Mental Health in India: Academic Spaces as Centres of Well-Being and Resilience
A college campus in Delhi. Photo: Karan Madhok
After a lengthy lay-off, Indian academic institutions have begun to re-open and welcome students back to campus. In interviews with students from around the country, Sadaf Vidha explores how visible and invisible structures in academic spaces affect their mental health.
The ‘Mental Health in India’ series on The Chakkar will look at various gaps in conversation regarding mental health issues in the country, from the effects of history, to current cultural speed-bumps, solutions for coherent policies for the future, and much more.
Academic spaces around the country are beginning to take tepid steps into reopening after the lengthy haul of distance-learning. But as much necessary concern these spaces need to place on the physical health of returning students, their mental well-being needs to come into the spotlight as well.
These academic spaces—colleges and universities and more—are supposed to be the centres of intellectual exchange, exploration and knowledge production. However, as we know, science has never been apolitical or neutral, and would always reflect the mainstream political thoughts of the time. The same applies to academic spaces, too—it might be reasonable to ascertain that these spaces often prefer certain identities or ways of being, and they struggle with the inclusion of thought that challenges the mainstream.
Interviewees spoke of the importance of green spaces, lawns, trees and animals to help them de-stress at the end of a hectic day… Canteens acted as community spaces where they would see other students and feel a sense of solidarity.
Since mental health is directly linked to important student outcomes like grades, job placements and overall performance, it is important to understand from real students how the visible and invisible structures in academic spaces affect their mental health, as well as to explore what institutions are doing well and where they need to improve in terms of structural elements that can foster or impair mental health.
I conducted interviews with a few people who had been students of psychology, journalism and development studies in the past. One of them is still continuing her PhD. The respondents, Prachi Pratap (a counseling psychologist), Ashita (a therapist), Lajya Nayak (a trainee psychologist), Tarika Narula (an educator), Abhinav Chakraborty (journalist) and Shruti (PhD student) spoke to me about the role of visible structures in academic spaces, like architectural elements, adjudging achievement, the stress placed on maximum attendance, the idea of an ‘ideal student’, and other factors. Most of the participants are currently residing in Mumbai but have been to colleges outside of it, like Manipal University, Asian School Of Journalism, National University of Singapore and TISS-Banyan in Chennai.
What came from the surveys is that students are definitely fraught with a lot of stress. As Pratap, says, “I used to struggle and still struggle with the highly complicated manner in which ideas are presented in academia and this same exclusionary idea is what one is supposed to follow to produce ‘good’ work.”
In a recent Instagram live by the Gaysi Family, Jo King spoke to Sumitra Sunder on the pitfalls of academia, especially concerning queer people and those who are gender non-conforming, and how these pitfalls impede not just the academic aspects, but even logistical aspects like getting approval and reimbursements. Speaking to my survey participants, I understood that academic pressures due to the course work are more or less common across the board. The pressure may come from course work, evaluation or how far or near one is from the ‘ideal student’ as needed by the faculty and the college environment. Some people are able to manage these pressures well, credited to a range of factors including a better command of language, an opportunity to read recreationally and otherwise before the course, having social and financial support, having possibilities of interventions and sometimes, or having prior experience with age.
However, many are insidiously affected by the presence, or absence, of certain architectural elements. As this meta-analysis on Mental Health and Architecture has argued, architecture does have an impact on mental health. Quite a few of our interviewees like Nayak, Ashita, Narula and Chakraborty) spoke of the importance of green spaces, lawns, trees and animals to help them de-stress at the end of a hectic day. Therefore, it is no wonder that these spaces can help cope with depression. Four architectural elements that help with mental health are: green spaces, open spaces, community spaces and safe spaces. The participants also spoke of how canteens acted as community spaces where they would see other students and feel a sense of solidarity. Ashita spoke of how her room, though small, was a safe space where she could just be, away from the pressures of academia. Chakraborty mentioned that he could acutely feel the difference in his MBA college from past campuses: the latter was vertical in nature, and with just enough space to move around, adding to a sense of claustrophobia.
Another big factor that induces mental health distress is the idea of a ‘good’ student. There are so many layers in this preference by academia. Often, this student is someone with heightened intellectual capacity, articulate and verbose, able, neurotypical, is able to give up important aspects like health and socialisation for deadlines, and does the extra bit in order to be valued by professors. The professors are just cogs in the wheel because the whole system is geared towards a certain ideas of achievement, which are especially challenging if one identifies with a marginalised identity (caste/class/gender/sexuality), is neurodiverse, or suffers from health issues or trauma.
