Greeley, Andrew M.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 33 | Number 1 Article 7February 1966Social-Medical Problems of Youth: Viewpoint ofthe SociologistAndrew M. GreeleyFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationGreeley, Andrew M. (1966) "Social-Medical Problems of Youth: Viewpoint of the Sociologist," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 33 : No. 1 ,Article 7.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol33/iss1/7Se dal-Medical Problems O l h . out -VIEWPOINT OF THE SocroLoc·-· ., Ph.D.R1..VEREND ANDREW M. GREELEY, S.T.L. A I should qualify my remarks witha notation that the kind of ado­lescents of whom I speak are gen­erally upper-level class adolescents They're the only ones I know ver;much about both from my experi­ences as a sometimes parish priestand also from some research thathas been done. Second!y, I am particularly con­cerned with people in the late yearsof adolescence. This is to say fromage seventeen to twenty-one or two.So my remarks are directed at this relatively limited segment of the adolescent population. Let me propose for you an experi -ment .that you can try on your ownsometime. Gather together a groupof college students, college students whom you would judge to be inmost matters paragons of normalityand of psychic health. And don'tpick just the ordinary ones ; pickthos�. who are talented, intelligent, sensitive, and handsome ; pick those �ho would be marked as the leaders m almost any group of young people that you would gather. Get seven eight, ten_ of these young peopl;together m a conversation. Letthem talk for a while, then raise the question, "How many of youe�er ,,thought of committing sui­cide? The question is not, "Did itever cross your mind?" The ques­tion i_s "How many of you have held m your hand the instrumentby which you could end your life 12and seriou� contemplated usingthat instrur t?" If your experi·ence is a :. ctition of mine youwill find a ,vhere from half totwo-thirds r the young people inthe group, they're honest, willsay that ind( . they did go throughjust such an perience. We may '] ask ourselves whythis happet There is an ado·lescent crisi 1 American society.This is s rnch a part of ourculture that take it for granted.We assum t it is in the natureof growing ,J, that people gothrough a p, acted period of crisisand anxiet\ · ·tween infancy and·adulthood. · never bother to ask whether tL are o ther societieswhere this , J not happen. But indeed if w, ' >k around the world,if we Joe .ndeed to WesternEurope, we 1 find that crises oladolescents, ,hey exist at a ll, area relatively ;_,nt phenomenon in·deed and h1; �ome with Americaninfluence, j1, !1ke Coca-Cola. The rela,1, , question we oug�t to ask ours ·s it seems to rne JS why in An-· ican society is thepassage, the . ,msition from youth to adulthood so terribly, terriblydifficult. The, · are a vast numberof reasons fen this, but I only wishto speak of a I cw here, a few th�t apply especialiy to young people inFather Greeley is Senior Study Dir�or, National Opinion Research Center, OJ· versity of Chicago. LrNACRE QUARTERLY middle class, and at leastthem applies particularly to, It seems to me - this isapenence in some researchW's been done - that the bigthat the young person has to­.. k to be loved. Now I don'tIf this in any sentimental mysticalWilon. I don't mean it would beeif the young person were loved.I a't mean it would make himleil good if he were loved. I meandat he needs to be loved for his plJWC and occasionally his physi-1111 survival. I'm increasingly per­aled as I deal with young people diat the biggest thing that they1111m is encouragement. They haveID be assured of their own worth,ri their own dignity, of their· ownYllue as human beings in a world which has created for them gravehbts about this dignity and. this worth and this fact. Those of uswho must deal with college-trainedJOOng people in one way or another they are r uotic at least in t: '. tra­ditional l of the word neurotic.I was talk to a college counselorrecently r •Jart of a study we're present!' .ng and he said that he had heai·· the figure quoted that10% of the college people in the country are pre-psychotic. I don'tknow how that figure is calculated;I 'm not quite sure what "pre-psy­chotic" means but this priest agreed with me that if it were defined as "badly disturbed with serious emo­tional problems" then he felt the figure 10% was grotesquely low.But most of them will not becomepsychotic. Most of the young peo­ple who have held the razor-bladein their hand and considered cut­ting their wrists do not in fact doso, and I think this is almost asIre increasingly persuaded that al­lbt all upper middle class youngperso� are going to need at some line �n their maturation processtltens1ve counseling or psychother­apy. They're going to need it, tho :1 of them aren't going to get it;Ibis the need will be there. Indeed,· interesting, the fact that they donot do it, as the fact that they are so strongly tempted. There are�nough emotional resources left tosurvive; there's enough emotionalstrength to continue to exist, toavoid not only suicide but whatcould be clinically described as in -capacitating mental illness. How­ever they operate, they function ata very low level of efficiency and happiness . What we're witnessingtoday I think is another manifesta­tion of what was called sometime ago the executive neurosis or, onthe female side, the "suburbanhousewife neurosis." But we're wit­nessing it not in the late thirties or the early fortie s  where we found itfive or ten years ago, we're nowwitnessing it in the late teens andthe early twenties . What their fathers and mothers experienced to­ward the beginning of middle-age has become such a common -� that they're going to need it,k � never occurred