Whine and dust: Coping during the pandemic using companioning autoethnographic art-based research

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime G. Dörner Alvarez ◽  
Janette Graetz Simmonds
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Age Cohorts ◽  
Coping Process ◽  
Art Based Research ◽  
The Many ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Health And Well Being

As collaborators from different nationalities, genders, cultural backgrounds, occupations and age cohorts, in this article we present an account of our art-based research during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project employed art practice as a way to deal with the noxious effects of isolation on our mental health and well-being during the many prolonged lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia. With reference to Warren Lett’s concept of companioning, in our ongoing companioning dialogue through poetry and paintings, together with a final song, we explore our psychological struggles. This contribution can be read in several ways: as an example of our research into art practice, as an artistic companioning dialogue between two writers and friends trying to make sense of and survive isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and finally, as an offer, an invitation to explore art as a cathartic and coping process in a companioning process, which we have termed companioning autoethnography.

COVID-19

2022 ◽  
pp. 219-227
Author(s):  
Gillala Rekha
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Private University ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Academic Stress ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
The World ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Methods ◽  
Health And Well Being

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world closed all the educational institutions to control the spread of disease, which is creating a direct impact on students, educators, and institutions. The purpose of this study was to analyze the perception of academic stress experienced by students during current online education and coping strategies using emotional intelligence adopted by them. The study aims to conduct a timely assessment of the effects of stress due to COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of college students. The authors conducted interview surveys with 227 students at a private university in India to understand the effects of online education during pandemic on their mental health and well-being. The data were analyzed through quantitative and qualitative methods. Of the 227 students, 71% indicated anxiety and stress due to ongoing pandemic.

scholarly journals The Effect of Occupational Stress and Coping Strategies on Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being Among University Academic Staff During the COVID-19 Outbreak

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Panshuo Shen ◽  
Paul Slater
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Occupational Stress ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Coping Styles ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Stress Coping ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Health And Well Being

The level of stress among academics in higher education institutions has significantly increased over the past decade. Mental health and well-being of academics can be affected once they are exposed to stressful work conditions and use negative coping strategies. This study was set against the backdrop of the pandemic disease, COVID-19, which has challenged the daily work of academics and risen to the various new stressors. This study aims to investigate the current status of occupational stress, coping styles, mental health and emotional well-being of university academics during the COVID-19 outbreak in Northern Ireland, and examine the effect of stress and coping strategies on mental health and emotional well-being. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted using a sample size of 87 academic staff working in a university in Northern Ireland. SPSS version 25 was used to analyse the collected data. The results showed academics experienced moderate stress levels, and distraction behaviours were the most common form of coping mechanism. Academics were in the moderate status of mental health and poor emotional well-being. Occupational stress has a significant effect on mental health and emotional well-being. Positive reframing and acceptance coping styles have an impact on emotional well-being. This study contributes to the understanding of occupational stress, coping strategies, mental health and emotional well-being of academics in higher education in Northern Ireland. The findings can help to develop reliable methods to inform policy on health and well-being for university academics, which in turn lead to increased productivity at work.

Design interventions to repair migrants’ mental well-being: The ‘Culture in Mind’ healing space

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-153
Author(s):  
Eleni Kalantidou
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Community Service ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
Intercultural Understanding ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Mental Well Being ◽  
Health And Well Being

The intention of this article is to present the transformation of a space that houses a migrant-oriented community service with a focus on mental health and well-being (Culture in Mind) into an inviting milieu, which fosters healing processes, intercultural understanding and community empowerment in Brisbane, Australia. This project, which was formed as a case study, is described through its ideation phase, the installation methods, the sourcing and use of reclaimed materials as well as the methods employed for the collection of data, including interviews conducted for the evaluation of the design interventions. In like manner, the outcomes of the data analysis are discussed in conjunction with evidence provided by relevant studies and photos collected through the documentation process. The final part of the article is dedicated to arguing the necessity of different understandings of mental health according to non-western cultural backgrounds so as to inform the design of mental health services and physical settings and enhance sentiments of privacy, safety and dignity for migrant patients.

scholarly journals (Re)sourcing the Character and Resilience Manifesto: Suppressions and Slippages of (Re)presentation and Selective Affectivities

