SMU Lecturer Takes Heat For Blog

nasta writes "Houston Chronicle article For most of the past two semesters, nobody knew the identity of "The Phantom Professor." The educator's anonymous Web log, set at an unnamed university "in the South," spun tales of spoiled-rich "Ashleys" with their $500 sandals and $1,500 handbags, eating disorders, plagiarism and drug use, legal and illegal. "At this school it seems like every kid is on multiple medications," the professor wrote, describing her charges as "barely literate," prone to emotional problems and "terrified of displeasing Mommy and Daddy.""

Comments

Southern Methodist University

[__aaitqo8496]

...in case anybody was wondering.

Amen.

[Seumas]

Man, no kidding. I'm surprised by how many people I know who are on one, two or more medications. And we're usually talking xanax, prozac, zoloft and the like rather than blood pressure meds. And not just spoiled little rich kids, though they tend to be the most likely, because they're more likely to get a therapist if they have "problems" and, in turn, are more likely then to be prescribed drugs to deal with whatever lame problem they supposedly have.

I can't even count how many people I know who claim they have "anxiety disorder" and "panic attacks". So they dope up on half a dozen things, instead. I mean, yeah, life sucks - but holy shit.

And then after awhile, they start trading their prescriptions with other people. A few zoloft in turn for a few valium. Or if they have some leftovers (especially stuff like valium and percoset), they hand them off to their friends so they can get off on them, too.

It's just pathetic. And I bet that half the people I know other than at work are like that. Often people I would have never guessed. They'd like you to think that they need it because their life is so terrible, but the truth is lots of peopel have a hard life. These people just have a hard time dealing with life.

And yeah, I know the girls with 400 pairs of expensive shoes who have traveled more by the age of 18 than I could ever hope to travel in four lifetimes. Their biggest concerns seem to be "panties or not?" on any given date for any given night. Oh, such dilemmas.

If I were a professor and I had to deal with people like that for a living on a daily basis, I'd probably vent, too. In fact, I'd probably climb the nearest clock tower.

Re:Amen.

[FidelCatsro]

The worst part of it is , the people who truely do need the medication seem to always slip through the net.
Ive seen people with Goth disease(Oh my parents are so nice blah blah my life sucks) shoved on zoetrope and other manageries of medications whilst people with true problems and certifiable conditions are just passed by and ignored .
Ive seen it all too often and ussualy it does involve parents who are better off and pay for private Psycholigists and therapist who dont think twice up presribing a miracle cure for a teenager with mood swings and angst (unlike every other teenager in the world*cough*).
On the flip side i know a few people (who thankfully now are getting treatment) who were blown off by doctors as just having teenage angst when really they did have far more serious issues and had clear signs of conditions ranging from Manic-Depresion/bipolar to Schitzophrenia .
The competence of Docters nowadays really does give some rise for concern especialy in the Psychiatric world , People are either not medicated when they need it , Medicated when they dont need it , or Medicated when they should be in Therapy .

Re:Amen.

[Hungus]

I am glad you are so knowledgeable in biochemistry and specifically the brain's neuro transmitters. I wish you could have told that to my great grandfather so my grandfather, father and I wouldn't have had top suffer from his obviously not congenital illness.

The fact is while many meds are over prescribed in the form of designer cocktails there are many people who would not be functional without proper medication.

Re:Amen.

[FidelCatsro]

Anti-depresants can work in some situations , others require them coupled with intensive therapy to get to the root of the problem , sadly all too often docters are far too happy just to dole out the pills , fire and forget

Re:Amen.

[FidelCatsro]

Ive seen plenty of people With Bipolar diagnosed as Scitzophrenic or other disoders at first by totaly incompetent docters , and a hell of alot more just classed as having a mild clinical depresion ..
One thing ive heard alot is docters going "well your ok now though so perhaps you worked through it" or the likes...And as you most likely know with certain types of Bipolar people can seem totaly fine at times , but try telling that to a GP.
I have often helped folks get things together for taking to the GP and trying to get them some proper treatment .Shoving someone with BP on a Prozac derivitave could have really negative effects and end up making people worse . I think the main problem is lack of funding and not enough competent psychiatric nurses/docters.

Unfortunatly its not just in the USA , Its as bad in the UK and Germany .

Re:Amen.

[hey!]

None of this -- I repeat, NONE of this -- ever helped her with her depression.

OK, let's assume that your assessment is correct, and that the anti-depressants did not actually help her, and the reason she was obsessed with them was that she had what an earlier generation of psychologist would describe as a neurotic and infantile fixation on them. Can you logically deduce this statement:

My conclusion from this is that antidepressants do virtually nothing real.

The logical bar for such a broad statement is very high indeed; it can only be true if there is no identifiable subset of people with depression for which the drugs are statistically better than nothing. I think what you have proven is that some people do not benefit from any of the anti-depression medications that are available.

