trend across society. Long-term mental health issues in children and young people are up sixfold in England since 1995, and they more than doubled in Scotland between 2003 and 2014. Exactly what’s behind the increase isn’t clear, though “studies have looked at the impact of social media, or lack of sleep caused by electronic devices, as well as the effects of an uncertain job market, personal debt or constricted public services,” writes Samira Shackle in the <em>Guardian</em>. In England and Wales, suicide is the leading cause of death between the ages of 20 and 34.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Yet when it comes to healthcare provision, young people’s mental health is under-resourced. Only 11 percent of the UK health budget is spent on mental health, even though it represents 23 percent of the burden of disease. And of the overall mental health budget, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) account for just 7 percent of spending, despite under-18s making up a fifth of the population. All told, less than 1 percent of NHS money goes towards the mental health of children and young people. It’s little surprise that former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt described CAMHS as the “biggest single area of weakness in NHS provision”.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The UK isn’t alone on this. In the US, depression and anxiety among under-17s is becoming more common, while among college students, the demand for counselling has risen sharply. A 2019 study – analyzing data from two large national student surveys – found that rates of suicidal thinking, severe depression and self-injury among students doubled between 2007 and 2018. Yet over the same period, the budget of the National Institute of Mental Health didn’t keep up with inflation, meaning its research funding has fallen in real terms.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Universities experience the effects of young people’s mental health issues directly. And often they struggle to provide treatment, prioritizing interventions such as counselling and cognitive behavioral therapy that may work for some but not others. “Some people go into therapy and their mental health will go backwards,” says Hughes. “It’s not without risk.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But given how much we struggle to treat mental illness in general, we should see universities as an opportunity.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The majority of people who develop a mental health condition will have experienced their first symptoms by the time they’re 24. In the UK, this means a significant number of people will be at university during or not long after the onset of mental ill-health. A third of UK 18-year-olds entered higher education courses in 2018. “If you intervene with students now, that’s an incredible public health win,” says Rachel Piper, a former policy manager at the UK student mental health charity Student Minds, noting that if you intervene early in someone’s life and support their mental health, you can stop it getting worse as they get older.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">New cohorts arrive at university every year, allowing new initiatives to be tried out and compared in comparatively short timescales. It makes universities a great place to try addressing mental health differently. Instead of asking them to respond to mental ill-health, we should be posing universities a bigger question: how can they help prevent it?</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Stuart Slavin didn’t think he needed to worry about his students.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">He originally qualified as a doctor and now has a Master’s in education. Until recently, he worked in curriculum design for medical students at the same school where he himself studied medicine: Saint Louis University in Missouri.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Slavin didn’t see student wellbeing as part of his job until, in 2008, he started reading about stress, depression and burnout among medical students. He was shocked by the high rates that he read about, but didn’t think they could apply to his students.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“It was unimaginable to me,” he says. He thought that as a teacher all he needed to do was be kind and compassionate; his students seemed happy, and their satisfaction with their education was high according to the standardized national questionnaire.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But just to make sure, Slavin decided to use validated clinical depression and anxiety scales in surveys of their mental health. When the results came in, they told a different story.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3winter_stocksnap_-_pixabay_0.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Students were fine when they arrived at orientation, reporting normal levels of depression, anxiety and stress. Just six months later, after their first term, their wellbeing on these three fronts had plummeted. These results were supported by evidence from a number of other medical schools: levels of depression would rise during the first term of university, and fail to fall back to their original levels by the end of first year, or even by the end of medical school.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“I had to get involved,” Slavin says.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">He developed a simple model for improving student mental health, one he believes is applicable across education.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“One: this is a primarily environmental health problem, so let’s reduce unnecessary stresses. Two: life is stressful, the world is stressful, so let’s teach students how to cope with that with cognitive and positive psychology. And third was creating space in their lives to find meaning. That was it.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It seems simple. But when stories of student distress come out, there are often elements that universities have some influence over: accommodation, finances or the pressure of studying.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">For Lucy, accommodation was a massive problem in the days after she decided to drop out. She’d moved into halls before the start of term for an internship, but when she notified staff that she wouldn’t be coming back for term due to depression and anxiety, they gave her 48 hours to move out.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“I had friends I could stay with from the moment term started,” she says, “but at the time they were trying to kick me out of my room, my closest friends were away.” She offered to pay extra if she could stay until the end of the week, but the answer was no. She began frantically packing her things to move out on Wednesday.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">At 6am on Tuesday, there was aggressive knocking on the door. “They said they thought I’d gone,” Lucy recalls; she was half-asleep when she answered. Luckily, she found a friend to crash with, but she still remembers the stress bringing on a “long, awful anxiety attack.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">University authorities are not parents, but they have enormous power over young people’s lives. When it comes to supporting their students’ mental health, they are in an excellent – and arguably responsible – position. “I think it’s a moral duty,” says Piper.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">There’s a common belief that students need a tough, full-on education to prepare them to excel in the competitive world they’ll soon be entering. The pressure is piled on students by a mindset that says ever-increasing amounts of work can only help them succeed.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But there’s evidence that challenges this. In 2018, an analysis of mental health data from across the USA, UK and Canada found that academic worries accounted for a large amount of the variance in anxiety levels in students – more than financial worries. In Florida, a survey found that medical students ranked academic workload and conflicts with work–life balance as their top two stressors. And at the University of York in the UK, a study listed academic difficulty and stress as two of the top reasons students went to counselling, ranking alongside depression, anxiety and bereavement.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Often, though, mental illness is made into a biological problem, to be treated with medication: you are ill because of the chemicals in your brain. But the underlying biology of mental illness can be hard to tease out, and this perspective leaves little room for factors proven to drive mental illness, like overwork, stress and perfectionism, despite multiple studies linking longer working hours to an increased risk of depression and anxiety.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">These factors were what Slavin decided to focus on.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">One of the things he brought in was a shift from multi-tier to pass/fail grading, which has been found at a number of medical schools to reduce stress, improve group cohesion and have no impact on average scores. But there were other changes – ones that came out of his three-point model, and from listening to what students said they needed – which were unprecedented.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">At Saint Louis University, one of the biggest stressors medical students mentioned was the intense human anatomy course, the first they took upon arriving.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“Some 30 students would fail the first exam,” Slavin recalls. “These are the best and brightest students in the US and, you know – welcome to medical school! The distress that causes.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">So they moved the course later in the year, meaning that students would reach it once they had got used to med school, and decreased the course content.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Other problems students identified were long class hours, too much material and strong competition. So they cut the overall curriculum by 10 per cent, setting aside some of the new spare time for electives instead – things like running a foot care clinic for the homeless and a doula training program.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">They also introduced a resilience curriculum, which ended up taking just an hour and a half of student time. “You can teach these skills very quickly, then get out of the students’ way,” Slavin says.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The curriculum aimed to take down some of the mindsets that students arrived at medical school with: all-or-nothing thinking (‘If I don’t pass this exam, I’m a failure’), catastrophizing (‘If I don’t pass this exam, my life will go off the rails’) and maladaptive perfectionism (‘If I just pass this exam, that’s not good enough’).</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The scheme, including resilience classes and extra electives, had a budget of less than $10,000 a year. (Tuition fees at Saint Louis are, for 2019/20, $55,760 per student.) It didn’t require any new staff or faculty.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The proof is in the results.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Over the 10 years since its introduction, there has been an 85 percent reduction in the depression rate and a 75 percent decrease in the anxiety of first-year medical students. And student satisfaction with wellbeing on the course skyrocketed to 81 percent compared to the national average of 33 percent.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">For Slavin, it was a huge success. The program ran for the remainder of his time at Saint Louis.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">One of the most astonishing things about his study is what it did to performance. Average scores on the national standardized tests got higher. And the failure rate went down: “It was cut in half,” Stuart says. When they took off the pressure, people did better.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1collegestudent_geralt_pexels.jpg" style="height:265px; width:601px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">I say this was astonishing. But Slavin doesn’t think the idea of listening to students should be so unusual. “We treat students as if we don’t trust them,” he says. “What does that say about us?”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“I started again,” Lucy says. “Now I’m so much happier.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">After dropping out of university in England, she reset and enrolled at the University of Glasgow, her application supplemented with a reference letter from her old tutor – the one who helped her decide to drop out.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It was the same key factors that Slavin identified at Saint Louis that helped Lucy settle second time around: lowering stress while increasing the ability to cope. The environment at Glasgow was less pressured. As well as being at a different university, Lucy switched from geography to English literature. “The humanities sets are a lot more creative, less rules,” she says.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It also helped that she arrived in Glasgow knowing she needed support and looking for where to find it, and so was much better equipped to handle the stresses of student life. She found the information on where to go easy to find, and it was simple to self-refer.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Although getting appointments was difficult due to high demand and a lack of funding, she got along well with the counsellors. After her favorite counsellor left, she went to the NHS instead. Her experience of both services was similar. “When you get it it’s fine, it’s just being on the waiting list and there’s too many people needing the resource.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">She’s now doing exactly what she hoped she would a few years ago: a strong supporter of Extinction Rebellion, she puts on talks to spread awareness of climate change.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">She thinks she’s learned from her university experience.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“I wish I’d realized earlier that my mental health needs looking after, and lack of sleep was not going to help,” she says. “I needed to learn to eat properly. There are so many biological and physiological ways to look after yourself.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Many student wellbeing initiatives now focus on getting students to that realization earlier. At the University of Derby, resilience classes for undergraduates have been introduced, with the content tailored to the needs of each course; music students get a class on performance anxiety, while business students get a class on emotional intelligence in the workplace.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">They’ve seen an increase in students going to university services for support in the two weeks following the session, which is perhaps not surprising, given that mental health literacy is strongly associated with help-seeking behavior.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Gareth Hughes helped introduce the workshops at the University of Derby and has overseen their success.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But beyond the resilience workshops, Hughes says that both Derby and Student Minds – for which he’s an adviser – are taking a lot of interest in curriculum change. Both echo the sorts of changes that Slavin introduced at Saint Louis. “There’s research literature that shows the way you assess students, and particularly the way they feel about grades, has a big impact on them.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">On this point, there’s a big split between what Hughes calls deep learners and surface learners. Surface learners are in it to survive. He describes their thinking as “What do I need to get through this? What grades do I need?” This attitude is linked to lower wellbeing.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Deep learners, in contrast, don’t tend to think about grades. “They’re focused on their learning and their passion for the subject.” And as a result, their wellbeing is higher.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“A lot of this is about the meaning and control that they take out of their learning,” Hughes says, again echoing Slavin’s approach in the US. “How do we move students who are maybe coming from a surface learning practice they’ve picked up in school into deeper learning? That’s something we’re still trying to figure out.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Recent years have seen a growth in higher education of what’s known as the whole-university approach – a philosophy that says every part of an institution is responsible for student mental health and wellbeing. It’s based on an approach developed by the World Health Organization that’s been applied most widely in cities, but hasn’t yet seen significant translation to universities.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But this could be changing.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">At a 2015 conference in Canada, people from 45 countries drafted the Okanagan Charter, which calls for universities to transform the way they promote health by getting them to embed it in all aspects of university life, academic and non-academic.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Two years later, Universities UK – the representative organization for the UK’s universities – released #StepChange, a report calling for all universities to adopt a whole-university approach. Now 78 UK universities have publicly affirmed their commitment to the Okanagan Charter, and the number is growing.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Simon Fraser University helped to lead the development of the charter in Canada. Its own work to become a healthy university has taken direction from what students say they struggle with. For example, its Department of Engineering has reduced the required number of hours in the first year, in response to students saying they felt overwhelmed. The department has also added preparation classes before courses with high failure rates.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">These kinds of curriculum changes haven’t yet spread far outside of a few stand-out universities, even though they have demonstrable evidence from places like Saint Louis to support them. But in the UK, Student Minds is hoping to drive universities to think about a whole-university approach. The charity has done a road trip around the country and a large online survey to consult on development of a University Mental Health Charter, and soon a pilot is starting at Derby and a few other universities, before rolling out more widely.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Hughes has been collaborating on the development of the Student Minds charter. “The events were fantastic,” he says, pointing to a big turnout and positive response as evidence that universities are committing to change. “Universities care about their students and they want to do well. There’s so much gap it’s difficult to know what the right thing to do is. We can go in and provide some structure.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">He says the point of universities is to enable young adults to solve difficult problems like mental health. Students who know how to look after themselves learn better, and they can go on to bring that learning into their communities after graduating. “They can go out and be champions for wellbeing.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3depression_piqsels_0.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The focus on student mental health is finally beginning to move beyond providing medical solutions such as pills or counselling. The goal now needs to be making sure that preventative measures that have been proven to work are discussed and adopted more widely. These solutions are still exceptions rather than the rule.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Lucy thinks the conversation on student mental health has, though, moved on a lot in recent years. “I’m so impressed now by how much people talk about it,” she says. Thinking back to when she was first at university, she believes it would have helped if she’d been able to talk more about her worries and realize others were struggling too. But the coverage she sees now in the media reassures her that things are changing.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“The stories I’ve read seem to say I’m part of something bigger; I’m not alone in this,” she says. “It’s a large-scale problem, and by talking about it, we’re part of the solution.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>*Some names have been changed.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>This article was originally published in </em></strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/universities-shouldnt-just-treat-mental-illness-they-should-help-prevent-it-too-SLU-CBT-depression-student-anxiety/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><strong>Mosaic Science</strong></a><strong><em>. It’s republished here with permission under a Creative Commons license.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Sources:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Geralt (<a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/college-student-library-books-4369850/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pixabay</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--StockSnap (<a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/people-woman-back-walking-snow-2595535/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pixabay</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--<a href="https://www.pikrepo.com/fbfbe/depression-sadness-despair-man-with-hands-covering-face-blue-tone" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pikrepo</a> (Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--<a href="https://www.piqsels.com/en/public-domain-photo-jjoxd" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Piqsels</a> (Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-illness" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental illness</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/college-students" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">college students</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anxiety" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">anxiety</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/medical-students" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">medical students</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/coping-mental-illness" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">coping with mental illness</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-health" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental health</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mentally-ill" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mentally ill</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Anna Lewis</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 25 Oct 2021 20:09:28 +0000 tara 10704 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/17039-why-universities-should-help-prevent-onset-mental-illness#comments How a Town in Norway Copes With Winter Depression https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10920-how-town-norway-copes-winter-depression <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 10/06/2020 - 08:24</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1winter_maxpixel.jpg?itok=_car799o"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1winter_maxpixel.jpg?itok=_car799o" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p> </p> <p>The inhabitants of Rjukan in southern Norway have a complex relationship with the sun. “More than other places I’ve lived, they like to talk about the sun: when it’s coming back, if it’s a long time since they’ve seen the sun,” says artist Martin Andersen. “They’re a little obsessed with it.” Possibly, he speculates, it’s because for approximately half the year, you can see the sunlight shining high up on the north wall of the valley. As autumn wears on, the light moves higher up the wall each day, like a calendar marking off the dates to the winter solstice. And then as January, February and March progress, the sunlight slowly starts to inch its way back down again.</p> <p> </p> <p>Rjukan was built between 1905 and 1916, after an entrepreneur called Sam Eyde bought the local waterfall (known as the smoking waterfall) and constructed a hydroelectric power plant there. Factories producing artificial fertilizer followed. But the managers of these worried that their staff weren’t getting enough sun – and eventually they constructed a cable car in order to give them access to it.</p> <p> </p> <p>When Martin moved to Rjukan in August 2002, he was simply looking for a temporary place to settle with his young family that was close to his parents’ house and where he could earn some money. He was drawn to the three-dimensionality of the place: a town of 3,000, in the cleft between two towering mountains – the first seriously high ground you reach as you travel west of Oslo.</p> <p> </p> <p>But the departing sun left Martin feeling gloomy and lethargic. It still rose and set each day, and provided some daylight – unlike in the far north of Norway, where it is dark for months at a time – but the sun never climbed high enough for the people of Rjukan to actually see it or feel its warming rays directly on their skin.</p> <p> </p> <p>As summer turned to autumn, Martin found himself pushing his two-year-old daughter’s buggy further and further down the valley each day, chasing the vanishing sunlight. “I felt it very physically; I didn’t want to be in the shade,” says Martin, who runs a vintage shop in Rjukan town center. If only someone could find a way of reflecting some sunlight down into the town, he thought. Most people living at temperate latitudes will be familiar with Martin’s sense of dismay at autumn’s dwindling light. Few would have been driven to build giant mirrors above their town to fix it.</p> <p> </p> <p>Lengthening daylight isn’t necessarily good news where mental health is concerned.</p> <p> </p> <p>What is it about the flat, gloomy greyness of winter that seems to penetrate our skin and dampen our spirits, at least at higher latitudes? The idea that our physical and mental health varies with the seasons and sunlight goes back a long way. The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine, a treatise on health and disease that’s estimated to have been written around 300 BC, describes how the seasons affect all living things and suggests that during winter – a time of conservation and storage – one should “retire early and get up with the sunrise....” And in his treatise on Insanity, published in 1806, the French physician Philippe Pinel noted a mental deterioration in some of his psychiatric patients “when the cold weather of December and January set in.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Today, this mild form of malaise is often called the winter blues. And for a minority of people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD), winter is quite literally depressing. First described in the 1980s, the syndrome is characterized by recurrent depressions that occur annually at the same time each year. Most psychiatrists regard SAD as being a subclass of generalized depression or, in a smaller proportion of cases, bipolar disorder.</p> <p> </p> <p>Seasonality is reported by approximately 10 to 20 percent of people with depression and 15 to 22 percent of those with bipolar disorder. “People often don’t realize that there is a continuum between the winter blues – which is a milder form of feeling down [sleepier and less energetic] – and when this is combined with a major depression,” says Anna Wirz-Justice, an emeritus professor of psychiatric neurobiology at the Centre for Chronobiology in Basel, Switzerland. Even healthy people who have no seasonal problems seem to experience this low-amplitude change over the year, with worse mood and energy during autumn and winter and an improvement in spring and summer, she says.</p> <p> </p> <p>Why should darker months trigger this tiredness and low mood in so many people? There are several theories, none of them definitive, but most relate to the circadian clock – the roughly 24-hour oscillation in our behavior and biology that influences when we feel hungry, sleepy or active. This is no surprise given that the symptoms of the winter blues seem to be associated with shortening days and longer nights, and that bright light seems to have an anti-depressive effect. One idea is that some people’s eyes are less sensitive to light, so once light levels fall below a certain threshold, they struggle to synchronize their circadian clock with the outside world. Another is that some people produce more of a hormone called melatonin during winter than in summer – just like certain other mammals that show strong seasonal patterns in their behavior.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1depression.jpg" style="height:398px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>However, the leading theory is the ‘phase-shift hypothesis’: the idea that shortened days cause the timing of our circadian rhythms to fall out of sync with the actual time of day, because of a delay in the release of melatonin. Levels of this hormone usually rise at night in response to darkness, helping us to feel sleepy, and are suppressed by the bright light of morning. “If someone’s biological clock is running slow and that melatonin rhythm hasn’t fallen, then their clock is telling them to keep on sleeping even though their alarm may be going off and life is demanding that they wake up,” says Kelly Rohan, a professor of psychology at the University of Vermont. Precisely why this should trigger feelings of depression is still unclear. One idea is that the tiredness could then have unhealthy knock-on effects. If you’re having negative thoughts about how tired you are, this could trigger a sad mood, loss of interest in food, and other symptoms that could cascade on top of that.</p> <p>                                                                                                                            </p> <p>However, recent insights into how birds and small mammals respond to changes in day length have prompted an alternative explanation. According to Daniel Kripke, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, when melatonin strikes a region of the brain called the hypothalamus, this alters the synthesis of another hormone – active thyroid hormone – that regulates all sorts of behaviors and bodily processes.</p> <p> </p> <p>When dawn comes later in the winter, the end of melatonin secretion drifts later, says Kripke. From animal studies, it appears that high melatonin levels just after the time an animal wakes up strongly suppress the making of active thyroid hormone – and lowering thyroid levels in the brain can cause changes in mood, appetite and energy. For instance, thyroid hormone is known to influence serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood. Several studies have shown that levels of brain serotonin in humans are at their lowest in the winter and highest in the summer. In 2016, scientists in Canada discovered that people with severe SAD show greater seasonal changes in a protein that terminates the action of serotonin than others with no or less severe symptoms, suggesting that the condition and the neurotransmitter are linked.</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s possible that many of these mechanisms are at work, even if the precise relationships haven’t been fully teased apart yet. But regardless of what causes winter depression, bright light – particularly when delivered in the early morning – seems to reverse the symptoms.</p> <p> </p> <p>                                                                                ******</p> <p>It was a bookkeeper called Oscar Kittilsen who first came up with the idea of erecting large rotatable mirrors on the northern side of the valley, where they would be able to “first collect the sunlight and then spread it like a headlamp beam over the town of Rjukan and its merry inhabitants.”</p> <p> </p> <p>A month later, on 28 November 1913, a newspaper story described Sam Eyde pushing the same idea, although it was another hundred years before it was realized. Instead, in 1928 Norsk Hydro erected a cable car as a gift to the townspeople, so that they could get high enough to soak up some sunlight in winter. Instead of bringing the sun to the people, the people would be brought to the sunshine.</p> <p> </p> <p>Martin Andersen didn’t know all of this. But after receiving a small grant from the local council to develop the idea, he learned about this history and started to develop some concrete plans. These involved a heliostat: a mirror mounted in such a way that it turns to keep track of the sun while continually reflecting its light down towards a set target – in this case, Rjukan town square.</p> <p> </p> <p>The three mirrors, each measuring 17 m2, stand proud upon the mountainside above the town. In January, the sun is only high enough to bring light to the square for two hours per day, from midday until 2pm, but the beam produced by the mirrors is golden and welcoming. Stepping into the sunlight after hours in permanent shade, I become aware of just how much it shapes our perception of the world. Suddenly, things seem more three-dimensional; I feel transformed into one of those ‘merry inhabitants’ that Kittilsen imagined. When I leave the sunlight, Rjukan feels a flatter, greyer place.</p> <p> </p> <p>As far back as the sixth century, historians were describing seasonal peaks of joy and sorrow among Scandinavians, brought about by the continuous daylight of summer and its almost complete absence in winter.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1sweden_maria_eklind_-_flickr.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Three-hundred and fifty miles south of Rjukan, and at roughly the same latitude as Edinburgh, Moscow and Vancouver, lies Malmö in southern Sweden. In Sweden, an estimated 8 per cent of the population suffer from SAD, with a further 11 per cent said to suffer the winter blues.</p> <p> </p> <p>In early January, the sun rises at around 8.30 a.m. and sets just before 4 p.m. For Anna Odder Milstam, an English and Swedish teacher, this means getting up and arriving at work before dawn for several months of the year. “During the winter, we just feel so tired,” she says. “The children struggle with it as well. They are less alert and less active at this time of year.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Anna picks me up from my city-center hotel at 7.45 a.m. It’s early January and still dark, but as dawn begins to break it reveals a leaden sky and the threat of snow. I ask if she’s a winter person and she visibly shudders. “No, I am not,” she replies stiffly. “I like the sun.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Lindeborg School, where Anna teaches, caters for approximately 700 pupils, ranging from preschool age through to 16. Since there’s little the school can do about its high latitude and brooding climate, the local authority is instead trying to recreate the psychological effects of sunshine on its pupils artificially.</p> <p> </p> <p>When I walk into Anna’s classroom, my eyes instinctively crinkle, and I feel myself recoiling. It’s as if someone has thrown open the curtains on a darkened bedroom. Yet as my eyes adjust to the bright light, I see the curtains in this classroom are firmly closed. In front of me sit a class of 14-year-olds at evenly spaced desks, watching my reaction with mild amusement. They’re part of an experiment investigating whether artificial lighting can improve their alertness and sleep, and ultimately result in improved grades.</p> <p> </p> <p>“We can all feel that if we’re not very alert at school or work, we don’t perform at our top level,” says Olle Strandberg, a developer at Malmö’s Department of Internal Services, which is leading the project. “So if there is any possibility of waking the students up during the wintertime, we’re keen to take it.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Since October 2015, Anna’s classroom has been fitted with ceiling lights that change in color and intensity to simulate being outside on a bright day in springtime. Developed by a company called BrainLit, the ultimate goal is to create a system that is tailored to the individual, monitoring the type of light they’ve been exposed to through the course of a day and then adjusting the lights to optimize their health and productivity.</p> <p> </p> <p>When Anna’s pupils enter the classroom, the lights are a bright bluish-white to wake them up. They then grow gradually more intense as the morning progresses, dimming slightly in the run-up to lunch to ease the transition to the gloomier light outside. Immediately after lunch, the classroom is intense whitish-blue again – “to combat the post-lunch coma,” jokes Strandberg – but then the lights gradually dim and become more yellow as the afternoon progresses.</p> <p> </p> <p>Bright light in the morning suppresses any residual melatonin that could be making us sleepy, and provides a signal to the brain’s master clock that keeps it synchronized with the 24-hour cycle of light and dark. The idea is it therefore strengthens our internal rhythms, so that when night comes around again, we start to feel sleepy at the correct time.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2winter_pxfuel.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Already, there’s some preliminary evidence that it’s having an effect on the pupils’ sleep. In a small pilot study, 14 pupils from Anna’s class and 14 from a neighboring class that doesn’t have the lighting system were given Jawbone activity trackers and asked to keep sleep diaries for two weeks. During the second week, significant differences started to emerge between the two groups in terms of their sleep, with Anna’s pupils waking up fewer times during the night and spending a greater proportion of their time asleep.</p> <p> </p> <p>No one knows whether the lighting system is affecting the students’ exam scores, or even how to measure that. But it might. Besides suppressing melatonin and warding off any residual sleepiness, recent studies suggest that bright light acts as a stimulant to the brain. Gilles Vandewalle and colleagues at the University of Liège in Belgium asked volunteers to perform various tasks in a brain scanner while exposing them to pulses of bright white light or no light. After exposure to white light, the brain was in a more active state in those areas that were involved in the task. Although they didn’t measure the volunteers’ test performances directly, if you are able to recruit a greater brain response, then your performance is likely to be better: You will be faster or more accurate, Vandewalle says.</p> <p> </p> <p>Anna agrees. Anecdotally, she reports that her students are more alert. “They’ve expressed that they feel more able to concentrate and they are more focused,” she says. “I also look forward to going into my classroom in the morning, because I’ve noticed that I feel better when I go in there – more awake.”</p> <p> </p> <p>What is it about the flat, gloomy greyness of winters that seems to penetrate our skin and dampen our spirits?</p> <p> </p> <p>Of course, the idea of using light to counter the winter blues is nothing new. SAD lamps are a mainstay of treatment for winter depression, and in Sweden, which was a vigorous early adopter of light therapy, clinics often went one step further: dressing patients in all-white clothes and sending them into white rooms filled with bright light.</p> <p> </p> <p>Baba Pendse, a Malmö-based psychiatrist, recalls visiting one of these early light rooms in Stockholm in the late 1980s: “I remember that after being in there for some time, we all started to get very lively,” he says. In 1992, he opened a light therapy clinic in Lund, and another in neighboring Malmö a few years later, which still exist today.</p> <p> </p> <p>Sitting in the Malmö light room with Pendse brings back memories of sunny cafés at the top of ski slopes: the brightness elicits the same sense of elation. The room contains 12 white chairs and footstalls, each draped in a white towel and clustered around a white coffee table stacked with white cups, napkins and sugar cubes. The only non-white object in the room is a jar of instant coffee granules. It’s warm, and the lights emit a very faint hum. Around 100 people diagnosed with SAD use the light room each winter, initially booking in for 10 two-hour sessions in the early morning over the course of two weeks. Pendse offers his patients the choice of group light therapy or taking antidepressants to combat their depression. “But unlike antidepressants, with light therapy you get an almost immediate effect,” he says.</p> <p>                                                                                ******</p> <p> </p> <p>In recent years, light therapy has experienced something of a backlash in Sweden, and Malmö’s clinic is one of only a handful that remain. In part, this was a response to a 2007 study by the Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care, which reviewed the available evidence and concluded that “although treatment in light therapy rooms is well-established in Sweden, no satisfactory, controlled studies have been published on the subject.” They said the value of therapy with a light box for SAD “can be neither confirmed nor dismissed,” which, while inconclusive, was interpreted by some as “light therapy has no effect.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Pendse shakes his head telling me this. Conducting gold-standard, randomized placebo-controlled studies of light therapy is difficult, he says, because “what do you use as a placebo?”</p> <p> </p> <p>Even so, there’s some evidence that light therapy may have a similar effect on the brain to many antidepressants. In a study published in 2016, 11 patients with SAD treated with two weeks of light therapy saw plunging levels of serotonin transporter binding – a measure of how quickly serotonin’s activity is curtailed. Their levels became similar to those seen during summertime.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3depression_piqsels.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>There is other evidence, besides. At the back of our eyes, an unusual type of photoreceptor has been found that seems to help synchronize our circadian rhythms to the 24-hour cycle of light and dark. These cells, called ipRGCs, are particularly sensitive to blue light, connect to a number of different brain areas, and seem to feed into our circadian clock, our sleep centers and even some mood-regulating areas.