Psychology 1230: Psychology
of Adolescence
Don Hartmann
Fall 2005
© Lecture 23b: Adolescent
Problems II
Quiz 3 Information
• A review session for Quiz 3 is scheduled for Rm. 604, BS at 10:3011:30 on Tuesday, December 3rd
• Quiz 3 is scheduled for Wednesday during class time. Please be
prompt, as I can not allow extra time for stragglers
• Approximately 80% of the multiple choice items will come from the
study guides. The MC portion of the quiz will contain 40-45 items
(chapters 10-14, lectures #17-23, handouts, etc.) from the following
sources:
– 4-6 questions from each chapter,
– 3-4 items from each lecture, and
– 0-1 questions from each handout.
• The essay portion will include 3-5 relatively brief essay questions
taken from the study guides. You will have some choice over which
questions you can choose to answer
WEB Discussion Process
Group
Whippets
4♀+1♂
JusticeLeague
PithHelmets
MAJACS
Psyched
#3 due
10/27 (10/26)
10/28 (10/28)
11/15**
11/09 (11/09)
10/25 (10/25)
12/12
#4 due
11/14**
11/18 (11/18)
Disbanded
11/28
11/11 (11/11)
#5 due
Disbanded
12/12
12/07
---------Note: Anyone can contribute to any WEB discussion; group members are
responsible to summarizing the discussion. The last day to contribute to any
discussion is 3 days before the due date. Dates in parenthesis indicate the date
handed in. Bolded dates indicate that material handed in was incomplete;
more is required.
**Where is the summary??
Handout Summary
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40. Lect. #17: Autonomy
41. Handout: Supplemental Project #2
42. Handout: Supplemental Project #3
43. Lect. #17b: Family Conflict
44. Study Guide #10
45. Lect. #18: Peers
46. Lect. #19: Peers II: Pop. & Friendship
47. Lect. #20: Bullying
48. Study Guide #11 (corrected)
49. Lect. #21: Schools
50. Study Guide #12
51. Lect. #22a: Achievement
52. Study Guide #13
53. Study Guide #14
54. Lect. #23a: Adolescent Problems I
55. Lect. #23b: Adolescent Problems II
56. Quiz 3, Spring 2005
Handout
WEB
Date
Date
11/07
11/04
11/07
11/08
11/08
11/10
11/11
11/17
11/21
11/21
11/21
11/28
11/28
11/30
12/01
12/03
12/02
Overview: Adolescent
Problems I & II
• Introduction
• Risk, Resilience, and Pathways
• Intervention: Treatment & Prevention
– Illustration involving drugs
– Illustration involving teen suicide
• Overlaps with text, pp. 507-522, 530531, 536
• Quiz 3 on Wednesday, Quiz 4 next
Tuesday.
Primary Prevention & Drugs
• Background
– About 40% of seniors have taken illicit
drug in the past 30 days. Well below
heyday in the late 70s
– 90+% licit drugs (nicotine and alcohol).
– Except for diet pills, males exceed
females.
Prevention of Drug Taking
• Agent intervention -- focus on the abused
substance.
• Environment intervention -- Focuses on
where the abuse takes place
• Host interventions -- focusing on the abusing
(or potentially abusing) person
Agent
Drug
Taking
Host
Envir.
Risk & Resilience Factors
While each drug may have a unique set of risk &
resilience factors, the following appear to be general
to the class of drug taking:
• Resilience: religion, positive relationships
with parents, limit setting by parents, parental
involvement, positive regard for parents
•
Risk: low parental involvement, peer pressure,
associating with problem-behaving peers, drugabusing parent, parent with low verbal reasoning
skills and poor social-problem-solving skills
Prevention Factors
• Early intervention
• Senior peer-led programs
• Program Training social skills & peerpressure coping skills
• Community-wide intervention
A lighter view…
Primary Prevention & Suicide
Background (1)
• Utah's rate has remained among the highest in the
nation for more than two decades
• For adolescent males, Utah rate almost twice national
rate
• Majority of suicides are male (88%)
• Method
– males, firearms were used in the majority of suicides (64%)
– females, the most common method of suicide death is poisoning
(39%)
• Nationally, in the past forty years, youth suicide rates
have almost tripled. Between 1980 and 1996, suicide
rates for ages 10 to 14 increased by over 100%.
Suicide: More Background
Background (2)
• 1 in 4 high school students report feeling sad or
hopeless for a period of at least 2 weeks
• 1 in 6 report having seriously considered suicide
• 1 in 8 actually made a plan to take their own life.
• 1 in 13 report actually having attempted suicide—4 out of
5 give clear warning (national statistics)
• Of those who did suicide:
– 3% had psychotropic drugs in their system and 24% had an
illicit drug in their system when they committed suicide
– 63% had previous contact with the juvenile justice system—
truancy, possession, and aggressive behavior were common
problems
– 65 % wer identified as having a psychiatric diagnosis
General Risk Factors
•Family
• family instability and unhappiness, lack of affection
and support, high levels of control and pressure for
achievement
•background of depression in family tree;
•Other
• involvement with the juvenile justice system
•Psychological problems (e.g., depression & drugs)
• behavior contagion (copycat suicides)
Signs that a teenager may be
considering suicide may include
• Suicide Threats
• Writing notes/poems
about death
• Change in eating and/or
sleeping patterns
• Putting affairs in order
• Giving away prized
possessions
• Personality changes
• Neglect of personal
appearance
• Withdrawing from friends,
family, and usual
activities
• Changes in grades at
school
• Trouble concentrating
• Drug or alcohol abuse
• Unstable emotional state
• Depression
• Running away from home
• Run-ins with the law
Interventions
• Through the Juvenile Justice System (Utah
Youth Suicide Study)
• School-based Program—based upon materials
provided by the Jason Foundation
(http://www.jasonfoundation.com/home.html),
getting teachers, administrators, peers, and
parents to ask the right questions and pick up on
signs of depression or anxiety in teens
Barriers to Treatment
• Parents most frequently cited three factors:
– their children believed nothing could help them,
– they were reluctant to admit they had problems,
and
– they perceived seeking help as a sign of
weakness
• Siblings and friends listed the same
problems and added one more—the suicide
completers did not know where to go for help
Prevention Factors
• Early intervention
• Senior peer-led programs
• Program Training social skills & peerpressure coping skills
• Community-wide intervention
Final Words on Prevention
• So get out there and prevent!
• Where: Social Work & Community
psychology programs
Summary:
Adolescent Problems II
• Prevention vs. Treatment
• Drugs
• Suicide
• Go in Peace