Category: Me Myself and I

The Self in the Social World

Who a person is, including influences from their environments, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs, helps to form the concept the self. It is the small and unique interactions with others in the social world that helps a person to define his or her self (Fiske, 2014). Social influences contribute to the development of people from early on in life, and help to influence such attitudes and both personal and professional identities. One interaction during childhood may affect future social perceptions. According to Kaiser, Oerke, and Bogner (2007) through the developmental stages, social interactions and behaviors influence a person’s attitude, perception and social reactions within their environment ultimately affecting individual’s self-identity and how one places themselves within a social group.

According to Fiske (2014), a person’s identity affects development in all aspects of life: school, family, work, and friends. These interactions and experiences help to define the role everyone plays in each aspect of life. how one see’s themselves or their cognitive representation of one’s self within a group, comparing themselves to others social failures and successes, cultures and opinions will affect one’s development in school, work, family, and friends.

My Radius

The importance of the environmental identity in predicting pro-environmental behaviors has already been demonstrated by studies showing that this concept predicts recycling of self-perceptional concepts throughout developmental stages (Bertoldo & Castro, 2016. p.2). It is during a child’s earliest stages of development in which a child’s parents or primary care givers provide the most significant development to the self. For as long as I can remember, I have always been a daddy’s girl. I grew up in a very different environment. My parents owned their own business, so we struggled in all aspects of the word: financially, distance from schools, routines, etc. My parents worked extremely hard for what we had, and they let us know it. I understood the value of a dollar at a young age, and have grown up to appreciate those life lessons. My mother dealt with all of the customers and the accounts, whereas my father did most of the grunt work. When he was younger, my father lost the majority of his hearing because of an illness. Being a member of a family of a person who is hearing impaired is difficult. It creates a sense of attachment that others may not understand. My father, with all of his faults and failures, was my hero. It was his work ethic and sense of values which had the most profound impact on my life, even in my early childhood. My dad instilled a sense of independence and self-reliance in me that helped my self-esteem to increase.

Upon entering adolescence, the dynamic transferred to my mother becoming my primary influence. Understanding what I was going through during the hardest times in my life, created a relationship that helped to find my self-identity and further develop my concept of self. My mother provided a safe environment allowing the development of self-identity as a female. Erikson’s theory of psychosocial developmental influences explains how bonding with my mother at a pivotal age, affected a view of femininity development throughout life stages (Svetina, 2014). This being said, my mother wasn’t perfect and was unable to offer the influence of independence or high self-esteem. As I grew older, I began to develop a low self-esteem, which ultimately affected every aspect of my life. Relationships with friends and men, choices I made, everything developed because of my lack of self-esteem.

To seek outside influence on development, it became necessary to reach out to others outside of my general family circle. Adolescence became harder, and a difficult fight to develop the desired self-perception emerged. The perception I had of others and the expectations they had for me and I had for them, really caused an internal uproar. With a father who believed in tough love, and a mother who was oddly always happy on the outside and willing to give a person anything, there was a constant tug between both sides of my parents and the overall influence they had on my development. At this point in my life, the feelings of not being accepted by anyone where I laid my head, the outside influences were easily accessible and helped to define certain concepts of the self. According to Svetina (2014), development is influenced by driving forces of internal conflict influenced by the external environmental factors. During this time, the effects of childhood became a distant memory, and the influence of friends and other outside influences became primary to development of adolescent years.

In my case, I chose the influence of what would soon become my two oldest children’s father. A very unstable person with unstable beliefs, values, and morals – I chose to follow him and his influences to round out my adolescence. With verbal and physical abuse within the relationship, my self-esteem plummeted and the concept of the self that I had worked so hard to achieve, was diminished rapidly.

Verbal Messages

The internal or dispositional traits versus external or situational attributes vary minute to minute throughout life. Individuals take previous experiences to determine how others attributes will hinder or help one’s path of success or failure (Reeder, Vonk, Ronk, Ham & Lawrence, 2004). A person’s self-concept can definitely be affected by verbal messages presented throughout life. I have been called so many names by so many people, that have considerably affected my self-esteem negatively. Hearing, “Oh, she’s just a screw up!” or “That’s just Liz for you,” has the ability to tear a person down and create a decreases sense of self. But in the same time, it can also create a sense of fight and strength for a person to push on and prove everyone wrong. And eventually in my life, that is what I did. I got to the point where I knew, deep down I knew, that I was not the person that people assumed I was. One day, I decided I wanted to go back to school. With three children, I started back at a community college, just to get my feet wet. I realized that my passion was nursing, so I quickly joined the CNA program. After three months, I was a Certified Nurse’s Assistant, working at a long-term/short-term facility. I fought back. I decided that I had to stop letting others influence my development, I had to stop letting others influence my self-esteem. I had to stop letting others create me, when I was capable of creating myself. By this point, the people who mattered the most had nothing but positive messages, praising me for the person I was becoming.

A person can develop any self-esteem they deem necessary when faced with negative and positive remarks. Fortunately, because environmental influences are constantly evolving, this self-esteem is temporary. As I chose my reaction to negative comments, I chose to fight the words and prove them wrong, knowing that I was in control, and I could break the cycle. The resilience developed from situational experiences becomes a dispositional trait over time strengthening the fighter inside and solidifying the positive perception of self (Reeder et al., 2004).

Attitude Development

In psychology, an attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular object, person, thing, or event (Gans, 2017). Attitudes are often the result of a person’s experiences or the impact of early influences in his or her life. It is the attitude that can have a powerful influence on a person’s behavior and actions. According to Kaiser, Oerke, and Bogner (2007), environmental interactions causing reactions at an early age, allowed parental figures and care givers to instill the correct perception of what is culturally acceptable beliefs and behaviors.

Being raised with a high respect the older generation has continued throughout life. Holding doors for people, jumping out of the car to help an elderly person cross the street – these are all natural responses due to the parental and authority-type influences during my early developmental stages. With older generational customers constantly coming in to the store, I was taught phrases such as “yes ma’am” and “no sir” in response to questions. Talking to account holders on the phone when they called to talk to my father (who remember, is hard of hearing), taught me to understand my audience when I spoke to them. I was taught that it was the older generation who provided for us, so it was our turn to provide for them. This idea also encouraged a very close relationship with my grandmother, especially as I grew older.

According to Fiske (2014), utilizing social comparison to develop current attitudes in all aspects of life is imperative to social development. Comparing that of a seasoned, experienced person, to myself, helps me to work on becoming a better person.

My Professional Identity

A professional identity differs from a personal identity in which individuals compare to others in their professional world. As we go through the social world we get to meet different people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse characters. Through such interactions we learn and develop within us certain virtues that will dictate our future. As the saying goes, we are the average of the people we spend most of our time with. As people around us fail or succeed, the perception of the role played, helps to define my professional identity. Where individuals place themselves on the hierarchy of professionals is influenced by the desires and aspirations of the young child and grows throughout adulthood (Bertoldo & Castro, 2016).

Individuals developed expectations professionally as well as set personal goals for professional acceptance. Watching family members, loved ones and people admired fail and succeed, influenced how one approaches professional situations as not to repeat the unsuccessful attempts by others, and learn from their mistakes. Professional identity continues to evolve as one experiences different interactions and search for the perfect fit in an ever-changing society where the social norms are continuously changing (Bertoldo & Castro, 2016).

A couple of years ago, my father became unable to work. My mother, who had lessened her role in the business, had to quit her nursing job in order to take care of my father. With mixed emotions, my parents sat me down and handed me over the business they had created, maintained, struggled with, was their blood, sweat, and tears, and had established as a reputable and honest company. I valued my parents beliefs and values as business owners, and utilized their influences during my childhood and adolescence years, to become a successful small business owner. My father’s tough love as a child, helps me to be a strong, independent woman, especially when an account is late with a payment or is being difficult. My mother’s giving and happy disposition allows me to build great professional relationships with my customers. It is their effects that have influenced my professional identity the most.

Conclusion

The concept of self is something that initially becomes influenced before a person is even born and ends with the ending of a person’s life. It is constantly being influenced by the surrounding world, the individuals one comes in contact with, the situations a person is thrown into, and the impact of the crashing when the individuals and the situations combine. Individuals come and go, but each person creates a lasting mark on a person’s identity. External environmental interactions impact the internal focus of control and perceptions developed taking into consideration the situational and disposition attributes towards social influences (Bertoldo & Castro, 2016). As I further make my way through the developmental stages of life, who I was, who I am, and who I will be, will constantly evolve and change, affecting the concept of the self, the self-esteem, and further my self-identity.

One professor said that “Existence is too difficult without a reason.”.

Let me be honest with you, I will not try to solve the biggest life questions in these several pages.

Who am I, to talk about something that goes beyond my wisdom as a 20 years old student. Adding to that, I can’t even brag about my impressive life story, because I don’t have one. But if I would have one, it would at least help me to convince that my words have some weight. That’s how people put weight on their words, right? You have to escape from crocodiles jaws in Africa, survive a plane crash, become a millionaire or suddenly start Bhikkhu practises in order to make people listen attentively. So what is the topic I want to talk about? I’m deeply interested in the reasons behind people’s search for the meaning of life. As I said before, I will not solve the never ending philosophical discussion, but rather try to look at the reasons why we – human beings, are consciously looking for purpose in this world.

Eat, sleep and repeat

Let’s take the human being as the outcome of evolution. The main motivators for survival are hunger, fear of predators which results in run or fight mechanisms, sleep for rest and multiply to leave offsprings and extend genes. But what’s the evolutionary explanation for our cognitive capabilities which sometimes may lead to overthinking or the philosophical mind that brings up fundamental questions. Why should human beings even think about something like the purpose of life? What if people would stop doing things that don’t have advantages for survival? Is the thinking about our existence what makes us different from animals? Besides, what is the explanation for altruism? There is still an ongoing discussion whether the reputation management or inclusive fitness – focusing on the gene transmission, could be the reason for altruism. But both motives look weak for me when thinking about altruistic actions without rewarding reputation incentives or helping those who are not our friends or family but rather an enemy. The book “Social psychology” suggests the motives for altruism as follows: social reward, personal distress (when in order to avoid feeling bad you help those in need) and empathic concerns. But let’s take an example and put these theories into practise. I will ask you to use imagination again, now the background is warzones, where soldiers helps their enemies. Doesn’t sound like a smart idea, but the story of Private Desmond Doss showed to the world that sticking to your beliefs can be stronger than the fear of death. “Facing heavy machine gun and artillery fire, Doss repeatedly ran alone into the kill zone, carrying wounded soldiers to the edge of the cliff and single handedly lowering them down to safety. Each time he saved a man’s life, Doss prayed out loud, “Lord, please help me get one more.” By the end of the night he had rescued an estimated 75 men.” (Mike Miller, 2017). This man’s story attracted the newspapers, the media and even hollywood. The soldier that never wanted to touch the gun still voluntarily went to the army to serve his country. He sticked to his values and saved lives, non discriminating if they s were a friend or a soldier fighting against his country. To hold on to these beliefs in the most extreme situations requires strong self-control and determination and I think a feeling of purpose makes it possible.

A couch potato

Can we live without thinking about deeper questions? Yes, no doubts! Actually our society stimulates us to live hedonistic and materialistic lifes. The overwhelming mass of youtube videos, Netflix series, TV shows or scrolling through social media makes it easier to kill time in front of the screen. Without all these activities young people find themselves dying from boredom because they don’t know what to do with the free time. We can see that also in older adults, even if they more frequently spend their free time working extra hours or taking care of the family, household tasks, thus leaving no space for self conscious thoughts about the meaning of existence. Although seeking for happiness and satisfaction is one of the main drives in humans life, like one of the Aristotle’s quotes says: “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” Does that make us think about the purpose of our existence? Well, the philosophers reading ancient literature till they have grey hair and tired eyes don’t look like the ones who found the secret of happiness in life. Nonetheless the cross-sectional study conducted by Bronk, Hill, Lapsley & others, showed that indeed there is a positive association between having identified purpose in life and satisfaction during adolescence and adulthood. However what their study also found that searching for purpose in life is associated with greater life satisfaction in adolescence and emerging adulthood, but not in adults.This might be because one of the main adolescence features is identity search, therefore personal purpose is an important component in development before becoming an adult. Erik Erikson in his book “Identity and the life cycle” claimed that for healthy personality growth the active search for purpose is even necessary. It might be the case that if you leave a couch potato without any unnecessary distractions, it will become a conscious potato that reasons ‘what would I do if there would be no couch?’

Me, myself and I?

Does this existential problem just appear in modern countries, where egocentrism is all around us? In the lecture “Depression in different cultures” philosopher Pius Mosima tried to explain the african worldview stating the moto “I am because you are, since you are, therefore I am.”. He also noticed that in african languages there is no word for depression and even if the person feels somehow ill, the community will help to recover. In other words, when there is strong connections with community and society, there is no place for egocentric focus on just the own good. Maybe our generation is lost in the competition about who is the best. Already from a young age we are placed in a certain environment, with certain rules and always someone to tell us what to do – parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches , tutors, priests – anyone who can, will tell you how to live, what to be … Later we start to work – here again: we are playing by the rules of the employer. Like sheeps we can’t find green grass by ourselves and would starve in the desert without a shepherd. On the day when we decide that we no longer want to play by fixed rules, we come to realisation that what we do may not be what we want to do. The psychiatrist and founder of the third school of Vienna, Viktor Frankl also noticed that in the society of first world countries there is no instincts or traditions that would tell what to do when there is enough of everything to satisfy the basic needs. When young souls are lost, even don’t know what to wish for, then does what others do (conformism) or what others wish him to do (totalitarianism). What I also see is the huge influence of globalisation and mixture of cultures on people’s identities. When you belong to a group, you have responsibilities and that gives you a purpose. Nowadays our thinking is more self-concentrated and the paradox appears – as more open-minded we tend to see ourselves, our minds actually are around our own good.

