Carolyn Gorman - School-Based Mental Health Gets an F

Carolyn Gorman is a Paulson Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute studying mental health policy. She joins me to discuss her new report “School-Based Mental-Health Initiatives: Challenges and Considerations for Policymakers,” which explores the history of mental health programs in schools and examines the limited evidence supporting their effectiveness. We talk about the different types of school-based mental health interventions and how they are used in classrooms today, whether pop psychology and therapy culture fill a vacuum in schools that religious/character/moral education would typically fill, and what schools can do to effectively improve student well-being. We conclude with some thoughts on whether there really is a youth mental health crisis, and the screen time/mental health debate.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Links:

• Carolyn’s new report

• Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More Than IQ

• Allen Frances, “No Treatment as the Prescription of Choice”

• Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

• Carolyn’s review of the Anxious Generation