</p> <p> </p> <p>Through these cells, bright light seems to affect our mood and alertness in several ways – suppression of melatonin and synchronization of the circadian clock, for instance – but researchers believe they have another, more direct impact on mood. Mouse studies have found that bright light at inappropriate times of day leads to depression-like behaviors (the mice became less interested in sugar and quickly gave up when challenged with a forced swimming test – a common measure of despair in mice). But this doesn’t happen in mice genetically engineered to lack ipRGCs.</p> <p> </p> <p>Vandewalle’s lab meanwhile has discovered that the brain areas responsible for processing emotion light up more strongly in response to blue light, and has found an abnormal response to blue light in the hypothalamus of SAD sufferers during the winter months. “People with winter depression tend to sleep more, eat more and to be demotivated. The hypothalamus is implicated in all these areas, so it may be an important region for the impact of light on the brain,” he says.</p> <p> </p> <p>Not everyone in Rjukan has welcomed the sun mirrors with open arms. Many of the locals I spoke to dismissed them as a tourist gimmick – though all admitted they were good for business. On the day I visited, the town was blessed with clear blue skies and a golden shaft of light descending from the mirrors, yet few people lingered in the town square. In fact, of the people I spoke to, it was recent immigrants to Rjukan who seemed most appreciative of the mirrors.</p> <p> </p> <p>Martin Andersen admits to having gotten used to the lack of sunlight over time. “I don’t find it so bad anymore,” he says. It’s as though the people who’ve been brought up in this uniquely shady place, or who have chosen to stay, have grown immune to the normal thirst for sunlight.</p> <p> </p> <p>This is certainly the case in another Norwegian settlement: Tromsø. One of the world’s most northerly cities, it is some 400 km north of the Arctic Circle. Winter in Tromsø is dark – the sun doesn’t even rise above the horizon between 21 November and 21 January. Yet strangely, despite its high latitude, studies have found no difference between rates of mental distress in winter and summer.</p> <p> </p> <p>One suggestion is that this apparent resistance to winter depression is genetic. Iceland similarly seems to buck the trend for SAD: It has a reported prevalence of 3.8 percent, which is lower than that of many countries farther south. And among Canadians of Icelandic descent living in a region of Canada called Manitoba, the prevalence of SAD is approximately half that of non-Icelandic Canadians living in the same place.</p> <p> </p> <p>However, an alternative explanation for this apparent resilience in the face of darkness is culture. “To put it brutally and brief: It seems like there are two sorts of people who come up here,” says Joar Vittersø, a happiness researcher at the University of Tromsø. “One group tries to get another kind of work back down south as soon as possible; the other group remains.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Ane-Marie Hektoen grew up in Lillehammer in southern Norway, but moved to Tromsø 33 years ago with her husband, who grew up in the north. “At first I found the darkness very depressing; I was unprepared for it, and after a few years I needed to get a light box in order to overcome some of the difficulties,” she says. “But over time, I have changed my attitude to the dark period. People living here see it as a cozy time. In the south, the winter is something that you have to plough through, but up here, people appreciate the very different kind of light you get at this time of year.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Stepping into Ane-Marie’s house is like being transported into a fairytale version of winter. There are few overhead lights, and those that do exist drip with crystals, which bounce the light around. The breakfast table is set with candles, and the interior is furnished in pastel pinks, blues and white, echoing the soft colors of the snow and the winter sky outside. It is the epitome of kos or koselig – the Norwegian version of hygge, the feeling of warmth and coziness.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3winter_stocksnap_-_pixabay.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The period between 21 November and 21 January in Tromsø is known as the polar night, or dark period, but for at least several hours a day, it isn’t strictly speaking dark, but more of a soft twilight. Even when true darkness does descend, people stay active. One afternoon I hire a pair of cross-country skis and set off down one of the street-lit tracks that crisscross the edge of the city. Despite the darkness, I encounter people taking dogs for walks on skis, a man running with a head torch, and countless children having fun on sledges. I stop at a park and marvel at a children’s playground lit up by floodlights. “Do children climb here in winter?” I ask a young woman, who is struggling to pull on a pair of ice skates. “Of course,” she answers, in perfect English. “It’s why we have floodlights. If we didn’t, we’d never get anything done.”</p> <p> </p> <p>During 2014–15, a psychologist from Stanford University called Kari Leibowitz spent 10 months in Tromsø trying to figure out how people cope during the cold, dark winters. Together with Vittersø, she devised a winter mindset questionnaire to assess people’s attitudes to winter in Tromsø, Svalbard and the Oslo area. The farther north they went, the more positive people’s mindsets towards winter were, she tells me. “In the south, people didn’t like winter nearly as much. But across the board, liking winter was associated with greater life satisfaction and being willing to undertake challenges that lead to greater personal growth.”</p> <p> </p> <p>It sounds dismissively simple, but adopting a more positive attitude really might help to ward off the winter blues. Kelly Rohan recently published a clinical trial comparing cognitive behavioral therapy  to light therapy in the treatment of SAD, and found them comparable during the first year of treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy involves learning to identify patterns and errors in one’s way of thinking and challenging them. In the case of SAD, that could be rephrasing thoughts such as “I hate winter” to “I prefer summer to winter,” or “I can’t do anything in winter” to “It’s harder for me to do things in winter, but if I plan and put in effort I can.”</p> <p> </p> <p>It also involves finding activities that a person is willing to do in winter, to pull them out of hibernation mode. “I don’t argue that there isn’t a strong physiological component to seasonal depression, which is tied to the light–dark cycle,” says Rohan. “But I do argue that the person has some control over how they respond to and cope with that. You can change your thinking and behavior to feel a bit better at this time of year.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Linda Geddes is a Bristol-based freelance journalist writing about biology, medicine and technology. Born in Cambridge, she graduated from the University of Liverpool with a first-class degree in cell biology. She spent nine years as an editor and reporter for New Scientist magazine and has received numerous awards for her journalism, including winning the Association of British Science Writers’ award for best investigative journalism and being shortlisted for the Paul Foot Award. </em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>                                    </em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>This </em></strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/dark-winter-sad-depressi" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><strong><em>article</em></strong></a><strong><em> by Linda Geddes was originally published in </em></strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/dark-winter-sad-depressi" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><strong><em>Mosaic</em></strong></a><strong><em>. It’s republished here with permission under a Creative Commons license.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://www.maxpixels.net/Dark-Winter-Municipal-Night-The-Fog-Park-Lamp-2043439" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Maxpixel</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>-- </em><a href="https://www.pikrepo.com/fbfbe/depression-sadness-despair-man-with-hands-covering-face-blue-tone" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pikrepo</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>-- </em><a href="https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-outau" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pxfuel</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--Maria Eklind (</em><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mariaeklind/49698599927" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Flickr</em></a><em>, Creative CommonsI</em></p> <p><em>--ArtbyKleiton (</em><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/depression-darkness-sad-dark-5127100/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pixabay</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--StockSnap (</em><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/people-woman-back-walking-snow-2595535/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pixabay</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--<a href="https://www.piqsels.com/en/public-domain-photo-jjoxd" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Piqsels</a> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/winter-blues" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">winter blues</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/cold-weather" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">cold weather</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/winter" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">winter</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/circadian-rythm" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">circadian rythm</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/seasonal-affective-disorder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">seasonal affective disorder</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/norway" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">norway</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/sweden" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">sweden</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/light-therapy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">light therapy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/sunshine" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">sunshine</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mood-swings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mood swings</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Linda Geddes</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 06 Oct 2020 12:24:10 +0000 tara 9884 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10920-how-town-norway-copes-winter-depression#comments The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Limits of Virtual Social Life https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10656-coronavirus-pandemic-and-limits-virtual-social-life <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 05/18/2020 - 06:46</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1coronavirus.jpg?itok=XL7uGr7u"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1coronavirus.jpg?itok=XL7uGr7u" width="480" height="321" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>A quarter-century ago, the Spanish sociologist and interpreter of network society, Manuel Castells, famously argued that we had passed into in an age of “real virtuality.” “Reality itself,” he claimed, “is entirely captured, fully immersed in a virtual image setting, in a world of make-believe, in which appearances are not just on the screen through which experience is communicated, but they become the experience.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In 1996, Castells’ proclamation seemed overblown. Amazon was in its infancy; Apple was receding in the shadow of Microsoft; and Facebook, Twitter, Google, and the Web 2.0 participatory media explosion were still years away. “Big Tech” had not yet become synonymous with the oligopoly of the information tech giants that we see today, and no one was talking about the political economy of platform capitalism or the perils of surveillance capitalism.</p> <p> </p> <p>Castells’ claim that virtuality had “enclosed” and “absorbed” reality altogether therefore came off as hyperbole at best and Baudrillardian sensationalism at worst. The reality of the first half of the 1990s was characterized by a cascade of dramatic events – the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Gulf War, the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the Los Angeles riots – that a still-nascent internet and its budding capabilities were ill-equipped to contain. The territory at that time seemed far bigger (and more interesting) than the map.</p> <p> </p> <p>Fast-forward to the present day and things look rather different. Cyberspace has come of age and is no longer an esoteric annex of mainstream culture. It has burgeoned and diversified into much more than the exclusive playground of technophiles, (mostly male) social misfits and escapists, and those seeking transgressive gratification beyond the strictures and prohibitions of embodied, face-to-face interaction. Granted, it still functions as all those things for some, and many of its subterranean recesses remain exclusive, but few would disagree that the World Wide Web is now central to all our lives in a global digital society.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2coronavirus_0.jpg" style="height:338px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>It is as much where we live as are the buildings we occupy. E-commerce, cloud computing, live-streaming, image and video-sharing, social networking, videoconferencing, instant messaging, gaming, and online searching have worked their way into the warp and woof of our everyday habits and practices. Even our grandmothers now direct us to “Google it!” when in doubt. The internet, the social networks it has created, and the “always on” mobile technologies have interactively transformed how we work and play, how we experience, understand, and relate to the world, ourselves, and others. Our private and public lives have become profoundly “mediatized” in the brave new digital sphere. Worldwide, we spend an average of nearly seven hours a day online, half of that on mobile devices. So, are we closer to fulfilling Castells’ vision of real virtuality?</p> <p> </p> <p>Perhaps. But has the internet really been tested for its adequacy in virtually reconstituting social life? After all, for all the depth and breadth of their cultural penetration, many of today’s popular social websites and apps are valued insofar as they facilitate or optimize future interaction in the flesh, be it personal or professional.</p> <p> </p> <p>Online dating apps and services such as Tinder, Bumble, and Match are fueled by the promise of meeting potential romantic or sexual mates in person. LinkedIn provides its users with efficient professional networking and access to job possibilities that most often entail working in (real) buildings alongside (real) people. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are frequently used to plan and coordinate situated social events that bring people together physically.</p> <p> </p> <p> In these examples, the <em>virtual </em>works to support or subserve the <em>real</em>; it doesn’t replace, nullify, or swallow it. The truth is that we’ve never been forced to confront the adequacy of virtual sociality on its own, because it has historically evolved to assist us in our ineluctably corporeal and often fraught transactions with others. However compelled and mesmerized we are by the multimedia digital self-projections we create and exchange with others, we are and will forever remain matter in motion, forced to deal for better or worse with the motion of those around us.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4coronavirus.jpg" style="height:338px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Nature, however, has a knack for putting our technologies to the tests that we are unable or unwilling to perform. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed more than a third of the world’s population under some form of mandatory lockdown. Nations around the globe have been forced to keep their citizens home and apart from each other. Social connection beyond the nuclear family – and at times within it – has been reduced to real virtuality. We collaborate and conference with co-workers through Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, rather than sit around a table at the office. We connect with friends through Skype, FaceTime, Duo, and Houseparty rather than over food or drinks. We catch up with neighbours through Nextdoor rather than block parties. Meanwhile, our kids fight their boredom and confinement on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch, when they’re not busy gaming or serving as reluctant canaries in the mine of online education. And we all binge on television series and films we would never deign to watch in normal times. It should come as no surprise that Netflix gained 16 million new subscribers around the world in the first quarter of 2020, which tripled its earnings from the same period last year.</p> <p> </p> <p>And in case we fail to take the cue from the moment, we are constantly reminded that the virtual is where we <em>should</em> turn in this period of social contraction. Physical distancing, we are told, does not mean social isolation. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on the World Health Organizations COVID-19 response team, said during a March 20th press conference that “distancing doesn't mean that socially we have to disconnect from our loved ones, from our family. Technology right now has advanced so greatly that we can keep connected in many ways without actually physically being in the same room or physically being in the same space with people….We're changing to say physical distancing [rather than social distancing], and that's on purpose because we want people to still remain connected.”</p> <p> </p> <p>We’re also reminded that virtuality is not only how we should cope with the pandemic; it is a vital part of how we must combat it. An April 14th policy brief by the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, for example, highlighted the value of digital technologies in addressing the crisis. Governments were urged to “use digital communication channels to provide reliable information on global and national COVID-19 developments. E-participation platforms can represent useful tools to engage with vulnerable groups online and establish digital initiatives to collectively brainstorm for policy ideas to critical social and economic challenges.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Big tech has never felt more self-important and righteous than at the moment we need them most. The Big Five – Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft – have together contributed $1.25 billion so far to meeting the challenges of the pandemic. And so they should. With a combined market capitalization of $4.7 trillion, a billion or two is pocket change for them. In fact, they’ve also been among the main beneficiaries of the crisis, as the world has become more dependent than ever on their dazzling panoply of digital tools and services.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5coronavirus.jpg" style="height:440px; width:520px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Facebook has seen messaging on its platform increase by half and video-calling double in some markets. While this sharp increase in demand has created technical challenges of its own and is not immediately monetizable, it bodes well for the continuing dominance of the tech giant. Amazon’s stock hit an all-time high in April with a massive surge in orders. Apple’s services business (which includes Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, and Apple Music) is booming even while iPhone sales are down. Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, has benefited from a dramatic increase in the use of its services, more than offsetting the expected drop in ad revenues. Microsoft’s cloud business is booming as many of us are forced to work from home under lockdown, overshadowing the revenue loss in its PC unit.</p> <p> </p> <p>The major players are showing a heightened sense of responsibility at this critical time, implementing strategies to inhibit the spread of disinfomation and misinformation about the origins of the virus and how best to prevent or treat the illness it causes. Consider this March 16th joint statement from Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube: “We are working closely together on COVID-19 response efforts. We’re helping millions of people stay connected while also jointly combating fraud and misinformation about the virus, elevating authoritative content on our platforms, and sharing critical updates in coordination with government healthcare agencies around the world. We invite other companies to join us as we work to keep our communities healthy and safe.” That’s good news. We’ve come a long way since the tarnish of Cambridge Analytica! And few want to see another 5G cell tower go up in flames. But what else are we learning from this imposed test of radical virtual sociality?</p> <p> </p> <p>According to a Gallup Panel survey conducted on April 6-12, 52 percent of Americans reported that social distancing has either harmed their mental health or will likely do so within a few months. Similarly, an Ipsos poll published on April 10th revealed that physical distancing has left over half of Canadians feeling lonely or isolated. The Canadian Mental Health Association warned on April 15th of an “echo pandemic of mental illness and mental health issues” as a result of COVID-19. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, substance abuse, domestic abuse, and suicides are expected to rise sharply. Information, support, guidance, and social connection through digital technology may buffer this to some extent, but those most vulnerable to the psychological costs of self-isolation – the elderly, physically or mentally compromised, poor, homeless -- are also those least likely to have access to or competence with digital technologies.</p> <p> </p> <p>More importantly, however, we seem to have social needs that no amount of virtual connection can satisfy. In a number of survey studies published over the past decade, millennial and Gen Z digital natives often report the highest demographic rates of loneliness and isolation, despite also spending the most time online, especially on social media. This suggests that the social bonds formed or sustained through the internet, while potentially rewarding and even essential in the digital cultural lives of teens and young adults, are not enough on their own to sustain psychological health and well-being. Worse, too much screen time can displace the opportunity to forge “thicker” bonds by physically being together with others. While it may be true that those whom digital natives tend to connect with online these days are often also those they associate with in the flesh, the point remains that the former without the latter may not provide a satisfactory level of belonging, acceptance, intimacy, and support. Why might that be? Consider the following illustration from the front lines of our battle with COVID-19. </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/6coronavirus.jpg" style="height:364px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>We’ve all read or heard the heartrending accounts of those who were unable to be with a quarantined family member dying from complications caused by the virus. Prohibited from sitting vigil with their loved ones in a hospital or long-term nursing home or medical facility, these families had to settle for connecting live through the glowing screens of digital devices. The blurry, halting images and wafery voices of video chat are all they had to give and receive in the final hours. Gone was the intimacy of physical closeness and contact that makes both dying and saying the last goodbye just bearable. It is little surprise that some opted instead to stand outside the windows of the ward during their family member’s final hours, preferring the solace of spatial nearness and what Hannah Arendt once called “stubborn thereness” to simulated presence. Either way, death in this context becomes refracted “through a glass, darkly” and is all the more painful for it.</p> <p> </p> <p>What is missing from these virtual farewells that makes them seem so unfair and distressing? Those who study digital media and communications talk a lot about the reduced “social presence” that characterizes virtual connections. That certainly applies here. But what does the reduction consist of in this case? What would have made the difference? Two channels of social intercourse seem especially important: touch and the opportunity to read the eyes of the other.</p> <p> </p> <p>The intimacy of consensual touch often serves as a human balm in trying situations. To hold the hand of a dying patient, kiss their cheek, stroke their head, or embrace them communicates the primordial message, “You are not completely alone in your terror and pain. I am here with you.” It is the original and most powerful form of social bonding. The digitally connected families mentioned above were denied this saving grace. The innovators of real virtuality are not unaware of this gap. As I write this, tech companies are busy working on the next generation of “haptic devices,” skin-integrated interfaces for virtual and augmented reality environments that will provide the sensations of touching and being touched by remote others. For now, however, we must accept the fact that touch is something essential to our health and humanity that mass-market virtuality does not provide.</p> <p> </p> <p>Through the pandemic, we have become sensitized to the bodies of others as potential sources of infection. Anyone could be a “silent spreader,” we are told, infected with the insidious COVID-19, yet either presymptomatic or persistently asymptomatic as they unknowingly pass it on to others. Solid estimates of how much of global transmission is attributable to silent spread are not yet available, but some have suggested it could be as high as 30 percent.</p> <p> </p> <p>Accordingly, we give passersby a wide berth on the sidewalk and avoid their glances to underscore the fact that it is prudential and not personal. The eyes of others, in fact, have long been both the blessing and the bane of virtuality. Many feel liberated by text-based digital communication because they don’t have to deal with the direct gaze of their interlocutor or audience when expressing themselves. Just ask any executioner – or internet troll. It’s easier to hurt, upset, or denounce others when you don’t have to look them in the eye. The empowerment of disinhibition can be exhilarating and even democratizing when justified dissent or accusation is delivered with visual impunity. It can also be antisocial, inviting narcissism, meanness, incivility, and an unwillingness to recognize the needs of others or rationally engage with what they have to say. A few hours spent on today’s Twitter provides ample evidence. Video chat is scarcely better as a medium. Sure, we can see the bodies of others set against the furnishings of their room, office or, increasingly, a faux backdrop. But the eyes are too small, indistinct, and ethereally remote to carry significant moral weight.     </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2people-socialdistancing.jpg" style="height:338px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>And morality, after all, is the main issue here. Looking for any length of time into the eyes of another forces us to consider that person’s needs, desires, emotions, and intentions vis-à-vis our own. The gaze of the other is in this sense a “moral summons.” For Jean-Paul Sartre, this was not such a good thing. Sartre described meeting another’s eyes as a source of “uneasiness” and “decentralization” as we struggle to comprehend and accept the other’s independent subjectivity alongside our own. Doing so reduces our freedom, Sartre argued. We are no longer “master of the situation” and our world is “stolen” from us. Given its present limitations, real virtuality -- with or without live video -- carries neither the promise of Levinasian ethical communion nor the threat of Sartrian loss of freedom. There is simply not enough gaze to get worked up about.</p> <p> </p> <p>Without the touch and the transfixing eyes of others to humanize us during the pandemic, we are finally confronting the limits of the network. Adapting to a world of imposed real virtuality, many of those who live alone – who together account for 28 percent of all households in both the United States and Canada -- have been able to curtail the distress of isolation and loneliness through the use of digital information and communication technologies. For that we should all be grateful, as Big Tech will no doubt remind us in their marketing campaigns for years to come.</p> <p> </p> <p>Even so, the spike in mental distress that we’re now experiencing, one that will almost certainly persist well beyond the pandemic itself, is hard to ignore. Of course, we do not know just how much of the surge is because of social contraction per se, which in the present crisis is conflated with health anxiety, the sickness or death of those who matter to us, unemployment and underemployment, domestic and occupational disruption, increased family burdens, and economic uncertainty. Nonetheless, we can reasonably assume that the reduction in full-blooded interpersonal contact – the virtualization of social life -- is making most of us feel less well than we would otherwise. </p> <p> </p> <p>In the same year that Castells announced the advent of real virtuality, poet and cyberlibertarian John Perry Barlow rhapsodized about its liberating immateriality. “Ours,” he wrote of cyberspace, “is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.” Directly addressing the governments of the world, he proclaimed, “We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.” Looking back now, a little charity is in order. Sure, in the wake of 21st-century troll farms, fake news and political disinformation campaigns, cyberbullying, catfishing, deepfakes, bots, big data and behavioural tracking, Edward Snowden’s NSA files, and Cambridge Analytica, it’s perhaps all too easy to smirk at Barlow’s <em>fin de millénaire</em> enthusiasm.</p> <p> </p> <p>But is that fair? He certainly wasn’t alone in his zeal and conviction back in the 1990s. An awful lot has happened on the road to cyberutopia since to dampen our collective faith. If we handle things responsibly, we’ll look back at the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview mirror soon enough. We’ll have learned a lot about ourselves and our institutions -- both strengths and weaknesses. Here’s an important  lesson we can add to the list: Virtual sociality is not enough to make us happy. We need each other -- <em>really</em>, not <em>virtually</em>. And while our “posthuman” future remains an open question, no amount of advanced digital technology and computer coding can ever change what’s written into the social DNA of our species.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Romin W. Tafarodi earned his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994. He has since taught at Cardiff University, the University of Tokyo, and the University of Toronto, where he is currently Associate Professor of Psychology. He has contributed research articles and book chapters in the areas of self, identity, and culture; and taught undergraduate and graduate courses ranging from statistics to philosophy and media studies. He is a strong proponent of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship in an age of increasing academic specialization.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Image Sources:</em></strong></p> <p><em>--Maximillian Schoenherr (</em><a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/fb306458-6110-4085-bc82-4e8de1d10ec2" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Creative Commons</em></a><em>)</em></p> <p><em>--Testing Today (</em><a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/d83b0445-ed90-4173-8a4c-a486bbc99170" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Creative Commons</em></a><em>)</em></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2020-03-06_%E2%80%94_Coronavirus_%E2%80%93_Flyers_at_Hartsfield-Jackson_Atlanta_International_Airport_wearing_facemasks.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Chad Davis</em></a><em>, (Wikimedia, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--Folsom Natural (</em><a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/f54c6bb2-ebb5-4459-8915-fe211c05ce7e" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Creative Commons</em></a><em>)</em></p> <p><em>--Mohsen Atayi (Wikimedia.org, </em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coronavirus_patients_at_the_Imam_Khomeini_Hospital_in_Tehran,_Iran_--_%D8%A8%D8%AE%D8%B4_%D9%88%DB%8C%DA%98%D9%87_%D8%A8%DB%8C%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86_%DA%A9%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A7_%D8%AF%D8%B1_%D8%A8%DB%8C%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85_%D8%AE%D9%85%DB%8C%D9%86%DB%8C_%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86_--_March_1,_2020.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Creative Commons</em></a><em>)</em></p> <p><em>--Jagritparajuli (Pixabay, </em><a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/video-call-online-zoom-skype-video-5163145/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Creative Commons</em></a><em>)</em></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/social-distancing-coronavirus" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">social distancing coronavirus</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/canada" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canada</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/us" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">U.S.</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/facebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Facebook</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/twitter" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Twitter</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/human-connection" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">human connection</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/psychology" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">psychology</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/big-tech" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">big tech</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/human-interaction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">human interaction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/covid-19" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">covid-19</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/health" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">health</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/virtual-connections" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">virtual connections</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Romin W. Tafarodi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 18 May 2020 10:46:15 +0000 tara 9555 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10656-coronavirus-pandemic-and-limits-virtual-social-life#comments Glasgow’s War Against the Anguish of Urban Life https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10214-glasgow-s-war-against-anguish-urban-life <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/travel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Travel</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 10/27/2019 - 05:33</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1glasgow.jpg?itok=wQTM4VOq"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1glasgow.jpg?itok=wQTM4VOq" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in </strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/"><strong>Mosaic</strong></a><strong> under a </strong><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><strong>Creative Commons license</strong></a><strong>. Read the rest of the article </strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/"><strong>here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Glasgow has become notorious for the kind of mental and physical ills that plague city dwellers everywhere. Is urban life itself harmful to humans – or can we rethink cities so that they can help us to thrive?</p> <p> </p> <p>If you live in Glasgow, you are more likely to die young. Men there die a full seven years earlier than their counterparts in other UK cities. Until recently, the causes of this excess mortality remained a mystery.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Deep-fried Mars bars,” some have speculated. “The weather,” others suggested. For years, those reasons were as good as any. In 2012, the <em>Economist</em> described it thus: “It is as if a malign vapour rises from the Clyde at night and settles in the lungs of sleeping Glaswegians.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The phenomenon has become known as the Glasgow Effect. But David Walsh, a public health program manager at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, who led a study on the excess deaths in 2010, wasn’t satisfied with how the term was being used. “It turned into a Scooby-Doo mystery, but it’s not an exciting thing. It’s about people dying young; it’s about grief.”</p> <p> </p> <p>He wanted to work out why Glaswegians have a 30 percent higher risk of dying prematurely – that is, before the age of 65 – than those living in similar post-industrial British cities. In 2016, his team published a report looking at 40 hypotheses – from vitamin D deficiency to obesity and sectarianism. “The most important reason is high levels of poverty, full stop,” says Walsh. “There’s one in three children who are classed as living in poverty at the moment.”</p> <p> </p> <p>But even with deprivation accounted for, mortality rates in Glasgow remained inexplicable. Deaths in each income group are about 15 percent higher than in Manchester or Liverpool. In particular, deaths from “diseases of despair” – drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related deaths – are high. In the mid-2000s, after adjusting for sex, age and deprivation, there was almost a 70 percent higher mortality rate for suicide in Glasgow than in the two English cities.</p> <p> </p> <p>Walsh’s report revealed that radical urban planning decisions from the 1950s onwards had made the physical and mental health of Glasgow’s population more vulnerable to the consequences of de-industrialisation and poverty.</p> <p> </p> <p>Shifting theories of city planning have profoundly altered people’s lives everywhere, and particularly over the past half-century in Glasgow. The city’s population stands at about 600,000 now. In 1951, it was nearly double this. Glasgow’s excess mortality, the report suggests, is the unintended legacy of urban planning that exacerbated the already considerable challenges of living in a city.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2glasgow.jpg" style="height:450px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Studies have consistently linked city living with poorer mental health. For example, growing up in an urban environment is correlated with twice the risk of developing schizophrenia as growing up in the countryside. By 2050, 68 percent of the world’s population will live in cities, according to UN figures. The consequences for global health are likely to be significant.</p> <p> </p> <p>Can we learn from what happened in Glasgow? As an increasing number of people move to or are born in cities, questions of fragmented communities, transient populations, overcrowding, inequality and segregation – and how these affect the wellbeing of residents – will become more acute.</p> <p> </p> <p>Are urban dwellers doomed to poor mental health, or can planners learn from the mistakes of the past and design cities that will keep us healthy and happy?</p> <p> </p> <p>In postwar Glasgow, local authorities decided to tackle the city’s severe overcrowding. The 1945 Bruce report proposed housing people in high-rises on the periphery of the city center. The Clyde Valley report published a year later suggested encouraging workers and their families to move to new towns. In the end, the council did a combination of both.</p> <p> </p> <p>New towns like East Kilbride and Cumbernauld are now among the most populous towns in Scotland. Many of those who stayed in Glasgow were relocated to large housing estates like Drumchapel, Easterhouse and Castlemilk.</p> <p> </p> <p>The rapid change in the city’s makeup was soon recognized as disastrous. Relocating workers and their families to new towns was described in mid-1960s parliamentary discussions as “skimming the cream”. In an internal review in 1971, the Scottish Office noted that the manner of population reduction was “destined within a decade or so to produce a seriously unbalanced population with a very high proportion [in central Glasgow] of the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable…”</p> <p> </p> <p>Although the government was soon aware of the consequences, these were not necessarily intentional, says Walsh. “You have to understand what sort of shape Glasgow was in, in terms of the really lousy living conditions, the levels of overcrowded housing and all the rest of it,” he says. “They thought the best approach was to just start afresh.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Anna left the tenements for a high-rise in Glasgow’s Sighthill estate, where she has lived on and off since the mid-1960s. She was a teenager when she moved with her mother and sister to a brand-new fourth-floor flat – picked from a bowler hat. It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a glass partition in the hallway. “It was like Buckingham Palace,” remembers Anna. She is now 71, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, with a blonde bob and a raspy cough that doubles as a laugh.</p> <p> </p> <p>Sighthill’s 10 20-storey tower blocks were meant to herald the future. North of the city center, set in parkland, with a view over the city, they would house more than 7,000 people drawn from the tenements and the slums.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3glasgow.jpg" style="height:450px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Until then, Anna’s family had lived in a tenement building in nearby Roystonhill. “I slept with my mammy and my sister in a recess,” she says. The toilet was shared. This was typical; little had changed since the 1911 census revealed that in Glasgow almost two-thirds of dwellings – many housing large families and lodgers – had only one or two rooms, compared to a third of dwellings in London.</p> <p> </p> <p>But when the tenements went, something else went, too. “There were communities which had a social fabric, if you like, which were then broken up by these processes,” says Walsh.</p> <p> </p> <p>Anna recalls the change. “When we were in the tenements, you’d shout up to the window: ‘Mammy, I want a piece of jam!’ Before you knew it, there was a dozen of them being thrown out of the window.” In the tower block, she did not let her own children play unsupervised. Neighbors only spoke if they took the same lift. Her daughter was threatened with a bread knife.</p> <p> </p> <p>By the 2000s, the tower blocks were infamous for deprivation, violence and drugs. Many residents had moved out, including Anna and her family. Empty flats were used to rehouse asylum seekers. Fractures within the community were worsening.</p> <p> </p> <p>Glasgow Housing Association decided to condemn the buildings. The towers were demolished over eight years; the last one came down in 2016. Photographer Chris Leslie, who documented their dismantlement, remembers how the buildings were stripped and the crane picked the concrete shell apart. The interior of the flats was revealed, each a tiny different colored cuboid.</p> <p> </p> <p>But the roots of Glasgow’s excess mortality stretch back further than new towns and high-rises – to the Industrial Revolution, argues Carol Craig, who has written two books on the subject. In Glasgow, then called the Second City of the Empire, factories and the docks needed workers. Overcrowding coupled with a culture of drinking produced an explosive situation.</p> <p> </p> <p>Faced with the prospect of returning to a cramped tenement, many men preferred to visit the pub; there were few other public meeting places. “You’re more likely to have violence, you’re more likely to have conflict, even sexual abuse is much higher in households where there are drinkers,” Craig says.</p> <p> </p> <p>Being exposed in childhood to stressful events like domestic violence, parental abandonment, abuse, or drug and alcohol addictions is thought to be linked to poor mental and physical wellbeing in later life. The higher a person’s number of Adverse Childhood Experiences, as they are called, the more likely they are to suffer from mental illness or addiction. In turn they are more likely to expose their children to similar types of experiences, she says. “ACEs tend to cascade through the generations.”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4glasgow_0.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In the early 20th century, cities were meant to show us how to live. Modern urban planning would make people in the world’s cities healthier and happier. In 1933, the influential Swiss-French architect and urban planner Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, published his blueprint for the ideal city. In contrast with the past, he said, the city would now be designed to benefit its residents “on both the spiritual and material planes.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In his plans for the Radiant City, industrial, commercial and residential zones would be segregated to allow workers to escape pollution; homes would be surrounded by open green spaces to allow residents to meet; wide roads would be set out in a grid system; and high-rise blocks would help clear the slums, remnants of the rapid industrialization in many cities during the 19th century. These slums were overcrowded and insanitary, and their inhabitants were, as the architect put it, “incapable of initiating ameliorations.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Glasgow was among the first and the most enthusiastic to adopt these new buildings. In 1954, a delegation of councillors and planners visited Marseilles to see the Unité d’Habitation, an 18-storey block of flats and amenities resting on concrete stilts, designed by Le Corbusier and finished two years before. Glasgow soon had the highest number of high-rise dwellings in the U.K. outside London.</p> <p> </p> <p>Since Le Corbusier, we have learned more about how the design of buildings can affect behavior. In an oft-cited study from 1973, the psychologist Andrew Baum looked at how the design of two student dormitories at Stony Brook University in Long Island changed how the 34 residents in each interacted with each other.</p> <p> </p> <p>In the first design, all the students shared common lounge and bathroom facilities along a corridor. In the second, smaller groups of four to six each shared bathrooms and lounges. They found that the first design was a “socially overloaded environment” which did not allow residents to regulate who they interacted with and when. Being faced with too many people, at times not of their choosing, led students to experience stress; they became less helpful and more anti-social than those in the second design as the year went on.</p> <p> </p> <p>Perhaps the most famous case study of buildings’ effects on their inhabitants still referenced today is Pruitt–Igoe in St Louis, 33 11-storey towers inspired by Le Corbusier and designed by the modernist Minoru Yamasaki. Finished in 1956, it was initially seen as a miracle solution to inner-city living. Less than 20 years later, the social problems the blocks seemed to have spawned were deemed so irreparable that the buildings were imploded by the local authorities.</p> <p> </p> <p>The architect Oscar Newman toured the complex in 1971, a year before demolition started. He argued that the design of a building affected the extent to which residents contributed to its upkeep. If people feel responsible for both keeping an area clean and controlling who uses it, it is likely to be safer. He called this sense of ownership over a territory “defensible space.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“The larger the number of people who share a communal space, the more difficult it is for people to identify it as theirs or to feel they have a right to control or determine the activity taking place within it,” Newman wrote. Pruitt–Igoe was not designed to accommodate defensible space. “Landings shared by only two families were well maintained, whereas corridors shared by 20 families... were a disaster – they evoked no feelings of identity or control.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Tower blocks with more wealthy residents are less likely to have issues with defensible space: They can pay for cleaners and security guards. Children, on the other hand, are often most affected: These common areas – communal corridors, or landings, or the nearby park – are usually spaces for play.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5glasgow.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>During his inauguration as rector of Glasgow University in 1972, the Clydeside trade unionist Jimmy Reid argued powerfully that working-class communities left behind by economic advancement were being stored out of sight. “When you think of some of the high flats around us, it can hardly be an accident that they are as near as one could get to an architectural representation of a filing cabinet.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Inequality is at its most conspicuous in cities: the very poor and the very rich live side by side yet separately. Relative social status is more likely to be the first measure by which we judge people in places where communities are more transient and inequality starker. This has been shown to have an impact on our psychological wellbeing.</p> <p> </p> <p>In their book, <em>The Inner Level</em>, epidemiologists Kate Pickett and Richard G Wilkinson argue that inequality not only creates social rupture by highlighting people’s differences but also encourages competition, contributing to increased social anxiety. They cite a 2004 paper by two psychologists at the University of California, Los Angeles – Sally Dickerson and Margaret Kemeny – who analyzed 208 studies to find that tasks involving some threat of social evaluation affected stress hormones the most.</p> <p> </p> <p>Pickett and Wilkinson argue that this type of stress harms our psychological health. “The more unequal countries had three times as much mental illness as the more equal ones.” This affects people of all social classes. In high-inequality countries, such as the USA and the UK, even the richest 10 percent of people suffer more anxiety than any group in low-inequality countries except the poorest 10 percent.</p> <p> </p> <p>Research has also shown that living in a city can alter our brain’s architecture, making it more vulnerable to this type of social stress. In 2011, a team led by psychiatrist Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of Heidelberg University’s Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany, looked at the implications of urban living on brain biology in one of the first experiments of its kind.</p> <p> </p> <p>The scientists scanned the brains of 32 students while they were given arithmetic tasks and simultaneously subjected to criticism on headphones. This was designed to simulate social stress. A further 23 performed the same test but were subjected to a different kind of social evaluation: they could see the frowning faces of invigilators while completing the puzzles. The results of the test were stark: The participants who lived in a city demonstrated a greater neurophysiological reaction to the same stress-inducing situation. The amygdala, an area of the brain that processes emotion, was activated more strongly in current urban-dwellers. The test also showed a difference between those who’d grown up in cities and those brought up in towns or the countryside. The former displayed a stronger response in their perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, which regulates the amygdala and is associated with stress and negative emotion.</p> <p> </p> <p>Meyer-Lindenberg’s previous work on risk mechanisms in schizophrenia focused on genes. But these are only thought to account for a 20 percent increased chance of developing the illness at most – and growing up in a city is associated with double the risk. Meyer-Lindenberg’s research has shown that stressful experiences in early life correlate with reduced volume of grey matter in the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, a factor often seen in people with schizophrenia. “Mental health is almost uniformly worse in cities… that’s just what the data shows,” Meyer-Lindenberg says over the phone. “There isn’t really a bright side to this.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Lack of agency – the feeling that we don’t have control over a situation – is one of the core mechanisms determining how strongly social stress is experienced, says Meyer-Lindenberg. “People who are in leadership positions tend to cope better with a given amount of stress.” In a city, and particularly if you are poor, you are far more dependent on other people and the urban infrastructure, whether it’s waiting impatiently for a bus or a lift, wondering who you’ll have to share a lift with in your high-rise complex, or hoping the local council will not choose your neighborhood for redevelopment.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/7glasgow.jpg" style="height:402px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Cities can also of course be liberating. “The flip side of being more stressful is that they may be more stimulating,” Meyer-Lindenberg says. “This tighter community that you have in a village, say, can be very oppressive if you don’t feel like you belong, if you’re an outsider of some sort.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Inequality has been shown to lower trust in others and damage social capital – the networks between people that allow societies to function effectively. People are so worried about security that they’re mentally building walls around themselves, says Liz Zeidler, chief executive of the Happy City Initiative, a research center based in Bristol. “We need to be doing the opposite: We need to be creating more and more spaces where people can connect, learn across their differences.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Happy City has designed a way to measure the local conditions shown to improve well-being. Its Thriving Places Index looks at housing, education, inequality, green space, safety and community cohesion.</p> <p> </p> <p>Perhaps, however, a good measure for the happiness of a place, Zeidler says, is the status of the “indicative species”. It’s an idea borrowed from the author and urbanist Charles Montgomery. For ponds, she says, it might be that the presence of a certain type of newt tells you whether or not the water is healthy. In cities, the newts are children. “If you can see children, it’s probably a healthy and happy city.” The way a city is laid out can foster this environment, she says, by “closing of streets, making it more pedestrianized, more green spaces, having more what urban planners would call ‘bumping spaces,’ where you can literally bump into people. Slowing places down is really good for everybody’s wellbeing and, obviously,” she adds, “you then see more children on the streets.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Without looking at the car swinging towards him, Christopher Martin, one of the urban planners behind the Avenues regeneration project of Glasgow city center, crosses the road. Thankfully, the car slows down. Martin continues, blithely, discussing the priority of pedestrians and rule 170 of the Highway Code. “Nicely acted, don’t you think?” quips Stephen O’Malley, a civic engineer and Martin’s colleague, who’s stayed safely on the curb beside me.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman used to perform a similar trick in the early 2000s. He would walk, usually with a journalist in tow, backwards, eyes closed, into a four-way crossing with no traffic lights or signs. Monderman believed roads were safer without traffic signs; in order to navigate unfamiliar routes, cars would slow down. The common sense of the drivers would act as a more powerful safety guard than any sign.</p> <p> </p> <p>“What we’re trying to do is to get people to interact with each other – be human beings,” Martin says as we continue to walk up Sauchiehall Street. “It’s a very dehumanizing effect stepping into a car.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Sauchiehall Street is the first area to be worked on as part of the Avenues, a £115 million project to form an integrated network of pedestrian and cycle routes on 17 roads and surrounding areas in the city center between the Clyde and Glasgow’s infamous motorway, which forms a near noose around the area. Glasgow’s central grid is mostly made of four-lane roads. When you walk across the city, the roads, some at a steep incline, others stretching towards a grey horizon, seem solely taken up with cars and buses. “The city will get what it invites,” says Martin. Now parts of these roads will be given over to those walking and biking, and to trees and benches.</p> <p> </p> <p>City planners the world over have a history of favoring the needs of cars. In 1955, Robert Moses, New York City parks commissioner, was planning to build a four-lane road through Washington Square Park. Some of the residents demurred, including journalist Jane Jacobs. In 1958, three years in to what would become a 14-year fight to save Greenwich Village, she wrote an article in <em>Fortune</em> magazine, which eventually formed the basis of her book <em>The Death and Life of American Cities</em>.</p> <p> </p> <p>To keep downtown activities “compact and concentrated,” Jacobs advocated removing cars. “The whole point is to make the streets more surprising, more compact, more variegated, and busier than before – not less so.” She argued against planners’ grand schemes that sought to demolish and redevelop, instead saying that cities should grow in line with what people want and how they use the spaces that already exist. “There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Giving priority to cars has distorted cities’ proportions, Martin says. “If you build at the scale of cars, you get wide roads, you get wide streets, you get cities which stretch out because cars are fast and cars are big.” Taking space away from cars gives the public realm back to the people. “It’s very anti-social being sat in a metal box by yourself,” he says. “The rise of urban loneliness and mental health [issues] to do with that disconnection is vast.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In Glasgow, Sauchiehall Street is being used as a proof of concept, while the other Avenues will be implemented over the next eight years. “The opportunity is that it’s an absolutely magnificent city,” Martin says, punctuating his excitement by sweeping his hair back. “It’s a grid system and the streets are so wide: there’s a lot of space. In one fell swoop, we’re going to make an enormous change.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in </strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/"><strong>Mosaic</strong></a><strong> under a </strong><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><strong>Creative Commons license</strong></a><strong>. Read the rest of the article </strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/"><strong>here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/tag-glasgow-street-art-2810648/">Calard</a> (Pixabay, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6199594">Robin Stott</a> (geograph.org.uk, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glasgow_Merchant_city.jpg">Denis Jacquery</a> (Wikimedia.org, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/929326">Pxhere.com</a> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://libreshot.com/silhouette-of-lonely-man-on-the-street/">Martin Vorel</a> (libreshot.com, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glasgow_Victoria_Park.jpg">--Stara Blazkova</a> (Wikimedia, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Cover photo: <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/city-street-road-urban-business-3314025/">STE92K</a> (Pixabay, Creative Commons)</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/glasgow" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">glasgow</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/urban-life" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">urban life</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/city-living" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">city living</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/high-rises" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">high rises</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/poverty" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poverty</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/social-welfare" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">social welfare</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/uk-austerity" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the U.K. austerity</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/inner-cities" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">inner cities</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/population-health" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">population health</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scottish" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scottish</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scots" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scots</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Fleur Macdonald</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 27 Oct 2019 09:33:42 +0000 tara 9114 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10214-glasgow-s-war-against-anguish-urban-life#comments Caught in a Bad Romance: How Millennials Navigate Mental Health Issues in Relationships https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9865-caught-bad-romance-how-millennials-navigate-mental-health-issues-relationships <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 03/03/2019 - 13:52</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/6romance.jpg?itok=9To5g3MB"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/6romance.jpg?itok=9To5g3MB" width="480" height="361" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>Even though depression is nothing new, it’s clear that the health issue is on the rise in millennials. From 2013 to 2016, depression diagnostics have <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/health-care-news/articles/2018-05-10/diagnosis-of-major-depression-on-the-rise-especially-in-teens-and-millennials">increased 47 percent in adults ages 18 to 34 years old.</a>  Oddly enough, statistics also show that millennials had a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-gen-y-guide/201510/why-millennials-are-failing-shack">39 percent decline in marriage</a> in 2014 and also have low levels of social trust. Only <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/">19 percent of millennials believe that most people can be trusted</a>.</p> <p> </p> <p>Trust plays an important role in romantic relationships. There is also a cause and effect between mental health disorders and people’s <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anxiety-files/201004/anxiety-who-can-you-trust">ability to trust</a>. Similarly, there is also a link between how dating with a mental health disorder can make an <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201602/how-being-depressed-can-affect-your-relationships">impact on romantic relationships</a>. So does this mean millennials are doomed to find healthy, happy, and successful romantic relationships given the rise of mental health issues?</p> <p> </p> <p>Interviews with eight millennials who spoke about their experiences with a mental health disorder and being involved in a romantic relationship revealed some important points to consider when one person in a relationship either shows signs of or confirms that they have a mental health issue.