to us that• miy}tt be- or it has occurred to�ly - that there might be �g ter�bly abnormal about� which. �equires extensive late PY to rehabilitate those in their r teens and their early twenties. lllnot a · h peopl rgumg t at these young e are psychotic, or even thatPnauAB.y, 1966 13 young pe number periencing adulthood. e today, at least a fair them, seem to be ex­at the beginning of Now we might ask why does this happen. I would suggest at least two reasons, with a passing remark on a third. First reason is that the manipulation of love has become almost the accepted thing in the middle class family. My experience in eleven years of dealing with the very well to do upper middle class community is that love is rarely given unconditionally. It is awk­ward and withdrawn, depending upon the performance of the child - that if you do well in the uppermiddle class family you are loved; and if you do not do well then you are not loved. You are loved when you learn to walk; if you don't walk as early as others then in some fashion love is withheld. You are loved for your accomplishments in toilet training. You are loved for your accomplishments in pre­kindergarten and kindergarten. You are loved for your accomplishments, your grades in school. You are loved for your social successes in adoles­cence; but you are rarely if ever loved as yourself. There is a considerable amount of ranting and raving going on in our society about the collapse of discipline. It seems to me that the question is somewhat more subtle. Discipline hasn't collapsed; it has become more sophisticated. Young people may drink more; they may hotrod around in cars more; they may scream a little more after the Beatles than their parents did after 14 Frank Sinatra parental cont,·. son is, in ,:, strong as it may drink n appearances manipulation the parent t destiny in IL his own was more. I migr I've often ha, the people wh are the MD'.c of father I m, decided that t a doctor like young man .l the inclinatior pursue medic, wishes him course usually thoughts that . essentially thi the young per· ,ddle classes, as was. The child may have more reedom, but the :ave has enabllli . ntrol the child's , least as well as rolled and perhajE .)te in p assing that \e impression that re the worst at this ou know the kind , the one who has son is going to be n even though the 1 ' t  the talent nor J be; he's going to because his father do so. And � does, with psychic e incalculable. What annc me - and this is surely not tn Jf all MD's of that I am certain, aware - in dealing with these ge; l men is that som� how or other ,hey assume t_hat ��unquestioned , ,1mpetence m m . cine makes 'hem compete�! d everything, es/•cially the re�rin� d their own ch;,clren. I don t � their making rnistakes; ev:ry ili; p�rent does. But I do mind . . d onfident ill bemg so arrogant an c their mistakes. What often happens to yo�. f situauQ!llpeople m these typ�s O re tha.nis that they become little mo extensions of their parents' pe�: ality. They do not ei_nerge,:th 1dependent human beings . 0�,i. dignity and value of th:lf and They exist for the satisfacttons the needs of the parents. Q RTEJLf LINACRE UA t often happens, then, is that mild becomes little more than �on of the parent's person-4,· to be manipulated to suit M parent's own needs, and never ages as a free, independent hu­• being with dignity and value If Ms own. Their social, their aca -"*, eventually their professional, • their romantic lives, are molded• the needs of their parents.I described a caricature you say.l'tD, it does not always exist in as ,. and bald a fashion as I am '-ribing, but I think that for thelljority of young people at least• of this phenomenon of thellllipulation of love is a very im -pltlnt part of their maturation""1em; and for a substantial mi­� one must say that this ·is a�tic of the way they have- raised. They have been loved,• on the basis of their own dig-1!11, and Worth and lovableness; t�have been loved because they been able to perform. So young people today must that love is unconditioned, they are lovable for them­not for their ability to do wanted to �ow what he wan· 1 to do with hi ife, he merely imitated his father. a girl wanted to know what she . 1s to do in life, she merely imitated her mother. But in our dynamic society with its multi­tude of choices it is not nearly so easy to decide what you're going to do or what you want to be; and, unfortunately, while we have given young people today just about every­thing we possibly could in the wayof food, clothing, shelter, education, recreation, medical care, we have not provided them with a -set· of norms and values according to which they could decide what to do with their lives. It is clear to most of them at least to those who come from families where there has been one generation with economic security, it is clear that the quest for economic and social success is not enough; it simply won't do. They realize that the good life is theirs if they're reasonably diligent and reasonably intelligent and rea­sonably personable, but it is not something to get excited about. They want a new dimension in their lives; they want new mean­ing. It's not at all clear to them where they're going to get it. The youthful involvement in things like the civil rights movement, the peace corps, the papal volunteers, inter­city tutoring projects, and so forth is a groping attempt to add a new dimension and meaning in life, a dimension and meaning that we in the adult generation have not been able to provide for them. The third problem for Catholic young people which I'll mention in 15 passing i� he irrelevancy of their faith , an relevancy which often causes ye ,g people to wonder whether tt, .:ir faith really means anything at all to them. It is not to say that