Prelims

Half Title Page

COLLEGE STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Endorsement Page

Drawing on recent mental health data collected from over two million college students, as well as decades of well-established scholarship in diverse disciplines, Dr. Hayes deepens our understanding of college student mental health, the well-documented increase in psychological distress on our campuses, and factors associated with both distress and well-being. The author is widely published in the field of mental health and psychotherapy and has taught and provided psychotherapy to adults and college students for over 30 years. This book will benefit faculty members, college mental health clinicians, supervisors, trainees and student affairs professionals who seek to understand and meet the needs of a diverse college student population navigating an increasingly complex world.

—Juan R. Riker, Training Director and Psychologist, Counseling and Psychological Services, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Drawing from his breadth of experiences in research and practice, Dr. Hayes delivers a critical update on the state of collegiate mental health and the unique challenges encountered by college students that impact their psychological well-being. This book is an essential resource for any clinician, practitioner, administrator, professional, or concerned other who directly works with college students.

—Brett E. Scofield, Ph.D., Executive Director, The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH), Penn State University – University Park, USA

This book is a clear and comprehensive summary of the state of mental health in college student populations. It is an excellent introduction to the topic for anyone who works with college students or for students themselves who want to reflect on their own mental health. The book goes beyond the simple headline that students are struggling; it reviews not only the challenges, such as anxiety and suicide, but also the many strengths and opportunities that support positive mental health. Professor Hayes is a leading teacher and researcher for this topic, and his plain-spoken and rigorous style makes for an enriching and engaging reading experience.

—Daniel Eisenberg, Professor of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, USA

Title Page

COLLEGE STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLNESS: COPING ON CAMPUS

BY

JEFFREY A. HAYES

Pennsylvania State University, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing

Floor 5, North spring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2024

Copyright © 2024 Jeffrey A. Hayes.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: www.copyright.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Author or the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83549-197-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-194-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-196-6 (Epub)

Dedication

This book is dedicated, with deep love and appreciation, to my wife, Dr Janet McCracken. You have provided unwavering encouragement, love and support throughout my career, and the time while I was writing this book was no exception. You have been both a fulcrum and an anchor for my own wellbeing, ever since you proposed to me, and probably beforehand. Your commitment to your own exercise and sleeping and eating and meditating and friendships and family and spiritual searching and our marriage reminds me of what is important in this life, and what is possible through and beyond it. “Should I fall behind, wait for me.” “We’ll make it through. We always do.”

Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

This book would not exist without the efforts of the most talented group of undergraduate students with whom a professor could ever hope to work: Nick Eppley, Julia Kokotakis, Lizzie Orosz, Ali Quade, Anna Riedinger and Julia Warren. I am indebted to each of you. You helped the ideas in this book come alive and you made working on it joyful. I cannot wait to see where your careers take you and what life holds in store for each of you.

Thank you to my editor, Kirsty Woods, and the entire team at Emerald Publishing, who attended to everything from the forest to the veins in the leaves on the branches on the trees. Kirsty, thank you especially for believing in my roots. To Dr Mary McClanahan – this book is better because of the love you devoted to it through your comments, for which I am grateful.

I would like to thank the thousands of college students from whom I have had the fortune of learning for more than 35 years. To my past and future students, I hope that by sharing with you some of what life has taught me, your lives are enhanced.

To my guides on different planes – Heather, Mary and Jon – I am filled with gratitude for your showing me how to search and pointing me toward what might be discovered at and beyond the furthest reaches of what I can only insufficiently call wellness.

I would like to express my admiration, thanks and affection to Drs Louis Castonguay, Ben Locke, Brett Scofield and the incredibly talented team of graduate students and staff at the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH). Much of what I have learned about college students’ mental health and wellness can be attributed to our work together. Ben, you had the vision, courage, fortitude and rich array of talents to lead CCMH out of the harbor, through occasionally rough seas and to distant lands, always with considerable diplomacy, grace and humor. Brett, you have proven yourself to be an able captain, leading without calling attention to yourself, always putting the best interests of the ship and the crew first. CCMH survived the change of command only because of you. Louis, you have been my scholarly brother throughout our time at Penn State, with all of the loyalty, respect, fun, vulnerability, inspiration, rights, privileges and honors thereunto appertaining. My life is immeasurably better because of you.

Finally, I would like to express gratitude to my children, Kyle, Casey and Joseph, for the balance you have provided throughout my career, for the lessons I learned parenting you, including the time you were students at Penn State, Ithaca College and Cornell, and for the immense rewards that have come from watching you grow into adults, evolve professionally and choose your own remarkable life partners. I love each of you beyond words.