Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1
Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1
Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1
Abstract
Mental health is a topic that is now very known. The stigma that mental health is not
something serious has majorly decreased. Therefore many people are reaching out about their
own problems. There are counseling centers and healthcare professionals that are considered the
most qualified and trained to help resolve these problems. Many youths, according to numerous
studies are the affected most by this problem, especially college students. There are many
stressors in not only school but work and family life as well. This literary review is intended to
look into the problems of mental health over time and how well students know about services
offered in their university and whether or not they take advantage of these services. Through this
literary review, it is found out that there are many programs offered through larger counseling
centers and the reasons why people dont receive treatment for their mental health issues.
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Mental health has become a prevalent and more serious topic around the world nowadays.
It affects people of all ages in different types of ways for many different reasons. The stigma
surrounding mental health problems has decreased over the years; therefore more people have
reached out about their problems. There are now counseling centers, support groups, and more
healthcare facilities one can go to. Though there are more services to aid a person with their
mental health, people still have problems with it, especially university students. The many
stressors accompanied by school life and the fast paced society students are growing up in
contribute to the many mental health problems they face. It is not really known how many
students deal with a mental health problem like depression or anxiety at the University of Texas
at El Paso campus since it is not really possible to ask every single individual about whether or
not they have a mental health problem. That is why there are places like the counseling center
one can go to if they wanted to get help or just need someone to talk to. There are many
professionals that are trained for these specific issues but there are also other professionals, like
anthropologists who are not the typical kind of people one would think of to help a person with
mental health issues. The diverse skills these anthropologists have though, can actually
contribute to understanding why these mental health issues exist and how they can be treated.
A literature review will be conducted to examine mental health issues at a college level
by asking four research questions. These questions will help make the purpose of our literature
review clearer by exploring the programs used for mental health and whether or not these
programs are taken advantage of. The four research questions are as follows.
Are students with mental health problems aware of services at their university and are
Over the years, programs for mental health issues have increased in both size and quality.
Mental health is now taken more seriously and is not thought of as an irrational thing (Tsao
2009). Mental health has become more of a problem among college students due to the stressors
of school life. Nowadays, college students are growing up in a very fast paced society.
Therefore, there is an ever-growing demand for mental healthcare services in many universities
because the stigma surrounding mental health has decreased according to a video by PBS
NewsHour (2015). In the video, they state that there is more awareness of problems, risks, and
diagnosis (0:30). The services for mental health in universities are trying to find out how to best
treat their students. Now, more than ever, students are coming forward to receive help with their
mental health problems. There are numerous amounts of resources available to students through
Many university counseling centers are receiving students with a number of mental health
issues. Anxiety, stress, and depression are the number one problems students now have while
attending college (Jibeen 2016). This comes from trying to balance social, work, and home life
while living in a fast paced society (p. 1). Jibeen claims that these mental health problems have a
negative impact on a students academic success and quality of life. In Jibeens article, she found
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out that issues with family and peers play the biggest role in determining if a student will
Students not only have school to stress about but home and work life as well. Most
students now work to help support their family and pay for their college tuition while still
attending school (Jon Wakeford 2017). Compared to earlier years where students in college did
one or the other, we can see that a combination of these factors contribute to mental health
changing over time. Wakeford claimed that 9 in 10 students report it is hard to cope with
academic and financial aspects of college life (para. 2). The combination of going to school and
having a job creates a lot of pressure which can develop into stress. More programs have now
been created to target these specific issues. The University of Texas at El Paso offers many
services that help with these certain issues. They have a counseling center that has psychotherapy
services so that a student may come in and speak to someone about what their problems are.
They also have an abundant amount of self-help online resources if a student might be weary or
Different races deal with mental health problems in different ways. There are different
ways to approach treatment for other races. According to Manuel Casas (2009), every race does
things a different way and believes in different ways of doing them. (p. 11). He notes that
clinicians, counselors, or whoever is treating a patient with mental health issues must change
their perspective and see the world from their point of view.
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As Casas claimed that counselors need to change their approach for treating different
patients, Joseph Westermeyer (1976), have a similar agreement that cultural factors matter
because they are crucial to the diagnosis, treatment, and care of mental health issues. In image
one; it is seen that Hispanic, Whites, and American Indians have a higher percentage of mental
illnesses. This makes us think why these particular races have more mental health problems than
other races. There could be a multitude of reasons and background information that could affect
the way a professional would treat the patient. That is why counselors or other professionals
treating a mental health issue must use a diverse approach for these diverse people.
Image 1-Source: NIH (2015). Prevalence of Serious Mental Illness Among U.S Adults.
smi-among-us-adults.shtml
Are students with mental health problems aware of services at their university and are
With the many different resources available to help with mental health problems, it is
wondered whether or not students know about them. Terje Ogden and Kristine Hagen (2014),
claim that individuals dealing with critical mental health issues need to seek professional help.
