EBD Blog

For students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders who make the transition to post-secondary education and for their families, the challenges are substantial, according to a story entitled “Off to College on Their Own, Shadowed by Mental Illness” by Lynette Clemetson of the New York Times. Ms. Clemetson uses two separate cases to illustrate her observations.

Her mother called it a negotiable proposition. But to Jean Lynch-Thomason, a 17-year-old with bipolar disorder who started college this fall, her mom’s notion to fly from their home in Nashville to her campus in Olympia, Wash., every few weeks to monitor Jean’s illness felt needlessly intrusive.

“I am so totally aware of the control you have over me right now,” Jean said, sitting in her parents’ living room one evening last June, before coolly reminding her mother of her upcoming 18th birthday. “In a few months the power dynamic is going to be different.”

For Chris Ference, 19, who is also bipolar, the fast-approaching autonomy of his freshman year held somewhat less appeal. His parents had always directed every aspect of his mental health care. Last summer, over Friday night pizza at his home in Cranberry Township, Pa., he told them that assuming control felt more daunting than liberating.

“If it was up to me, I would just have it so you could make those decisions for me up until I was like, 22,” he said. “I mean, you’ve raised me well up to now. You know me better than anyone.”

This is an important topic, so I’m glad that Ms. Clemetson brought it to the fore. Follow this link (free subscription required) to read Ms. Clemetson’s story. Fortunately, there are resources on which college students with EBD can depend; learn more about some of them at these sites:

• Active Minds on Campus is a national (US) organization that Ms. Clemetson mentioned; Active Minds encourages student-managed groups on college and university campuses to promote awareness of mental health issues, advocate for mental health and mental illness resources, encourage fellow students to seek help when it is needed, and establish relationships with the mental health community. (I’m glad to note that there’s a chapter at U.Va., the institution where I am employed.)
• The American Psychological Association provides a special section of its outreach Web site devoted to college mental health.
• APA’s college mental health section.
• Cope.Care.Deal, which is funded by the Annenberg Foundation Trust a Sunnylands, provides resources for adolescents.
• Colleges and universities that receive US federal funds are required to provide services for individuals with disabilities, and this requirement goes beyond ensuring that campuses have wheelchair-accessible facilities; search for “disability” at any school’s Web site.

Technorati tags: mental health, bi-polar, depression

10 December 2006 Update: On Psych Central, John Grohol covered this story, too. Here’s a link to his entry.