There was an interesting article in the Lawrence Journal World this morning about the heavy burden KU's psycholigists currently have. The article can be found here: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/apr/28/despite_staff_increase_ku_psychologists_overloaded/
The number of patients each KU therapist is responsible for is staggering, almost triple the national average according to the chart on this page. My question is, how many of these people they're seeing actually need this help? Is the dependancy of psycoligists and therapists chic, because parents don't want to parent, or are they needed more and more because of our further knowledge of the human mind? Or has societal pressure sent an overwhelming number of people off the deep end? Why all the need for psycholigists?
Comments (1)
I think there's a mix of factors, most of which you hit on at the end of your post.
I think an increasing number of parents are trying to buy their kids' love growing up rather than actually spending time with them. I had a pretty good childhood with my parents, but I had friends who would come home after school and their parents would work or have a business meeting until 8 or 9 most weeknights. The family wouldn't eat together or anything, and so often his parents would try and buy him stuff or leave money for him to go out and have a good time.
But I definetly think the bigger issue is all the pressures we have. I can't remember who mentioned it in class a few weeks ago, but although most our parents don't come right out and say "Get an A or i'll be extremely dissapointed in you," they do it by the undertone of their speeches they give. I know in the case of my parents it's always "Try and keep your grade point average up so you can get into the journalism school" or "Take some business classes, it will help you get a much better career."
Everything is just so much more competitive now that it really doesn't surprise me numbers are increasing so much.
Posted by Andy Koritz | May 6, 2007 12:31 PM
Posted on May 6, 2007 12:31