Matching Items (5)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Mental Health
Description
This project aims to help with the stigma and mystery surrounding mental health through the combination of art and psychology. The project was created by first interviewing individuals with different disorders and then researching the disorders further to acquire an accurate idea of the experiences of those afflicted. Then paintings were created to depict the emotions and struggles faced by individuals with psychological disorders. The project focusses on five different abnormal disorders: Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia. These particular ailments were chosen because they include the main diagnoses that the average American thinks of when mental health is mentioned. My thesis contains interviews that I personally conducted, descriptions of the five disorders included, and artistic representations of those disorders in the form of oil paintings. It is my hope that this project will help unafflicted individuals to better understand others who live with abnormal psychological disorders, as well as help the afflicted see themselves represented in a way that they otherwise might not.
ContributorsSanchez Rodriguez, Wendy (Author) / Solis, Forrest (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
An educational toolkit was developed and created to normalize the dialogue of mental health at the community level. The intended audience for the toolkit is the faith community. Clergy, ministers, and other prominent leaders play integral roles in shaping the worldviews of parishioners, and thus have the capacity to promote mental health awareness in the communities they serve.
ContributorsTrujillo, Catherine Elizabeth (Author) / Larsen, Dale (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Resilience is defined as an individual's ability to cope or "bounce back" after experiencing stressful life events (Rew et al., 2001). Survivors of trauma who express high levels of resilience are more likely to experience positive future life outcomes than equally troubled peers with lower resilience scores. It is possible to increase resilience by targeting several core factors: (1) personal competence, (2) sense of belonging, (3) sense of optimism (Lee et al., 2009). I developed an eight-week creative writing curriculum to boost these three core factors in the hopes of both increasing resilience in homeless youth while also introducing creating writing as an effective coping strategy. Each one-hour session included free-form writing exercises, mindfulness practices, writing workshops, and group presentations. Prompts and activities were carefully developed to encourage resilience-building in a group of homeless children and adolescents of ages seven to fourteen at Homeward Bound in Phoenix. With sample writing works and facilitator feedback, this curriculum was designed to be exceptionally easy and cost effective for future implementation. I hope that other organizations in the future will consider implementing this program to help build resilience in youth who have experienced childhood trauma.
ContributorsPopeski, Cara (Author) / Popova, Laura (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Pickhart, Kalani (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
DescriptionAn interdisciplinary examination of the relationship between stigma and the language used to discuss mental illness, including a proposed course of action for aiding in the destigmatization of mental illness.
ContributorsOlson, Corinn (Author) / Suk, Mina (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2022-12
Description
There exists a prejudicial influence in the way that psychological thrillers depict their mentally-ill subjects. Accordingly, this creative project closely examines scenes from the following four seminal films: Psycho, Taxi Driver, American Psycho, and Joker -- each of which exemplifies four psychosocial themes that have a dominant presence within the ‘psycho-thriller’ sub-genre. These include themes of toxic masculinity, urban corruption, social class, and latent trauma. Each of these are then discussed in terms of their presence and meaning within the genre -- particularly the method in which they reinforce prejudicial understandings of severe mental illness (SMI) despite reflecting the dominant beliefs of medico-scientific communities, criminological theorists, and psychoanalytic schools of thought of the eras in which they were released. Given that these theories continue to inform the public’s understanding of severe mental illness (SMI), this thesis seeks to expose how the enduring presence of these psychosocial themes within the ‘psycho-thriller’ subgenre has conflated the presence of mental illness with criminal disposition. After discussing the representation of these themes in each film, this paper highlights how psychological thrillers may function as instruments of advocacy for mental health in spite of their ‘horrific’ elements, and provides examples of how other entertainment media have helped normalize neurodivergence in a neurotypical society.
ContributorsHernandez, Martin (Author) / Miller, April (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-12