The symbols in your blood

Humans are really interesting creatures. We know our history of thousands years and now as never before we have technology, evolved medicine and it seems that most of what’s possible to imagine is already created. Nevertheless our social and political thinking is pretty much the same. We still have wars, kings or government, we create families and communities. And spiritually – we have religions that some of them doesn’t change over the years. It’s fascinating how we come up with the same ideas with people in different part of the world? Let’s say we never spoke with a person, we even speak a different language and live in totally different environments, read different books and watch different ted talks. Now just imagine, how is it possible to have the same symbols in the dreams as the alchemists were investigating thousands years before? It seems like independently from the time and place humans share something more than just the genes or history. One of the most popular theories of Sigmund Freud is the unconscious in the personal nature, where the id, superego and ego share the responsibility for some behaviors that cannot be explained by conscious decisions to act in a certain way. And Carl Jung goes even further: he introduces the theory of collective unconsciousness, the part of unconsciousness that is not individual but rather universal. The main evidence for that was dream analysis of his patients. For some, this findings may look foolish, but Jung claims that dreams are the only doors to the unconscious world. He found that in some dreams people see the repeated symbols that were existing long time ago. The patients never read ancient literature neither had an interest in old symbols, so how could they actually dream about it? Jordan Peterson also reasons that if our brains stores the ancestors memory that may also influence our building blocks for values systems. If psyche has history and all human beings share the same beginning, that could answer why we still deal with the same main questions about life meaning. Maybe the drive to seek for the purpose is written in our DNA.

Listen to your heart – they say

What they really want to say is – listen to your feelings. We have emotions for a reason and those are signals for us to understand the external and internal world. A lot of inner dialogues causes emotions, for example release, fear, happiness, uncertainty and so on. Frankl in the book “Man’s search for meaning” highlights young man’s suffering from inner emptiness – existential vacuum. He says that inner conflicts are not always a pathological phenomenon, they can even be achievements if they grow out of existential frustration. How can psychological and emotional suffering be an achievement? Perhaps it can woke up from the state of latency, from the couch potato phase. It motivates to move forward. When the uncomfortability from the inner tension appears, I believe, there is a bigger chance that a man will improve in his development, form new skills and mature in cognitive reasoning. To illustrate continuing tension Frankl (1992, p. 110) uses the metaphor of polar field: “where one pole is represented by meaning that is to be fulfilled and the other pole by the man who has to fulfill it.”. While I feel that harmony is important for mental health I somewhat agree that the tensionless state might lead to the inactivity. For this reason striving and struggling for desired goals, a freely chosen task can temporarily cause the emotional disturbance but in the end it will pay off. In contrast Steger, Kashdan, Sullivan & Lorentz in their research introduced theories for the search of meaning that aren’t that positive such as symptomatic of dysfunction. “Baumeister (1991) and Klinger (1998) have suggested that the search for meaning only occurs among individuals whose needs have been frustrated.” However their own study showed the correlation between tendency to search for meaning and some personality traits such as openness, tender mindedness, absorption, drive, artistic and investigative interests, alo propensity to ruminate over past experiences. These findings opens another discussion whether the personality characteristics plays a crucial role why some people search for meaning and others don’t.

So can we just stop overthink and start to think?

Having a purpose woud explain some really altrusitic not advantegous actions of people. Having a meaning makes you more satisfied with the life. Self search and explorative part of the life leads to the search of meaning. development of life main schemas includes the persons place in the world. Collective conscioussness tells something about the roots that we cant explain and maybe humans have inborn instinct for searching his reason of existence.

Discussion

The primary objective of the current study was to explore the level of awareness, access and usefulness of university mental health and wellbeing services in postgraduate taught students at University of Aberdeen. Secondary aims were to investigate students’ attitudes around help-seeking behaviours and to formulate a deeper understanding on taught students’ needs.

The results indicated that most psychology taught students were aware of a variety of mental health services. Specifically, the highest frequencies of awareness were reported for AUSA, University Counselling Services, Multifaith Chaplaincy Center, Nightline and Personal Tutor. In contrast, only small proportion of students were informed about the Feeling Good App and Resilience Videos. These findings are consistent with previous studies which had focused in PGR student population (Prentice,2019).

With respect to the access in university mental health and wellbeing services, just under half of taught students (45,5%) had asked for support from university mental health resources, while 54,5% of the respondents had never accessed any type of available university services. Whether past researches demonstrated that postgraduate students had turned mostly to AUSA for psychological support (Prentice,2019), this study has shown that postgraduate students preferred to ask help from a Student Support Advisor or use some type of online resources. Considering that the current research took place during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is reasonable to assume that more students turned to online resources, because they were accessible from a distance.

Through the current study, researchers also tried to understand how helpful or not helpful postgraduate taught students have found the existing mental health and wellbeing services at University of Aberdeen. Only a small proportion of students evaluated their experience with the services. That seems reasonable given that over half of the total had not accessed the mental health resources. From the students who had used a type of services, most of them mentioned that the experience with online resources and Student Support Advisor was positive. AUSA has also been rated as a “helpful” service by an appreciable proportion of respondents. However, only one person admitted that they had used the service. This can either mean that some people omitted to give an answer about access or that the answer “helpful” indicates some students’ assumption and not a personal experience with the service.

On the other hand, Self-help book loans and Disability Advisors were rated by most participants as “not helpful” services. However, some participants replied to the question, “did you find the service unhelpful?”, without answering if they had used it. As it already mentioned earlier, there are two possible explanations for this paradox. One interpretation of this finding is that some students had misunderstood the question about usefulness expressing their arbitrary belief about a service they had never used before. An alternative explanation would be that some student chose not to reply the question about access to mental health services. The number of respondents who evaluated their experience was significantly small, thus the results do not represent the general population and are not generalisable.