they will leave the reli­gion; they do not leave it for the most part. But then it is very, very difficult for a young person to take the stunted version of religion which they have learned in grammar school and high school and in the college years reevaluate the religion of his infancy and turn it into an adult religion. It is especially diffi­cult to do so because this reevalua­ti?n has so often been defined by his_ previous religious training as losmg the faith. If you question, then you doubt it; and if you doubt, then you've already lost the faith. Most of the so-called crises of faith that we encounter are not really crises of faith at all; they're merely signs of health actually, attempts of people to upgrade their religion through matter of immaturity to maturity and the real problem is that society, at least in its religious functionary, insists on defining for them that this reevaluation of their religion is a sin when it is anythingbut sinful. Are there any solutions for these problems? Well there are no clear cut panaceas obviously because the problems are rooted in the nature of American society. What the young person must do, of course -as one young woman put it to me -is come to terms with oneself. You must accept yourself; you must not view life as a long series of tests to be passed, but rather as a series of experiences through which you grow. 16 But of coweverything test thus Li. yourself 1,. as a grow· human be who is coof tests anc the absenc( failure, un Now hm'> can't do i with parent years for 1 to commur. about any their life i · Some of tr :is is very hard when 1e done has been a .oming to terms with ; accepting yourself ,naturing, developing and not as someone · n ti y passing a seriesercoming obstacles, in ·which is a nothing, a,ble, without dignity. n they do this? They •1 their relationshipsi)uring the adolescent t American children e with their p arents ,rningful problem in ell nigh impossible. can establish com· munication th educators, some with clerg: ,ome , indeed, with their MD's ut the point that l would make ) you is this: many of the pc- 2rns, the physical, emotional r _ilems of adolescents brought to , r offices are actually difficulties t , · result from t he fact that the ye person is not at a!I sure of his ,1 lovableness; he 15 not at all s rhat he is acceptable or worth at. ,ting. His real p rob· !ems are m,- . he mysterious head· aches or st(,. ,ch-aches or psycho· somatic distc hances that he may have, but ,1,, real problems ar�self-hatred, -Af-rejection, and ·thguess every o " tor who deals wi this kind of i"·rson must be a pa�d time psychiai 1 1st; but then I wou_ think that th; is nothing new r the medical p10fession because bea · . m r most every dc,cwr feels on a nu b of occasions that most of what edoes is not ;ncdicine _b�t a \�Zlimited form of medicine ca psycho therapy. LrNACRE QuARTERLf ial-Medical Problems £ Youth-VIEWPOINT OF THE EoucA SISTER M. MARGARITA, O.P., .. D. a teacher, I have dealt with school and college youth for fifteen years. Certainly a at any level is doing far than bringing together areas of ledge and disembodied minds dren. Most of you are par­; in this capacity you too are tors. But the classroom teacher with children in a context tit is unique . . . it must be or flere is no need for the school. lasically, it is the intellectual de­lllopnient of the child for which he lems for t 2 child in our American schools tba� are due to the system itself, not the home or neighbor­hood or even the proficiency ( or lack of it) of teachers or adminis­trators. I point out these problems only in the hope that you, _as edu­cated professional leaders m your communities, as well as persons deeply involved in the personal affairs of its citizens, will lend a helping hand or voice or vote when improvements are proposed. i n!SpOnsible to the parents who lltrust their children to him. But • must also recognize that i't is a "thole child" whom he encourages bJard the acquisition of truth ... die child with innate emotional and tDclal needs that are met or thwarted� the school environment. I need not point out to you the lpletting social disturbances that 1ft almost becoming par for the fOUne on our college and university Cllllpuses today. We could argue b days about whether these are evidences · of intellectual develop­llen� ?r r�adblocks against actually lrquiring tt. Nor will I attempt an� of the causes and symptoms that the many psychological illnesses are evident among our teen-• population. I would like to 6'ct your attention to some prob--� M. Margarita, O.P., is Chairman eau., °'!1artment oE Education, Rosary River Forest, Illinois. Pnauuy, 1966 First, there is an all-out, nation­wide drive today to keep every boy and girl in high school until gr�d­uation, and I feel almost subversive · as I say it, but I do not think this is even a humane proposal, not t o  speak of being a practical one. There are thousands of young peo­ple sitting in classrooms these d�ys,driving teachers toward the bnnk of desperation . . . children who care less about learning to speak or write correctly than I would careabout piloting a jet . . . children who should be working at un­skilled jobs for their own develop­ment in habits of self-discipline and thrift, who, five years from now might be personally motivatedenough to return to adult classes �o learn English grammar , rhetoric, history and perhaps even so�e mathematics. I know, automat10n is reducing by thousands . each ye�r the number of unskilled 1obs avail­able, but I simply cannot counten-17 

Social-Medical Problems of Youth: Viewpoint of the Sociologist

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Social-Medical Problems of Youth: Viewpoint of the Sociologist

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