This thesis is motivated by a lack of studies on the history of mental illness in South Korea. It builds upon existing studies by historians Theodore Yoo and Bang Hyun Lee, who have also used newspapers to analyze the discourse surrounding mental illness during Colonial Korea (1910-1945). Specifically, I analyze newspapers in the decades following this period to revisit three themes that both Yoo and Lee noted about the colonial period: (1) the religious practice of hitting individuals with mental illnesses, (2) the strong support for the sterilization of people with mental illnesses, and (3) the association between crime and mental illness. Because the colonial period was when people with mental illnesses were increasingly treated as social outcasts, comparing shifts or continuances from the colonial period was useful in exploring the stigma attached to mental illness in Korea. The articles surrounding the first theme revealed that despite the stigma attached to Shamanistic practices of beating during the colonial period due to a growing biomedical understanding of mental illness, they surprisingly persisted. There were also new developments, in which people with mental illnesses were beaten, chained, and isolated in “treatment” institutions across the nation for no particular reason. Articles surrounding the second theme showed that though inflamed rhetoric surrounding sterilization operations were not found post-1950, rhetoric with eugenics undertones lingered. Newspapers reported on these inhumane practices until as late as 1999. For the third theme, this study finds that the press continued to strongly associate mental illness with crime. These associations that effectively equated individuals with mental illnesses to criminals still frequently occur in newspapers today, particularly with what the media calls “Don’t Ask” crimes. Based on these findings, this study discovers that the negative treatment and perception of people with mental illnesses persisted long beyond Colonial Korea. It also stresses the importance of examining the role the press plays in contributing to the stigma attached to mental illness and shaping the way mental illness is understood.

Mental illness is a pervasive health epidemic in the United States and worldwide, and available data suggest that mentally ill adults are statistically more likely to be parents than non-parents. The prevalence and continued growth of parental mental illness means that millions of children in the United States have a parent with some form of mental health issues. This dissertation contributes to and extends existing literature on children of mentally ill parents by exploring 15 adult children’s subjective perspectives on how they navigate the tension-wrought experience of having a mentally ill parent, and how this has implications for the management of their identity, relational, and instrumental goals. Examined through the lens of relational dialectics theory (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996) and a multiple goals perspective, analysis revealed that adult children of mentally ill parents confront conflicting, contradictory forces in making sense of their parent’s illness and the role that it plays in their lives. Specifically, adult children reported feeling a strong sense of interdependence with their parent and a desire to have a closer relationship with them, but simultaneously expressed a strong need and desire for disconnection and maintenance of a life separate from their parent’s challenges. Additionally, adult children noted conflicting goals with regard to privacy management about their parent’s illness, acknowledging that an underlying, but pervasive societal stigma surrounding mental health keeps them from freely disclosing to others about their parent’s illness, but indicating that a certain strategic degree of openness was required in order to meet certain instrumental and relational goals. Finally, participants revealed many fears and anxieties that they had about the future as a result of the unstable nature of their parent’s mental illness, while at the same time expressing a sense of acceptance and stability with the predictably unpredictable nature of their lives. After presenting an analysis of the data, the implications of the findings for children of mentally ill parents are explored, including, but not limited to, how the results of this exploratory study could be integrated into therapeutic and support interventions for families of those struggling with mental health issues. Finally, the limitations of the study are addressed.

This poetry thesis explores the relationship of the Buddhist concept of nonduality to polar mood disorders by employing motifs of bomb testing, war crimes, spiders, and seascapes. A critical preface credits Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, and Mary Ruefle as influences. The manuscript favors free-verse poetry and field composition, though also includes a lyric essay and two formal poems.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the hearing distressing voices simulation training, Developing Empathy for the Lived Experience of Psychiatric Disability: A Simulation of Hearing Distressing Voices (HDVS), developed by Patricia E. Deegan, Ph.D., will affect counseling students’ empathy for clients diagnosed with schizophrenia, as measured by the Jefferson Scale of Empathy – Health Professions Students version (JSE-HPS). The experimental design was a quasi-experimental, one-group, pre-test/ post-test, and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy – Health Professions Students version was used to measure empathy. A total of 55 participants were drawn from a convenience sample of master’s counseling students from CACREP-accredited programs in southern Louisiana and Chicago, Illinois. A two tailed, paired samples t-test revealed that there was a significant difference (pM=116.11, SD=9.76) and post-test empathy scores (M=121.85, SD=8.9). This study suggests the HVDS is an effective tool to assist counseling students with developing empathy, decreasing stigmatizing attitudes, and avoiding disempowerment and marginalization within the counseling relationship.

