Emily
Emily
Professor Smith
English 101
4 October 2018
Deep Down in Disbelief
Depression is misunderstood in today’s society and many people maybe affected and not
be aware of it. In addition, students can be mis diagnosed and be given the wrong type of
medication. People suffering from depression can experience both short and longterm symptoms.
Depression manifest itself with sadness, lack of drive, and loss of appetite. Colleges should
spread awareness and enable students to recognize symptoms of a depressive disorder. In the
reading of in “Opening Skinner’s Box, Lauren Slater, a psychologist, conducts experiments on
patients with mental illnesses. Slater shows in the reading an experiment being shown by a
professor named David Rosenhan. The ultimate purpose for this experiment was to examine the
differences between the sane from the insane. However, Rosenhan has an idea, but instead
decides to send out eight friends to multiple mental health hospitals. Furthermore, a professor
named Robert L. Spitzer challenges the validity of Rosenhan’s experiment and claims,
“Rosenhan uses that as proof of how ridiculous psychiatrist…had never been any reports before
of ‘thud’ as an auditory hallucinations” (Slater 66). This is explaining how after much research it
is shown that Rosenhan’s experiment is stating to be unreliable for the reason that patients were
being treated for schizophrenia. It is showing how people can easily be mistreated with under a
physician's care. Mt. San Jacinto College does take action to help students with depression
Emily
because they provide proactive programs like Active Minds and spreading awareness, and in the
future provide counseling for students.
Depression is ideal prevalent among college students. According to Peltzer “24.0 % and
12.8 % of the undergraduate university students across countries in Africa, Asia and the
Americas reported moderate and severe depressive symptoms, respectively” (Buchanan 262).
Depression is not only a leading cause of an illness, but it is also a diagnosed mental disability
worldwide. It is a condition that can have the students suffer from major depressive episodes,
where they can feel fatigued. It can affect day to day life such as, not going to work, school, or
interacting with peers. It can lead to a person not wanting to get out of bed. It can even lead to
lack of concentration, and feeling deeply guilty. For example, in “social demographic, stress and
health risk among students,” Karl Peltzer claims, “The high prevalence of depressive symptoms
in this university student population calls for interventions to be designed to prevent the onset of
clinical depression (Buchanan, 2012). He is asserting that there is a high number of students who
suffer from these depression symptoms. He informs many students in colleges to help spread
awareness. As a result, Colleges are starting programs in schools to help students that struggle
with depression.
MSJC offers a proactive program called Act...