As Narula, Pratap, Chakraborty and Nayak shared, there was a huge pressure on attendance, and long clinical and field hours we’re considered crucial. Ashita shared how English language help was given to very few and everyone was “expected” to know the works of Foucault and Freud. Shruti (doing her PhD from National University of Singapore) spoke of how one had to appear smart with the help of questions or comments you made in the class and your language was supposed to be “academic” in order to be taken seriously. With all of these conditions, how is learning supposed to be exciting, let alone a space of resilience and well-being? Nayak helped us understand the impact of autonomy, as she describes how being able to decide one’s own topics and assignments during her Master’s programme made them fun and engaging. Narula addressed how having the total evaluation score be divided into various methods rather than one big exam was helpful.
Combining the above insight on infrastructure and architecture with the idea of mental health support, Fiona Pepper in her essay wrote about what therapeutic spaces can look like so that they have maximum impact. Most colleges and universities have a counselling centre or promote certain helplines to call in times of distress. Pratap and Narula both stated that the centre was of limited help. Chakraborty mentioned how he never really saw the counsellor after she was introduced to them once.
Having worked in a school setup, I know that the presence of the counsellor is not enough. We don’t have the culture of identifying mental health distress and seeking support for it. Therefore, counsellors need to interact with the students in various programs and opportunities to normalise counselling.
The level of academic stress suggests that in order to be sites of resilience, academic spaces need to face the needs to students with nuance. Encouraging safe interactions amongst students would be a great safety net, as well as making mental health an important conversation on campus.
Icall, which is the psychosocial helpline started by TISS, in its 2015-16 report addressed that due to the number of calls they’d get for academic concerns, even from within TISS themselves, they did various collaborations and awareness programs for student mental health. “Calls and emails under this category (academic concerns) vary from information pertaining to academic programmes, study related concerns such as time management, difficulties in concentration, exam related anxieties like performance anxiety, and result related anxiety.” The report mentions that callers in this category would fall under the age group of 11-30. Therefore, academic stress starts early and stays till the time students do their PhDs.
This only highlights the important role of confidential support in the form of helplines and counselling support on campus. It is important to add that even the best-possible mental health support cannot make up for the inequality of preference that students face; campuses need to consider a change in their academic structure and how students are viewed by the faculty and other systems of academia.
Most of the people we interviewed highlighted how important it was that they had friends to whom they could speak, feel like they’re in the same boat with, and feel like they belonged. Therefore, architectural spaces like community spaces and open spaces are important as they foster connection. There could be challenges, too: Ashita and Shruti also spoke of how academically well-versed peers can pressurise others to keep up. This internal competition can stop the larger conversation that students and faculty need to be having with each other. While none of our interviewees went through bullying and ragging, it is quite a common occurrence and perhaps increasing each year.
How did the individuals use to cope with rising distress? While the interview questions did not ask this directly, much could be inferred from the responses by the participants, including socialising, playing with animals, conforming to the ideal student idea as much as they could, journaling, reflecting, seeking attentive teachers and therapists, or relying on food and substance. While the individuals displayed creativity and resilience, academic spaces should also conjure ways to foster a healthy environment and fill in the gaps for students’ mental health.
It was clear that some colleges and universities do feature helpful elements like green and open spaces, counselling centres, or a mechanism to incorporate student feedback. However, the level of academic stress suggests that in order to be sites of resilience, academic spaces need to face the needs to students with nuance and find ways to deliver and grade that are not elitist or neurotypical. Encouraging safe interactions amongst students would be a great safety net, as well as making mental health an important conversation on campus. An innovative way to do it maybe by taking innovation from “streettherapy” format used by a programme in the UK. Arts-based methods, especially dramas can be a conversation starter as well as help with healing. Architectural elements can be paid more attention to, especially the use of the outdoors as a classroom.
Given that we go to academia at a very crucial stage of life, where our identities are getting more crystalised, it is important that the elements around us foster our wellbeing and boost our self-esteem, rather than riddle us with hurdles that we feel like we constantly need to jump. Happier students will become happier workers, a youth of a nation boosted with nuance and a healthy curiosity for the world.
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Sadaf Vidha (she/her) is a therapist and researcher with five years of experience. She is interested in cross-disciplinary understanding of human behavior at the intersections of mental health, sociology, social justice and economics. In her free time, she likes to read, paint, bake and play with her cats. You can find her on Instagram: @shrinkfemale and Twitter: @randomwhiz.