</p> <p> </p> <p>Every person interviewed has had different experiences—whether it was the interviewee being the one with a mental health disorder or their partner having issues. Other experiences involved each person in the relationship having a mental health disorder and how they maintain a healthy relationship with their partner. In some cases, the relationship ended due to issues that arose out of the mental health disorder. In others, the couples are still together and are learning to how maintain a healthy relationship.</p> <p> </p> <p>Each interviewee revealed eye-opening lessons they learned.  One being that not everyone handles stress, anxiety, depression, or their emotions in the same way. Most interviewees explained that their partner processes their mental health disorder differently than they would. The challenge is figuring out what helps each individual and to accept those healthy coping mechanisms.</p> <p> </p> <p>Natalie* (age 21) is a verbal processor. She says that talking about her anxiety or feelings helps her understand why she’s feeling a certain way -- thus, making it easier to move forward. Her boyfriend on the other hand does not process through talking. She says he is someone who has difficulty sharing when he is depressed. Mainly because he feels like sharing would burden Natalie by “putting more stress on her.” He is someone who needs to have space in order to process his feelings privately. Natalie said sometimes this is hard because she wishes he would share the same amount of vulnerability with her as she does with him. However, she says she’s learned to accept that her boyfriend processes his feelings differently.</p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/7romance.jpg" style="height:352px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Natalie used to take it personally and feel helpless when she felt she couldn’t provide the same support he gave her when she was having a panic attack or on days where it was difficult for her to take care of herself. Yet, they were able to communicate about what they would need in moments when a mental health disorder acts up. </p> <p> </p> <p>“I think it helps to have conversations ideally when you’re feeling OK and in the right state of mind to be able to express more clearly what you’re feeling and what your needs are. It helps to also have those conversations ahead of time, almost to plan and prepare for those moments when communication may not be rational,” said Natalie. “For example, you and your partner can say things like ‘When I’m feeling like  s**t, this is exactly what I need’ or ‘These are the ways you can show up for me when you can.’ Especially if I’m having a panic attack or a flashback because in that moment, I am not able to communicate what my needs are.”</p> <p> </p> <p>It takes <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201703/effective-communication-during-relationship-conflict">communication, honesty, and trust</a> to be able to figure out what ways someone processes and navigates their mental health. That balance includes talking to a significant other about what one may need or how to support each other when their emotions or anxiety become overwhelming.</p> <p> </p> <p>*Aurora, age 21, shares how important maintaining strong communication has helped her in her five-year relationship. Aurora experiences depression coupled  with ADHD.</p> <p> </p> <p>She said she didn’t know she had either of those conditions for a long time but was aware that she was struggling with completing certain tasks that required a lot of focus such as doing homework. Aurora felt like something was “wrong with her” because homework appeared to be a simple task to others.</p> <p> </p> <p>Having a difficult time concentrating made her feel inadequate, which doesn’t help when feeling depressed. Aurora often would shut down and beat herself up for sensing a lack of productivity. Not knowing the reason behind this but knowing how she felt made it difficult for her to communicate this with her boyfriend.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/smalltherapy.jpg" style="height:417px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>“Not knowing what it was, I would unknowingly project what I was feeling onto my boyfriend. If I didn’t want to talk, I just wouldn’t talk to him and instead would be angry,” said Aurora.</p> <p> </p> <p>Aurora ended up getting diagnosed for ADHD and starting seeing a therapist. This changed her perspective dramatically. She started recognizing when her feelings or actions were symptoms of depression or ADHD, helping her to stop negative thought spirals and taking healthier actions to feel better. As a result, she became better at communicating with her boyfriend in ways that didn’t project.</p> <p> </p> <p>“(Getting diagnosed and being in therapy) made it a lot easier to recognize when I didn’t talk. It made it easier to be able to tell my boyfriend, ‘I love you but I’m not feeling that well today,’ in order to have the space to process and overcome those feelings by myself,” said Aurora. </p> <p> </p> <p>It is also important to set boundaries in relationships when these issues arise. It is not the responsibility of another person to fix or heal someone else’s issues. Nor is it fair for someone to expect their partner to do that work for them.</p> <p> </p> <p>A lack of setting boundaries in a relationship can make it easier for that expectation to transform into <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319873.php">codependency</a> -- thus, adding more pressure, tension, and strain onto the relationship.</p> <p> </p> <p>Oliver*, 24, learned what impact codependency had on one of his previous relationships. He said while communication is valuable, they were too focused on talking things out to the point where the relationship became imbalanced. A lot of the focus became fixated on “fixing” the problems that existed around his partner’s mental health that it took time away from acting on self-care on both ends.</p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2romance_0.jpg" style="height:417px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Oliver learned the importance of stepping back and recognizing where space would have been necessary in order to take care of himself. “It all happened so quickly. Sometimes it can be hard to say what you need [to your partner] when you’re feeling overwhelmed,” said Oliver. “I think that by staying in tune… whether it be journaling, meditating, or speaking to a therapist in order to keep track of when to say when I needed to take some space or tell my partner I needed to handle an issue a different way would have helped a lot. I think we relied on each other to the point where we relied too much on each other and burned out.”</p> <p> </p> <p>It helps to maintain and remind someone <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/me-we/201308/how-be-someone-still-be-yourself">of their own identity</a>. It is easy to lose oneself when in a relationship when the dynamic solely is only being around and doing things for a romantic partner. It’s easy to get burned out.</p> <p> </p> <p>A couple can be easily seen as two people becoming one unit, but this is not a healthy nor realistic dynamic. A “couple” is still composed of two individual people, who experience two different worlds outside of blending those worlds together.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Creating an identity for yourself by having other interests and spending time around other people outside of the relationship is healthy. It can add pressure when you feel the need to only to be around your partner 24/7,” said Rita, 23. “I think what makes cool and complex relationships is when you have different things that you bring [to the relationship] and learn. Asking your partner what they did that day actually becomes a question and not an obligation.”</p> <p> </p> <p>When a mental health issue is untreated, it can turn what could be a potential healthy and happy relationship into a toxic one. Avoiding self-work and not doing anything to cope or treat the issue can prevent proper communication, create a lack of trust, prioritize dishonesty out of fear of the reaction, and overall create anxiety around the relationship.</p> <p> </p> <p>Some mental health disorders require more intensive treatment than others such as therapy or taking medication. When a mental health disorder is untreated, that person can become reactive and sensitive to other people’s actions or words. Their behavior becomes <a href="https://www.thehotline.org/2015/05/06/abuse-and-mental-illness-is-there-a-connection/">unpredictable, manipulative and potentially abusive.</a> That anxiety of the unknown reaction and response creates this walking-on-eggshells dynamic in the relationship.</p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4romance_0.jpg" style="height:417px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Obviously, most people want to live happy lives. However, sometimes when there’s a source of even slight happiness or love given to someone coping with a mental health issue who hasn’t fully navigated how to understand their feelings or thoughts, it’s easy to become attached. There comes a certain point in the relationship when it becomes comfortable. Sometimes comfort is good. In other cases, comfort can make someone unmotivated to change.</p> <p> </p> <p>Yet, it’s not uncommon for the hope of that self-work to kick in eventually. Usually, this is why someone would choose to stay in a toxic, unhealthy, and unhappy relationship. This person believes that their partner could <em>eventually</em> get the help they need. </p> <p> </p> <p>Unfortunately, this is usually not the case. Sometimes, people have to learn the hard way that change will not come until their partner chooses to accept the discomfort of self-work.</p> <p> </p> <p>Sabrina*, age 24, learned from her experience with her ex about what effect not treating a mental health disorder has on a relationship. Sabrina’s ex-boyfriend had bipolar disorder and ADHD and was not seeking treatment for either.</p> <p> </p> <p>Sabrina felt like she was walking on eggshells often to avoid triggering specific reactions or behaviors from her ex-boyfriend. She expressed that she put herself on the backburner for him in order to try to make him happy, even during times he was manipulative or disrespected her boundaries. Eventually, she started to realize that the endless pit of forgiveness and second chances she gave him had ran out to nothing.</p> <p> </p> <p>“When you are unmediated, uncommitted to taking care of yourself, and aren’t accepting what is going on in your brain then that is going to make problems in your relationship,” said Sabrina. “When you aren’t reciprocating by not showing up for people who are showing up for you then that’s a problem. My experiences with dating people with outstanding mental health problems that aren’t [receiving] attention have shown me that those people don’t have time for you…I’ve also learned that I’m not a good partner when I’m in a dark place and feeling depressed.”</p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5romance_0.jpg" style="height:352px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Once Sabrina became medicated for her depression and also observed how other people in her life with bipolar disorder navigated their mood disorder, it opened her eyes to the difference in how someone treats others when they are aware seeking therapy and treatment.</p> <p> </p> <p>When the disorder becomes the main focus of the relationship, it becomes the sole focus of the relationship. Mental health disorders may be a part of someone, but they are not who that person is. Being able to separate these facts can make it easier to allow two individuals to work on themselves independently, while still being able to maintain a healthy, happy relationship.</p> <p> </p> <p>Bottom line: Not setting healthy boundaries, taking space, or treating a mental health issue can create a toxic cycle that negatively impacts both people. If there is trauma or baggage from past relationships or experiences, it is important to process and move forward from that before entering a new relationship.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Now that I’m medicated for depression, I can see a lot more clearly how that impacted my relationships…. Like, when you’re putting too much on somebody else, asking too much, using what’s happening to you in a manipulative way. I have those tendencies when I’m really depressed. It’s nice to not feel that anymore and see that my depression is only a part of me but is not me” said Sabrina. “I’ve been treated like crap because I dated someone with unchecked mental health problems, and I’ve also treated other people like crap because I’ve had unchecked mental health problems.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>*Names of these individuals have been changed in order to protect their identities. </em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Caitlin Cohen is a contributing writer at </em>Highbrow Magazine.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/millennials" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">millennials</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/millennial-romance" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">millennial romance</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/romantic-relationships" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">romantic relationships</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-health" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental health</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/adhd" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">adhd</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anxiety" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">anxiety</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/dating" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">dating</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/modern-dating-1" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">modern dating</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Caitlin Cohen </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 03 Mar 2019 18:52:22 +0000 tara 8578 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9865-caught-bad-romance-how-millennials-navigate-mental-health-issues-relationships#comments Yes, Limiting Social Media Can Improve Your Health https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9640-yes-limiting-social-media-can-improve-your-health <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 12/31/2018 - 11:58</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/4socialmedia.jpg?itok=1a2k0yKc"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/4socialmedia.jpg?itok=1a2k0yKc" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in the <em>Asian Journal</em>. Read the rest <a href="http://www.asianjournal.com/life-style/health-wellness/simply-limiting-social-media-time-can-improve-mental-health-new-study-says/">here</a>.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Discussions on the link between social media use and mental health are nothing new, but researchers at the University of Pennsylvania for the first time conducted a study based on experimental data that connects the causal relationship between social media use and mental well-being.</p> <p> </p> <p>What they found was that simply limiting social media use could be beneficial when it comes to better mental health, specifically when it comes to depression and loneliness. This, given the reality that social media is not something people will stop using all together.</p> <p> </p> <p>The findings were published in the December <em>Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology</em> by Melissa G. Hunt, the associate director of clinical training at the university’s Department of Psychology.</p> <p> </p> <p>“We set out to do a much more comprehensive, rigorous study that was also more ecologically valid,” Hunt told the university’s online publication, <em>Penn Today</em>.</p> <p> </p> <p>The study was conducted by randomly splitting 143studentsinto a control group and an experimental group. Those in the control group were asked to use social media platforms — specifically Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram — as they usually do. The experimental group on the other hand was asked to limit social media usage to a maximum of 30 minutes per day with 10 minutes on each platform.</p> <p> </p> <p>To measure the outcome, students completed a well-being survey twice — once before the study began, and again after four weeks of sticking to the assigned usage time limits (or lack thereof).</p> <p> </p> <p>For three weeks, the students provided researchers with iPhone battery screenshots for their individual weekly tallies. They then rated seven well-being measures including fear of missing out (FOMO), anxiety, loneliness, depression, and self-esteem.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3socialmedia.jpg" style="height:416px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>“Here’s the bottom line,” Hunt told <em>Penn Today</em>. “Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness. These effects are particularly pronounced for folks who were more depressed when they came into the study.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The study found that those in the experimental group had significant reductions in depression and loneliness compared to those in the control group. Those who reported a high level of depression at the study’s start later said they experienced a “clinically significant” reduction in symptoms.</p> <p> </p> <p>Further, both the control and experimental groups saw significant decreases in FOMO and anxiety, which researchers said could have been a result of students in both groups being more aware of their social media use by simply participating in the study.</p> <p> </p> <p>Given the likelihood that even those in the control group would be conscious of their usage, the study found that self-monitoring and being mindful in general made a difference in mental well-being.</p> <p> </p> <p>One student said, “I ended up using [social media] less and felt happier… I could focus on school and not [be as] interested in what everyone is up to.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in the <em>Asian Journal</em>. Read the rest <a href="http://www.asianjournal.com/life-style/health-wellness/simply-limiting-social-media-time-can-improve-mental-health-new-study-says/">here</a>.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/social-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">social media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/facebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Facebook</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/twitter" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Twitter</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/instagram" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">instagram</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tweets" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">tweets</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-health" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental health</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Rae Ann Varona</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Healthline via Asian Journal; Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 31 Dec 2018 16:58:13 +0000 tara 8454 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9640-yes-limiting-social-media-can-improve-your-health#comments Remembering the Genius of Robin Williams https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4221-remembering-genius-robin-williams <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 08/15/2014 - 10:54</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1robinwilliams.jpg?itok=EMrxIHU8"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1robinwilliams.jpg?itok=EMrxIHU8" width="480" height="268" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/08/robin-williams---a-comic-genius-who-named-everything-except-his-own-depression.php">New America Media</a></strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>Robin Williams once joked that death is “nature’s way to let you know that your table is ready.” It’s not funny now that the comedian overrode nature by grabbing the table without waiting for the maître d’. But if his suicide has any silver lining, it’s that depression and mental illness are now being talked about more openly.</p> <p> </p> <p>In far-flung India, China and Vietnam, where mental illness, especially depression, is a taboo subject, it is now on the front pages of newspapers and TV programs reporting on Williams’ suicide.</p> <p> </p> <p>Born in Chicago, Illinois, to a father who was an executive for Ford Motor Company and a mother who was a model, his was a childhood among toys. He grew up privileged but reportedly lonely. An overweight and bullied child, Williams played alone in a large home, and no doubt his loneliness and sadness lent themselves to invention: the need to occupy others’ lives via the act of mimicking, via the act of imagination.</p> <p> </p> <p>So much so that it became a habit, a shield, and eventually a vocation -- and his was a kind of talent that hid his own sadness by making others laugh. As a testimony to his down to earth and friendly personality, but also his ability to mimic, a Vietnamese-American friend of mine who once worked as an extra on the Good Morning Vietnam set testified that, “We had a lot of down time in between shooting in the classroom scenes. Robin Williams would learn people's personalities over those six days and make fun of all of us based on that. I was in awe.”