A few days ago a pianist said during a live stream broadcast of his recital that he felt suicidal from numerous stressful life events. People in the comment section were ruthless toward the pianist. Not only did they not support this person in a moment of fragility, but these commentators also coldly taunted and mocked him. In the end, tragedy struck.
As a psychiatrist, I was deeply distraught by this turn of events. This saga not only reminds us of the brutality of the online world, but also serves as a bitter reminder that society must rightly recognize the psychological trauma that cyberbullying can cause. In the Internet “e-era,” unprecedented freedoms allow people to disregard the limits of time and space. Borders are blurred and it is difficult to halt unbridled attacks, leading to unrestricted harm — or much worse — caused by bullying.
Schoolyard bullying from back in the day, when bullies relied on physical strength to torment those weaker than themselves, has morphed into today’s virtual world of keyboard thugs and malcontents who hide behind a screen, engaging in cruel dogpiling where several anonymous users could attack a single person in a coordinated instant. Cyberbullying has become a major factor impacting one’s mental health.
A survey showed that cyberbullying victims tend to be younger people whose personality and identity are still developing. Being bullied could lead to depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, and in extreme instances, could be the last straw — the final blow before they decide to take their own life.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in younger people. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders among adolescents is about 30 percent of the age group. These illnesses and disorders have long prognoses, impact learning and create self-loathing. They lead to impulsive comorbidities, severe mental illness, criminal behavior and even self-destruction. There is inadequate health insurance system support for pediatric psychiatric care, which leads to a dearth of specialists. This situation makes it impossible to provide acute care to adolescents coping with psychiatric disorders or illnesses in a manner that respects autonomy, privacy and safety.
President William Lai (賴清德) is enthusiastically rooting for his “Healthy Taiwan” healthcare reform policy, which would elevate mental health to a national-level policy issue. We should stand behind this new policy and encourage all sectors of society to put greater focus on the problem of cyberbullying. In particular, we should incorporate comprehensive mental health education into elementary and junior-high-school curriculums.
In Europe and the US, psychology and social and emotional learning (SEL) classes have long been required courses, holding the same weight as languages, mathematics and science courses. SEL courses place an emphasis on cultivating five key qualities: introspection, self-control, social awareness, interpersonal relationships and responsible decisionmaking. Cultivation of these qualities not only enhances a student’s self-efficacy and self-worth, but could also increase emotional regulation capabilities and mental resilience, playing key roles in preventing cyberbullying.
Many educators and parents have been misled into believing that psychiatric conditions, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or clinical depression, do not exist. They have been misled into opposing medication and therapy, and have unwitting bias against and are dismissive of psychiatric conditions. As adolescents develop and as they join society, their long-term knowledge of and biases against psychiatric conditions and neurological science create compounding effects. There is no time to waste when it comes to improving health curriculums for elementary and junior-high-school students, enhancing lessons on psychological conditions.
As a professional psychiatrist, each day I see the devastating impacts of misunderstanding of psychiatric and brain disorders on patients and their families. If I could take science and medicine — common-sense psychology in particular — and bring that to an SEL curriculum, it would have far-reaching implications for not only psychiatric treatment, but also on society’s overall mental health.
Psychotherapy in Taiwan has long been plagued by a lack of personnel, funding and resources, especially when it concerns population groups who cannot afford treatments and therapy. We ought to be heavily promoting a transition toward digitalized mental health treatment, putting efforts into telehealth diagnostics and digital treatment.
Treatment guidelines in Europe and the US are clear on their recommendations: There are guidelines to not prescribe medication when treating light to moderate anxiety disorders and depression. Treatment providers must discuss with patients the option of not using medication as treatment, while also recommending the use of multiple digital and online treatment applications.
Health is not just a matter of treatments or health insurance. A nation’s goals ought to be to “empower all of its people.” A government should be concerned with the transition from just the treatment of illnesses to preventive healthcare. It should be concerned with evolving from medication treatment services to the promotion of comprehensive, holistic health.
Su Kuan-pin is a professor of psychiatry at China Medical University’s College of Medicine, deputy director of Tainan Municipal An-nan Hospital and a member of the Presidential Office’s Healthy Taiwan Promotion Committee.
Translated by Tim Smith
Taiwan’s semiconductor industry gives it a strategic advantage, but that advantage would be threatened as the US seeks to end Taiwan’s monopoly in the industry and as China grows more assertive, analysts said at a security dialogue last week. While the semiconductor industry is Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” its dominance has been seen by some in the US as “a monopoly,” South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan University academic Kwon Seok-joon said at an event held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In addition, Taiwan lacks sufficient energy sources and is vulnerable to natural disasters and geopolitical threats from China, he said.
After reading the article by Hideki Nagayama [English version on same page] published in the Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) on Wednesday, I decided to write this article in hopes of ever so slightly easing my depression. In August, I visited the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan, to attend a seminar. While there, I had the chance to look at the museum’s collections. I felt extreme annoyance at seeing that the museum had classified Taiwanese indigenous peoples as part of China’s ethnic minorities. I kept thinking about how I could make this known, but after returning
What value does the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hold in Taiwan? One might say that it is to defend — or at the very least, maintain — truly “blue” qualities. To be truly “blue” — without impurities, rejecting any “red” influence — is to uphold the ideology consistent with that on which the Republic of China (ROC) was established. The KMT would likely not object to this notion. However, if the current generation of KMT political elites do not understand what it means to be “blue” — or even light blue — their knowledge and bravery are far too lacking
Taipei’s population is estimated to drop below 2.5 million by the end of this month — the only city among the nation’s six special municipalities that has more people moving out than moving in this year. A city that is classified as a special municipality can have three deputy mayors if it has a population of more than 2.5 million people, Article 55 of the Local Government Act (地方制度法) states. To counter the capital’s shrinking population, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) held a cross-departmental population policy committee meeting on Wednesday last week to discuss possible solutions. According to Taipei City Government data, Taipei’s