In the past, about 30-40 years ago, the word ‘literacy’ meant an ability to read, write, and speak. I believe that it expanded significantly and started to vary across cultures and countries.
We cannot imagine ‘literacy’ without an ability to use gadgets, navigate the digital world, or simply use emails. Some physical skills are now a part of ‘common literacy’ in many parts of the world, like an ability to drive a vehicle. But what about ‘literacy’ in a non-physical world, like manners or an ability to build various relationships? I would offer one more dimension – an ability to understand and navigate the mental health world.
How did this idea come to mind? Oh, you will find it rather unconventional – I read the newest edition of the DSM - The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition*.
What if we had to read this massive book in, let’s say, grade 10 or 11? I know, I know, every student would find every mental disorder in themselves, just like every medical student finds every disease in themselves while studying.
It is not the entire manual that matters, but some of the concepts that may be extremely illuminating for the young people who are undergoing the stage of intense transformation in their lives. Having awareness of some of those concepts could help them understand themselves better, as well as others, as well as seek help with a better timeliness and efficiency. The aim here is not to stuff young heads with the classification of syndromes, but to create competence in self-regulation, to create ‘architects’ of their own inner world.
I don’t think adolescents need to immerse themselves into a rich description of symptoms, syndromes, and diagnoses. What I see as a useful angle of this knowledge is gaining understanding of various tendencies of psychological functioning and how those can go off the rails. Some of the insights I see as valuable are:
- Social life avoidance: We all need some solitary time, some of us need more, some need less. But long and stable avoidance of social contact and extreme preference for solitary existence may be a sign of something deeper happening. What could we teach adolescents about this: what are the steps if this is happening with them, or if this is happening to their peers? This point is especially ‘in demand’ as the current immersion into social media leads to the erosion of social skills. What if we could create an encouraging environment to teach those social skills that we now so dearly miss?
- Inability to build or sustain relationships: Every adolescent is concerned with the ‘How do I make friends?’ question for a period of time and it is a completely normal period of life. But what if they could contemplate their own life, and the life of people they know on the subject of – how do people build and sustain relationships of various sorts? What’s a good relationship? What is a bad one? How can we improve? What’s in the way of that improvement?
- Self-esteem and unbalanced focus on oneself: Low self-esteem pops up as a symptom for so many mental conditions; it could be a condition on its own. If you took a moment to read through those ‘personality disorders’, you would see that even narcissistic personality disorder comes with a low self-esteem, while in social settings it is viewed as a high self-esteem... What if we taught young people that overly confident behavior and that level of self-centeredness is not a sign of competence and high self-esteem? What if they knew that non-stop seeking of admiration is a sign of unbalanced self-esteem, and, as a consequence, an inability to ‘see’ others and attune to them?
- Building bonds: Science speaks of ‘attachment’ – a psychologically safe bond with other important people. The most fundamental bond we could ever build as humans is the bond between a mother and a child. What if we had awareness of the quality of our bonds? What if we could reflect on it in ourselves and others? Could we have ways of compensating for poor bonding if the original bond cannot be formed? Healthy bonding creates a “blueprint” for future relationships, which is the ultimate goal of literacy.
- General ideas of dysfunction: I don’t think adolescents should be exposed to the entire range of the diseases; sexual, paraphilic, suicidal, and various other parts could be avoided. But other, more general ideas of dysfunctions could be taught as a part of general literacy. What if you were actively taught how to grieve? How to practice self-care? When to stop overworking yourself and seek help? How to set up healthy bonds with others? How to relate in a caring manner to yourself?
Let me finish with this idea: if you are not interested in any disorders or mental malfunctioning, skip it in the manual, and go to the later part – the chapter that says “Cultural Concepts of Distress”***. There we find several pages of cultural concepts of not-so-well-being. Various cultures around the world have an idea of mental health imbalance. Cultures look at it as a misfit of natural forces like wind or water; or as a hormonal and sexual energy imbalance, or possession by dark forces, etc. But what’s important is
- the concept that describes mental well-being,
- how it can fall outside of normal functioning,
- what can be responsible for it, and
- how it can be brought back into balance.
Even if younger generations looked at the variety of these cultural descriptions, it could offer a greater level of awareness and understanding of the life changes that happen WITHIN us.
Knowledge illuminates. The right knowledge illuminates greatly. If only we knew more about the life of the soul, even through this scientific lens, things could be much more manageable and clear.
There is one word that kept popping into my head while I contemplated this: LUCIDITY. The lucidity of consciousness is the opposite of dysfunction. What if we could consciously raise the lucidity of the younger generations? What amazing and healthy effect it could have on every next generation coming! That would be quite a literacy.
*https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm
**American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787
***American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Cultural concepts of distress. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.).https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787.x07_Cultural_Concepts_of_Distress