Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Mental Health Experience Of Transgender And Gender Diverse Colombians: Que La Diversidad No Cueste La Vida, María Natalia Acosta Canchila

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Experiences of TGD people in various countries reflect difficulties accessing mental health services and significant mental health needs. In Colombia, experiences in broader healthcare systems suggest various barriers to care that include experiences of discrimination. However, specific experiences in mental health services have not been thoroughly examined. The current study aimed to understand the experiences, perceptions, and needs of TGD people in Colombia in mental health systems. Qualitative data was collected via 40 semi-structured interviews with TGD people in Colombia, data was analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis. Findings suggests great mental health needs related to needing support in the process …

The Role Of Family And Peer Social Support Against Bullying Involvement Among Sexual Minority Latine Young Adults, Guadalupe Gutierrez

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Bullying is a significant risk factor for healthy youth development and functioning. Research on bullying has provided evidence that bullying involvement is linked to negative mental health outcomes for young adults; however, researchers have yet to fully explore the relationship between the different bullying statuses (victims, perpetrators, bully-victims) and internalized problems (anxiety and depression), and whether peer/friend and family support serves as a protective factor. In addition, a significant amount of research on bullying has been conducted in Europe and the United States but it remains limited in Latin American countries. The current research demonstrates that bullying is a significant …

Navigating Intersectional Identities: Mental Health Challenges And Accessibility To Mental Health Care Among Sub-Saharan Migrant Women In Morocco, Soraya Babahaji

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since the beginning of the 21st century, as Morocco transitions from solely being a transit point to Europe to becoming a destination country for Sub-Saharan migrants, policies have been implemented to improve migrant integration. Morocco launched the National Strategy on Immigration and Asylum in 2015 which strives to ensure accessibility to essential services for migrants, such as education, healthcare, and integration into the workforce. In addition, through the 2013 New Migration Policy framework, King Mohammed VI aims to “include avenues for regularization” to help migrants integrate into Moroccan society.

This paper addresses how intersecting factors of identity can lead to …

Inner Portraits, Bethany Salisbury

Graduate Theses

This paper investigates the many interconnected layers of women’s mental health through portraiture and how animal and plant symbolism can represent the way women's hormones and bodily health affect their mental health. I reveal how the artwork created presents these connections and inner mental health narratives to the viewer, creating a space of empathy, destigmatization, and self-reflection. This body of portraiture art connects five women through a series of both two-and three-dimensional portraits based on interviews using my own adaptation of Sara Lawrence-Lightfoots’ (1983) portrait methodology.

Women and non-binary individuals have always dealt with difficult interactions of bodily and mental …

The Effects Of Hormonal Contraceptive Use On Perceptions Of Social Stress In Women, Ashton Jones

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hormonal contraceptives are widely used due to their efficiency in preventing pregnancy. Although women are often informed of the physical effects of hormonal contraceptives, there is little emphasis on mental effects, such as increased rates of depression and changes in social perception. The current study examined perceptions of social stress among women before beginning hormonal contraceptives, and two months after using hormonal contraceptives. I hypothesized that women would experience increased social stress after beginning hormonal contraceptives, compared to a control group of women who were also assessed twice. Results did not support this hypothesis; there was no difference in interpersonal …

Campus Mental Health Service Use Among Female Survivors Of Sexual Violence: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Hannah Coffman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Description: Despite the increase in resources to address the alarming rates of collegiate sexual violence (SV), survivors consistently do not disclose or seek mental health treatment from campus supports (Halstead et al., 2017). The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of women who survived SV during college.

Method: Seven women who experienced SV during college completed a series of two semi-structured interviews using a HIPAA-compliant, web-conferencing software (Seidman, 2013). The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) framework (IPA; Smith, 2004; Smith et al., 2009). A six-step data analysis procedure identified …

“Para Nunca Más Vivirlo, Nunca Más Negarlo”: El Legado De Violencia Sexual Durante La Dictadura, Isabel De La Torre

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Research Question: What are the mental health effects of sexual political violence against women during the dictatorship and during the current socio-political movement?

