Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Had Mental Illness in 2009
By Reuters
November 19, 2010 "Reuters" -- CHICAGO - More than 45 million Americans, or 20 percent of U.S. adults, had some form of mental illness last year, and 11 million had a serious illness, U.S. government researchers reported on Thursday.
Young adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest level of mental illness at 30 percent, while those aged 50 and older had the lowest, with 13.7 percent, said the report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA.
The rate, slightly higher than last year's 19.5 percent figure, reflected increasing depression, especially among the unemployed, SAMHSA, part of the National Institutes of Health, said.
"Too many Americans are not getting the help they need and opportunities to prevent and intervene early are being missed," Pamela Hyde, SAMHSA's administrator, said in a statement.
"The consequences for individuals, families and communities can be devastating. If left untreated mental illnesses can result in disability, substance abuse, suicides, lost productivity, and family discord."
The 2009 mental health survey hints at the impact of record unemployment rates, which last year hit a 25-year high as struggling employers slashed jobs to cope with a weak economy.
For many, lost employment meant loss of health insurance, leaving many of the nation's mentally ill unable to get treatment.
According to the survey, 6.1 million adults last year had a mental health need that went untreated, and 42.5 percent said it was because they could not afford it.
It found 14.8 million Americans had major depression last year, and 10 percent of the jobless did, compared with 7.5 of retired people or those not in the job force, 7.3 percent who worked part time and 5.4 percent who worked full time.
Only 64 percent of adults aged 18 or older with major depression were treated last year, compared with 71 percent a year ago.
Being jobless also increased the risk of suicide.
Adults who were unemployed last year were twice as likely to have serious thoughts of suicide as people who were fully employed, with 6.6 percent of the unemployed considering suicide, compared with 3.1 percent of those who were working.
The survey also found that 23.8 percent of women had some form of mental illness, compared with 15.6 percent of men.
Showing posts with label Cognitive Dissonance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cognitive Dissonance. Show all posts
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Imagine the Cognitive Dissonance in the Children
By Stephen Hand, The Bride and the Dragon, more...
It is hardly a wonder so many teens today turn to drugs. It's not all wickedness. Sometimes it's bewilderment seeking the wrong relief. On the one hand children are brought up with the values and virtues taught in the home. But then they go to school (ever the laboratories of the new ideologies) and are told in a million subtle and not-so-subtle ways that their parents are wrong, retro, hopelessly lost in 'yesterday'. Especially regarding morals. This goes on for years. This alone makes for serious cognitive dissonance which is anxiety provoking, sometimes extremely so. Trouble is set for a dramatic, profound conflict between authorities in the child's life. The child is overwhelmed by conflicting signals, who to believe. Teachers seem like big kids. Parents seem out of it. Soon the child may begin to feel affection for his or her captors, and estranged from home.
Now add Television into the mix. Mom and / or Dad say one thing, but TV images to a child's mind are worth a thousand words: sex (explicit, implicit or inneuendo), violence, crude "comedy," and so on.
Then parents are disingenuously told by cynical commentators that they, parents, must teach their children values better, that pornography, "sex education," and violence per se are not "the problem". No. Of course not... Before you know it far more than a few teens have had enough and begin imitating what they have seen and heard about since they were almost infants---numbness, they think, is better than constant anxiety and conflict. Drown it out. And the parent then is close to despair.
It will continue like this until we put a stop to it. The question is, do we care to anymore? I hope so. But what to do...
Become a part or full-time activist, start a blog, write your congressman, do a stint in the slammer for non-violent demonstration against the moguls who are corruptive. Meanwhile, homeschool (or private school) the kids. Or risk losing them to a culture of death.
Could not local churches organize, say, an informal movie and fun day or evening supervised by parents once a week? A time for a spiritually attractive movie and / or other type of wholesome recreation, a small talk at dinner time (pot luck) which aims to teach real history, expose and counteract culturally perverse lies, and instill Franciscan-like desires for Christian goodness? Children and teens need positive, truly alternative experiences of life in Christ that will stay with them the rest of their lives. They need to be urged to consciously "receive Him" into their lives as Lord and Savior (Jn 1:12) that the gift of grace given at baptism may flower from within. We were made by God as visual-symbolic creatures, so Catholic faith symbols in display at the Church will be powerfully present to the child's spiritual receptors. These spiritual receptors have been overwhelmed by the hourly avalanche of bad or useless images in the culture today. The counter-offense needs to get underway. But we must make it happen. It is for the next generation we must live and work and love.
It is hardly a wonder so many teens today turn to drugs. It's not all wickedness. Sometimes it's bewilderment seeking the wrong relief. On the one hand children are brought up with the values and virtues taught in the home. But then they go to school (ever the laboratories of the new ideologies) and are told in a million subtle and not-so-subtle ways that their parents are wrong, retro, hopelessly lost in 'yesterday'. Especially regarding morals. This goes on for years. This alone makes for serious cognitive dissonance which is anxiety provoking, sometimes extremely so. Trouble is set for a dramatic, profound conflict between authorities in the child's life. The child is overwhelmed by conflicting signals, who to believe. Teachers seem like big kids. Parents seem out of it. Soon the child may begin to feel affection for his or her captors, and estranged from home.
Now add Television into the mix. Mom and / or Dad say one thing, but TV images to a child's mind are worth a thousand words: sex (explicit, implicit or inneuendo), violence, crude "comedy," and so on.
Then parents are disingenuously told by cynical commentators that they, parents, must teach their children values better, that pornography, "sex education," and violence per se are not "the problem". No. Of course not... Before you know it far more than a few teens have had enough and begin imitating what they have seen and heard about since they were almost infants---numbness, they think, is better than constant anxiety and conflict. Drown it out. And the parent then is close to despair.