Depression is very complex; basically it is a set of symptoms that I think any thoughtful person will conclude could come from multiple causes. It follows that depression is very difficult to treat. If the depression is secondary to some other condition other than the specific organic cause the antidepressant addresses, why would you expect the antidepressant to help in that specific case? For example, if the person has problems with his life falling apart due to substance abuse, the related depression cannot be treated with Prozac, but Prozac might be helpful if the underlying problem is an abnormality in the way his brain uses serotonin.

I only mention this because I happen to know some people who your friend reminds me of. You say she was frantic, but actually seemed better when she was having problems getting medication. It may not have been that the medication was harming her, so much as that the problems were helping her. I am not a psychiatrist, but the people I have in mind also have a tendency to do better when things are going worse. Some of them,after watching them in action, clearly actively seek out chaos, generate emergencies, and incite interpersonal conflicts, particularly when things seem to be going fine. When the emergencies hit, they actually seem to be serene and in control, provided the level of chaos doesn't get too high (which is inevitably does sooner or later). These people seem to need an extra "oomph" that emergencies bring. They also tend to have a pattern of dependency on others for stability and long term direction. But, if you lead the kind of lives these people lead, depression is almost a normal response. You can't expect to treat that kind of depression by monkeying with the mood mechanisms of the brain.

In any case, I don't offer this as advice or diagnosis, which I'm not qualified to give, but to point out how difficult it is to reason from specific to general cases.

Moving on from the specific issue of antidepressants to psychiatric medications in general, even if you grant that antidepressants are useless in every case, it doesn't follow that all psychiatric medications are useless. I know personally, because I have a familiy member with schizophrenia. If you've never seen the difference between a person with this condition on medication and off, all I can say is that it is not something subtle.

Re:Amen.

[Hungus]

I can say that anti depressents and other psychiatric meds work for me. I take 2 drugs for issues that I have and both are mapped physically (one a problem with my addreanal gland and regulation of them , the other a problem with the reticular activating system) I have had these conditions for 27 years and for 22 years I went through counseling, trying to just deal with it, and drug cocktails galore. Finally, I found a doctor who diagnosed me properly and changed my meds. One of the drugs is fast acting as in within 10 minutes there is an immediate change the other acts within an hour with its peak in 4 hours. One condistion is known as akankastic disorder the other what you would commonly know as severe ADD. So here I am one person answering your post and saying drugs do have an effect and can change people's personality effectively immediately. I will note that most older drugs do take a week or two to build up to sufficient levels. Also note that I have taken a lot of different medications over the years (currently my meds cost about 600 dollars a month) and even though many of them are supposed to affect the same chemicals since everyone's chemistry is different they may or may not have an effect on any particular individual.

Re:Amen.

[Seumas]

The thing that pisses me off the most is how many of these people taking one or more medications (wellbutrin, etc) are diagnosed with little more than "anxiety disorder".

They're people who are nervous or panic if they go outside or have to be around a group of people. Especially new people. Or whatever. I mean, who ISN'T at least a little on-edge in certain situations? And how can so much of the population have such a hard time with it, that they need to be prescribed drugs just to step outside their door or go have dinner in a public place or get their ass to work?!

It sounds much like a cop-out to me. Some people are just more social than others. If you're likely to freak out and stab some people or so depressed and self-loathing that you're likely to slit your wrists, I can understand medicating you (though there is a whole Darwin/clean-the-gene-pool discussion to be had there). But do we really need to be medicating you, because "lots of people make me nervous"?!

Hey, I'm a big fat guy (that didn't used to be) and I'm more self concious about going out in public now. I'm a friendly, engaging person and you wouldn't know I was self-concious or nervous ever, even if I really was. But I just suck it up and be a man about it. I certainly don't need a fucking stockpile of mood altering, mind-numbing pills for it.

Now, granted, maybe this "panic attack" thing really IS so incredibly strong that the medications (for the rest of your life apparently) are justified. But that still doesn't explain why SO MANY PEOPLE seem to have this "panic attack" and "anxiety disorder" thing.

If you watch some of the commercials that advertise drugs for such things, they would have you believe that if you "sometimes feel under the weather" or "would rather stay in sometimes than go out" or "feel uncomfortable in new situations" - you need to contact your doctor and ask about some prescription drug or another. I mean, holy crap - apparently unless you're always smiling, agreeble and going out to party - you have a mental disorder?!?!

Re:Amen.

[Mr. Slippery]

And how can so much of the population have such a hard time with it, that they need to be prescribed drugs just to step outside their door or go have dinner in a public place or get their ass to work?!

Because over the past few decades we've created a seriously dysfunctional society.

High population density, a highly moblile society resulting in looser and less supporting family and social bonds, an economy where fewer and fewer people do any sort of meaningful work and there is deliberate pressure to increase consumption, ecological devistation, the degradation of the mental environment, the fear of weapons of mass destruction (at least global thermonuclear war seems a lot less possible these days)...

Constant low-level stress can be much more damaging than simple direct threats.

Of course part of the problem is the overmedicalization you mention; if every cranky moment is a "mental health" disorder for which we can sell you a drug, so much the better for the bottom line of Our Beloved Corporate Masters (TM). But that's only a small part of the overall problem of a system that's working against, rather than for, human happiness.