Objectives: The general objective of this study is to identify how sexual political violence has been used in Chile against women and to analyze its consequences on the mental health of survivors. More specifically, this study attempts to investigate the mechanisms sexual political torture during the dictatorship and now, visibilize the unique damages to mental health caused by this type of violence, and analyze the dictatorial legacy in regards to sexual violence and the current socio-political climate. …

Black Women’S Wellbeing: The Intersections Of Race, Immigrant Status, And Mental Health Among African Diasporan Women In Houston, Texas, Sianneh Vesslee

African American and Africana Studies Summer Fellows

My central research question is: how has white supremacy impacted African Diaspora women’s mental health, access to mental healthcare, and identities as mental health patients in the United States as discernible in advertisements and state policies for psychological wellness? More specifically, I will investigate whether and/or how white supremacy shapes the ways in which advertising and state policies for mental healthcare address the particular needs of black women who immigrate to Houston, Texas from Lagos, Nigeria and Coahuila, Mexico. I choose those geographies because Houston is a U.S. city with one of the highest populations of black immigrants from Nigeria …

Mind Over (What Doesn’T) Matter: De-Stigmatizing Mental Health From Senegalese Women’S Perspectives, Jenna Marks

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As a matrilocal and collectivist society, Dakar is an urban space where the woman is at the center. With this in mind, it is possible to understand all the pressures women in urban Senegalese society face. Women are the center of the household, thus being responsible for the family, finances, and the social aspect of welcoming visitors. In addition to these factors, women in Senegal also deal with community expectations and responsibilities since there is larger emphasis on the community, rather than the nuclear family in Senegalese society. This paper examines how these two aspects of Senegalese society (matrilocality and …

Lgbt Student Experiences In Boston Public Schools: A Case Study, David Geyer

Honors College Theses

While the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community has overcome great obstacles in its fight for equality, the newest challenge has become the poor mental health of the LGBT youth. In this study, the experiences of a recently graduated LGBT Boston Public Schools student were investigated through qualitative research methods. Interviews with the student were analyzed to determine what factors contributed to his overall positive experiences and mental health as a bisexual student attending Boston Public Schools. The showing of support from his mother and peers, along with the presence of a Gay-Straight Alliance club at his school positively affected …

Diagnoses By Gender: The Consequences Of Treatment Of The Mentally Ill In Virginia Woolf's The Waves And Mrs. Dalloway 2016, Erika Nichole Jackson

Master's Theses

“Insanity is purely a disease of the brain…The physician is now the responsible guardian of the lunatic, and must ever remain so.” Sir John Charles Bucknill (1897)

Mental illness has consistently been and continues to be a subject that is viewed as taboo by society, especially when it comes to diagnosing a patient. Instead of acknowledging a person’s actions, thoughts, and words, society continually disregards mental illness as something that is negative and to be feared. The fact that this area of medicine can be difficult and distressing makes it all the more important to continue research. It is true …

Talking Mirrors: Experiences Of Older Transgender Adults And Culturally Competent Mental Healthcare Profes-Sionals With Talk Therapy In The Netherlands, Kate Cieplicki

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Historically, both the general population and mental healthcare providers specifically have misunderstood the transgender identity as pathological and unnatural. Despite persistent ignorance in the mental healthcare field about the background and needs of transgender adults, a psychoanalytic evaluation is required by the gender clinic for a transgender individual to begin the gender transition process in the Netherlands. This requirement creates a degree of tension and mistrust between the transgender individual and the mental healthcare field. Such discomfort is unfortunate because statistically transgender adults face more mental health problems than their cisgender peers, likely because of the stress that comes from …

Same-Sex Couples' Lived Experiences Of The Repeal Of The Defense Of Marriage Act's (Doma) Section Three, Alicia Anne Bosley

