Another rant on mental health

[kellinator]

From the August 23, 2004 issue of Newsweek:

"MIT admissions dean Marilee Jones says she's looking to enroll 'emotionally resilient' students. 'If we think someone will crumble the first time they do poorly on an exam, we're not going to admit them,' she says. 'So many kids are coming in, feeling the need to be perfect, and so many kids are medicated now. If you need a lot of pharmaceutical support to get through the day, you're not a good match for a place like MIT.'"

Wow, how wonderful to see such sensitivity in a person working with teenagers.

There are so many things that offend me about this statement that I don't even know where to start. Are Prozac and Ritalin overprescribed? Certainly. Are there students with mental health issues who would be better served in smaller, more supportive environments than the pressure cooker of MIT? Without a doubt. Is it fair to expect universities to bear all the responsibilty for the problems of troubled students? I don't think so. Do some of these students need to just suck it up and deal? Probably. But still...

To me, what Dean Jones seems to be saying is, "There's so much pressure on students to be perfect, and we want to make sure they can do it without drugs. Because, you know, it's not real if you can't do it without drugs. Antidepressants are for wusses."

What about diabetic students who need insulin? Technically, that's pharmaceutical support. Can you imagine the outcry if Dean Jones said this, and rightly so? I believe they have something called the Americans with Disabilities Act that says you can't do that.

Perhaps MIT is trying to dodge some of the responsibility it must bear for creating an environment where suicides and nervous breakdowns are very real issues. They may be legally adults, but most eighteen-year-olds aren't ready to deal with extreme pressure, especially on top of huge life changes like college usually involves (moving, being away from your support network...). Maybe MIT doesn't feel that expending funds on decent mental health care is a worthy use of their dollars. Never mind the old adage that says "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

During a final exam at the end of my first semester of Vanderbilt, I burst into tears and left the room to sob for twenty minutes. I got an A on that exam and went on to graduate summa cum laude. I suppose Dean Jones would have called me one of those problem students and rejected my application?

Or maybe I'm just bitter because I couldn't cut it in my grad school experience (at a school whose mental health services were much harder to obtain than those at Vanderbilt). So let's think over some of the others with mental health issues that MIT might pass over. Lincoln, Beethoven, Churchill, Van Gogh, just about every great writer of the twentieth century... would you tell them they couldn't come to your school?

EDIT: the1mouse has helpfully provided this link to the article.

Comments

[crowyhead.livejournal.com]

Bullshit. Unless we're literally talking about an admissions policy that's going to be as thorough as admissions into the secret service, all it's going to do is encourage people to keep everything even farther under wraps. Shin reportedly had a history of depression, which she kept secret from everyone involved.

If someone equally driven is aware that anything other than an appearance of happy, healthy mental stability is going to keep them from getting into MIT, then they're going to do every in their power to appear that way. All statements like Jones' do is further stigmatize those who are under treatment for depression or mental illness, and further encourage deception on the part of those who might need treatment but are afraid of the consequences of seeking it.

[ex-ilk.livejournal.com]

Anyone who enacts or attempts to enact a mental health admissions policy should be willing to sumbit herself and her staff to a full mental health screening.

That is all.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

I think I love you. :)

[ilexx.livejournal.com]

and of course, there's the fact that everything in a summarized article like this is taken out of context.

At MIT, Jones, the admissions dean, gives preference to students who are "self-driven" (read: not being pushed by their parents), based on her belief that self-motivated students are better able to cope with failures. "Our culture has become insane—we're making people sick," Jones says.

and then the story of Elizabeth Shin. well, she told everyone except her own FAMILY that she was suicidal? yeah, THERE'S a healthy relationship, one that makes you wonder who's desire it was that she go to MIT in the first place. in which case, where's the most pressure - from the school's expectations? or from her family's, if she wasn't willing to call home and tell SOMEONE that she was losing it?

one more thing...

[ilexx.livejournal.com]

if they bring up the meds issue, and then they DO admit someone who is on psych meds, and that person doesn't take their meds as prescribed and loses it, killing themselves and/or others - who is going to be held responsible in that situation? they already have lawsuits for suicides, so what then?

the dean made a huge mistake in saying anything like that at all, because it just opens a HUGE can of worms they'll have to deal with in some form or another.

[thystle.livejournal.com]

I can't even imagine the reaction of all the students who do go to MIT and are on medication of some sort.

[dwivian]

But, the ACT/SAT/GPA are just arbitrary measures, and may not reflect academic potential, but merely testing skills....

Having done a sequence on testing and measures for my initial education work, this was a major point of the lectures -- a test is a possible indicator, but not necessarily a valid one, as to academic progress. Alas, there is little we can do about that, as the only way to verify skills is via trials of some kind....

So, what you said is that you agreed with someone that indicated that anyone with academic potential be given a chance to 'try and fail on their own'. What I said is that there are plenty of people with low testing skills, with issues that keep them from testing well, that are being arbitrarily screened. Why is that more fair?

[dwivian]

But the inverse is NOT true -- failure to achieve certain arbitrary scores on tests is not necessarily an indicator of inability to succeed in academia, medication or otherwise. This was my point -- if we set a standard of needed focus, retention skills, testing skills, writing ability, etc, as a means to evaluate people, we can provide those levels in advance and cause applicants to self-screen. If people KNOW that MIT is a high-stress environment and are aware that they require medication to manage the normal day-to-day stress, going to MIT is a bad idea.

That's what the quote means -- if you are on medication, you should give extra consideration to what that means for you before applying.

Re: Semantics quibble

[dwivian]

I'm glad you point out that this is a semantics issue. I think the issue is the distinction between the general use of education as process, and education as the end result. You did NOT pay to be educated, but for the educational opportunity, which is often called 'education', but must be distinguished from your fourth point, which is a mistake -- ALL students got the same level of education, but did not walk away with the same level of retention, varying how much they were educated. This gives rise to the rather weird statement "Everyone got the same education but not everyone go the same education," which is true.

UGH! Language sucks at times... ::grin::

It can be quite confusing when a term is used both for the process and the result.

[kaifawn.livejournal.com]

What about those who go to MIT with the goal of entering aerospace? Those who work in Mission Control dealing with life and death situations after being on duty for 18 hours straight? Those who fly the shuttles? And that's just one industry.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that MIT is an education with the same trials and tribulations of any other education.

[kmeghan.livejournal.com]

I have to say that the smartest thing I did was go to community college for two years, then went away to school. I was much more prepaired for a major college and the pressures that came along with it. I didn't have much a problem with school pressures, except in math....but I also knew what resources were avaliable to help me. Maybe their focus should be on getting that kind of info to incoming students before they are overwhelmed.

[thystle.livejournal.com]

First, if people know that MIT is a high-stress environment and are aware that they require medication to manage does not necessarily mean that going to MIT is a bad idea. If they are on their medication, they can function as fully as anyone else who wants to go to MIT.

Second, I completely disagree about what the quote means, but since there is no way for either of us to know what she meant when she said that, there is no point in arguing it.

[dwivian]

Having taken meds, and known plenty that do, I have to say that I never took them to function as fully as others, but to function at all. Neurochemistry is so messy that adjusting it reminds me of the adage "measure with micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with axe." And, I've watched as the efficacy of the meds fails over time (in fact, I've never met ANYONE who didn't have to have their dosages tweaked or changed outright from time to time), which means that the only way to know it's time to fix things is to be experiencing the problems the meds are supposed to be fixing. Having that happen in the MIT crucible is, reasonably, on the list of "not good things."

I feel the quote means exactly what she says -- if you do not have highly developed coping skills then the stress is going to wash you out, and they have such a high application rate that they could have let a different student in that COULD have succeeded. If you know this of yourself, that you have stress issues, perhaps you should consider a different avenue to a degree.

Apparently mental illness still has a stigma, even among those who should know better

[cartman94501.livejournal.com]

I think (ex) Dean Jones's statement illustrates the divide that still persists in our society over "physical" versus "mental" illness. No one would suggest that an insulin-dependent diabetic shouldn't go to the college of his/her choice. Dependence on antidepressants is no more of a problem than dependence on insulin, as long as you don't run out of pills and money at the same time.

When my mother was dying of cancer, she refused pain medication because she didn't want to "become addicted." I explained patiently that people who take pain medication for actual pain rarely become addicted, and that even if she did, it was no problem, because she would always be able to get it. She was stubborn, but eventually the pain got too bad, and she had to take it. Did she become addicted? Perhaps, but who cares? Addiction isn't a problem if you're terminally ill and have cash and/or health insurance.

I wonder whether the stigma attached to mental illness has anything to do with the unusual level of religiosity in the US compared to other rich countries. After all, if consciousness resides in the brain, and the brain is a body organ, sometimes it goes kerflooey and needs to be fixed. No big deal. But if consciousness is the individual's link to God, then perhaps God is punishing the mentally ill, or they're morally weak, or possessed by demons, or all sort of other preposterous notions.