Re:Oh great, now movies made from blogs

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Yeah, I don't see how she could have enough content for a coherent movie

And, that'll stop Hollywood how?

Zero sympathy

[Otter]

A point that's made in the article (this happened about a month ago, BTW) but is obscured by the piece the submitter chose to quote is this: she was retelling extremely sensitive stories about easily identifiable students and teachers, including things that students were telling her in private face-to-face meetings.

Sorry, zero sympathy from me. Beyond the fact that she blatantly despises half her students and sucks up to the other half by badmouthing the "rich girls" (which is unprofessional enough), violating confidentiality the way she did is way over the line. A tenure-track professor should have been bounced for doing what she did, never mind an adjunct.

Points off to SMU for weaseling about it, though.

Re:Zero sympathy

[DaoudaW]

she was retelling extremely sensitive stories about easily identifiable students and teachers, including things that students were telling her in private face-to-face meetings.

Did you RTFB? She claims and after reading through some of the blog I would agree that she was very careful to protect students' privacy. As a teacher myself, and former adjunct, her stories sound like the typical mix of frustration and admiration that teachers everywhere have for their students. She certainly makes a better attempt at protecting student anonymity than most faculty lounge conversations. She is not writing vitriolic diatribes, but is simply laughing and crying over human foibles.

Re:Zero sympathy

[trixillion]

I read the entire blog. I may agree with much of what she had to say. Regardless, the entire affair is highly unprofessional and SMU was right to can her. She made serious ethical lapses, period.

Bad mouthing students is sufficient in my mind for canning her. If you are in a business and you run around publically bad mouthing your clients, don't be shocked when you get the pink slip and your colleagues shun you. That's the real world.

Repeating stories told in confidence is immoral. I imagine that psychologist blogs would be highly entertaining reads. They would also be highly unethical.

Re:Zero sympathy

[jackofallbrandnames]

From TFA. --- No names were used, but this spring at Southern Methodist University, students and faculty began recognizing themselves in the phantom's prose. A student in SMU's corporate communications and public affairs department discovered the blog had quoted the content of e-mail she had sent to one of her teachers. It called her "clueless." An assistant professor had no trouble identifying herself in another short posting about a faculty member who was "fresh from a mediocre Midwestern University with a Ph.D. in something no one cares about." --- I agree with the grandparent...zero sympathy. She should have done a better job as a positioned professional: 1) Despite the level of protection exhibited, she published material obtained from her role and violated the client relationship (students are to teacher as the client is to the lawyer or therapist). 2) The fact that she teaches a writing class itself defines the requirement for perfection in publishment (blogs, albeit anonymous, are a form of publishing).

URL (for the google challanged)

[yo]

http://phantomprof.blogspot.com/

It is entertaining actually.

The most important statement of them all:

[Stavr0]

The Phantom Professor on term papers:
What they don't realize is that it's just college. These are just little assignments that teachers give so we can figure out what grades to type in next to your name at the end of the semester. They're not life and death, these grades, these papers, these group projects. They're very often little more than glorified busywork. Truth? They're to prepare you for a career of TPS Reports and annual "employee self-evaluations."

There's farked and there's farked

[suitepotato]

My wife is on depression meds, the right ones now, which address the bipolar symptoms of what was regarded as garden variety manic depression with an accent on depression. No more violent outbursts, much more rational thought, much more mature behavior, much greater happiness.

I probably should be on meds but practice willful almost psychotic disassociation from myself and my cares and instead go right past all the stages, right past acceptance, to someplace riding the wave ahead of everything. This place is called DILLIGAF Land. It's why I don't smack people with a keyboard when they pronounce TCP/IP "tee cee pip".

There are such things as these intrusions on normal thought processes, and partly they are of our own making. The modern world as I've noted before seems hellbent on a concept that the whole world is wrong, unfair, we're screwed before we start and can never win, it's someone else's fault, boo hoo hoo. When you hear this over and over again, you can't help but be affected by it. I think this common mindset in the west, most especially that seen in America, is one of the things working to subconsciously hobble us.

Then there's the real chemical imbalance issues which people have always had, but used to have more societal back-up and reinforcement in fighting. A lot of very secretly screwed up people kept it that way largely, secret. They kept it under control. These days, society isn't helping. Now you're on your own if you want to fight those feelings. In fact, you're encouraged to let them run free and loose. And appear on Springer or Povich.

I used to think everyone was just farked and lazy and if I could go without meds and manage and behave, then so could they. I've come to realize their collectively created social environment has already gone too far round the bend for it to be easy for any one unexceptional person. My psyche's little quirks just seem to lend themselves to sitting between apathy and disinterest. I recommend to everyone that the last person they need to concern themselves with is them and yet, the first and only one. It's a matter of how. You have to cut your emotional attachments to your old sense of self and rebuild a new one based on rationality and not chaotic FUD. My world ended a long time ago and I feel fine. On with the new world.