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Same-sex couples are affected by the social and political climates in which they live, as these create the difference between acceptance and legalization, and discrimination and prohibition, of their relationships. This contingence is made increasingly impactful by the privileges and protections afforded to married couples by the federal government; same-sex couples, along with other couples that choose not to, or cannot, marry, are excluded from these benefits. Following the June 26, 2013 ruling that Section Three of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, was unconstitutional, same-sex couples were given access …

Normalizing Abnormality: An Exploration Of Social Forces Driving Gendered Disparity In Rates Of Anxiety Disorder Diagnoses, Sara Tebeau

Senior Independent Study Theses

According to recent statistics provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (2013), American women are twice as likely as men to face diagnosis with an anxiety disorder. While there are existing bodies of sociological and feminist work theorizing both the social construction of mental illness categories and the historical pathologization of women, there is no contemporary dialogue centered on gendered disparity in anxiety diagnosis rates. In this paper, I contribute to ongoing discussion of neoliberal influence on the gendering of mental illness through an exploration of the forces contributing to disparity in rates of diagnosis with anxiety disorders. In …

The Co-Occurrence Of Multiple And Overlapping Demands Among Women Leaving Prison, Jennifer Jo Schweitzer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The findings presented in this thesis result from an analysis of the experiences over a three-year period of thirteen women recently released from prison, all of whom simultaneously struggled with severe physical and mental health problems, drug and alcohol addiction(s), and histories of trauma. The purpose of this study was to better understand the strategies women with these multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities utilized as they attempted to reintegrate into the community. This group of thirteen women is a subsample of a population of 41 women whose reentry experiences were the focus of a larger, longitudinal research project. The data consist …

Fatherhood And A Partner's Postpartum Depression: Coping, Relationship Satisfaction, Gender Roles, And Empathy, Martha G. Ruiz

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The present study focused on assessing differences in new father’s coping styles when living with a partner suffering from symptoms of postpartum depression. It further investigated whether a relationship existed between father’s coping style and their level of relationship satisfaction, empathy, and views on gender. Five fathers, between the ages of 27 and 46 volunteered their participation in this study. Fathers were recruited through their partners from medical and mental health clinics and agencies offering services to new mothers or mothers suffering from symptoms of postpartum depression. The Coping Responses Inventory (CRI) was utilized to determine if differences existed in …

A Preliminary Investigation Of Worry Content In Sexual Minorities, Brandon J. Weiss, Debra A. Hope

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This preliminary study examined the nature of worry content of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals and the relationship between worry related to sexual orientation and mental health. A community sample of 54 individuals identifying as sexual minorities was recruited from two cities in the Great Plains to complete a packet of questionaires, including a modified Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ; Tallis, Eysenck, & Mathews, 1992) with additional items constructed to assess worry over discrimination related to sexual orientation, and participate in a worry induction and verbalization task. The content of self-reported worries was consistent with those reported in prior investigations …

Changing Women In A Changing Society: The Study Of Emergent Consciousness Of Young Women In The City Of Akhmim In Upper Egypt, Hoda Youssef Fahmy

Faculty Book Chapters

We present in this issue of The Cairo Papers a broad spectrum of articles dealing with the children of Egypt and their families; each article has a research base in the real world of childhood and each in its own way sug­gests trends for further work in both research and applied areas in child de­velopment. Ciaccio's paper consists of an integrated set of recommendations based on action-oriented research sponsored by UNICEF- it is clear from a reading of his paper that the International Year of The Child is not simply another 'UN year' but rather a point of departure from …

Women In Development: The Intergrated Care Project For Primary School Children, Saneya A.W. Saleh, Suzanne H. Moubarak

Faculty Book Chapters

We present in this issue of The Cairo Papers a broad spectrum of articles dealing with the children of Egypt and their families; each article has a research base in the real world of childhood and each in its own way sug­gests trends for further work in both research and applied areas in child de­velopment. Ciaccio's paper consists of an integrated set of recommendations based on action-oriented research sponsored by UNICEF- it is clear from a reading of his paper that the International Year of The Child is not simply another 'UN year' but rather a point of departure from …