About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

35 J. Legal Educ. 65 (1985)
Psychiatric Distress in Law Students

handle is hein.journals/jled35 and id is 75 raw text is: Psychiatric Distress in Law Students Stephen B. Shanfield and G. Andrew H. Benjamin There is general agreement among legal educators that the stress of legal education is high. Indeed, some students are felt to have levels of distress that are dysfunctional.' While the first year of law school is universally felt to be the most stressful, there is also evidence that the third year is equally so.2 There have been few systematic studies of law student distress and much of the literature is impressionistic and anecdotal.5 These studies have methodo- logic problems that limit the generality of conclusions that can be drawn from the data. Inferences are often made on the basis of information from only one year of law school, usually the first.4 The second and third years of law school have received scant attention,5 although many researchers Stephen B. Shanfield, M.D., is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Director of Advanced Psychiatry Residency Training, and Director of Outpatient Psychiatric Services at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson. G. Andrew H. Benjamin, MA., J.D., is a Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, and Psychology Resident, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington. Address reprint requests to Stephen B. Shanfield, M.D., Department of Psychiatry, University of Arizona, College of Medicine, Tucson, Arizona 85724 (602-626-6337). The authors would like to thank Chintamani Sahoo and John Gaines for their assistance with the statistical analysis. 1. James B. Taylor, Law School Stress and the Deformation Professionelle, 27 J. Legal Educ. 251 (1975). Andrew S. Watson, The Quest for Professional Competence: Psychological Aspects of Legal Education, 37 Cin. L. Rev. 93 (1968). Phyllis W. Beck & David Burns, Anxiety and Depression in Law Students: Cognitive Intervention, 30 J. Legal Educ. 270 (1979). 2. Leonard D. Eron & Robert S. Redmount, The Effect of Legal Education on Attitudes, 9 J. Legal Educ. 431 (1957). 3. See Watson & Taylor, supra note 1. Derek C. Bok, A Flawed System of Law Practice and Training, 33 J. Legal Educ. 570 (1983). David Margolick, The Trouble with American Law Schools, New York Times Magazine, May 22, 1983, at 20-38. Roy E. Rickson, Faculty Control and the Structure of Student Competition: An Analysis of the Law Student Role, 25 J. Legal Educ. 47 (1973). Alan A. Stone, Legal Education on the Couch, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 392 (1971). 4. Paul VanR. Miller, Personality Differences and Student Survival in Law School, 19 J. Legal Educ. 460 (1967). Michael J. Patton, The Student, the Situation, and Performance During the First Year of Law School, 21 J. Legal Educ. 10 (1968). Stephen Reich, California Psychological Inventory: Profile of a Sample of First-Year Law Students, 39 Psychological Rep. 871 (1976). Lawrence Silver, Anxiety and the First Semester of Law School, 4 Wis. L. Rev. 1201 (1968). Seymour Warkov, Lawyers in the Making (Chicago, 1965): Joseph Zelan, Occupational Recruitment and Socialization in Law School, 21 J. Legal Educ. 182 (1968). 5. See Taylor, supra note 1. Eron & Redmount, supra note 2, investigated first- and third-year law students, and first- and fourth-year medical students. Marilyn Heins, Shirley Nickols Fahey & Roger C. Henderson, Law Students and Medical Students: A Comparison of Perceived Stress, 33 J. Legal Educ. 511 (1983), investigated second-year law students as well as third-year medical students. Walter W. Steele, A Comparison of Attitudes of Freshman © 1985 by the Association of American Law Schools. Cite as 35 J. Legal Educ. 65 (1985).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most