Mental Health Issues In College

Mental health disorders are serious illnesses that affect many people every day. The number of people being affected by these illnesses is increasing every year with no signs of letting up, causing psychologists to be concerned. One group of people that is extremely affected by this are college students. As college students make a huge transition in their lives they begin to cross obstacles. One of these obstacles being mental health issues.
The book College Student Mental Health Counseling: A Developmental Approach written by Suzanne Degges-White and Christine Borzumato-Gainey is a counseling handbook that looks at the point of view of how colleges impact students’ mental health biologically, psychologically, and socially. It also discusses
the social concerns students face, and the type of mental disorders that college students are affected by. The book mainly focuses on how college students may be affected by these mental health issues as they go through college as well as providing the best treatment strategies. Degges-White and Christine compare people who are college students now to previous undergraduates to help them discover similarities and differences that they have. They did this to figure out who was most vulnerable to mental health disorders. They discovered that "47% of first generation students who enrolled at a 4-year college earned their undergraduate degree as compared to a 78% graduation rate among those student with at least one parent holding a college degree, and in 2002 almost 30% of students from families with incomes below 50,000 will drop out of college and 15% will have left after their second year " (Degges-White and Christine 58-59). Iarovici agrees that comparing these two groups will help figure out what people are most likely to be affected by mental disorders. She compares millennials, generation X, and the baby boomer generation to students who are in college now and gets the same results as Degges-Whtie and Christine did. The book Mental Health Issues and the University Student written by Doris Iarovici is about the rising concern of student health in colleges as many students are suffering from mental health issues more than ever before.
She talks about the growing amount of mental services across the US and how to diagnose and treat someone who has a mental disorder. She uses statistics to help explain the growth in mental services "In the 2011 National Survey of College Counseling Center Directors which represents 228 centers across the United States 64% of centers have access to on campus psychiatric consultation" (Iraovici 14). The authors agree that the more mental services are becoming available at colleges. Stanley and Jill discuss how mental health services started emerging in the late 1900s in the UK as a way to help people who are going through these illnesses and that people used the UK as model to help figure out ways to improve them. "This was developed in response to the mental health needs of a predominately 18-25 year old undergraduate population attending universities away from their home base and those of international students" (Stanley and Jill
171).
The book Student's Mental Health Needs: Problems and Responses written by Nicky Stanley and Jill Manthorpe discuss how mental health disorders can effect how a person functions academically, personally, socially and economically.
The book focuses on examining the needs of students with mental health issues such as and also provides an idea of some solution that could be used to help solve these issues. Stanley and Jill discuss how students with mental disorders and other disabilities may need accommodations to help them adapt to their environment. They use the Human Rights Act of 1998 and the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 to help make their case stronger and suggest that there needs to be more programs available “The HEFCE guidance also noted that many HEI report expanding number of students with mental health problems. These, it argued should be responded to by a level of services which, at their minimum or base-line should include encouragement to students to air their problems, help to find appropriate support, and the possible involvement of mental health specialists in assessment,” (Stanley and Jill 16). Degges-White and Christine discuss how discrimination has long been a problem on college campuses in a section of their book. However, they believe that solving mental health problems will take more than just providing services that seem to help/protect the students as many students are still being discriminated against due to their mental diorders."Although
antidiscrimination and harassment policies are clear on the overwhelming majority of campuses, there can be subtle discriminatory practices that occur, as well as pockets of students who foster negative attitudes and behaviors toward those who are different" (Degges-White and Christine 52).
In conclusion, the sources work well together to help form a better understanding on what college students are most affected by mental disorders, what group of college students are most likely to be discriminated against, and what can be done to help college students who are battling and overcoming this hardship such as having mental services available. They similarly explain why mental disorders are an issue, and the solutions that can be used to help students cope with the illness. The examples and perspectives that they have in their books when combined together give a holistic view of mental health disorders in colleges.