Unemployment stress seen
as factor
in domestic abuse
Americans’ mental health has begun to suffer as the global recession claims more jobs and 401(k)s, local care providers say. And, they say, they are starting to see signs that mental-health issues can have a broader harmful impact on families.
Project Horizon, a nonprofit agency dedicated to reducing domestic violence in Rockbridge, has seen an upsurge in reported incidents that executive director Judy Casteele thinks may be related to economic stresses. The agency sheltered more battered women in the first week of February this year than it did in the entire month last year.
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| Project Horizon is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing domestic violence in Rockbridge County. (Photo courtesy of Project Horizon, Inc.) |
While the period from July 2008 to January 2009 didn’t show a significant increase from the previous year, or even the year before, Casteele worries that this month’s numbers will set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the year.
“I think we’re experiencing some new things that I haven’t seen since I’ve been here,” said Casteele.
John Young, clinical director of Rockbridge Area Community Services, has also noticed some troubling trends.
“We’re seeing a lot more folks coming in with anxiety about their finances,” he said.
In just the first half of this fiscal year, which began in July 2008, the clinic has seen or consulted with more than 400 people. In the entire previous year, they served a total of 528.
“We’re trying to expand to be ready,” Young said. “We’re getting a mandate from the state to serve more people in the community.”
Rockbridge Area Community Services provides mental health care to residents without health insurance, and Young said that, as residents lose health insurance after layoffs, his staff will have to assist them. The organization has brought on two more clinicians to deal with the increasing demand.
Art Goldsmith, a professor of economics at Washington and Lee University, thinks that the recession is hitting residents of Rockbridge area harder now, because it has spread from the national financial sector to the general population.
“They weren’t in the first wave of this recession, but they’re certainly exposed to it now,” Goldsmith said of the local work force.
Goldsmith has done research showing that unemployment can have a strong effect on mental health.
“Joblessness, to a certain extent, is scarring people, rather than a blemish,” he said.
Calls to national suicide hotlines rose 21 percent between September 2007 and September 2008, according to a recent USA Today story.
And unemployment, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is now nationally at 7.6 percent. Virginia’s unemployment rate was lower -- 5.4 percent at the end of December – but that rate was almost double what it was 10 years ago.
Goldsmith has found that unemployment can lead to lower self-esteem, depression, sleeplessness, anxiety and a lessened sense of control in everyone, regardless of age, race, marital status or previous job status.
Casteele, of Project Horizon, believes that although such factors as economic stress cannot be blamed directly for causing abusive behavior, the economy likely adds to the stress of those who are already abusive.
Goldsmith agrees.
“The decision of some people is to engage in family violence, to abuse drugs and alcohol, to maybe even take their own lives,” Goldsmith said. “We certainly don’t want to make the excuse that these people are under stress and it’s OK. Of course it’s not.”
Goldsmith recommends that families of recently laid-off workers try to help them understand that they are not being fired, but that their employers can no longer afford them
"It's very important that your friends and family be a support network, that you find things to do with yourself, to get you out of the house,” he said. “Things you miss, going to work every day.”
Produced by
Washington and Lee
journalism students.
Lead Supervisors:
Prof. Brian
Richardson
Prof. Indira Somani
Editing supervisor:
Prof. Lisa Tracy
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd