Where the faulty comparisons become dangerous is when a student already carries feelings of shame, according to Dr. Anthony L. Rostain, a pediatric psychiatrist on Penn’s faculty who was co-chairman of the task force on student psychological health and welfare. “Shame is the sense one has of being defective or, said another way, not good enough,” Dr. Rostain said. “It isn’t that one isn’t doing well. It’s that ‘I am no good.’” Instead of thinking “I failed at something, these students think, ‘I am a failure.’”
Hmmm.
You know what OTHER connection there is between college, female freshman, and shame?
Well, for as many as one in five of them-- it's
sexual assault, that's what.
But that wouldn't be the fault of
parents though-- so I can see why nobody would want that particular connection to be made. But it's the very first thing that I thought of when I read Madison Holleran's heartbreaking story. I wonder. I was that faculty member that students disclosed to for a number of years-- and I will say that a lot of those broken and wounded young women that I saw
never told their parents why they were suddenly struggling academically. NEVER. They
would have died rather than have their parents know.
I believe that one in five is probably a
somewhat conservative estimate by the time that they graduate, by the way.
In those kinds of numbers, that IS a mental health driver on a campus.
