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- All Subjects: Mental Health
- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Status: Published
Psychological therapy is the process of understanding, treating, and maintaining a healthy psyche. Psychological therapy comes in many shapes and sizes. Different methods of therapy include but are not limited to cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, psychoanalytic therapy, group therapy, and humanistic therapy. Most of these major therapeutic options fall under the umbrella of “talk therapy”. Although talk therapy is effective, practicing talk therapy exclusively limits not only the capabilities of therapy, but also potential clientele who would benefit from alternatives to talk therapy. Because each psyche is as unique and individual as fingerprints, each person seeking therapy should be able to create a personalized therapy program. Generating unique combinations of various therapy methods that are catered specifically to the client is a way to achieve this lofty goal. This research intends to better understand whether this proposal of combining various therapeutic techniques and methods in order to achieve individualized therapy programs will increase the effectiveness of the therapy being administered. In this meta analysis, the focus will be on animal therapy and poetry therapy used in conjunction theoretically as an example of potential applications for various combinations in conjunctive therapy. Conjunctive therapy is the main idea being piloted in this thesis and is a new form of therapy that involved the usage of two therapeutic techniques together while maintaining and equal prevalence and importance between them.
Over the past twenty years, the United States has experienced what Dr. Thomas Philippon calls "The Great Reversal," or a slow drift away from the free market competition which defined the American economy for the last century, towards an increasingly oligopolistic consolidation of market power. What does this mean? For the average American, prices have increased, wages remain stagnant, quality has declined, and the variety of goods has diminished. The reason? The growing political power of incumbent firms, who use their established economic power to influence the political process in their favor, towards high barriers to entry and decreased antitrust scrutiny, through lobbying and the financing of campaigns. Or have they? "The Great Reversal," and hypotheses like it, are far from a consensus... This Thesis is a meta study of the literature surrounding domestic competition in the United States and the impact that the lobbying activity of industry leaders has on said competition. Analyzing over 20 papers covering economics, political science, and political economy, this Thesis argues that domestic competition in the United States has indeed declined over the past two decades and that the growing political power of firms, rather than "unique" technological or structural changes in the economy, has caused this drift away from free markets. Using this analysis, this Thesis further suggests a few solutions to "The Great Reversal" and restoring competition in the American economy.
While people are scrolling through their various social media apps, they encounter messaging that does not necessarily promote good mental health. Rather, images, posts, and videos often make a mockery of those with mental health problems, leaving the viewers to believe that mental health problems often lead to dangerousness, criminality, and unpredictability. It then is essential that social media messaging about mental health, and its stigmas are analyzed and solutions to promote better mental health messages on these platforms are implemented because they affect everyone. Anti-stigma campaigns may be useful in bringing awareness to mental health and its stigmas, so two anti-stigma campaigns, Stamp Out Stigma and StigmaFree, were analyzed in this study. To understand the types of messages people are receiving about mental health and its stigmas from anti-stigma organizations on social media platforms, three research questions were developed. A thematic analysis was conducted that included 205 posts from 2021 that came from the campaigns' Facebook and Twitter accounts. Several themes emerged for each research question as well as multiple limitations for this study. Ultimately, social media messaging about mental health and its stigmas must continue to be researched.
Social media has become a prominent part of people’s life worldwide. It allows for easy communication and connection between family, friends, and even complete strangers. It has provided for an increased global interconnectedness and allows people to form new relationships. Despite these positives, there are also negative effects of social media, including its danger to mental health. With increased social media use, it is possible to develop an addiction, similar to any substance addiction. People may also experience various mental health disorders, like depression and anxiety disorders. The purpose of this review was to identify a clear relationship between social media use and the development of anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders is a general term, encompassing the different types, but the main types focused on in this review are generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety. This review also incorporates information on age in order to clarify if certain age groups are more affected by social media use than others.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate how COVID-19 has affected college athletes physically and mentally. A survey with 36 questions encompassing gender, sport, COVID-19 symptom severity, type and duration, return to play factors, perceived social isolation, depression and anxiety was distributed to all student athletes at Arizona State University. A total of 26 athletes (84.6% female, 15.4% male) who previously contracted the COVID-19 virus participated in the survey, representing a variety of 12 different sports. The study concluded that as student athletes symptom severity increased, symptom duration increased as well. Between one day to 10 months of continued symptoms after returning to sport play was reported by one-third of participating student athletes; however, there was no indication that vaccination status, obtaining a negative COVID-19 test, or obtaining medical clearance prior to returning to sport play after contracting COVID-19 affected if symptoms persisted or not after returning to play. Most (92.3%) athletes reported higher levels of perceived isolation, and as social isolation scores increased, depression scores increased. Abnormal anxiety symptoms were reported by 30.8% of student athletes, and as depression scores increased, anxiety scores increased as well. Study results and further research can be utilized to improve and refine gradual return to play protocols, enhance methods of communication and integration during mass social isolation, and greater assess depression and anxiety prevalence in student athletes.