In contradiction with earlier findings which demonstrated academic anxiety as the main area of mental struggle among postgraduate students (Prentice,2019), the present study shows that the majority of students reported common mental health issues, such as general anxiety and depression as their top areas of difficulty. The second most reported area of struggle was academic anxiety, while only few students reported interpersonal issues, loneliness or traumatic events as their first area of difficulty. The difference between the studies is likely to have occurred due to the different way of gathering the data. Specifically, in the current research, students were allowed to choose only one option from a multi-response item, while in Prentice work (2019) participants had the option to choose more than one area of mental struggle. Additionally, the studies focused on different postgraduate student populations, which may have affected the results.

Comparing to the global prevalence of mental health conditions (https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health), the present results demonstrate that the frequency of common mental issues in postgraduate taught students is significantly higher than in general population. Almost 60% of the respondents choose mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders, as their first area of psychological difficulty. High rates of mental health conditions were observed in many previous studies, with some of them focused in non-UK student population (Levecque, Anseel, De Beuckelaer, Van der Heydan, & Gisle, 2017; Stallman & Shochet,2009). However, the current study includes only a small size of taught students and do not meet the criteria for a prevalence study (Naing, Winn & Rusli BN, 2006). Thus, the results only indicate frequencies and percentages in a specific sample, and do not represent the general taught population.

Concerning attitudes around mental health, postgraduate taught students were asked to rate their confidence, knowledge and embarrassment about issues around mental health and help-seeking behaviours. From the results, it becomes clear that the majority of respondents felt very confident to manage their mental health issues or to support a friend facing mental health problems. Additionally, most participants believe they are well informed around mental health issues and find extremely important the ability to understand issues related to mental health. In terms of experiencing embarrassment about mental health issues, most frequent answers were “slightly embarrassed” and “reasonably embarrassed”. In contrast with the present study, previous findings in PGR student population (Prentice,2019) demonstrated that students mostly feel “quite embarrassed” about experiencing psychological difficulties, they have an average amount of knowledge around mental health and wellbeing and they show a moderate level of confidence in handling their areas of mental struggle. An explanation of the difference between these two studies is that the sample of the previous study consisted of students from ten different fields, while in the present study all participants were psychology students. Considering this fact, it reasonable for psychology students to report higher levels of confidence and knowledge around mental health and wellbeing issues than a sample of general taught population.

Study limitations

There are several limitations which should be taken into consideration when interpreting the findings of the present research. One main limitation that should be noted is the size of the sample. The number of participants was significantly small, and it does not represent the general postgraduate taught population. Additionally, participants were selected from a single department (School of Psychology), thus there was not variation in the sample. Another important limitation comes from the self-reporting questionnaire. The research is based on peoples’ perceptions on mental health, therefore there are increased chances of personal bias. Individuals opinion depends on and can be affected by a wide variety of biological, cultural and psychological factors. Although anonymity was guaranteed to protect participants and to minimise the chances of social desirability bias, the chances of bias are still high due to the lack of other data methods (Althubaiti, 2016). The initial plan was to collect qualitative and quantitative data and then compare the findings. However, due to the pandemic outbreak and time restrictions this plan was unfeasible. Another thing that someone have to consider when interpreting the results is that ordinal and nominal scales were used. That means that even though participants reported their opinion, they may have been limited by the possible available options (Bishop & Herron, 2015).Lastly, considering that there are no other researches about mental health awareness in postgraduate taught students , the present results are compared to findings in other student populations. For all the above reasons, the results should be read and interpreted with caution.

Future research directions

Αlthough the current research had explored the mental health awareness of psychology postgraduate taught students extensively, further studies are required to formulate a holistic view on taught students’ unmet needs. The present findings should encourage other researchers further investigate students’ perspectives on mental health and evaluate the already existing university resources. In terms of future directions, researchers could include larger samples with greater variability in them. Additionally, due to the time restrictions, researchers did not have the chance to gather and analyse qualitative data properly. Thus, it would be useful for future researchers to use a mixed-method design to gather greater depth of information (Almalki,2016). Collecting and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data will minimise the chances of bias and will allow comparisons between the results leading to richer information about students’ psychological needs. Through the present study, a variation in perceptions around mental health and help-seeking behaviour was detected. As previous studies have already highlighted in other populations (Cheng, Kwan & Sevig, 2013; Mackenzie, Gekoski & Knox, 2006), attitudes around mental health and demographic characteristics such as gender, age and culture can have a great impact on intention to receive psychological support. Therefore, further studies could focus on how these factors can influence postgraduate students’ willingness to seek support.

Possible implications

The broader goal of this research project was to address possible barriers in seeking- help behaviours and understand better how students can overcome them. Through the present research, a gap between awareness and access to mental health was revealed. Despite that most postgraduate students seemed to be well informed about the role of mental health and wellbeing resources, the proportion of respondents who accessed a type of services was significant small. Given that the majority of students reported experiencing a mental health difficulty, it is contradictory that only a small number of students have asked for support from university mental health services. Attempting to bridge the awareness-access gap, researchers are planning to communicate the findings of the survey with university students through sharing leaflets. Additionally, another future plan is to publish the findings in a special forum to give public the opportunity to be informed about university mental health services, the challenges in seeking help and the benefits of receiving psychological support. Lastly, it is hoped that the research findings will be presented through a poster within the University of Aberdeen to inform the staff about students’ needs. This action may enhance positive chances in the way mental health services are delivered.

Key Recommendations

Embracing the development of culturally competent services

Mental health services should be equally accessible by the student community, regardless of someone’s religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation. Diversity in university population reflects in diverse psychological needs. Thus, cultural competency should be promoted within higher education. The term “cultural competency” refers to the ability of mental health practitioners to provide services appropriate to individuals’ cultural context (Bhui et al., 2007).Students who belong to LGBT community, come from different ethnic background or even postgraduate students facing unique struggles and often feel that their needs are being ignored. According to Hughes and Spanner (2019), this fact can discourage students from seeking support or drop out after the first appointment. Thus, it is necessary for support staff to be properly trained in order to be able to show cultural understanding and to respond effectively in students’ enquiries.

Developing further the Whole University Approach

The idea of the Whole University Approach it is emerged from the belief that there is a wide range of genetical, psychological, social and learning factors that can impact on students’ wellbeing. Focusing in only one aspect of students’ life would be probably inadequate. Gulliver, Farrer, Bennett & Griffiths (2019) suggest through their work that a holistic approach would probably be more effective for students than an individual one. Through this holistic approach, higher educational institutions are seen as “health promoting environments”, which aim to promote students and staff health, prevent mental illness from occurring and support people who already struggle with any type of disability. It is necessary for universities to work as safe social networks, providing students the opportunity to access mental health services, engage to their curriculum and connect with their community. Additionally, the whole university approach supports the collaboration between different university mental health services in order to promote service users’ wellbeing (Hughes &Spanner,2019). Moreover, the links between HEIs and NSH domains become stronger to promote students and staff wellbeing (Office for Students, 2019; Thorley,2017).