</p> <p> </p> <p>But of all things Williams could talk about, or make fun of, on stage-- from sex to violence, from politics to his own divorce, from his struggle with alcohol abuse to his open heart surgery, he didn’t manage to name the thing that ailed him for what it was: a mental illness, depression. Even for one of the world’s most eloquent public figures, the D word still left him tongue-tied. Saying that he was “bummed out,” in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, seemed as close as he could manage.</p> <p> </p> <p>In Vietnamese there’s a phrase that is used to describe a rare talent, someone who has a golden tongue: “Xuat khau thanh tho.” It means to open one’s mouth and out comes poetry.</p> <p> </p> <p>Robin Williams didn’t speak poetry but he spoke something more accessible in the modern world: the ability to provide humor at will, a rapid fire of comical ideas and observations that no script could match, taking on voices and personalities that seemed spun out of bright clouds. His was a genius rarely seen even among the best entertainers and comedians, and it brought joy and laughter and admiration for the millions.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2robinwilliams.jpg" style="height:426px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>If genius is the ability “to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm,” as Aldous Huxley once observed, it seems to be a good fit to describe Williams’ man-child persona. But F. Scott Fitzgerald’s definition of genius may have come closer to capturing what Williams’ gift was all about: “the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Williams’ many observations delighted the world. On Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky affair: “God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time.” On Canada: “…like a loft apartment over a really great party.” On his own open-heart surgery and why he afterward would cry at the drop of a hat: "I do not feel they gave me a new valve but a tiny vagina. I do not know. I'm just so emotional these days.”</p> <p> </p> <p>But there’s often a steep price to genius. For Williams it came along on an energy driven by what seemed to be mania, and the down time of which, no doubt, was an overwhelming darkness.</p> <p> </p> <p>But if not curable, it is treatable, with diligence. To do so, however, means breaking the silence around depression, owning up to the disease and seeking help, and sharing one’s story.</p> <p> </p> <p>And, even for a man with a golden tongue, it’s the one thing he couldn’t articulate.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>New America Media editor Andrew Lam is the author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" (Heyday Books, 2005), and "Birds of Paradise Lost," a book of short stories.  </em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/08/robin-williams---a-comic-genius-who-named-everything-except-his-own-depression.php">New America Media</a></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/robin-williams" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">robin williams</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/suicide" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">suicide</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/good-morning-vietnam" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">good morning vietnam</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hollywood" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Hollywood</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hook</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/actors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">actors</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mork-and-mindy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mork and mindy</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Andrew Lam</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 15 Aug 2014 14:54:25 +0000 tara 5078 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4221-remembering-genius-robin-williams#comments The Link Between Overcrowded Housing and Mental Health https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3925-link-between-overcrowded-housing-and-mental-health <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 04/21/2014 - 09:02</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/depression.jpg?itok=Tw0KenVx"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/depression.jpg?itok=Tw0KenVx" width="480" height="268" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/04/in-crowded-households-stress-is-a-killer.php">New America Media / VoiceWaves</a></p> <p> </p> <p>LONG BEACH -- Every morning before Evangelina Ramirez leaves for work, she cleans the house in a meticulous manner so that everything is where it belongs. She does this, she says, so she can come home to a clean house where she can unwind after a busy day at work.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ramirez, a caregiver and a community activist, shares a three-bedroom apartment in central Long Beach with her two teenage children, a roommate and her roommate’s daughter. Unfortunately for Ramirez, the tight quarters mean that her dream of relaxing after work in a clean and quiet home is just that, a dream.</p> <p> </p> <p>“As soon as I get home, I start feeling stressed because I have to work all day and then I go home and I find all the mess,” said Ramirez, who has lived in overcrowded homes for the past 20 years. “I start getting mad and start yelling at everybody.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Ramirez’ experience is not uncommon. According to a new report by Housing Long Beach (HLB), a community non-profit, nearly 20,000 families are currently living in overcrowded housing in that city alone. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines overcrowded housing as any residence with at least 1.5 people per room.</p> <p> </p> <p>According to the HLB report, individuals or families living in overcrowded housing situations are more likely than others to experience poor mental health outcomes including persistent stress, and even have a shorter life expectancy. Additionally, children who grow up in overcrowded homes are more likely to fall behind in their schooling and exhibit behavioral issues.</p> <p> </p> <p>In spite of the health issues associated with overcrowded housing, said Ramiez, such arrangements are made out of necessity and not choice. Ramirez herself spent 17 years living in a small one-bedroom apartment with five other family members, prior to moving into her current home two years ago.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I always kept my kids indoors so they don’t get into gangs and drugs, but the only thing [my oldest] son liked to do was eat. That made my son become overweight,” she said.</p> <p>“Now he is an adult, and he is [an overweight] man who has many health problems.”</p> <p> </p> <p>A younger son of Ramirez was diagnosed with ADHD, and she worried about the impact of the frequent yelling in the home, which she attributed to the stress of living in a cramped environment. “When a kid who has ADHD starts listening to someone who’s yelling, they start feeling anxious [and] he just doesn’t want to be home.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Ramirez said her two teenage children, a girl and a boy, also suffered from having to share a room. “They didn’t have space to do their homework and all the things they need to do,” Ramirez said. “I tried to find another apartment but I [couldn’t] pay $ 1,400. It’s too much.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Ramirez was eventually able to find a roommate, her best friend’s sister, lowering her share of the rent to $900 -- but even that was more than Ramirez, a minimum-wage earner, could afford to pay.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Most of the time, per month, I get around $1,200 or $1,400. Most of the money goes to rent and another $300 on bills, like electricity, gas, Internet and cellphone. Sometimes I don’t have enough money for food and that’s the biggest problem.”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/poorneighbourhood%20%28Alex%20Proimos%20Flickr%29_0.jpg" style="height:434px; width:650px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The accepted rule of thumb is that housing costs should be no more than 30 percent of a household income, to allow other basic needs to be met.</p> <p> </p> <p>However, close to 130,000 Long Beach renters, including Ramirez, spend somewhere between 30 and 65 percent of their income on rent, said HLB Executive Director Kerry Gallagher.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Some families cope and they have really affordable rent, but they live in really terrible, substandard units,” Gallagher said. “Other families cope by living in overcrowded homes. So it makes it more affordable, but it adds on all these impacts of the stress of living in an overcrowded environment.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Currently, the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Long Beach is $1,513 per month in the downtown area, and $1,200 in North Long Beach. That would require a single person to earn an hourly rate of $29.09 or $23.07, respectively, in order to afford that rent while not exceeding 30 percent of their overall take-home pay, according to HLB.</p> <p> </p> <p>Furthermore, the report concludes, if the Long Beach tourism industry continues to create low-paying service-sector jobs while the California minimum wage stays stagnant at only $8.00 hour, “the imbalance between jobs and housing will tip further and further toward un-sustainability.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Rabiya Hussein is a student reporter at California State University Long Beach and a contributor to VoiceWaves, a youth-led community journalism project founded by New America Media to shine a light on community health issues.  The project is supported by a grant from The California Endowment.</em></p> <p> </p> <p>From <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/04/in-crowded-households-stress-is-a-killer.php">New America Media / VoiceWaves</a></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/housing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">housing</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/low-income" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">low income</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-illness" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental illness</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-health" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental health</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/crowded-housing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">crowded housing</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/living-standards" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">living standards</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Rabiya Hussein</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Alex Proimos (Wikipedia Commons)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:02:39 +0000 tara 4617 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3925-link-between-overcrowded-housing-and-mental-health#comments How Popular Media is Helping to End the Stigma of Mental Illness https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2527-how-popular-media-helping-end-stigma-mental-illness <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 06/17/2013 - 09:36</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1mentalillness%20%28Mark%20Turnaukas%20Flickr%29.jpg?itok=oBvFyKx_"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1mentalillness%20%28Mark%20Turnaukas%20Flickr%29.jpg?itok=oBvFyKx_" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> Whether your understanding of mental illness is limited to what you’ve seen on the silver screen, or as intimate as a firsthand struggle, the topic has occupied a continual space in our national discussion, eliciting controversy and fascination. Today, there are nearly 60 million Americans <a href="http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-numbers-count-mental-disorders-in-america/index.shtml">who suffer from a mental illness</a>, and it continues to present a quality of life, household and community issue. While there is reason to believe the national dialogue is evolving, there is still a pervasive discomfort and ignorance that keeps millions of those who suffer from getting treatment, trapped in their own purgatory. Barring mere misinformation, we have a huge network of social and institutional problems when it comes to mental illness, from stubborn stigmas to reckless and unchecked drug companies to a lack of comprehensive resources, necessitating a robust political and social undertaking to address this crisis that directly affects nearly one in four Americans.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The deep-seated prejudices that brand mental illness a sign of weakness, a character shortcoming or feigned for attention have poisoned how many perceive the issue. To wish the pain of mental illness on or off at will is a futile exercise, since any person who has suffered knows the pain of a mental illness controls and consumes. Living becomes a toilsome test in survival, and even treatment is in and of itself a trying process. Notwithstanding the gravity of the affliction itself, for those ashamed of their illness, the added burden of actively hiding their illness weighs noxiously on one’s soul and psyche. A severe want in education has kept sufferers in the shadows, either in denial, or too afraid to come out for fear of social, political or economic repercussions. Although an abnormal psychology is a condition like chronic pain or allergies that likely will never be entirely cured, it can be managed and treated.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The experience of mental illness is not universal; there are as many diagnoses (people often suffer form more than one mental illness, known as comorbidity), symptoms, treatment plans, and coping mechanisms as there are sufferers. Although a vigorous discussion in the psychiatric community is ongoing, treatment implementation for these disorders is still not comprehensive enough to account for the particular needs of each patient, making it hasty, imprudent and often irrevocably damaging. The need for holistic, tailored solutions cannot be overstated; yet mental health policy has fallen prey to corruption by drug companies, creating a paradoxical vacuum of chronic over- <em>and </em>under-treatment. <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/tara/My%20Documents/m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/psychiatry-allen-frances-saving-normal-dsm-5-controversy">Drug companies and health insurers have a vested interest</a> in encouraging overinflation of diagnoses, putting people on major prescription drugs needlessly when they could have been treated or helped otherwise. On the contrary, while millions of people are prescribed anti-depressants, <em>only one third</em> of people with severe depression receive any treatment for it. Combine this lack of clinical proficiency with cultural stigmas, misunderstandings, and preconceptions, and there is no wonder why needs of patients are largely unmet.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2mentalillness.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 338px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> Recent statistics show <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/tara/My%20Documents/nytines.com/2013/05/03/health/suicide-rates-rise-sharply-in-us.html?hp&amp;_r=0">a disturbing upward trend</a> of suicide rates in the United States. From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent. Even more alarming are the skyrocketing suicide rates among military veterans. According to the Department of Veteran affairs, a US military veteran commits suicide nearly <em>once every hour</em>. These numbers have a variety of compounding factors, however suicide is a tragedy intimately correlated to mental illness, particularly for veterans who often suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD symptoms include constant sensory re-living of deeply traumatic events, and many veterans are <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/tara/My%20Documents/armytimes.com/article/20130501/NEWS/305010009/VA-doesn-t-follow-up-many-veterans-after-mental-health-care">shamefully denied or forced to wait months</a> for comprehensive mental health care when they return from service.</p> <p>  </p> <p> We have not yet arrived at a point, nor may we ever, where we’re readily willing to take on as a collective distressing, dark, morbid, and unglamorous human stakes. Mental illness by nature starkly manifests itself in the form of the aforementioned traits, all of which evoke elements of mortality to which we have a natural aversion. There has been no major cultural initiative to try and re-evaluate the discomfort that accompanies our traditional shared consciousness toward mental illness. Mental illness is not a difference of phenotype or sexual preference, so when we frame it in terms of a fight for equality and acceptance we must deal with the fundamental themes of darkness and uncertainty that make it a taboo subject, and that’s where storytelling becomes useful.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Popular culture has proved to be an indispensible backdrop for the evolution of society. Although academics and political figures contributed tirelessly to the effort, gay rights, for example, could not have arrived where it has as efficiently as it did without Bravo, ‘Glee,’ the ‘No H8’ campaign, and iconic celebrities working to spread awareness. A similar paradigm is needed to reform views on mental illness. With a slew of macabre films like ‘Girl, Interrupted,’ <em>Donnie Darko</em> and <em>One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest </em>coming to define the mental illness experience, it is no wonder we have cultivated a psyche of chagrin toward the subject. To say these films are merely exaggerations would be an injustice to the scope and severity of mental illness, but the oft-misunderstood truth is that most sufferers of these disorders are capable of day-to-day functionality just like their healthier counterparts. We need to hear their stories too.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3mentalillness.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 337px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> In order to change the perception that mental illness is a character flaw, that a person with a mental illness is violent or dangerous, or is a person incapable of a meaningful existence, we are going to have to begin a national dialogue that unpacks and normalizes mental illness, just as we have for a variety of other equality struggles.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Movies and television shows have typically fed into and reinforced stereotypes and myths about mental illness, but a recent wave of thoughtful portrayals in popular media demonstrate a welcome shift in the industry. The first major saving grace may be <em>Homeland</em>, Showtime’s mega-hit, critically acclaimed original television series about CIA agent Carrie Mathison, played by Claire Danes, and her riveting work as a counterterrorism expert. Carrie, the show’s flawed protagonist, is brilliant, attractive and successful, and also suffers from Bipolar Disorder. <em>Homeland</em> is not a show about mental illness, but the disorder is a requisite part of the story, implicit within the five-minute mark of the series premiere when Carrie fishes out and swallows a lone green pill from a bottle of aspirin before heading to work at CIA headquarters. We also find out in the first episode that Carrie’s superiors and mentors at the CIA are not aware of the illness, after a colleague comes across Carrie’s pills and confronts her.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Bipolar Disorder, once formally known as manic-depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis affecting more than 5 million Americans, characterized by alternating episodes of mania and depression that last for hours, days, weeks or months depending on the individual. Manic episodes are typically marked by characteristics like impulsiveness, extreme confidence, high levels of productivity, and an inflated sense of self. Depressive episodes follow with traditional characteristics of depression including lack of interest, deep sadness, listlessness and excessive sleep. We witness Carrie endure both types of episodes on Homeland.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4mentalillness.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 338px;" /></p> <p> [Spoiler] Rather than run the risks that come with the CIA learning her secret, Carrie avoids formal treatment and gets pills underhandedly from her reluctant psychiatrist sister. Near the end of the first season Carrie is finally outed to the agency amidst a manic episode, let go from her job, hospitalized, and treated with electroshock therapy. Some critics lament Carrie’s furtive treatment as clinically dishonest, however, that Carrie has expended such effort to conceal her illness is <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/09/19/161346960/claire-danes-playing-bipolar-is-serious-business">a critical story to tell</a>. It serves to enlighten millions of viewers of the potentially catastrophic sacrifices people with mental illness often find themselves forced to make.