"The Grind Never Stops" Mental Health and Expectations of Productivity in the North American University
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3614745 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A Wiley (0000-0001-6540-9307, University of Guelph, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 65 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Anthropologica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0254-9212 • E-ISSN: 2224-6428 |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press (PUBLISHER • CA) |
| DOI | 10.18357/anthropologica65120232035 |
| OpenAlex | W4387122625 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 28 |
Using a critical phenomenology approach, I explore how the neoliberal social context of the North American university produces normative expectations which both interact with and pattern student experiences and understandings of mental health struggles in this environment. The data I analyze comes from semi-structured interviews with 24 university students between 18 and 24 years of age who self-identify as experiencing mental health struggles, as well as participant observation at university wellness events. In this context, both students and the university understand wellness as the ability to maintain constant academic productivity. While university wellness programming promotes goal-oriented individualized "self"-care as the gold standard for attaining and maintaining wellness, students often view self-care activities as unproductive, instead prioritizing academic productivity over subjective well-being in striving to maintain an image as the "good" student. I argue that understanding mental health in this way both causes and exacerbates harm, introducing the conceptual contrast between "Student Wellness"-academic success-and "Human Wellness"-subjective well- being-as a means of understanding how university attempts to increase wellness often support neoliberal agendas to the detriment of their students' well-being
Context (archaeology) · Economic growth · Harm · Mental health · Normative · Political science · Productivity · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout · Law · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Psychology · Social Psychology
Distressed or De-stressed? Crafting “Mental Health” in University Peer Education and Health Promotion
Well-being in a productive world
What's in a Name? Psychiatric Concept Creep and the Moral Legibility of Student Suffering within the Canadian University Context
What Crisis? Competing Narratives of Mental Health in US Higher Education
The Bubble-Bathification of Self-Care
A continuum of "normal" experience
Phenomenological Approaches in Anthropology
The changing drivers of medicalisation
Biomedicine, neoliberalism and the pharmaceuticalisation of society
Academic Ableism
The myth of mental illness.
"I Love Learning; I Hate School"
Improvisation and authority in illness meaning
Psychological distress in university students
Bipolar Expeditions
The Harmony of Illusions
Concepts and a model for the comparison of medical systems as cultural systems
Speaking "Truth" to Illness
A real rollercoaster of confidence and emotions
Disclosure and the Double Bind Processes of Students with Disabilities in Institutions for Higher Education
The Mindful Body
Anthropology and Psychiatry
Neoliberalism
Neurasthenia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and the Medicalization of Worry in a Vietnamese Psychiatric Hospital
Health Identities and Subjectivities
How Do I Code for Black Fingernail Polish? Finding the Missing Adolescent in Managed Mental Health Care
I'm Not Your Typical 'Homework Stresses Me Out' Kind of Girl
Critical Phenomenology and Mental Health
Autism, "Stigma," Disability
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |