Category:

WHAT WE'RE HEARING

One of us (Anthony) is an experienced child and family psychologist (and the therapist who worked with Leslie and Josh), and the other (Paul) is a management psychology expert who helps business leaders improve their performance. We work with different people who arrive at our doors seeking to tackle challenges and work toward goals in very different realms of life, from successful executives to stressed-out parents like Leslie and Josh. And yet we've been struck in recent years by a significant and troubling commonality in the way people from all walks of life describe the things that compelled them to seek a coach or therapist:

* They feel overwhelmed by life.

* They struggle to make choices and decisions.

* They often feel stuck, adrift, or thwarted.

 

When we drill deeper, they often describe a burgeoning insecurity or anxiety, the source of which they can't quite identify. Those working full-time watch their calendars fill up months in advance, and those with children have a second and similarly demanding calendar. All talk about losing the power to cope with the daily flood of demands—emails and the constant interruptions from electronic devices.

Many report feeling unhappy with where their careers have taken them (note the passivity in this description) but feel too overwhelmed to do the hard work of figuring out how to get to a better place. And it isn't just adults. Children and teens have also become captive to a destiny they haven't chosen. By middle school, they already feel they're under the gun to achieve, to build résumés. A seventeen-year-old high school senior neatly summarized what so many of us are feeling:

Nearly every minute of my day, everything I do isn't what I care about.

When you listen closely to what people are saying, you hear deeper problems that, when viewed from a psychological health perspective, are alarming.

Increased isolation and social disconnection permeate their stories—people tell us that they find fewer opportunities to connect with the people they care about. They can't find the time to visit friends, be with spouses, or check on parents or extended family. Spontaneous, enjoyable social moments are rare.

And we hear mounting complaints about a loss of freedom to explore new things or do the things that make people feel energized and fulfilled. We hear unsettling phrases about a lack of real humanness in people's lives:

Everyone is distracted. My spouse is lost in his own world. My friends seem like they are just going through the motions.

Older people are observing noticeable changes in their communities. Gary, a pastor in Minnesota, described how his congregation seems constantly harried and on edge. People no longer linger after church and rarely connect outside of Sunday mornings as they used to. Further, his congregants seek out his help much more than in years past. While he loves the counseling part of his work, he wonders why people are having so much more trouble coping. "This wasn't how it was just ten or so years back," Gary observed. "People seemed to be more self-reliant then, but now they seem more lost. They aren't sure what to do." We asked Phyllis Schimel, a licensed social worker, what she's observed among the New Yorkers who come to her psychotherapy practice. Phyllis has been seeing patients for six decades, and she, too, notes an alarming trend. "I've seen the pressures climb over the last few decades, there's no doubt," Phyllis told us. "It's a part of life now. Things are faster. They really started accelerating in the '80s. It's not going to go away. We're in a race to adapt—trying to catch up constantly—and the effects are significant on our body and mind."

We spoke with a fifth-grade teacher in Arizona. Sue has sixteen years' experience and noted that she's observed differences in her eleven-year-olds. "Other teachers are talking about this at meetings and in the break room," she said. "Students seem more agitated—more fidgety. Some of them look exhausted and tired. They need more help staying on task. In the afternoons, many have a hard time staying alert. And this is noticeably worse year after year." Parent-teacher conferences have become more emotionally charged, too. Parents—much like their kids—come into these meetings worn out and nervous. They have a boundless need for reassurance that their child is "on target." They demand and then obsess about metrics showing where their child stands academically. This, in turn, ramps up Sue's anxiety. She says she finds it harder to stay focused on what she does best, which is educating youngsters and preparing them emotionally and socially for middle school. Instead, she feels pressured from all sides to prepare them for college. To her, the treadmill-like quality of it is mystifying:

No one stops to question if what we're doing makes sense. We just keep doing it.