Some health problems can be treated or improved with self-help strategies but some other health
problems require the help of a professional. Getting up the courage to talk in person to a
counselor, for example, might be a really hard thing for a student to do. It could be due to
reasons like the student feeling ashamed or that they think counseling wont really help. Image
two shows more examples of reasons for not receiving mental health services.
Image 2-Source: SAMSHA (2015). Reasons for Not Receiving Mental Health Services.
2014/NSDUH-DR-FRR3-2014/NSDUH-DR-FRR3-2014.htm
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After looking through the statistics the graph provides, it is noticed that one of the three
reasons a student did not get the help they need was because they were not sure where to go to
get it. A lot of the time, students are aware that there is some sort of counseling center on their
campus, but they are not aware of the actual services offered and what they do to go about
In the hopes of finding out if the kind of training the counselors use is effective towards
treatment to mental health problems, we conducted primary research. The methodology used was
a compilation from The Special collections department to aid our research. Arlene King, the
author of this paper stated that the practicum and internship procedures have been the most used
because they are the most significant procedures that properly prepared a counselor to be
effective (1977). These trainings the counselors use give them the skills best needed to meet the
problems of students with mental health disorders. It can be found on UTEPs counseling
website that they have advanced practicum training and internship opportunities for counselors
which relates back to the evidence given by Arlene King that these are the best training
Many professionals are available to help with mental health problems. The people that we
know treat patients the most, especially in universities, are counselors. The not so typical
professionals that help with mental health problems are anthropologists. According to Camenson
(2005), anthropologists learn many diverse skills and are able to understand why and how
humans do what they do (p. 8). These skills can actually help counselors understand why patients
have mental health problems and why they might not be receiving treatment. In one study by
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Kleinman (2006) , it was found out that when an anthropologist partnered up with a pediatrician
to try and understand why a Mexican father would not continue to take his son to get treatment
for a health problem he had, the pediatrician thought it was because the father did not know
much about his sons illness. The anthropologist actually found out that it was because he did not
have the means to travel to the doctors office nor the money needed for treatment (para. 3).
Conclusion/ Synthesis
In conclusion, this literary review has explored what mental health is like for university
students, whether or not they knew about the services offered for these problems, and what kind
of professionals can help. Mental health has always been a major problem especially among the
younger population and it was found out through some of these sources that many students were
dealing with mental issues under the radar. There were many reasons found why they did not
receive treatment, for example, they were ashamed or did not think counseling would help. It
was also found out though that the counseling center at The University of Texas at El Paso had
many programs to offer their students. By using primary research, it was found out that the
counselors were professionally trained with programs intended to treat specific problems of
mental health issues. Through the perspective of an anthropologist, they were able to work
closely with other professionals to come up with a better way of going about treating mental
health problems.
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References
Camenson, B. (2005). Great Jobs for Anthropology Majors. New York: McGraw-Hill
Professional.
Jibeen, T. (2016). Perceived social support and mental health problems among Pakistani
doi:10.1007/s10597-015-9943-8
https://fordham.bepress.com/dissertations/AAI7714870
Kleinman A, Benson P (2006) Anthropology in the Clinic: The Problem of Cultural Competency
McGeown, S., Putwain, D., St. Clair-Thompson, H. and Clough, P. (2017), UNDERSTANDING
Ogden, T., & Hagen, K. A. (2014). Adolescent mental health : prevention and intervention.
PBS News Hour (2015). More stress, less stigma drives college students to mental health
Ponterotto, J. G., Casas, J. M., Suzuki, L. A., & Alexander, C. M. (Eds.). (2009). Handbook of
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Wz8XBAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR11
&dq=handbook+of+multicultural+counseling+manuel+casas&ots=RyXtFTuyYr&sig=8S
OK5u8lH6ZY_k63dH51SPchPc4#v=onepage&q=handbook%20of%20multicultural%20
counseling%20manuel%20casas&f=false
SAMSHA (2015). Reasons for Not Receiving Mental Health Services. Retrieved from
https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DR-FRR3-2014/NSDUH-DR-
FRR3-2014/NSDUH-DR-FRR3-2014.htm
Sneed, B (n.d.). Counseling and Psychological Services. Retrieved October 27, 2017, from
http://sa.utep.edu/counsel/aptp/
Tsao, E (2009). Why anthropologists should politicize mental illnesses. (2009.). Retrieved from
https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2009/for-a-new-anthropology-of-
psychiatry
Uzman, E., & Telef, B. B. (2015). Prospective teachers mental health and their help-seeking
242-254. doi:10.5350/DAJPN2015280307
Wakeford, J. (2017, September 07). It's time for universities to put student mental health support
https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/sep/07/its-time-for-
universities-to-put-student-mental-health-first
Westermeyer, J. (Ed.). (1976). Anthropology and mental health: setting a new course.
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