So, half of all Americans lose it at least once before they shuffle off their mortal coil?
Well, I don’t mean really lose it, but a new study claims that about half of all Americans will develop one or more mental disorders in their lifetimes. Anxiety disorders plague a third of us, and one out of five will at some point abuse drugs or alcohol. Another third are candidates for anger management classes and a slightly greater number are or will be just plain depressed.
Study author Ronald Kessler offers cold comfort to those who point to advances in the science of the mind in offering relief. Seems as though less than 20% of those who suffer maladies of the spirit will actually seek medical care. Most prefer the internet or “spiritual advisors”. And, most disturbingly, of those who do see a physician or counseler, most will receive “inadequate” care.
So, I repeat; half of all Americans…
Bear in mind three things here. First, almost half of the mentally ill carry the burden of two or more disorders. Secondly, the classifications of mental illness remain the province of agencies within the federal government and a privileged coterie of private psychiatric societies. Finally, remember that definitions of mental illness keep expanding to cover more and more situations. This jibes with capitalism’s innate tendency to pathologize behavior it deems unprofitable or threatening.
I think personally the biggest problem we face is worry; the loss of a job or a partner or the effects of some natural disaster. Daniel Gilbert, who teaches psychology at Harvard and whose book Stumbling on Happiness will be published next year, has found that most people assume that they will be emotionally devastated by some calamity. As a consequence they vastly overestimate the intensity and duration of breakups, divorces, financial losses, trauma and the like. Of course people suffer from these unfortunate occurrances but they also recover more quickly than they had feared. “Our ability to spin gold from the dross of our experience means that we often find ourselves flourishing in circumstances we once dreaded….we recognize them as opportunities to reinvent ourselves, to bond with our neighbors and to transcend the poverty of material excess.”
Think about that the next time you’re fired.
Of course, there are many who suffer from what behavioral geneticists call “negative affectivity”, a tendency to be crabby, critical, bitter and irritable no matter what happens.
The problem is that many of us seek anodynes like television instead of filling time with activities that are “intrinsically” satisfying and create a sense of competence. Given a choice, how many people choose narcotic pleasures (like blogging?) that “dull the mind and quell its restless search for meaning” over activities that, in their complexity and challenge, offer the real promise of satisfaction.
Likewise, the ubiquity of advertising – the engine that drives the marketplace – creates a craving for material things that promise happiness. A new thing will do so, for awhile; then the purchaser habituates to it and soon needs another thing to boost happiness. The resulting ‘hedonic treadmill’ is, well, you get the picture.
But, certainly, this has much to do with how we define happiness and whether we feel we enjoy its effects as fully and as often as we should. I’ve always felt that it is relatively unimportant whether we love or hate, so long as two interwining criteria were met; that we felt empowered to effect sooner or later the objects of our desire, and (most importantly) whether we are able to do ‘good’.
So, maybe feeling empowered to do right by our fellows is a key to not only becoming happy as productive human beings; it could cure a lot of America’s mental miseries as well.