Lesson 7: Early and Middle Adulthood and Mental Health
Attention
Health, Stress, and Coping
Planning for Health Care Needs - Family, Self, and Parents' Needs
Physical, Cognitive, Social-Emotional Peaks and Growth
"Sandwiched" between the needs of family by creation, marriage, commitment to significant other(s), and the changing needs of aging parents. Early adulthood, and middle-adulthood can bring challenges never imagined. Simply growing up to adult status, does not mean all the things that children imagine are the priviledge and UNDER the control of adults actually happen.
Expect the unexpected. No one warned you!
Economic challenges. Global economy.
Career planning, advisement, transition.
Mid-life crisis. So, you are NOT the CEO of the company you work for.
Divorce, separation, death of spouse.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:
- Explain the normal development process of adults and midlife crisis.
- Describe protective and risk factors related to mental health problems among adult populations.
- Explain several common mental health problems among adults and the related symptoms.
Teaching
Reading
- Read the article entitled "Are You a Natural?" by Bouchard, T., Lykken, D., McGue, M., Segal, N., & Tellellegen, A. (1990)
- Article: Are you a natural? Bouchard et al (1990)
Longitudinal studies in the behavioral sciences are invaluable because they permit you to see the beginnings, middles, and outcomes for behaviors of interest. They are difficult to conduct. They require time, financial resources to pull together the data, and keep track of people. Interests change in psychology, and in the behavioral sciences generally. You may well be in the "golden-age" of genetics and heredity for the behavioral sciences. This does not mean that parenting and exponsure to your cultures count for nothing. Nature and nuture interact and bear greatly upon each other.
The Bouchard et al (1990) study was a landmark for measurable aspects of human behavior that could be tracked over time.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a measurement device that provides each participant with a four-letter "code" that is created based on the way you answer questions in each of the four categories which focus on different dimensions of behavior. The code, and its interpretation on a sixteen cell matrix should yield a "picture" of the assessment taker that tends to be VERY stable over time. Your personality, interests, health profile, and attitudes tend to be durable over time, even in the face of some very intense experiences. With swirling changes, and increasing responsilbilities during early and middle adulthood, what is being stressed is this core at the center of your behavior. It is here that the adjustment to changing circumstance needs to make accomodation.
Lecture
Story from Professor Joel Goodstat: Here is the story of Grandpa Ed Burtt, who died at 85 in 2014. He battled advanced cancer. The plan for his wife and himself was that when they reached late adulthood, they would reside with my friends Adam and Emily, who are their grandchildren who live in New Hampshire, and their now six children under the same roof. The plan was they would move into either an addition or extension to the house since they gave Adam and Emily the money to buy the home outright.
The plan created a space in the home within which Grandpa Ed and Grandma Ann could live. Grandpa Ed and Grandma Ann purposefully skipped the generation that was own their children and went to the grandchildren Adam and Emily instead. The generation skipped represented divorces, separation, and other issues that dictated the "gamble" on Adam and Emily. I am somewhat in the loop here, because Adam and Emily's sixth child is named after me. When you get to be my age, 70, these things make a difference to you! The investment by Granpa Ed and Grandma Ann made is called heritage.
But, it is also a quality of life decision. After making a life, and having a family of four children themselves, Grandpa Ed and Grandma Ann did not want to be cared for by strangers. Up until Grandpa Ed's diagnosis, this man cut trees, split and hauled his own wood, and did all chores around a small cottage.
Around that time my friend in New Hampshire, Adam confided in me about how stressed he felt. He has six children and is the sole support of his family which meant that things are not always easy. Adam recently sent me an email accompanied by a picture of him "at the office." Adam is an arborist and a tree-climber. From 200 feet up-a-tree, the view to the ground is sobering. Adam additionally identified that with the responsibility of family, and grandparents for the future, he is not as prone as he once was to take chances while at work. Be aware: logging, and tree-climbing may well be the first or second most dangerous things a person can do routinely, short of first responder duties in a crisis situations. This situation provided great relief for Grandpa Ed and Grandma Ann to know they would be taken care of into old age. The same plan created a huge level of stress and responsibility into Adam who felt the weight of his high risk job, six children of his own, a one income family and the expectations of providing for his grandparents when they needed him to. These are the dilemmas of people living in a sandwich generation.
We experience childhood and adolescence for approximatley 18 years of our life but then spend the next two-thirds or three-quarters of our life in various stages of adulthood. In the year 2000, the population for the United States was more than one-half over the age of 50.
With a prediction that those born approximately between 1946 and 1964, the Baby Boomer generation, the next 15 years may bring an additional 2 or 3 million individuals into the diagnostic range for Alzheimer's disease (a type of brain dementia) or other severe medical illnesses. Getting older is not for the faint of heart. This is a reminder that it is important for you to take care of yourself and help your clients learn ways to impove their own self care. We are beginning to experience the burden the increased in older adults is placing on our health care system for both medical and community mental health care.
There are some common mental health disorders that occur in adulthood. This link will take you to a list of these disorders.
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/
As part of your quiz for this week you will follow this link and select two of these disorders. You will then research them on the internet and answer the quiz questions based on the information that you find.
Assessment
Lesson 7 Quiz
This quiz has the same question for both parts. You need to select two different common mental health disorders in adulthood and provide the information for each disorder you select.
- Pick one common mental health disorder from the list in the lesson. You will then research the internet to find out the following for the selected disorder: (1) behavioral symptoms, (2) treatment and (3) resources in your community that could help someone with each of the disorders. Please copy the URL (website link) for all of the information you include in your answer.
- Pick one common mental health disorder from the list in the lesson. You will then research the internet to find out the following for the selected disorder: (1) behavioral symptoms, (2) treatment and (3) resources in your community that could help someone with each of the disorders. Please copy the URL (website link) for all of the information you include in your answer.
Lesson 7 Discussion (for online course only)
I already know from reading some student replies in another course, that various life-span "clocks" run in your lives. How do you see your early and middle-adulthood unfolding? Planning for the future or revising strategies when necessary can be empowering! Control what you can. What you cannot, consider letting go as a strategy too.