It’s no secret that UCSD is a stressed-out campus. Just look back two weeks to the empty coffee cups and blank stares of students during finals week. The competition and pressure to succeed make students go to extreme lengths to get the A – all-nighters, Adderall or giving up meals to study are all common practice for the dedicated scholar. However, according to Psychological and Counseling Services, such drastic actions are taking a much higher toll on students’ mental health than previously thought. Its new campaign, the Initiative on Flourishing, is attempting to infuse the campus with positive psychology.
At first glance, the field of positive psychology seems to be an extension of the free-love sentiments popular during the 1960s. Proponents of this growing branch of psychology are trying to change the face of therapy and counseling by emphasizing positive emotions and reaching a state of “”flourishing.”” Reina Juarez, the director of UCSD’s PandCS, explained the importance of flourishing, a state in which a person is enthusiastic about life, is actively and productively engaged and has excellent emotional health and psychosocial functioning.
“”Flourishing is about a place where all of us can express the best of ourselves,”” Juarez said. She explained further that flourishing is essential at a campus like UCSD, where everyone is so competitive that they forget to take care of themselves. The opposite of flourishing is “”languishing,”” a state that is different from a mental illness, but is just as bad as depression in terms of its effect on the individual. According to Juarez, languishing is associated with emotional distress and a lack of positive emotions toward life.
The Initiative on Flourishing is a supplement to previous treatment practices that focused solely on the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. According to a report published by the World Health Organization in 2004, however, mental health is more than just the absence of mental illness. The report defines health as “”a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.””
James Harbin, a postdoctoral and positive psychology fellow at UCSD, gave a brief history of the trends in psychology.
“”Psychology was created on the medical model,”” Harbin said. “”There has been a great emphasis on [mental] illness. In the last seven years … there has been a movement to empirically validate positive psychology.””
Juarez likened someone who is depressed to a person walking through the desert. It looks like there are no flowers, which she said symbolized hope to the person. If someone comes in seeking treatment for depression, counseling services is now trying to do more than just alleviate the pain of depression. A new emphasis has been placed on the person’s strengths and teaching the person how to increase their positive reactions and resiliency to stress.
PandCS has created a trio of programs, two workshops and a class, and has plans to build a wellness center in an effort to improve the campus’s mental health. One of the workshops, Goals in Action: Fostering Excellence at UCSD, is a pilot program meant to help students on academic probation improve their grades. The workshop combines the theories of positive psychology with intervention tactics, emphasizing the hopes and goals of the participants. Questions they ask the students in the workshop include, “”Who makes you feel like you matter?”” and “”How do you get there from here?”” Harbin, who was involved with the workshop’s development and has facilitated the three pilot quarters, is pleased with its results.
“”So far, the data suggests that students who are in the [workshop] get off of academic probation, as compared to the control group,”” Harbin said. Each workshop averages around 25 students.
The implementation of the Initiative on Flourishing depends upon a projected increase of resources for PandCS. Juarez was adamant in her explanation that the initiative is a supplement to current treatment practices. The shift in attitude toward mental health will not detract from the institution’s current ability to diagnose and treat serious mental illnesses.
