As a psychology major in my last two years of college, it was pretty common knowledge that psych majors were considered to be “weird” at best. I don’t think there is any relationship between studying psychology and developing a mental illness. What is far more likely is that people who are interested in figuring themselves out will gravitate to psychology.
I don’t know if there is a higher incidence of mental illness among mental health workers, whether psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. I do know that psychiatrists have a rate of suicide about six times the national average. It is possible that their problems are somewhat related to the stresses of their profession but more likely that they had problems in the first place, which moved them toward psychiatry.
It is a known fact that medical students can become hypochondriacs as they study various diseases, thinking that they have the symptoms they are studying. It is possible that studying mental illnesses can have somewhat of the same effect on psychology students. I know that there is a tendency, once you learn the psychological jargon, to start putting your friends and acquaintances into various diagnostic boxes.
I think it would be fair to say that some people who are attracted to psychology because of their own issues may use psychology to heal themselves. Others will be less successful. It is unlikely that simply studying psychology will lead to mental illness any more than studying medicine will lead to physical illness.
I had a couple of experiences in the mental health field that were interesting. I worked in several different residential facilities for mentally ill adults. One of the young men I worked with had a psychiatrist who had a psychotic break. This was quite a shattering experience for my resident to have his shrink go psychotic on him. I met the psychiatrist at one point when he visited the house. He was still quite nuts at that time, probably crazier than my resident.
In another instance, one of the counselors at the house I worked at, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, had a psychotic break while working at the house. I knew her well and was aware of her process as she went through it. What was interesting is that none of the staff, aside from myself, was aware that this woman had experienced a psychotic break and was on medications. She continued to work at the house under this situation for about a month or more. But the residents recognized that something was wrong. Her appearance and behavior were markedly different.
In the case of this woman, she was in therapy for a number of years. Just before her break, she was in Gestalt Therapy. What was interesting to me is that she left her Gestalt therapist and decided to see a psychiatrist. It was only after she began to see the psychiatrist, and was given various tests by the psychiatrist, that she had her break.
I am of the opinion that she went to the psychiatrist so she could have her psychotic break and receive medication, something the Gestalt therapist could not supply. She was never hospitalized and in fact went back to graduate school after leaving the halfway house. I was aware of her serious problems before she had the break but was unable to predict such an outcome.
I stayed close to my friend after her breakdown and was able to see paranoid schizophrenia in action up close. She taught me how powerful perceptions are and how our perceptions can convince us of conspiracies where none exist. She accused her landlord of coming into her apartment when she wasn’t there and putting empty Coke cans in her refrigerator.
One time I was driving her home after going to dinner. She decided to take her medications before she got home so they could begin to kick in and she could go right to bed. The next thing I knew, she was in a panic and said that someone had stolen her medications. I laughed at her and told her that no one wanted to steal her medications. I think she was taking Thorazine at the time. There is no high from Thorazine. It just pretty much turns you into a zombie.
What had happened is that she opened her purse, took out her meds and put them on the seat between her legs. She immediately forgot that she had removed them from her purse and began looking for them in her purse again. When she couldn’t find them, she was sure that they had been stolen.
She was definitely a case of someone who had some serious problems and probably went into social work in order to try to understand herself. She was also very open to being in therapy and was seeing a therapist the whole time I knew her. She almost seemed to give herself permission to have a psychotic break by going to a psychiatrist. The beauty of psychosis is that it instantly removes from an individual all responsibility. Whatever stresses or pressures you were experiencing are now gone and other people will take care of you.
I am not recommending psychosis, however. There are some who romanticize mental illness and associate it with genius. There is nothing romantic about mental illness. It is a very painful experience and every day is filled with fear and uncertainty. But I do not believe that anyone ever became mentally ill because of studying psychology and no one is likely to.
There is certainly nothing wrong with studying psychology, either in school or on your own, in order to try to understand yourself better. Anything any of us can do to understand ourselves and our fellow humans better is a good thing. Psychology will not lead you into mental illness but it may or may not save your from it.
