By HANNAH WALLACH
Features Editor
Last August, New Jersey Monthly named CHS the second best public high school in the state, and in a 2012 survey, 63 percent of students here said most of the pressure they feel comes from school.
By those measures, CHS fosters a high-achieving, high stress environment. As such, mental health disorders can develop, said biology and health teacher Leah Morgan, and the mental health curriculum is designed to educate students about these disorders.
In fact, there is mounting evidence that students are less likely to feel distress after discussing topics like depression and anorexia; those who are experiencing such disorders will feel more comfortable seeking help, said a Rutgers clinical psychologist who affirmed the importance of mental health education.
The freshman mental health unit covers depression and general anxiety disorders that are caused by stress. The curriculum also touches on bipolar disorder. In sophomore year, students learn about eating disorders and personal health.
“It couldn’t hurt to have a more expanded unit on mental illness in general,” Morgan said. “However, within this population of students, depression and eating disorders would be the most common of the mental illnesses. So if nothing else, I’m glad we have those.”
Junior Jordana Deutsch of Manasquan said the curriculum should cover one more important mental health topic. For her persuasive rally in Effective Speech class freshman year, she argued that students should have better education on self-harm.
“There’s a lot of people in our age group that have issues with self-harm, and a lot of people who don’t know about it, and they sort of look down upon it and that’s really not good,” said Deutsch.
Deutsch chose the topic for her rally because she has friends who have self-harmed, and she said she wants people to know, “hey, this is out there, and there are people who may seem perfectly fine to you but have these issues with themselves.”
She added that self-harm education could trigger a negative reaction in a student who has a mental disorder, so a waiver could be given to students offering them the chance to opt out of that lesson.
Health teachers already try to create a comfortable environment in health class, said health and biology teacher Jeanine Gomez. They provide resources to students who may be experiencing mental health disorders themselves or know a friend or family member who is.
A teacher may sometimes distribute personal inventories or surveys before or after sensitive lessons, Gomez said. After the lesson on the signs of suicide, for example, a survey asks, “I do need help,” or “I don’t need help at this time.” Students are required to put their names on these surveys.
“It’s important to also include other forms of outreach, because not every student is going to feel comfortable putting on a form ‘Yes, I need help right now,’” said Gomez. “And obviously we’re not mind readers.”
Some educators are also concerned with the “copycat” or “social contagion” effect – that exposure to information on topics such as self-harm and suicide prompt people who may not have considered such behaviors otherwise to consider them.
Rutgers University Assistant Professor of Psychology Edward A. Selby specializes in the research and treatment of personality disorders, eating disorders and suicidal and self-injurious behavior. He said the contagion effect is “often a result of misinformation about mental diagnoses.”
There is “mounting evidence,” he said, to suggest that discussing such behaviors in educational settings is unlikely to cause someone without a number of psychological problems to engage in them.
“In fact,” said Selby, “the evidence suggests the opposite, that people are less likely to experience distress after talking about topics such as self-injury and suicide and those who are having difficulties may be encouraged to seek assistance.”
Morgan said people experiencing these issues should know that people understand them and are aware of their conditions, which “outweighs any negatives” that may result from such mental health concerns.
“Having suffered from depression myself, I can tell people that treatment is available and it works. Like any other illness, with diagnosis and treatment the outcome can be great,” said Morgan.
Guidance counselor Carol Caruso said that she feels it is important that the information is presented.
“We have to be sensitive, we have to be aware, but I think that’s our job as educators. I think we are.”
Caruso added that she recognizes contagion “as a reality” but that the only other alternative is to not talk about such issues.
“Mrs. Morgan is a professional health teacher. Mrs. Gomez is a professional health teacher … I do feel they’re very qualified to speak of these topics,” said Caruso.
Deutsch also said the eating disorder unit could be improved, going beyond the symptoms to include the reasons that eating disorders develop.
Morgan agreed.
“I think eating disorders are covered well in the explanation of what they are and how to recognize the warning signs, but the true basis of the mental illness isn’t part of the curriculum,” said Morgan. “… the idea that it also is a mental illness is mentioned, but the deeper level of what makes it a mental illness in and of itself isn’t covered.”
Morgan said she hopes to give students both the knowledge to make future decisions and a segue to obtain the help that they need.
“The idea that it’s brought up in school seems to make it an okay topic to talk about, that almost as an opening, when mom or dad says, ‘What did you learn in school today?,’ a student can say, ‘Well, I learned about an eating disorder, and by the way,’” she said.
Some students may experience disorders not covered in the health curriculum, such as an eating disorder not otherwise specified, self-harm, post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety and other anxiety disorders.
“I’m a teacher who’s perfectly capable of teaching about different things that are out there, but at the same time I’m not a doctor, so there are certain things that are kind of beyond my knowledge,” Gomez said.
Gomez said she can research information to relay to students, but some of the above disorders are “on a personal, case-by-case basis.”
Selby, a doctor of clinical psychology, emphasized the importance of mental health education.
“Education about mental health in high school would help many individuals learn not only when they may be experiencing the symptoms of a mental disorder but also improve compassion for others with these conditions,” Selby said.
Selby also said such education is a “major step needed” to decreasing stigmatization of the disorders and to improving their recognition and treatment.
“Many view [mental] disorders as a result of poor moral character, when in reality these disorders are a combination of many factors, including strong biological predispositions and difficult environments,” he said.