Sex Education
One of the deficiencies of traditional educational systems is that they fail dismally to prepare us for some of the most important events and circumstances of our lives. For example, approximately 30% of us (and much higher proportions in many communities) have been in some way sexually abused as children in most cases by relatives or by friends of the family. But, to what extent have any of us ever received any kind of assistance in preparing us for the problem, as potential victims, and against the problem, as potential perpetrators?

In defense, educationalists say that such preparations are the jobs of the parents. But 30% of those parents were probably abused as children! Are such people equipped intellectually or emotionally to be the mentors of their children in such matters? Fortunately, in some societies counseling facilities are available for ex-victims of abuse, but such assistance takes place after the damage has been done! In the desire to prevent unwanted pregnancies and socially transmitted diseases many parents teach their children that sex is evil. Such a belief leads to feelings of guilt, and various forms of neurosis which again may affect not only the individual but also the offspring. Neurosis about sex can be a self-perpetuating phenomenon if the chain is not broken through informed intervention by schools or appropriately educated parents. 

Career Choice
Career choice is a further decision for which our parents and teachers have often not been able to help us. In many cases custom, habits and general inertia are the failings that have permitted humans to make their major life decisions in ways that perpetuate, not only their own misery and ineptitude, but also repetition in further generations of problems which are open to solutions from modern advances in scientific research. We should, of course, all be free to make our own decisions but surely such freedom comes with the obligation to make beneficial, rather than self-destructive decisions; informed decisions rather than choices made in ignorance of the important information that should have made available to us. 

Whether you are a hedonist who simply wants a good time, or a religious person who wants to work for payoff in eternity, surely you

should seek to make the right decisions with the best possible advice available. 

Menopause
Having been critical of the preparatory shortcomings of societies in general and educational systems in particular, there is one area that has been appallingly under-researched and under-taught by my own profession, psychology. That is the “menopause” I never saw the term as an undergraduate student and, had I been asked about it by any of my student during several years of university lecturing I could not even have “bluffed my way” as I knew virtually nothing about this major event in almost every woman’s life, and thereby in almost every marriage. Medical general practitioners, who often find themselves in counseling roles related to the menopause are, in general, no better prepared than are psychologists to provide constructive assistance. 

There do not appear to be any established pathways of knowledge and assistance from the “professionals,” who should know, to the public, who need to know. Fortunately, we now have the internet, with which we must self-educate!