Word: mentality
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Maia Usui ’11 is a history concentrator in Cabot House. She helped coordinate Mental Health Week...
...first glance, the mental health situation at Harvard can seem unsettling. In a 2007 survey of student attitudes toward campus mental health services, 44 percent of polled students reported that they had felt like they needed mental health care at some point during the last year, but did not seek it. The top three reasons for refraining included: negative expectations about the effects of assistance, feelings of being too busy to seek or receive care, and feelings of stigma or shame about needing help. This statistic is unsettling for a number of reasons, but the most striking of these...
...Equally unsettling are the justifications that students offer for their decisions. The truth is that the most common mental health problems faced by students are, in fact, highly treatable. Moreover, in many cases there are multiple ways to address a given problem—meaning that treatment is also highly flexible and efficient. Much of the stigma and shame that students feel when they struggle with emotional distress comes from the widely held belief that their experience is uncommon. In reality, emotional distress is very common among college students, including those who go to Harvard. In a recent survey...
...Nevertheless, students often feel shame about seeking help. While each person’s reasons for this feeling of shame may vary, it is likely that much of this stigma can be attributed to a general feeling that seeking professional help for issues related to mental health is uncommon at Harvard. Once again, the numbers tell quite a different story. By the time they graduate, 40 percent of Harvard students will have sought and received services from Mental Health Services or the Bureau of Study Counsel. And yet, students who are struggling with emotional distress or who are accessing services...
...Rectifying this unfortunate situation is not as difficult as some might think. First, we can (and should) begin to break the silence that has stifled productive discussion of mental health issues within our community. The aim of Mental Health Week is to share knowledge about issues of mental health, to stress the importance of students’ mental and emotional well-being, and to encourage students to reach out to friends in distress. If real change is to be made, however, we must incorporate this same culture of open discussion and caring into the everyday fabric of Harvard life...