Emotional Problems of the Student
- Author:
Blaine & McArthur
Butterworth, ?3.00
The authors are a psychiatrist and a Psychologist respectively, working in the University Health Services at Harvard, U.S.A., and their work is We’I introduced by Erik H. Erikson.
Working in a university setting, he says, the psychiatrist must be able to spot psychosis and potential suicides, and on the other hand recognize and keep his hands off students of genius. Within these e*treme points is a large middle 9round in which much psychiatric w?rk may be necessary.
The book covers the field comprehensively and is written in a c’ear, vigorous, and hopeful style. While the real hazards, strains and stresses of student life are certainly Underlined, the book also makes it c,ear that skilled and compassionate help can be effective - even schizophrenic illness, as encountered in Harvard students, carries w’th it a less ominous prognosis. A most interesting chapter on the College drop-out shows how many students resolve their own problems after a year of bumming around, working and loafing, so that over 60% return to college and do well.
Stresses which society puts on its adolescents, just at a time when they are most vulnerable, are emphasized and well illustrated by a chapter on student apathy.
Suicide and drugs are also well covered and there is some interesting material on various kinds of learning difficulties. Other sections cover special aspects of problems among women college students and students of both sexes in business and medical schools.
The book should help to restrain parents, teachers and other counsellors from pressuring young people into higher education in order to fulfil their own needs, rather than those of the young person. And although such a book, rooted as it is in the American contemporary scene, has a very characteristic style and flavour-as evidenced by the lively chapter called ‘The Movement’- its insight is firmly based and applicable in Europe.
The final chapter on treatment maintains an essentially realistic yet hopeful tone. Drugs are shown to have a limited place in treatment and short-term, analytically-oriented psycotherapy given by specialists is one of the most effective methods. The pros and cons of actual psychoanalysis for this age group are well assessed.
If there are still people who doubt the need for special services for students, a reading of this book, with its concise case histories interspersed in the text, should be conclusive. Special help is needed, and where properly given, is effective.
Allchin
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