Parents often drag their kids off to the shrink when they don`t really need to, a husband-wife team of psychologists maintains.
”What so many parents fear to be long-term abnormal behavior turns out to be transient emotional turbulence,” Julius and Zelda Segal write in their column in February`s Parents magazine. ”It is the rare child indeed who has not felt anxious or depressed, developed psychosomatic complaints or become sullen and rebellious.”
Figuring out where the normal struggles of adolescence end and mental illness begins is not easy, the Segals admit. Symptoms exist. Undue anxiety or fearfulness; serious conflicts with parents, brothers and sisters or peers;
depression or withdrawal; destructive behavior; abrupt changes in mood;
illness with no physical cause; behavior that is very different from children the
same age; and big gaps between potential and performance may all signal serious problems.
But, the Segals caution, there is no ”clear-cut dividing line between normal and abnormal.” Furthermore, ”displaying one or another of these symptoms is virtually universal.” In judging whether to seek professional help, the Segals advise that you look for several of the symptoms occurring together or one or two that seem especially intense.
INDEPENDENT INCOME
What all this stuff about starving writers?
Independent Writers of Chicago (IWOC), an organization of freelance writers, surveyed 140 of its members and found that they charge up to $150 per hour for their work. More than a third of those responding had been paid hourly rates of $50 or more.
Writing scripts for business and consumer films or creating advertising copy were the most lucrative endeavors, all paying a median rate of $50 per hour. Newspapers paid the least with a median hourly rate of $15.
Freelancers working 40 or more hours per week averaged $32,000 a year in net profit. The top paid free-lancer participating in the IWOC study had a net business profit of $84,000 in 1986.
REST IN PEACE
On average, hospitals in the Chicago area spent $3,238 per acute care bed on liability insurance premiums, according to a national survey compiled by the St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company. The Chicago Hospital Risk Pooling Program (CHRPP), a self-insurance program that includes 18 area hospitals, averaged $2,585 per bed.
Both figures stack up competitively with the nation`s major metropolitan areas. Detroit had the highest insurance costs, according to the St. Paul Fire and Marine study, paying an average of $6,007 in premiums per bed. Los Angeles averaged $4,365 and New York City $3,806.
