Under this new perspective, perhaps adolescents are actually the well-adjusted ones. Dabrowski considered them waystations in the painful process of separating from “what is”-toxic (but ubiquitous) social norms-and building a life around higher values-“what ought to be.”Īpplying the work of Friedan and Dabrowski to today’s struggling teens provides an empowering rethink of the CDC statistics and dominant conversation. Whereas traditional mental health paradigms interpret anxiety, depression, doubt and groundlessness as pathologies to be medicated, TPD believes these disintegrative states can be useful harbingers of self (and societal) actualization. Developed by 20th century Polish psychiatrist Kazimierz Dąbrowski, the framework considers some maladjustment as positive-evoking the old chestnut that being well-adjusted to a sick society is not a sign of good mental health. Rather, it was symptomatic of a larger cultural disease-one that stripped women of their wartime employment, freedom and connection to a larger cause.įriedan’s reframing of individual illness as cultural sickness brings to mind the theory of positive disintegration (TPD). Friedan’s work provided voice and validation to the collective dissatisfaction, affirming that the torment was not a personal failure. Alone and ashamed, this population pursed tranquilizers, redecorations, extramarital affairs or yet another child to squelch their angst and perceived abnormality. In investigating “the problem that has no name,” she found that housewives believed themselves flawed for failing to find rapture in suburban domesticity-as the myth of the happy housewife instructed they should. In 1963, Betty Friedan sparked a national conversation on female mental health with release of The Feminine Mystique. But what if the dominant framing is both missing the point and compounding the issue? What if the teens are not “mentally ill,” but rather having a normal, healthy response to a highly dysfunctional world? To be sure, the widespread despondency is a heartbreaking problem that demands attention. The coverage mimics that trotted out during Mental Health Awareness Month, where outlets from 60 Minutes to LinkedIn thought leaders parrot surgeon general advisories about American teens in crisis. In lengthy features, The New York Times and The Atlantic unpacked the epidemic of teen sadness, pointing to neuroscience, puberty onset, parenting styles and pandemic loneliness as key drivers. Demonstrating the depth of the girls’ despair, hospitalizations for attempted suicide increased by over 50 percent during the pandemic, according to an earlier CDC study. Almost 60 percent of girls experienced debilitating sadness or hopelessness, compared to 31 percent of boys. The anguish was not distributed equally, however. Nearly half of America’s teens reported feeling “persistently sad or hopeless” during the pandemic, according to a CDC study quantifying the impact of COVID on adolescent mental health. teens report feeling “persistently sad or hopeless” during the pandemic. Stop calling the teens “mentally ill.” They are having a healthy reaction to an insane world.Ī young woman joins demonstrators in Los Angeles on International Women’s Day on March 8, 2022, to oppose anti-abortion laws.
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