This study examined teachers’ beliefs about mental health issues in students. A quantitative research method was utilized, and survey instrument was created modeled after the theory of planned behavior. Thirty-seven teachers were surveyed in five areas in relation to their beliefs about assessment and referral; including, previous assessment and referral; mental health training; attitudes toward assessment and referral; the perceived social normality of assessment and referral; and perceived self-efficacy or behavior control. These five areas became independent variable measures, with the dependent variable being their future intention of assessing and referring students with mental health issues. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the overall model was statistically significant in predicting teachers’ intention to assess and refer students; however, independent analysis of independent variable revealed teachers’ attitudes, past behavior, and accesses to mental health training were most the most significant predictors of future intention. Implications of this study highlight the need qualified mental health professionals to be present in schools and/or expanded training of teachers.

Past literature has showed that there have been several misdiagnosis of mental illness due to client’s delays in speech or introspection caused by an intellectual disability. It is believed that the intellectual disability is either interfering with the proper mental health diagnosis or a mental health diagnosis is unnecessarily being added to an intellectual disability. The study used a qualitative design that asked four psychiatrists on how they are treating their clients with an intellectual disability in addition to their mental illness. The interview guide asks about the difficulty in diagnosing individuals with a mental illness and a co-occurring intellectual disability. The proportion of clients also having an intellectual disability and co-occurring mental illness ranged from 5 to 20%. The problems that psychiatrists are running into are the fact that patients are not being correctly diagnosed before the age of 18 and are not able to get the resources that are needed, such as Inland Regional services.

Stigma is one of the foremost barriers to effective mental health treatment of consumers. Social workers currently provide the majority of mental health treatment in the United States. Examining levels of stigma present in social work students would be valuable in providing future interventions. A quantitative study was conducted utilizing an online questionnaire. The survey was distributed by the CSUSB Department of Social Work to graduate social work students. Statistical analysis utilizing SPSS software was conducted following data collection. Data analysis indicated that there was no significant difference in the attitudes regardless of exposure to severe mental illness. The findings of this study indicate that exposure to severe mental illness may not be the only factor in determining one’s attitude. Implications of these findings for social work research include outlining the need for further examination of stigma to identify more specific factors in the formation of stigmatic attitudes.

There is a national, state and local concern that focuses upon the rapid growth of our elder population as well as those within the cohort that suffer with mental illness. However, other than the numerous Alzheimer’s related headlines, there is little national or state consideration being given to non-dementia-related elder mental illnesses. The lack of existing mental health service programs to assist the elderly community merits attention. The Constructionist paradigm was the basis for this study, due to its reliance upon recognized leaders in the field engaging in an interactive group process. These leaders included politicians, governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and other community leaders. Outcomes from this study produced five action oriented initiatives: Leadership, Funding Campaign, Elder Sensitivity Campaign, Enhancement of Existing Programs, and New Program Expansion. These initiatives, if implemented, could drive change and positively affect the elderly population with mental illness within this central California county research site.

Mental health professionals have an important role to play in assessing and addressing the needs of their clients, including those with severe mental illness. Research, however, has demonstrated a reluctance toward discussing sexual health topics with severely mentally ill clients. The purpose of this study was to explore social work practitioners’ attitudes and preparedness toward addressing the sexual health need of clients who are mentally challenged to a great extent. Under the qualitative research paradigm, this study sampled 8 licensed clinical social workers who currently work in the United States. Thematic analysis of interview data generated four major themes. First, social workers harbor positive attitudes toward mental health; second, social work practitioners perceived themselves as prepared to address sexual health concerns with clients; third, sexual health discussions with severely mentally ill clients should be a part of the solution, not of the problem; and fourth, empowerment of clients and normalization of mental health are ways to combat discomfort toward discussing sexual health issues with clients. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

This study tested whether participants exposed to a vignette describing an individual experiencing symptoms of depression, which included only the specific diagnosis label of "depression," would report significantly less stigmatized responses than participants exposed to an otherwise identical vignette which included only the non-specific diagnosis label "mental illness." The study is grounded in past research on stigmatization of mental illness and is informed by three theoretical frameworks, the social identity perspective, attribution theory, and labeling theory. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of the two alternate vignettes, then respond to a series of measures testing desire for social distance, negative emotion (affective reaction), beliefs about people with mental illness, and perceived dangerousness of the character in response to the vignette they viewed. The results showed that labelling the character in the vignettes as struggling with "mental illness" did lead to greater perceived dangerousness of the character described, although labelling did not lead to more stigmatization in any of the other measures. This research demonstrated that people tend to consider a character in a vignette as less trustworthy and more of a risk based solely on the label "mental illness." The experiment also tested if people who have had a personal relationship with someone who has experienced mental illness will have less stigmatized responses to mental illness vignettes, but no significant difference was shown. Overall, the results imply that use of specific language in communication labelling an individual as experiencing a mental health condition is less stigmatizing than non-specific language and may improve chances for successful treatment-seeking and future patient outcomes.