The Flourishing Student

Fabienne Vailes

Description

A set of simple strategies to raise mental health awareness, improve knowledge around mental health issues and stress in academia and develop emotional resilience and mental well-being among students.

INTRODUCTION

PART I – GAINING UNDERSTANDING AND CLARITY

Chapter I - Setting the scene - ‘Mental health’

Chapter 2 – Time for clarity and understanding – a need for mental health literacy  

PART II – THE IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION

Chapter 3 –Time for a new model?

Chapter 4 –A new model based on students’ stories

PART III – THE TUTOR’S OWN TOOL BOX

Chapter 5 –It all starts with you – the flourishing tutor

Chapter 6 –Your skills

Chapter 7 –How to bridge the student’s skill gaps?

WHAT NEXT

Sujets

• University
• Student life
• Resilience
• Tutor
• College
• Résilience (physique)

Informations

• Publié par: Practical Inspiration Publishing
• Date de parution: 12 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910056783
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published in Great Britain by Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2017
© Fabienne Vailes, 2017
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN (print): 978-1-910056-59-2
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-910056-58-5 (Kindle)
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-910056-78-3 (ePub)
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author.
Dedicated to my amazing and loving family and friends:
June, Bernard, Chantal, Louis, Lorraine and my wonderful husband and best friend Jason – without your support and help this book would never have happened.
And to my fabulous boys Thomas and Jack – I hope this Flourishing model serves and guides you throughout your childhood and beyond.
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks to:
First of all, this book would not have happened without all the prior knowledge and skills I acquired with John Seymour (of JSnlp) who taught me all that I know about NLP and in particular all the NLP techniques I have used in this book and Adam Dacey (MindSpace) who introduced me to Mindfulness and showed me not only how to teach it but also how to introduce it into my daily life. I am forever indebted to you both!
Alison Jones, my publisher for believing in me and in this book. Thanks so much for providing me with the support and platform to transform the dreams into a reality.
Professor Corey Keyes and Dr Stanley Kutcher for allowing me to use their work and models as a base for my work and for spending some time discussing this over Skype.
Colleagues and experts (in particular, Mark Ames, Sarah Ashworth, Jeremy Christey, Ed Davis, Laurie Leitch, Amy Lewis, Knut Schroeder and Dominique Thompson) who shared their thoughts with me and agreed to give up some of their precious time to share their insights into this fascinating and important topic of mental health in HE and/or to connect me with other specialists.
Students and colleagues who allowed me to use their stories to write this book. You know who you are and I am very grateful to you all!
You have enabled and inspired me to create this flourishing student model.
All my colleagues and friends in the School of Modern Languages and outside university who spent some time reading this first draft and giving me feedback.
Foreword
What an exciting, helpful and much-needed new book this is. In 2016 the Guardian newspaper reported that the number of university students dropping out of university due to mental health problems has trebled in recent years. This was based on data published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Following this, there has been much debate in the media about ‘mental health being the new university crisis’. I believe this book brings a much-needed balanced look at what is actually happening and how we can start to understand and address these issues using a practical and empirically sound approach.
Going to university is an important milestone in any person’s life and students often have expectations that it will be an amazing experience, rich with learning, full of fun and excitement, studying subjects they are passionate about, and that they will leave university prepared to start well-paid job. Whilst this may be true for some students, for many university students the reality is struggling to cope with the workload, lots of exams and assessments, expectations and pressures from others to perform and gain good marks, financial worries, feeling lonely and juggling the constant demands on time for study, work and personal commitments.
When Fabienne first contacted me to be interviewed for her book, I was really intrigued by her idea and keen to be involved. For me, it fills a much-needed void in the literature around teaching and working in Higher Education. Fabienne and I had an interesting discussion around the issues she raises in the book and how the model that I use in my work, Professor Steve Peter’s Chimp model, fits with these.
