Running head: APPLYING STUDENT DEVELOPMENT THEORY 1

Applying Student Development Theory in Practice: Student Mental Health

Kimberly Kuspa

Western Illinois University

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Applying Student Development Theory in Practice: Student Mental Health

After working through and completing my My Story, I have learned about myself and the

issues I faced as an undergraduate student. My story is grounded in both my relationship that I

had with my family, as well as the internal battle I was facing with my anxiety. My story

revolved around the idea that I was having to navigate internal and external pressures at the same

time. In this paper I will identify an experience that has surfaced in my My Story, how

institutions are combatting this issue and critiques for the way they are combating it, how

students are developing who are facing this issue, and ways in which we can continue to

encourage development in students.

Experience Identified in My My Story

The main theme that I discussed in my My Story and runs throughout the theory I wrote

and the comparisons I made between my theory and other developmental theories is my anxiety.

For the purpose of this paper, I would like to talk more broadly about mental health as to not

limit the affect all mental health related topics have on a student and how it shows up on a

college campus. In My Story, I talked about how my anxiety has affected how I view the world

around me and a large portion of My Story was when I was in college. I had to figure out how to

navigate what I was experiencing, deciding who to trust with the information of my anxiety,

deciding if taking medication would be beneficial or harmful, the process of finding a councilor

that best fits my needs, how to go about having a problem that influences my mental health, and

how to utilize school resources that would help me navigate these things. All of these things are

issue that I was faced with during my time in college and it affected how I developed as a student

and an individual.
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Approaches Currently Used to Address This Issue

The widest used approach that I have found to address this occurrence of mental health

related problems is having free counseling on college campuses. At Western Illinois University,

we currently have a Counseling Center with nine licensed clinical counselors according to the

Counseling Center website (Western Illinois University, 2018).

“Individual counseling helps students to increase self-understanding and relate to others

more effectively. Professional counselors assist in exploration of students' concerns and

offer guidance in reaching their full potential. Some of the types of concerns that can be

addressed in personal counseling are: transition to college life, interpersonal relationship

difficulties, lack of self-confidence or self-esteem, stress, anxiety, depression, sexual

assault, family concerns, sexual orientation/identity concerns, alcohol/substance abuse

and eating concerns” (Western Illinois University, p.1, 2018)

This quote is from Western’s Counseling Center website and states what they offer and what

things students tend to come in seeking help for. Institutions, including Western, higher fulltime

councilors to assist students with needs related to the everyday stress of college that can induce

or increase many mental health related issue. Counseling centers may also provide quiet rooms

for students to have a calm controlled environment to work in and some schools even offer

sessions with emotional support animals. Overall, I believe that having resources like a

counseling center on a college campus is beneficial for all students but there are also things that

inhibit students from getting the help they need.

Critique of Current Approaches

Through my experience as an undergraduate student at Eastern Illinois University

and now a graduate student at Western Illinois University, I have observed the plethora of
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individuals that have wanted help but are hard pressed to find it on their college campus. The

counseling center is a great resource for students but the waiting list to get an appointment can be

as long as a month. How beneficial is it for students to go to a counseling center a month after

an incident has occurred? Changing stigma of mental health is increasing the number of students

who are seeking out help and they are seeking it out for different reasons. When you do not

know where to turn, it can be overwhelming to think that the one place that is there to give you

support cannot give you the resources you need. As I have stated previously, there are many

things that the Counseling Center is designed to assist students with but there are limited staff

members and limited space. I know there is a crisis hotline that the Counseling Center directs

students to when they need help outside of the office hours of the Counseling Center but

personally I have never felt comfortable calling the hotline for help.

Student Development

After researching this topic, I have found that mental illness is only becoming more

common among college students, anxiety being the leader in diagnosis, “anxiety is the top

presenting concern among college students (41.6 percent), followed by depression (36.4 percent)

and relationship problems (35.8 percent)” (American Psychological Association, p.1, 2013). I

believe that this has a lot to do with the technology and things in place that make it easier to

diagnose individuals as well as the growing understanding and education about mental health

related issues. Never the less, mental health is a growing issue and there are also other things

that are causing the rise. In my experience, it is increasingly more difficult to focus in the

classroom when I am having a panic attack or an anxiety related episode. Some symptoms

related to anxiety include restlessness or feeling wound-up or on edge, being easily fatigued,

difficulty concentrating or having their minds go blank, and sleep problems (National Institute of
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Mental Health, 2016). Symptoms such as these can make it difficult to participate in campus

events, focus during class, complete tasks fully and on time, and completing everyday tasks.

Chickering and Reiser’s Theory of Identity Development

One vector in Chickering and Reiser’s Theory of Identity Development is developing

competence (Chickering & Reiser). I believe that students working through mental health

concerns are working through this vector. They have to be intellectually aware of the issues that

are facing them and how to interact with other that may not necessarily understand what they are

going through.

