Finding support for mental health

Winthrop has made a plan to address mental health on campus with the creation of two counseling groups. These two groups focus on shyness and social anxiety and eating disorders. Two Winthrop psychology officials, Dr. Kwabena Sankofa and Jessica Hudgens, are working with these two counseling groups to give support and offer treatment to students suffering from these mental illnesses.

Dr. Kwabena, a psychologist at Winthrop who runs the Shyness and Social Anxiety Workshop, believes that social anxiety is a mental illness that can be treated and would help a person socially if they were able to take steps to overcome the illness. Kwabena says there are different factors, environmental and genetic, that can cause social anxiety.  

The Shyness and Social anxiety Workshop focuses on teaching participants of the workshop how to cope with their illness.

“The facilitator will be utilizing cognitive-behavioral and cognitive therapies. Workshop’s interventions will focus on the remediation of anxious thinking, challenging catastrophic thinking, explore strengths and promote positive traits of participants, strategies for changing negative thoughts, learning effective listening skills and assertiveness skills. These learning approaches will be applied in concrete and practical ways through in-class practice and home assignments,” Kwabena said.

Anxiety tends to be one of the more common mental illnesses in college–aged young adults. However, it is important to overcome or work through one’s social anxiety, according to Kwabena.

“…it is important that students, as citizens of campus life, become a vital part of the fabric of this social and academic community, to feeling wanted and belonged.” Although social anxiety is a mental health problem, it, like many other mental illnesses, can lead to physical health problems as well.

“Social anxiety is associated with substance abuse and anger, just to identify a couple.  Substance abuse can contribute to the completion of suicide. It can lead to drunk driving, therefore the potential for DUI and possible vehicular accidents that lead to loss of life.  Anger predisposes one to impulsive and passion-induced reactions that can lead to physically hurting others with the use of a deadly weapon,” Kwabena said.

Dr. Kwabena notes that it is very important to seek help and support if one is suffering from social anxiety or shyness. The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workshop is open for any student. There is no fee to participate in this workshop, and meetings are held on campus in 114 Crawford.

Another therapy group formed at Winthrop is run by Jessica Hudgens, focusing on eating disorders. This group differs from other counseling groups in that it is known as a bibliotherapy group.

“Bibliotherapy refers to the use of written materials to help clients gain insight in therapy and can be utilized in individual or group settings. While we’re referring to this particular counseling offering as a ‘book group,’ it actually involves a variety of written materials…,” Hudgens said.

Eating disorders statistically affect young adults at higher rates than older demographics.

“Eating disorders certainly have a higher prevalence in the young adult age range, 18-24, than in the population at large, approximately 21 to 30 percent vs. 10 percent,” Hudgens said.

Hudgens also notes that eating disorders affect males too, as many people tend not to acknowledge. Hudgens says that eating disorders among male students has increased over the last decade, showing that approximately three to four percent of college males suffer from eating disorders.

There is no known undying cause of eating disorders, currently. However, there are multiple theories that give possible explanations as to why eating disorders may occur.

“Recent research has shown strong genetic heritability in eating disorders, especially in anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder. This is, of course, confounded by environment and upbringing and learned patterns of behavior if you grow up in a house where a parent or sibling has an eating disorder. Stress and trauma tend to play roles in development of EDs [eating disorders], since, at their core, they are attempts to cope with emotions that would otherwise be overwhelming…,” Hudgens said.

Eating disorders are known to have the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness, thus making it important to seek help if one is suffering from this illness. To get involved in this group, you can contact Jessica Hudgens directly.