Increasing availability of university-located mental health services

As it has already highlighted in previous literature, students may be discouraged from seeking help because of the long waiting lists. When people need support, they usually seek for a direct respond to their query. However, mental health services are almost never available at the same time with students’ request. Through the last years, an increased demand in university mental health services was observed which led to longer waiting periods. Specifically, according to the Institute of Public Policy and Research (Thorley,2017), the vast majority of UK universities reported an significant increase in demand of Counselling Services (94%) and Disability Services (86%).In the present study, many students reported that, if they had the power to make changes to the university of Aberdeen, they would had made the campus-services more available to the student community. Additionally, another suggestion for improvement was the increase in the number of university counselors. It was highlighted the importance of an easy and fast access to the existing resources. Possible solutions to deal with limited availability is to minimise the waiting time for appointments, especially for urgent cases and increase the number of counsellors or broaden the time the services offered.

A Factorial ANOVA was utilized to determine whether there was a difference in the participants’ self-image relative to sex and companion and the interaction of both variables on self-image. Based on the results, data exhibited no significant difference in self-image scores when grouped according to sex and companion, as well as on the interaction between sex and companion.

For the first main effect, it was shown that males and females form a similar self-image. There may be differences in the way they see themselves independently but this does not necessarily mean that those differences are significant. Other studies with similar focus concluded by giving the respondents an opportunity to describe themselves with the use of a checklist and narrative which underwent content analysis for self-defining characteristics that both males and females presented different narratives based on their gender-typed selves but still, both sexes have similar self-concepts where self-image is a component of (Shaw & Edwards, 2009). In addition, in the study of Bleidorn, Arslan, Denissen, Rentfrow, Gebauer, Potter, and Gosling (2015), it was discussed that one factor that may contribute to similarities in self-image among male and female adolescents is that in many cultures, most individuals acquire knowledge and become adept at life tasks or achieve goals that are relatively alike. Examples of these tasks or goals would be graduating or enrolling in school. Such developmental milestones can refine or divert paths through modifications in effect, behavior, cognition, or context, which are all relevant to the development of self-image in an individual.

The relational self is defined by our significant relationship with other people which includes siblings, friends, or spouses. In simple terms, self-concept is a collection of beliefs one holds about himself and the response of others. With the second main effect, it was shown how being with a companion (family and friends) has little effect on how individuals see themselves. There was no difference in how second-year students form their self-image even when exposed to situations where they are either with their family or friends. According to Manis’ (1955) research, he explored the assumption of how individuals see themselves similarly from the collection of other beliefs. Self-descriptions of the first group were compared with the other group and there were changes predicted but even with how the result turned out to be, the assumption still offered partial support on how self-concept which self-image is a component of is no different from other beliefs. Furthermore, Manis’ research emphasized how self-image, no matter who he or she is with is still constant and the same. To add, Gunnardsdottir (2014) stated that various studies showed closely related results wherein family and peer attachment are both significant in the development of self-image for adolescents. Thus, making clear that the adolescent’s direct environment impacts self-image the most.

Given that both main effects showed no significant difference, this has contributed to the results showing no significant interaction between sex and companionship on self-image. This can be supported by the study of Gunnardsdottir (2014) which stated that both family and peers are equally significant and have a closely similar impact on the self-image of an adolescent individual. It was also highlighted in the study that although female adolescents recognized more peer support compared to male adolescents, the results still manifested no difference in self-image relative to sex.

Did you ever wonder what shapes a person? Well, I will tell you what made me, well me. It all started in kindergarten when my mom said, “Let’s go to the park”. I run and get hit by a jeep. That showed me life can easily be taken, no matter what. Later in life, I found someone who later in life will mean a lot to me. This makes me feel happy knowing I have someone who can mean a lot to me and who cares for me as a best friend. This will lead to us becoming very good at video games and help me remember when I first played video games and how happy they made me.

How did all this shape me? I’ll start with the accident. When I was younger in kindergarten, it was my second to last year there and my mom came from work and picked me and my siblings up. On our way out of the building, she told us we can go to the park for a little. As an energetic child, I was so happy, and when we got outside, I looked left and realized it was too late and the black jeep hit me, lucky I only sprained my leg. I remember my mom crying putting me in the back of our car and calling the police as the jeep drove away into the distance and my shoe in the street with blood filling it. I obviously went to the hospital, and at a young age, I realized how cruel the world could be and how anyone can die even on days that seem like nothing bad can possibly happen.

If we jump a couple of years forward until I’m in the fourth grade. This is the time when I had lots of friends and was part of the ‘cool kids’ in the school. I didn’t care for a title or reputation. I just liked the kids I hung out with. We always played games together and played outside in the schoolyard. One day I was playing on my PlayStation with three of my friends. When Tyler invites a random person to join and I and the random best buds do not realize we went to the same school the next day our friend Tyler, the one who invited him, introduces us. I and my newfound friend hung out every day and always talked. When we got to 7th grade he went to another school and I still talked to the old friend I had. In 7th grade, it felt different. I realized how they truly were not my friends; they just wanted me around. I stopped talking to them and moved to the table where the ‘non-cool kids sat’ and felt like the people there were nice. We all became best friends and I continued talking to them and Michael, my friend that Tyler introduced me to. Michael and I became very close over the years, still talking to each other.

Meeting Michael was a good thing and we continued to play lots of games over the years. I and Michael got very good at games and recently talked about our first games. This made me remember the day I woke up seeing my dad playing World of Warcraft and he told me it was fun. He then allowed me to try the game. The game was amazing. I loved it and spent lots of hours playing it and adapting to the game at a very young age. This makes me who I am because WoW was a fantasy MMORPG game and that is my favorite type of game to play. This also helps me think of strategies and just helped me be aware of everything overall. Gaming made me very happy, and at a young age, I realized I was very good at video games and continued to stream and make YouTube videos playing video games, most of them containing adult language because of the games and Michael. I enjoy playing games and spending time with Michael and everyone else in my life.

In conclusion, I think all of these made me the person I am because I am a very funny person. I always overthink things. I’m good at starting and coming up with conclusions about things. I am a very caring person and hate to see others hurt and hate to see people being used and hurt mentally and physically and I sometimes hate myself for things I do. I recently realized I can’t really control things. I just hate the things I do and I need to start to stop hating things that are unstable and I can’t control. But meeting Michael, gaming, and getting hit by a jeep made me the caring, funny, over-thinker, and fantasy-loving person that I am. No matter if no one can change who I am or who you are, and I can care less for people’s opinions, I can never be changed and I enjoy never being changed as long as I can spend time with whoever is the dearest to me and I will be a happy person.