“A silly thing anxiety is, you can never possibly explain it to someone who has never had

it and it comes out of fucking nowhere…It was around Valentine's Day when my anxiety

started to become very obvious. Before then I never felt the need to tell him about it

mainly because I was afraid of the inevitable; he would not understand. But I had to tell

him because anxious and panic were about the only two emotions my body knew how to

express. What I feared the most had happened, he did not understand and I ended up

hiding tainted pieces of myself” (Kuspa, p. 7, 2018)

I had a hard time explaining myself and my feelings to others and I had a grave fear that they

would not understand or judge me. Through this experience mentioned above, I started to pay

more attention to what I did and did not know about my anxiety. Prior to this I did talk about it

and I did not try to understand it. I had to learn how to verbalize my thoughts and interact with

other people. Explaining what inhibits you and not being able to show physically how it affects

you like a broken leg would, for example, can be very challenging for students.
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Schlossberg’s Transition Theory

Schlossberg’s Transition Theory suggests that there is a moving in, moving through, and

moving out process for college students. There are also four factors that influence students when

they are transitioning and these are a situation, the self, social support, and strategies to help

through this process (Schlossberg, 1995). There are many things that can affect a student and

they may transition in, though, and out of differently. When considering metal health as a

situation that a student might be moving into, they are likely to not have social support and

cannot identify strategies to cope with the situation that they are facing. Students often do not

know that they have a mental health related issue until they are already in it. I think this theory

helps highlight that all students are moving through their own situations and as professionals we

need to be able to provide strategies to help them cope and move through it.

Practice and Assessment

The Design Principles that I believe apply to this topic and can help students in their

developmental process are: intentional structure, support systems that can help empower

students, an environment where basic levels of needs are met, just because it looks easy does not

mean that it is for the person experiencing, and trust and accountability in the relationship (CSP

559 Theory 1, 2018). I believe that all of these need to be incorporated to make sure students are

still developing inside the classroom. Two things that will help students continue to develop are

implementing hands on training and utilizing social media as a way to get resources out to

students.

Hands on Training

With the increase in mental health on college campuses, there are also thing happening

nationally that are trying to help manage the increase. “NAMI supports the Mental Health in
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Schools Act (H.R. 1211/S. 1588). This bill provides federal funding to train school staff on

mental health related issues, to establish comprehensive school-based mental health services and

to create links between schools and the community mental health system” (National Alliance on

Mental Illness, p.1, 2017). I believe that training staff is the first step to a healthy campus.

Even with having councilors on campus, they are typically never there when Mental

Health related incidents occur. The ones that work the most with the general student body

should have the most exposure to resources and training. However, since I have been a graduate

assistant working one-on-on with students, the only training I have revised outside of my office

training is online. To me, an online training is easy to do without paying much attention to the

content and makes it less effective than an in person interactive training. I have been told by a

professional that they like the online training because they can just click through it. As student

affairs professions, we talk about how we need to have interactive presentations for students but

why are those ideas not reflected in the training we receive.

I think that institutions should be using training to their benefit and not as something that

needs to be checked off their list. Due to the number of students that utilize the resources that

are offered on campus, we need to not only create new resources but be the resources for

students. The more educated professionals are, the better equipped students will be when facing

difficult issues. Implementing training assists in creating an environment where all needs are

met and trust and accountability are built into every relationship being made. It can also enforce

the idea that no one person has the right way of doing something and that professionals should be

aware that even though it does not make sense to them does not mean that it is not something

that a student might be struggling with.

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Utilizing Social Media

I also feel that social media plays a big role in getting information out to students. I

strongly believe that institutions should work to ensure that all their social media accounts are a

positive and helpful resource for students. At Western, almost every department on campus has

their own Instagram account or Facebook page. We should be doing better as an institution to

provide information about what resources the institution provides and way that the institution can

help them. By focusing on what resources the institution provides through social media, it is

creating an intentional structure of the expectations of support and care on a college campus.

Implementing this also identifies that supporting and empowering students does not always have

to be an active process. We can do this by making passive but positive Instagram photos and

creating sayings on twitter.

Conclusion

I believe that the first step to assisting students with mental health concerns is training

professionals on campus in how to interact with students that are facing these issues. I also

believe that the way an institution utilizes their social media is crucial to students finding and

getting the help that they need to continue to develop and be successful in college. Mental

Health related topics is not something that will ever leave a college campus so it is important to

continue to support students who need it and educate professionals on how to provide that

support.
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References

American Psychological Association (2013). College students’ mental health is a growing

concern, survey finds. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/06/college-

students.aspx

Best Colleges (2018). The top mental health challenges facing students. Retrieved from

https://www.bestcolleges.com/resources/top-5-mental-health-problems-facing-college-

students/

CSP 559 Theory 1 (2018). Application design principles for promoting students’ development:

aka what we know is needed to promote development [Handout]

Chickering, A.W. & Reisser, L. Education and identity (2nd Ed). Jossey Bass. San Francisco,

CA. 43-52

National Alliance on Mental Illness (2017). Mental health in schools. Retrieved from

https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Public-Policy/Mental-Health-in-Schools

National Institute of Mental Health (2016). Anxiety Disorders. Retrieved from

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml

Schlossberg, Nancy K., Waters, Eilnor B. and Goodman, Jane (1995). Counseling adults in

transition linking practice with theory. New York: Springer.

Western Illinois University (2018). Counseling Center. Retrieved from

http://www.wiu.edu/student_services/ucc/programs/