Why It Works

In the old paradigm, going to college was the dominant measure of high school success. Secondary schools boasted the percentage of students that were accepted to college, how much scholarship money was offered, and college prestige, based on national rankings. What schools didn’t discuss was their students’ passion and fulfillment with their high school experience and their mental wellness. Nor did high schools track the students’ well-being and success rates while in college. Rather, students were taught that happiness and passion will await them once they graduate college, get a good job and work until eligible for retirement.

The new paradigm shows that this ancient model is broken and explains why it drives the high level of disdain towards high school, which has led to our current youth mental health pandemic. Today’s youth are no longer sold on the idea of waiting until retirement to experience the joy, happiness, and passion that life has to offer. They want to experience it now. Many fear that the jobs they are preparing to fill will be replaced by AI or other societal landscape shifts. Even if they still exist, the idea of working at a job they don’t like until they eligible for retirement, as their parents did, is unappealing. They’ve watched their parents waste their lives working jobs they hate, then retiring with little vitality, joy, passion, or money to show for their efforts. Today’s youth want joy today and a system that deprives them of this joy is dictating the inner conflict that reveals itself as mental illness. Without rocking the establishment, PIE offers hope!

EXPERIENCE - Articulate the problem symptoms. Define the adversity/trauma and its magnitude, reach and symptoms. (COVID-19 pandemic; ACEs/Adverse Childhood Experiences, natural disasters (tornado, fire, flood, etc.); personal experience or witness of sexual/physical assault or death

RECOVERY - Own the problem and engage support. Acceptance that the adverse/traumatic experience(s) are not defining, while identifying and engaging with available resources for support (EAP/Employee Assistance Programs; School Counseling; Professional Support Networks; etc.)