LEWISTON — Americans are depressed because they have too many options and struggle to find their identity, a Boston University professor told Bates College students during a lecture on mental illness in contemporary America on Thursday.

Mental illness is the "burden of our time," said Liah Greenfeld, a professor of political science and sociology. She is internationally known for her research on culture, mental illness and modernity. She has written several book on nationalism and economics, among other topics.

By 2030, more people around the world will be affected by depression than by any other health problem, Greenfeld said. She estimated that about 1 in 5 Americans is severely depressed, bipolar or schizophrenic.

"If we take all the information into account, 20 percent of Americans are certifiably insane," she said. "So this is a very, very serious problem. It is a particularly great problem because these diseases are not understood, and we've been studying them for more than 200 years."

The United States, Greenfeld said, is clearly a world leader when it comes to the percentage of citizens suffering from mental illnesses.

"It seems to be a problem of prosperous, Democratic, liberal societies; historically, that's been true as well," she said, adding that depression as society now knows it was first observed in 16th-century England.

The proliferation of depression and schizophrenia corresponded to the period following the end of aristocracy and the emergence of England as a nation, where a person of any social status could rise to the top of the hierarchy, Greenfeld said.

"This view, which implies democracy, freedom and equality, all the values we consider very dear to our hearts, changes human society in many good ways. We're empowered and have the freedom of choice to lead the lives we want to," she said. "But it also implies a heavy price, democracy; the inability of culture to provide sufficient guidance in how to behave. Indeed, our society does not prescribe people identity."

This lack of identity, so readily available in aristocracies or caste systems, is what drives Americans and citizens of other Westernized countries crazy, Greenfeld said.

"We are free to create ourselves — we are given the choice of what to be, and we therefore must construct our identity on our own. For many people, this is very difficult," she said. "Their identity remains dead or undefined; they don't know who they are."

Knowing one's identity provides a cognitive, cultural map that gives people a spot from which to sort out the rest of the world and know their role in it, a central feature of a functioning human mind, Greenfeld said.

Animals don't need such context, because their identities are in their genes, she said.

"When a little mouse is growing up, it knows precisely how to behave vis-a-vis the other mice. All this is written in their blood," she said. "They don't have to adapt to their society; they only have to adapt to the physical environment."

But humans do, she said, and without strong cultural cues, depression and schizophrenia spread.

While the 20 percent figure she cited accounts for the most severe cases of depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, it represents only the extreme end of a continuum that includes everyone.

"This is a general malaise. When is the last time you saw a happy undergraduate?" she said, receiving laughter from the audience of mostly students. "We don't all reach that 20 percent, but we are all sick."

The cure, Greenfeld said, is not medicine or anything biological, but rather cultural.

"We must prepare (children) to be ready for this burden (of choice) and to understand that this is a package deal," she said. "If you want freedom and choice and control over your own destiny, you must me able to choose without falling apart under the burden of choice." 

rmetzler@sunjournal.com