It will continue like this until we put a stop to it. The question is, do we care to anymore? I hope so. But what to do...
Become a part or full-time activist, start a blog, write your congressman, do a stint in the slammer for non-violent demonstration against the moguls who are corruptive. Meanwhile, homeschool (or private school) the kids. Or risk losing them to a culture of death.
Could not local churches organize, say, an informal movie and fun day or evening supervised by parents once a week? A time for a spiritually attractive movie and / or other type of wholesome recreation, a small talk at dinner time (pot luck) which aims to teach real history, expose and counteract culturally perverse lies, and instill Franciscan-like desires for Christian goodness? Children and teens need positive, truly alternative experiences of life in Christ that will stay with them the rest of their lives. They need to be urged to consciously "receive Him" into their lives as Lord and Savior (Jn 1:12) that the gift of grace given at baptism may flower from within. We were made by God as visual-symbolic creatures, so Catholic faith symbols in display at the Church will be powerfully present to the child's spiritual receptors. These spiritual receptors have been overwhelmed by the hourly avalanche of bad or useless images in the culture today. The counter-offense needs to get underway. But we must make it happen. It is for the next generation we must live and work and love.
Friday, September 28, 2007
More than ever, Developed West needs Natural Law
It is truly an unusual time in history. While the first and second principles of the Natural Law are still given "lip service"(do good/avoid evil and treat your neighbor fairly) there is no agreement at all about what constitutes good and evil or what it means to treat your neighbor fairly. This causes a disturbing degree of cognitive dissonance.
Pope Benedict XVI has correctly identified the problem; widespread acceptance of (doctrinal) moral relativism. That is to say, despite the irrationality involved, it is simultaneously held that there are no moral absolute's while in practice rigid adherence to various yet contradictory "moral" standards is enforced.
For example, the so-called political left holds (correctly) that it is morally wrong to wage a war of aggression [the underlying principle being that it is always and everywhere wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being] yet paradoxically embraces abortion on demand which intentionally kills an innocent human being.
The social (conservative) right properly holds that abortion is morally wrong but accepts preventive (aggressive) war which intentionally seeks to kill those who have not actually attacked us (the innocent) that is, in an offensive not defensive way. This is justified not on the basis of moral certainty that an attack is either underway or imminent but on the basis of a probability calculation that an attack might take place in the future. Such thinking is irrational since it is impossible to know with cognitive let alone moral certainty what might occur in the distant future. Therefore, it is clear and thus intended from the outset that innocent human beings will be killed simply as a matter of commencing the attack.
It should be apparent to all clear-thinking persons that some universal standard must exist by which every human being can determine right and wrong, good v: evil and thus what constitutes fair treatment of our neighbor. Such a standard was discovered by the ancient Greeks particularly Socrates and Aristotle--what today we call the Natural (moral) law.
The natural law was also codified and promulgated in the ancient Hebrew Decalogue (10 commandments; particularly #'s 4-10) which was summarized by Jesus Christ in the form of His 2 laws. Later the best of Greco-Roman (pagan/pre-Christian) and Judaic moral philosophy was harmonized with Christianity by St. Thomas Aquinas; memorialized in his Summa theologiae and Contra-gentiles.
The so-called Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis--the classical/scholastic moral philosophical system--is the most completely developed and ever propounded. It is worthy now more than ever of our detailed consideration and adoption. Failure to abide by what is also referred to as the "golden-rule" ethic will mean a continued devolution in societal mores. Rank Utilitarianism (the reigning immoral [post-Enlightenment] philosophy in the developed West) must be repudiated.
---Dr. J. P. Hubert
Pope Benedict XVI has correctly identified the problem; widespread acceptance of (doctrinal) moral relativism. That is to say, despite the irrationality involved, it is simultaneously held that there are no moral absolute's while in practice rigid adherence to various yet contradictory "moral" standards is enforced.
For example, the so-called political left holds (correctly) that it is morally wrong to wage a war of aggression [the underlying principle being that it is always and everywhere wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being] yet paradoxically embraces abortion on demand which intentionally kills an innocent human being.
The social (conservative) right properly holds that abortion is morally wrong but accepts preventive (aggressive) war which intentionally seeks to kill those who have not actually attacked us (the innocent) that is, in an offensive not defensive way. This is justified not on the basis of moral certainty that an attack is either underway or imminent but on the basis of a probability calculation that an attack might take place in the future. Such thinking is irrational since it is impossible to know with cognitive let alone moral certainty what might occur in the distant future. Therefore, it is clear and thus intended from the outset that innocent human beings will be killed simply as a matter of commencing the attack.
It should be apparent to all clear-thinking persons that some universal standard must exist by which every human being can determine right and wrong, good v: evil and thus what constitutes fair treatment of our neighbor. Such a standard was discovered by the ancient Greeks particularly Socrates and Aristotle--what today we call the Natural (moral) law.
The natural law was also codified and promulgated in the ancient Hebrew Decalogue (10 commandments; particularly #'s 4-10) which was summarized by Jesus Christ in the form of His 2 laws. Later the best of Greco-Roman (pagan/pre-Christian) and Judaic moral philosophy was harmonized with Christianity by St. Thomas Aquinas; memorialized in his Summa theologiae and Contra-gentiles.
The so-called Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis--the classical/scholastic moral philosophical system--is the most completely developed and ever propounded. It is worthy now more than ever of our detailed consideration and adoption. Failure to abide by what is also referred to as the "golden-rule" ethic will mean a continued devolution in societal mores. Rank Utilitarianism (the reigning immoral [post-Enlightenment] philosophy in the developed West) must be repudiated.
---Dr. J. P. Hubert
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