Teaching kids the habits of anxious, depressed people isn't working well

It's OK Not To Be OK" said the "mental health awareness" sign at the library. I thought: Why settle for not-OKness? Why not do something to feel better? You made it to the library. Check out a few books. I recommend P.G. Wodehouse. Or, go for a walk. There's a little native-plant garden right here. It's quite pleasant.

"Teaching children the habits of anxious and depressed people" has not worked out well, writes Greg Lukianoff.

Ten years ago, The Atlantic published The Coddling of the American Mind by Lukianoff and Jon Haidt as its cover story. It argued that U.S. college campuses "had embraced a culture of 'vindictive protectiveness' — one designed to insulate some students from discomfort, shield them from disfavored words and ideas, and punish those who caused offense, whether intentionally or unintentionally," he writes.

The rules didn't just restrict debate, he writes. They also "modeled and rewarded patterns of thought that psychologists have long identified as drivers of anxiety and depression."

. . . we warned that teaching this way of thinking was going to be a disaster for mental health, academic freedom, and free speech, and that it would almost certainly provoke a right-wing backlash.

Students aren't to blame, writes Lukianoff. Adults have "taught them to believe they are fragile." Schools and universities have encouraged "psychologically harmful ways of thinking," such as "catastrophizing, which means treating setbacks or disagreements as disasters; black and white thinking, or sorting people into heroes and villains, allies and enemies; and overgeneralizing, which means drawing sweeping, exaggerated conclusions from limited evidence."

For Generation Z, personalities are now defined as disorders, writes Freya India. In a 2024 survey, 72 percent of Gen-Z girls said “mental health challenges are an important part of my identity.”

Adults diagnosed with mild autism, ADHD, depression and other syndromes often feel better, writes Ellen Barry in the New York Times. But the relief at having a name for their challenges fades over time. They feel less self-blame, but also "greater pessimism about recovery."

Young adults who were diagnosed with disorders such as depression and ADHD in their teens do slightly worse than those with similar symptoms who weren't diagnosed, concludes a large study by Cliodhna O’Connor, an associate professor of psychology at University College Dublin. "After controlling for symptom severity and socio-demographic factors," the study found "young adults who were diagnosed with depression in adolescence had worse depression symptoms later, despite getting treatment," reports Barry. Those diagnosed with ADHD "had worse peer relationships, worse self-image and worse emotional well-being." The diagnosis lowers expectations.

For a 15-year-old, a diagnosis can be a "self-fulfilling prophecy," warns Suzanne O’Sullivan, an Irish neurologist, in The Age of Diagnosis.

For some diagnoses, such as neurodevelopmental disorders like A.D.H.D. or autism, there's not path to recovery, she told Barry. “Although you’re relieved to feel explained and you’ve found a tribe, you are now trapped into an illness through the way you conceptualize it as a biological inevitability."