Special education teachers report that “emotionally impaired” (EI) students are an increasing percentage of their caseloads. Psychiatric medication and inpatient stays for mental health reasons are common.
Any exploration of the causes behind this trend will be complex and multifactorial.
Unlike learning disabilities (e.g., dyslexia), or developmental conditions (e.g., ASD), emotional impairment is significantly shaped by environmental factors.
To be sure, learning disabilities and developmental conditions are affected by environmental factors to some extent, and one should not overstate the impact of environmental factors on emotional impairment.
One way, among others, in which the social environment shapes emotional impairment is in the failure of micro-environment (nuclear family) or of the macro-environment (the larger community) to provide clear life paths and social roles for the individual.
The failure of society to provide these shaping forces is, by itself, not a cause of EI, but rather can be an occasion upon which EI will manifest itself in an individual who has other factors which predispose for EI.
Faced with a social existence in which expectations are unclear, absent, or only weakly reinforced, a latent EI may manifest itself. Developmentally, teenagers are asking about what they will be and what they will do.
If society fails to provide norms and standards for individual identities and life choices, then the individual is forced to rely more on internal personal strengths. If those strengths are lacking, or are misinformed, EI may emerge.
The rise in EI is coextensive with, and correlates to, a decline in clearly articulated social roles and expectations provided to the individual in the form of a normative life trajectory. As is well-known, however, correlation does not necessarily indicate causation.
Social norms are provided in the forms of propositional assertion about roles, norms, and life trajectory. But norms are also communicated by examples. Teenagers observe adults.
Individual stability is undermined, then, both by society’s failure to clearly state its norms and roles, and by adults who fail to function as examples. In such an environment, then, EI is more likely to emerge.