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Carrie is tempestuous and often defies authority, begetting trouble and leading to her eventual Season One downfall, but her instincts are almost always dead-on. Carrie’s keen ability to empathize, think outside the box, and delve into the psyche of those she is investigating, combined with ample natural intelligence are what make her such an effective and skilled intelligence officer. Whether Carrie’s strokes of genius can be accredited entirely to what intuits from her own psychopathology we are uncertain, but an emotional acumen informs her work just as much as her intellect. Carrie’s ability to relate to people and subsequently allow her own emotions to act in honest accord help unlock the compelling national security-centered plot so crucial to the series’ success.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Aside from the realism of the interplay between her career and medical condition, Danes’ accurate and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/opinion/my-so-called-bipolar-life.html">authentic portrayal of the illness</a> itself (she spent hours watching footage of individuals with BPD who recorded themselves during episodes to research the role) relays the essential truth that most of its sufferers aren’t violent or evil. Episodes of depression, mania, and psychosis do not always happen in the confines of a straitjacket, in fact, they rarely do. As intricate details of the storyline unfold before Carrie’s dogged and importunate eyes while in the throes of mania, the ingenuity of <em>Homeland’s</em> portrayal of BPD crystallizes. The show’s aim in tying manic symptoms to Carrie’s work is not to glorify or romanticize the illness, because Carrie’s emotional struggles are real and readily apparent, rather it is to show that people with BPD have wide-ranging life experiences and are not defined exclusively by their illness.</p> <p>  </p> <p> In an interview with <em>Elle </em>Magazine, Danes says of the role, “I’m always concerned that her mental condition not be a gimmick; I’d like to see how she [Carrie] maintains stability. It’s not sexy or fun. But that’s true about people with this condition: They’ll have plateaus when things are fine.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/5mentalillness.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 425px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> <em>Homeland’s </em>writers combined with Danes’ shrewd acting have spawned something incredibly profound in Carrie, where the audience both understands the unique gravity of her illness and career without losing their ability to relate to or have affection for her. Carrie is talented and influential but is not a savant or a hermit, and she craves the kinds of personal and professional successes, relationships, and joys the rest of us do. Her work is objectively of gargantuan importance, but she makes very human errors nonetheless, like falling foolishly and irresponsibly in love with a person of professional interest, an experience of the human condition millions of people <em>without</em> BPD can relate to. She is wholly mortal despite her extraordinary circumstances, and that’s why she is such an important role model, particularly for people suffering from mental illness, even more particularly for women with mental illness, who have been <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/tara/My%20Documents/jezebel.com/5355606/mad-bad--sad-history-of-female-mental-illness-turns-into-indictment-of-psycotherapy">historically subjected</a> to unthinkable abuse and humiliation.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Although regarding a more insidious subject, Carrie’s own prophetic words get to the crux of the issue at hand, “You’re trying to find out what makes them human, not what makes them terrorists,” she says to a coworker in Season One. The viewer does not forget about Carrie’s illness while watching <em>Homeland</em>, but also knows that Carrie is not just her illness; she is an amalgamation of her genetics, her spirit, her conviction, her interests, her relationships, and her dreams, just like the rest of us. We can never be entirely sure whether Carrie’s psychopathology plays a role in her important premonitions, but we do know that her disease is painful and real, and that she has realized tremendous success in spite of it.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <em>Homeland,</em> whose third season premieres fall 2013, has been lavished with praise and accolades from the entertainment industry, but the show also <a href="http://www.samhsa.gov/voiceawards/2012event.asp">received a Voice Award</a>, which recognizes TV and film professionals in their efforts to educate the public about behavioral health problems. <em>Homeland</em> is not the only recent show dealing with mental illness to garner critical and commercial success. HBO’s hit series <em>Girls</em> has recently <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/tara/My%20Documents/psychologytoday.com/blog/triggered/201303/girls-gets-ocd-0">delved into the subject</a> as its protagonist’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was exposed in the last season.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Portrayals of mental illness in popular media are not novel, but critics and advocates are hopeful that the <em>quality</em> of these portrayals will come to benefit real-life sufferers by informing viewers of the realistic and diverse experiences of the mentally ill, rather than playing on tired and gratuitous stereotypes that only harm and stagnate  forward progress.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Films like <em>Silver Linings Playbook</em>, which was nominated for Best Picture as well as several acting categories at the 2013 Academy Awards and for which Jennifer Lawrence won the Best Actress category, have also come to normalize the mental illness experience. <em>Silver Linings Playbook</em> is a movie about mental illness but it is also a movie about love, loyalty and loss. The film is different from <em>Homeland</em> in that multiple characters are suffering from mental illness, and that the plot is simple and relatable. What is similar is the normalcy with which mentally ill characters are portrayed.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <em>Silver Linings Playbook</em> may write certain aspects of mental illness in an over-simplified or unrealistic way, however what makes it so valuable to the discussion of mental illness is its use a relatively simple romantic-comedy template to show that its mentally ill characters are neither superhuman nor monsters. With complex yet likable characters that diverge from the prototypes found in a typical romantic comedy film, <em>Silver Linings Playbook</em> ultimately does its audience a service. Mental illness is part of the story, but a love for sports, family and tradition are also what made the movie so well received, as it appeals to the pathos of both academics as well as an American audience perhaps unfamiliar with mental illness.</p> <p>  </p> <p> By tying mental illness to the stereotypical angst-ridden mismatched couple destined to be together at the end of a formulaic romantic comedy trope, <em>Silver Linings Playbook </em>elicits the type of universal compassion needed to understand the mental illness experience. “What if we know something you all don’t,” a bipolar-stricken Bradley Cooper believably quips to a room filled with family and friends toward the end of the movie, the ‘we’ including himself and other mentally ill characters. The fact that Cooper’s statement is even up for discussion, and not immediately scoffed at or disregarded, neither by the other characters nor the viewer watching the film, is indicative of progress.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Unfortunately much of the national dialogue surrounding mental illness has come on the heels of escalating gun violence in the United States, wherein several of the perpetrators of recent gun massacres had reportedly exhibited warning signs of mental illness and were fatefully overlooked. We must be careful not to inextricably link <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/mental-illness-stigma">violent tendencies to mental illness.</a> We mustn’t shut down conversations or efforts to create legislation that deals with mental illness; the problem is not to load the term “mental illness” with images of lone wolves who walk into movie theaters and elementary schools and shoot people down without remorse. The vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent and will never become violent. We cannot accept calls to perpetuate a culture of fear surrounding the mentally ill, to quarantine them, or put them in a <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/tara/My%20Documents/huffingtonpost.com/alex-knepper/its-time-to-stop-scapegoa_b_3048206.html">national database</a>. What we desperately need is comprehensive education, and a cultural movement towards compassion and understanding.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Carrie Mathison is just one of millions who can teach us that those with mental illness are capable of goodness, of human pleasure and error, and of abundant success. The more we know of stories like Carrie’s, the likelier it is that we value common humanity over prejudgments and fears. Once we reach this point as a society, anything short of full inclusivity and acceptance becomes unacceptable. We know millions of Americans are suffering in the dark and we also know that the suffering is treatable. The mental health community now must work in concert with advocates and professionals to shape the cultural and political landscape that will lead to acceptance, recovery and healing.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> <em>Gabrielle Acierno is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-illness" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental illness</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mainstream-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mainstream media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/movies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Movies</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bipolar-disorder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">bipolar disorder</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anxiety-disorder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">anxiety disorder</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/one-flew-over-cukoos-nest" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">one flew over the cukoo&#039;s nest</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/silver-lining-playbook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">silver lining playbook</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/girls" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Girls</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hbo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">HBO</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/homeland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">homeland</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/claire-danes" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">claire danes</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-illness-movies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental illness in movies</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/psychiatry" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">psychiatry</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Gabrielle Acierno </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mark Turnaukas (Flickr)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:36:36 +0000 tara 3020 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2527-how-popular-media-helping-end-stigma-mental-illness#comments Spiritual Psychology and the Search for Nirvana https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1978-spiritual-psychology-and-search-nirvana <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 08:22</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1psychiatry%20%28Spike%20Flickr%29.jpg?itok=UQPbm_pG"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1psychiatry%20%28Spike%20Flickr%29.jpg?itok=UQPbm_pG" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> A recently divorced man searching for meaning in his life blows all his money on spiritual retreats.  A wealthy, successful lawyer is a closet alcoholic, getting drunk on only on expensive, vintage wine.  A yoga instructor is so obsessed with perfecting poses that she has no time for socializing.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Suffering through these scenarios silently or simply being in denial, people like these often see themselves as more enlightened than most.  That’s why instead of seeking therapy, these people feel capable of “self-help” -- an oxymoron if there ever was one.  Retreats, books, DVDs, CDs, podcasts and more fuel this multimillion dollar business that purports to resolve what ails you, but its very existence relies on repeat customers who haven’t found resolution.  Getting professional help is seen for some as a character defect.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The National Institute of Mental Health says that up to one-quarter of Americans have been diagnosed with a mental disorder.  And the CDC reports that while one in 10 Americans over age 12 use prescribed antidepressants, most don't see a therapist.  This is despite evidence that talk therapy can help.   A new study from the United Kingdom published in <em>The</em> <em>Lancet</em> shows that while up to two-thirds of people don’t respond fully to antidepressants, they are three times more likely to experience a reduction in their depression symptoms if talk therapy was added to their treatment regimen compared with those who continued to take only antidepressants.  Physicians with limited knowledge of mental health are prescribing pills when there might be a better way.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong> Therapy in the New Millennium</strong></p> <p> Psychotherapists have traditionally used talk therapy based upon the foundation of Freud to work through issues of being human.  This Western approach was once exclusive of the more ancient modalities of the East, which view the human being as part of something bigger.  No longer.  Now therapy in which a client’s spiritual direction is integrated into more traditional methods treats anxiety, stress and confusion, among other conditions.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “These are not yoga and meditation sessions; spiritual psychotherapy is licensed therapy,” says Catherine Auman, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Southern California who herself is a spiritual psychotherapist.  “I take an assessment of my clients to see what spirituality means to them.  If it doesn’t resonate, I continue treatment without it.  It’s not forced.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Just what is spirituality?  A 2012 Pew Forum Research study revealed that 19.6 percent of Americans identify as "spiritual, but not religious.”  Clearly, while some do not identify with an established religion, many do feel a connection to others and the universe at large.  Spirituality may encompass different things among people, but the view that life is not random and that we share a connection is common.</p> <p> In the past, some turned to their organized religion of choice for guidance.  Today with the proliferation of Eastern practices such as yoga, acupuncture, meditation and visualization, some people view these as a substitute for therapy.  Many of theses activities do not carry the stigma that is associated with seeing a therapist.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “It is a mistake to think you can fully resolve deep-seated emotional issues this way,” says Auman.  “While they may temporarily relieve stress they are not a cure, but rather a complement for the work of a competent therapist.”</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumchurchscene%20%28Danie%20van%20der%20Merwe%20Flickr%29.jpg" style="width: 394px; height: 600px;" /></p> <p> <strong>Society and the Rat Race</strong></p> <p> Auman says that our society’s emphasis on the individual creates a void that becomes apparent to many once they become financially successful but still feel lacking.  Compounding this problem is the feeling that pills and doctors can “fix” us, and we go on living our former lives.  Spiritual growth is a journey that never ends, but is fulfilling nonetheless.</p> <p>  </p> <p> These days the emphasis on economic issues, while important, is overemphasized.  In the recent presidential election, the candidates only talked about the quality of life in economic terms.  The message:  If you have money, then all of your problems are solved.  But keeping up with the Joneses haven’t made Americans any happier.  The Happy Planet Index (HPI), a ranking of 151 nations on happiness and well being, shows the United States ranking down the list of happy nations on par with sub-Saharan Africa. </p> <p> But it is a mistake to completely divorce your mental and emotional health from the benefits of an understanding of how material wealth affects your life.  A good therapist will integrate these issues with where you are and want to go on your spiritual path.  After all, very few us are going to take a vow of poverty and become monks.  A balanced approach to how our capitalist economy can accommodate simpler, more nourishing lifestyles will almost certainly push us upward on the happiness index.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>When Spirituality and Reality Collide</strong></p> <p> So what if a broker on Wall Street finds that a spiritual path is taking her on a journey that exposes an underlying need for artistic expression?  Does that mean her profession, and all the time and money preparing for it, are wasted?  Not necessarily.   A different approach to an occupation may be all that is needed to align one’s values with their current job.  Life is more than your career, and satisfaction is often found outside of work.</p> <p>  </p> <p> In fact, it can be argued that our world would benefit from more enlightened bankers, CEOs and business leaders to begin to build an ethical structure for the economy to thrive with a long-term view.  Of course, it is sometimes necessary for people to make career changes.  This is where a spiritual psychotherapist can provide guidance that traditional therapy might miss.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Many people are uncomfortable talking about their spirituality, even though they feel it is an important subject.  Having the comfort of knowing a therapist is open to exploring the topic can instill trust.  Someone with a strict religious upbringing may need to “let go” of some deep-seated beliefs s/he learned while younger even though s/he has now embraced a new spiritual outlook.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Some family members and even friends are not supportive to those who seek a spiritual path.  It can be hard to not have their blessing and resentment can take over.  In therapy, methods are learned to stay focused on your own work and not let others derail your progress.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>What Do I Believe?</strong></p> <p> It’s not uncommon for people to lack a spiritual connection.  In fact, this is evident with more and more people identifying as non-religious and also non-spiritual.  They may have never really thought about it deeply.  It is important to examine feelings associated with spirituality honestly.  Admitting that you don’t know is a start.  Whether you end up agnostic, atheist, Christian or just identify as “spiritual” is all equally valid.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Finding a licensed therapist educated in spiritual psychology can also be difficult.  Many unlicensed therapists may brand themselves as a “life coach” or as a guide to spiritual enlightenment. </p> <p>  </p> <p> The main thing to remember, notes Auman, is to make sure your therapist is licensed in your state.  The days when you had to sacrifice sound mental health competence in your therapist for spiritual guidance is ending.  “Finding your bliss can transform your life in ways you can’t imagine,” she says.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> <em>Mark Bizzell is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <em><strong>Photos: Danie van der Merwe, Spike (Flickr, Creative Commons).</strong></em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/psychiatry" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">psychiatry</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/psychology" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">psychology</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/spiritual-psychology" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">spiritual psychology</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/therapy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">therapy</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/religion" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">religion</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/psychiatric-medications" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">psychiatric medications</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/freud" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">freud</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-illness" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental illness</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mark Bizzell</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Spike (Flickr, Creative Commons)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:22:32 +0000 tara 2249 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1978-spiritual-psychology-and-search-nirvana#comments