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 416-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Burman
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Sociopolitical Context ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Made In

This article offers a critical discursive reading of the 2014 Character and Resilience Manifesto (hereafter the Manifesto), focusing on the sources and legitimation strategies supporting its claims. As an All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility document, the Manifesto traces both old and new discursive tropes framing policy strategy on education and social care, extending into current political agendas around mental health and well-being and even child safeguarding and securitisation. While the Manifesto’s supposed evidence-based claims draw extensively on a specifically commissioned literature review undertaken by Gutman and Schoon, problems are identified with how this is represented in the Manifesto, including significant omissions and slippages within Gutman and Schoon’s text and between this and the Manifesto. Analysis highlights exaggerations of the claims made in Gutman and Schoon’s review in the Manifesto while important conceptual clarifications (between resilience and coping and the non-generalisability of resilience) are overlooked. Commentators’ cautions over the evaluation and comparability of current programmes also fail to appear. Beyond such asymmetries, a common narrative identified across both texts reformulates emotions away from their ‘soft’, culturally feminised, associations to become ‘hard and tough’, and abstracted from relationship and (sociopolitical) context. Clearly, such gendering of emotions can be situated in relation to wider discourses of feminisation, alongside others de-emphasising classed and racialised inequalities. Overall, the Manifesto performs its own rhetoric, manifesting its own buoyancy to resist critical engagement and further the contemporary moral doctrine of inciting voluntarist optimistic subjects, devoid of attention to class, gender or racialised inequalities.

Towards culturally inclusive mental health: learning from focus groups with those with refugee and asylum seeker status in Plymouth

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Fish ◽  
Olivia Fakoussa
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Asylum Seeker ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

Purpose Pre- and post-immigration trauma and stress make refugees a particularly vulnerable group in terms of mental health and well-being. The purpose of this paper is to describe a listening project undertaken in Plymouth, UK, which sought the views of 17 service users (n=12) and staff (n=5) from four local support organisations, for people with refugee and asylum seeker status and those with diverse cultural backgrounds. Aims of the project were to expand Western-centric understandings regarding beneficial support and the promotion of good mental health and well-being in this population. Design/methodology/approach Responses were subjected to thematic analysis, co-conducted with a service user. Participants were asked about their personal understandings of mental health and well-being and what supports or hinders well-being. Findings The findings enabled the development of a model incorporating 10 threads which support and 9 holes that can hinder well-being. Research limitations/implications The relatively small numbers of participants compared with the numbers of asylum seekers and refugees in Plymouth may not be fully representative of the general population in Plymouth and the UK. Originality/value Despite increasing cultural diversity within the UK population, available mental health services exist mainly as developed from a Western psychological model of mental distress and treatment. This research provides services with a more informed understanding of mental health for asylum seekers and refugees. As such it is of value towards future service design in Plymouth and the UK. Findings also contributed to a successful funding bid to set up a peer-led support project in the city.

A positive psychology study and intervention on the well-being of French PhD students in biology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Marais ◽  
Rebecca Shankland ◽  
Pascale Haag ◽  
Robin Fiault ◽  
Bridget Juniper
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Reference Sample ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Attrition Rates ◽  
Human Costs ◽  
The Uk ◽  
And Control ◽  
Health And Well Being

In France, little data are available on mental health and well-being in academia, and nothing has been published about PhD students. From studies abroad, we know that doing a PhD is a difficult experience resulting in high attrition rates with significant financial and human costs. Here we focused on PhD students in biology at university Lyon 1. A first study aimed at measuring the mental health and well-being of PhD students using several generalist and PhD-specific tools. Our results on 136 participants showed that a large fraction of the PhD students experience abnormal levels of stress, depression and anxiety, and their mean well-being score is significantly lower than that of a British reference sample. French PhD student well-being is specifically affected by career uncertainty, perceived lack of progress in the PhD and perceived lack of competence, which points towards possible cultural differences of experiencing a PhD in France and the UK. In a second study, we carried out a positive psychology intervention. Comparing the scores of the test and control groups showed a clear effect of the intervention on reducing anxiety. We discuss our results and the possible future steps to improve French PhD students’ well-being.

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