Self-awareness is the ability to separate ourselves from the people we associate with, along with the world that we live in, so that as individuals, our decisions, and preferences are understood by ourselves (Howell 2019 p3). Self-awareness comes from our ability to recognize our self-analysis, having the ability to observe the way we interact, and behave, along with being able to understand our emotions.

Our self-awareness can be obtained through four specific ways, our behavior, personality, attitude, and our perception.

Our behavior is controlled by the way we carry out our process of thought, along in the way we act. Our personality is based mainly on our social factors, such as our lifestyle, and environmental factors, such as the things around us on a day to day basis. Our attitude is the way in which we interact, that can be shown through speech or even our emotion, based on how we feel at the time. While our perception is being able to understand situations, and how to deal with them. This is different for each individual, because as individuals we view things from a different perspective.

In relation to myself, and my behavioral modes, I have reflected on the way I think, act, and interact with others to gain a deeper understanding about my own self-awareness.

My behavior is very well expressed based on this, as I am an open and engaging person, however it takes time for me as I need to get to know someone to be more open when interacting, which then explains how I always am respectful, and act sensibly around others, always thinking before acting.

My personality comes from the people I associate with, and also from my family. Being exposed and educated by my parents on how to act and interact has made me who I am today, making me believe that someone’s upbringing is what makes them. In relation to my traits, I show to be a caring, and understanding individual, being happy to assist in situations and support people, explaining why I have a close bond with my friendship group, as we are all similar in traits.

In relation to my attitude, I am not the type of person to really show my emotions and the way I am feeling too often, and usually only do so with the people I am close with, especially my family, as their assistance, and guidance allows me to over come anything at that time.

From watching Erik Zimmer’s ted talk, he discusses his difficult times, and how he was able to change his life for the better. He focuses specifically on three things, take small continents, concentrate your armies, and make treaties and alliances. From Zimmer’s explanation I saw take small continents as a way to work and change something at a steady pace, so that you are able to complete it, and not rush, as you may lose focus on the end goal. In relation to my behavior, I could focus more on selected things I want to improve on, and work on it slowly rather than rushing. Moreover, concentrate your armies, told me that I should focus on completing something effectively, instead of trying to complete multiple things at once, as it will not have a greater effect, this inter relates with take small continents, as you focus on that change so that in the long term it is more effective, and not just something you said you will accomplish. Finally, he discussed, make treaties and alliances, to me this meant spend more time with people, and also family, and work on relationships to be closer with people around you. This would adjust my behavior, as it would allow me to be more open with people and express how I feel easier.

Overall, focusing on specific ways of self-awareness, along with Erik Zimmer’s approach has been very guiding, and assists in being able to express, and work on my own behavior, with his approach of taking your time, and try focusing more on one thing at a time, allowing myself to reflect on how it is adjusting the way I am.

The theory regarding self-awareness tells us that the first step in every problem, is admitting you have a problem. Therefore, according to Bolak, B. (2016), in order for the individuals to understand own behavior is by paying attention to their thoughts and feelings that could be the reason why they behave in a certain ways. Moreover, Jack and Smith (2007) demonstrates that self-awareness involves an individual’s characteristic regarding their thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

As result, it helps people to identify their strengths and weaknesses which impacts positively by allowing a chance of improvement in the areas where the person feels the need to be improved Croston and Jack (2016). Thus, an understanding of who we are as individuals could help a person feel empowered to make changes and improve their skills. Additionally, regarding the emotional intelligence, it is clear that if one can be aware of their own emotions, self-awareness can be restored and will benefit Individuals to be able to gain self-confidence when dealing with others (Billington, T. 2013). Also, Sego (2018) highlights that mindfulness is a key aspect to bring awareness of people’s emotions and help them understand their feelings in the moment.

Mindfulness can be defined as a way to focus attention in a non-judgmental way on any experience occurring in the present moment (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). The study indicates that mindfulness based intervention is powerful because it gives an opportunity for the individuals to accomplish self-care actions most useful to them. As student nurses we are advised to practice mindfulness in order to be able to establish the dynamics of nurse-patient relationship in relation to self-care as it is a key concept to improving the well-being of the individuals by tailoring it uniquely to meet the needs of each service users and their perspectives Ref. As a results, mindfulness is another valuable way of coping mechanisms leading to a healthy mental health of health care professional and nursing students as it helps decreasing stress and anxiety and promote an increase awareness of the present moment rather than concentrating on the past and future (Koren, M. E.2017).

Moreover, Kelly & Tyson (2016) demonstrate that mindful attention is about engaging with the present moment with the service user and it helps nurses not to disengage while engaged with the service users. In addition, Jennings and Apsche (2014), state that radical acceptance establishes the aspect of mindful awareness to the individuals by helping them to be fully aware of their immediate present experience and accepting themselves as they are in the moment without judgement. Mark L.Tapper (2016) refers to radical acceptance as a means considering yourself and the situation and observing it as it is without any judgement or alteration. However, in nursing perspective Radical acceptance does not involve endorsing a patient’s viewpoint but it simply means meeting patients where they are, not where you imagine them to be. Radical acceptance means understanding we are all doing the best we can.

Reflection

This self- reflection is going to focus on how I have developed personally in terms of understanding the importance of self-awareness within the therapeutic relationship during a two days retreat I attended. My duration at the retreat had helped me developed positively as a person. The self-practice and giving and receiving feedback exercises are the main key concepts that played a magnificent role to make me more self-aware.

The study shows that self-awareness is a continuous process whereby an individual is conscious of their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, behaviours and attitudes (Pieterse et al 2013). During self-practice activity and giving and receiving feedback exercises I have found those moments challenging and stressful because of having to present self-descriptive to the group and also having to write a feedback and giving it to the other people who were beside me. More importantly my aim was to give an honest and respectful feedback. Foster et al (2006) suggest that treating others with respect and building trust is valuable to nurse-patient relationship in mental health nursing practice as our responsibility is to help service users develop a positive sense about themselves through therapeutic relationship.

Therefore, the two exercises got me to engage in thinking critically and be conscious about what to write up about the other two people. According to Chen et al (2017), it is clear that in mental health nursing thinking critically is a necessity for safe and profound clinical practice because it involves critical thinking skills such interpreting information or analysing it appropriately. It was then that I became curious and anxious about how other people would think of my attitudes and behaviours and how it could have impacted on others. That was vital for me because I reflected on how the service users must be feeling to share their deeper feelings especially while they are in a state of mental health issues. Johns (2009) demonstrates that reflections is to think, meditate on ponder and it is an effective strategy that help healthcare professionals to understand that it is through their experiences they could be self-aware. Jack & Miller (2008) argues that self-awareness is the key aspect because when an individual person becomes self-aware, it helps them understand self and gain the ability to know their own strength, limitations and emotions in order not impact on the therapeutic relationships when working with people experiencing mental health issues. Therefore, I became aware that developing good communication skills is important to encourage therapeutic relationship in relation to nurse-patient relationship. I also realise how essential good communication skills are for the nurses to be able to deliver quality care for patients and to enable nurses to understand the service users’ difficulties. Dowd (2018) demonstrates that communication is a crucial aspect of nursing practice because it is an interaction on an individual’s level. It may also help improve the patient’s overall sense of well‐being and satisfaction that they are in a safe place where they un-judged (Doherty and Thompson 2014).