Whilst completing my PhD, I taught undergraduate modules and after completing my doctorate taught both undergraduate and masters level students. During this time, I was struck by how many of the students struggled to cope with the workloads and pressures of university life. What was concerning was that many universities struggled to identify this, or have the resources available to provide support to their students.
One of the many interesting aspects of this book is Fabienne’s discussion around our understanding of the term ‘Mental Health’ and examining people’s perceptions of language. It is really important to demystify what we mean by ‘Mental Health’ and help people to reframe their understanding. For example, the words ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’ often have negative associations for people. However, stress is a natural response that is meant to make us feel uncomfortable, it happens to prompt us that something is wrong and we need to act on it. If a student is feeling stressed about an exam, what is causing that stress? Is it an uncertainty of what the exam will entail? Is it a concern over how to revise effectively, or is it a belief that exams are stressful events? This book will help you explore how, by examining the cause of the stress, rather than being afraid of the ‘feeling’ of the stress response, you can start to help students put a plan in place to reduce the stress.
Fabienne uses Einstein’s quote that ‘Change starts with you’ in the book and for me this is really a key part of what this book is about. Similarly, in work with my own clients, the starting point is always to look at yourself. If you are in a good place psychologically, then you are much more able to be able to help other people. This book will aid you to reflect on where you are personally and your current understanding of your students’ mental health. It will also guide you through working towards having the understanding, awareness and a practical toolbox to be able to help your students to do well and flourish.
I hope that you will get as much enjoyment from this book as I did and that it helps support your work.
Dr Anna Waters
Psychologist at Chimp Management Ltd
CONTENTS
Introduction
Welcome to The Flourishing Student
What is the aim of this book?
Why a book on mental health?
Why a book on HE in particular?
What is this book about?
Who is this book for?
How to use this book
PART I – GAINING UNDERSTANDING AND CLARITY
Chapter 1 – Setting the scene – The current state of student mental health in the UK’s Higher Education
The general picture
What about student health?
Why are students reporting getting increasingly stressed?
The issues with our language uses of the words ‘mental health’
Mental health – a definition
The confusing impact of multiple negative modifiers
Why so much negativity?
The language we use matters
The importance of standards and measures
Labelling psychological disorders
The danger of labelling oneself and others
The difference between behaviour and identity
Becoming aware of the stigma around mental health
The rise of mental health awareness
Chapter 2 – Time for clarity and understanding – a real need for mental health literacy
The different stages of mental health and why it matters
What’s the difference between a disorder and a normal stress response?
Clarification – for whom are the interventions in this book suggested?
The stress response – what happens in our body
The stress response – an issue in the 21 st century?
Why stress is good for us
The stress vulnerability model
The stress bucket
Factors of influence on mental health – biological (genetics) and environmental (epigenetics), cultural and social
The good news – neuroplasticity – our capacity for change
What does it mean for the HE sector?
Important final points to consider
PART II – THE IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION
Chapter 3 – Time for a new model?
Emotional, mental, physical, social, spiritual health – always kept separate
What if they are all a ‘continuum’ – Corey Keyes’s model as an exemplar
The mental health continuum: from languishing to flourishing in life
What is a flourishing student versus a languishing individual?
WHO’s definition of health and link with the new concept of ‘flourishing student’
Chapter 4 – A new model based on students’ stories
The flourishing student model
The university as a garden
The environment
The roots
The stem
Life and academic skills
The head of the flower
Emotional health
Mental health
Physical health
Social health
Spiritual health
Openness
Curiosity
Flexibility
Resilience
Language
How we communicate
PART III – THE TUTOR’S OWN TOOLBOX
Chapter 5 – It all starts with you – the flourishing tutor
How is your mental/physical/social/emotional/spiritual health doing?
Your role – not in isolation but part of a whole
How to create a community instead of an ‘institution’ which fosters resilience, diversity and student voices
Chapter 6 – Your skills
Listening skills and empathy
Time
Confidentiality
Know your limits – what to say, not to say
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries – do you know where to refer your students?
Guiding rather than leading
Can you recognize what is going on with your tutees?
Chapter 7 – How to bridge the student’s skill gaps
Conscious incompetence versus unconscious competence
How to bridge the gap between know