Therefore, the activity was fulfilling as it helped me realise how important it is to think about other people around me items of my attitudes and behaviours. Through those two activities I have learned that I need to work on my communication skills, and be more self-aware and always be mindful of my own behaviour around other people. The feedback I received from my classmates was important to me. I reflected on it and found the positive meaning from it that would help me make a way forward to become a nurse that would be mindful of promoting therapeutic relationship with the service user. Paterson & Chapman (2013) suggested that reflection is an important part of learning from experiences. According to Meller et al. (2017), reflection helps nurses to make sense out of an experience, and it leads to an improvement in practice.

As a results it had helped me to acknowledge my own strengths and weaknesses.

According to Lambertz & Blight, (2016), assertiveness is vital in mental health nursing as it is the ability of an individual to express their opinions truthful and openly about others, however, he indicated that while the nurse is expressing emotions and thoughts, it is our responsibility as nurses to still show empathy and the ability to respect the individuals to allow more open communications.

Reflective practice can enable professionals to use an experience to learn about themselves, their work, the relationship between the personal and the professional, and the wider society and culture (Bolton, 2014). Therefore, self-care strategy is essential when taking care of others in order to provide a good quality care. According to Chow & Kalischuk (2008), nurses who apply self-care are mostly prepared to deliver high quality care to the service user. Additionally, Watson (1997) emphasises that it is essential that nurses care for themselves to be able to care for the patients. Research also demonstrates that factors that can impact positively on a person’s health such as getting an adequate sleep, maintaining good physical health and relationships are important and contribute towards helping others to gain confidence in their ability to cope well in other situations (Bhingardive and Sivabalan 2017).

This experience has helped me learn that reflections play a significant role to encourage me to examine and explore my behaviours, thoughts, feelings and the attitudes that I was never aware off before I became a student nurse. As a result from that, I can now identify my own learning needs and make some judgements in areas where I need to develop more and set up some achievable goal to help me succeed in my nursing carer. I have learnt how vital it is adapting to good communication skills and learning from the senior nurses through observing as they care for the service users and meeting their healthcare needs. My plan is to value the concept of self-awareness and apply it into my daily living and in my nursing carer to become more professional in my nursing career. Also being mindful of radical acceptance in order to acknowledge reality that being self-critical about myself.

References

1. Bhingardive, S. V. & Sivabalan, T. (2017) Job Stress and Coping Strategies Adopted by Employees Working at Private University Asian J. Nursing Edu. and Research 7 (3), 341-344.
2. Bolton G. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development (4th edn). London: SAGE Publications; 2014
3. Billington, T. 2013 Promoting self-awareness through reflective practice British Journal of Nursing, 2013, Vol 22, No 1
4. Chen, S., Chang, H. and Pai, H. (2018) ‘Caring behaviours directly and indirectly affect nursing students’ critical thinking’, Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 32(1), pp. 197–203
5. Croston, M. and Jack, M. (2016) Self-awareness and HIV nursing: HIV Nursing 16: 47–51
6. Chow, J. & Kalischuk, R.G. (2008) Self-care for Caring Practice: Student Nurses’ Perspective. International Journal for Human Caring 12 (3)31-37
7. Doherty, M. & Thompson, H. (2014) Enhancing person-centred care through the development of a therapeutic relationship. British Journal Of Community 19 (10), 502-507.
8. Dowd, C. P. (2018) Communication is a two-way street: Leadership. British Journal of Nursing 27 (3)
9. Foster, K., McAllister, M. and O’Brien, L. (2006). Extending the boundaries: Autoethnography as an emergent method in mental health nursing research. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 15(1), pp.44-53.
10. Jack K, & Miller, E. (2008) Exploring self-awareness in mental health practice. Mental Health Practice 12 (3) 31-35.
11. Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. New York, NY: Delacone.
12. Kelly M. & Tyson M. (2016) Can mindfulness be an effective tool in reducing stress and burnout, while enhancing self-compassion and empathy in nursing? Mindfulness. Mental Health Nursing, pp 12-17
13. Koren, M. E. (2017) Mindfulness Interventions for Nursing Students: Application of Modelling and Role Modelling Theory International Journal of Caring Sciences e 10 | Issue 3| Page 1711
14. Meller, N., Blythe, S., McNally, S., Glew, P,. Hughe. & O’Reilly, R. (2017) New Graduate Job Applications And Interviews: The Role of Higher Education Facilities for Student Nurses and Midwives. 25 (2).
15. Rasheed, S. Self-Awareness as a Therapeutic Tool for Nurse/Client Relationship. International Journal of Caring Sciences, January-April 2015, 8(1), p.211.

Self-Awareness is the process of examining the personal strengths, weakness, and emotions which are very significant for the person which are required to be a success in all and sundry concepts and facts of our life even it be the personal matter or social. As when we come to relate the self –Aware with leadership, it helps the person to become a leader of own self because if the person can lead our self by differentiating the positive and negative attitude towards any person or work and then to analyze the concepts to evolve the positivity and release the negativity. Despite that when the person will be self-aware, one could be able to judge another one’s attributes towards dealing with anyone, which is one of the specifications of the leader to have an idea of the other person’s level of dealing at first glance.

The feasible method of self-awareness is to believe and understand our self by inspecting the satisfaction toward the work that it could be accessed easily and precisely. Sometimes one does not examine our self owing to the fear that it will disappoint us because of our mistakes which are absurd and also led one to the failure. Removing the mistake is another way of getting the easy path to success. Thus, it is important to understand comfortable or uncomfortable and think about yourself that what you are because it’s not a matter of good or bad, however, it is the concern to analyze ourselves.

There are some paths to proceed for self-awareness such as the sensitive line of the person which enlightens about the level of the sensitiveness of the person to endure the critical concerns and situations and increase Its as much as can because the sensitive line is directly proportional to the positivity and dealing manner of the leader. Further, Emotional intelligence is another factor of self-awareness which is the ability to recognize the emotions to dictate our reactions to situations, issues, and comments of other people and influence them by these factors. Another thing is that one should be aware of its value so that you can believe your accomplishments towards the goals with an appropriate method by which one can determine the goal and its value to understanding the importance of it achieving. The cognitive style of self-awareness is the way of processing the informational data with the tendency of a person to collect data to proceed and work on it to accomplish the goal. It is to analyze the requirements and deal with it to inspect whether it is fine or it requires some sort of changes and molds it as required by the appropriate method of alterations. The orientation toward the changes in the process of analyzing the ability of person towards comfort to handle the critical situation by examining the responsibility of the control over the work or situation. The Core Self-Evaluations is one of the specific parts of self-awareness in which the person inspect our self and develop the skills to perceive, believe, and achieve the requirements of goal as well as the goals. One evaluates that what he/she wants to be and how it could be possible to achieve it.

In a nutshell, As when it comes to my knowledge that I acquired from these objectives, Self-Awareness is the prominent factor for developing our skills of being a leader in our self as well as in future terms of life. I am implementing all these facts to analyze my strengths weaknesses and emotions towards my work and life goals which are giving me the precise and feasible path towards them and I am feeling more comfortable as compared to the situations of the past. I am increasing my sensitive line, emotional intelligence, personal values, cognitive style of working, orientation towards changes, and deriving core self-evaluation to have profound self-awareness which would assist me to become a good leader in the future by having these skills. For instance, if I am working somewhere as the leader of a group, there I can handle it by having such skills because of its importance of understanding the strength, weakness, and emotions of myself as well as of my team by which I will get the control on my team and work precisely. It will reveal my unique personality among others and enhances my job satisfaction level.

The case study was very interesting and very realistic as to how people deal with on the day to day basis. It is imperative that we understand not everyone is obese because they have an eating disorder some, really deal with health issues that cause obesitys and other problems. I found it interesting how this disease causes several disorders due to the type of cancer involved. I have had several friends or and family members not all have dealt with this type of disease (Thyroid Cancer) but, several have endured some type of Cancer obviously causing different issues in the body. I can appreciate the tenacity, that she is wanting to help people obviously, experiencing the same pain and despair, offering empathy, sympathy and patience.

A Minimum of Five Diverse Groups You Belong To

I am an African American woman who is well-rounded and proud that I can honestly say, I am an open person to each culture, wanting to obtain clarity. Joining the variety of groups is a positive approach to expanding the way people think or process information. I think the best way of getting to know people and how they work is to incorporate yourself in their life. I am apart of a couple of groups: 100 Black Men of America, Be Someone, Inc., Teams & Groups, Ellenwood Academy & Books with Friends. I think giving back is important thus, understanding the way people in groups and individually process information. These groups though interesting in their own way also bring different needs and wants of the people.

Significance of Belonging to The Diverse Groups

Being an African American woman, I thought it was necessary that I serve as part of the community when it comes to educated, assist, assemble and discipline the young men in Atlanta and world wide that they may understand the significance of them being able to adapt and understand the core principals in life which are education and ownership. Even though 100 Black Men of America is obviously governed for such however, the community is also positively affecting all races. It has given me the opportunity to understand how certain ages of men process information and view certain obstacles and has a heart for the people by having clothes and food drives which embodies all races collectively. Be Some, Inc. helps me with my patience and love towards children and the variety of personalities, the aforementioned has guided me being fully available, active and present in the needs of these children from, teaching them to play chess to summer activities and being able to let go and enjoy the laughter and diversity of the children. I believe in having the ability to understand the diversity of the culture of the program and how children do not see color or a race to determine their reactions to life, the innocence. In all of the groups I am a part of I find it refreshing that I can bring something different to each group while, leaning new ways to approach the diverse groups and ages.

Assumptions Others May Make About You Based on The Diverse Groups You Belong To

I think that when people in these groups first met me, they may have thought that I was not retable or privileged even. I do carry myself in a certain manner thus, some may feel that I am not approachable however, once they get to know me and how informative I am, with the passion to help other their demeanor changes as does their conversation.

Current Safeguard In Place To Reduce The Likelihood of Ethical Concerns Arising in Research

I think the safe guard for the ethical concerns would be to incorporate the APA ethical guidelines, as it provides a guide to the professionals as to how approach situations and what is considered unethical and unacceptable when seeing clients. As a professional it is imperative to fully comprehend the diversity of groups and the best approach on how to have a healthy dialogue, a bridging the gap.

How These Assumptions Affect Your Own Self-identity

In summary, although the concept of identity formation is believed to apply to individuals across cultures, it is evident that universality does not exist in its development—whether in terms of timing, quality, progression, or psychological correlates. The findings clearly suggest that identity achievement is not necessarily the endpoint of development in all cultures, not even in all Western cultures. Healthy identity development during adolescence may be best viewed as a fit between personal needs and cultural demands ( Fiske, 2014). People, opinion of me is none of my business and I do not think it affects my own self-identity because I am clear as to who I am.

Conclusion

Things are not as it always seems to be, people sometimes look through a focused obscured lens for things in which they wish to see. On the daily basis I and others deal with situations that are not easy and some individuals om the outside looking in, may see something different never understanding or tying to comprehend what effects of the situation. It is vital that getting clarity is the first approach in order to asses situations effectively.

References

1. Fiske, S. T. (2014). Social beings: Core motives in social psychology (3rded.). Danvers, MA: Wiley

Introduction

Self-awareness is defined as “an individual’s ability to understand one’s feelings, even as they change from moment to moment.” (Abrahams,2007). self-awareness refers to the person’s potential to become an object of one’s own attention (Duval &Wicklund,1972), in which the person actively identifies, processes, and stores information about the self. Which means it is an awareness of one’s own mental state like perception, sensations, emotions, attitudes, and intentions. According to (Gowing, 2001; Jacobs, 2001 Macaleer and Shannon, 2003; Zuckerman et al.,1976; Mirvis, 2008) self-awareness involves understanding the appropriate emotional responses to situations by extending the base of emotional recognition that leaders possess.

The Johari window model is a simple psychological tool that is used for demonstrating and improving self-awareness and providing mutual understanding between individuals within a group, it is an information processing tool. Johari window is created by the two psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955. This tool is mostly used for understanding and training self-awareness, and personal development, and improving communication, interpersonal relationship, group dynamics, and inter-group relationships. This model is a very great and useful model because it can be used in a variety of environments and situations and also due to its simplicity. The Johari window represents information like feelings experience, knowledge skills, attitude, views motivation, etc. Within or about a person in relation to their groups from four perspectives

In the Johari window, there are four different quadrants: open/free area( what the person knows about him/herself which is also known by others), blind area(what the person is unknown about him/herself but others are aware of), hidden area(what the person known about him/herself that others are unaware) and unknown area(what the person is unknown about him/herself and is also unknown by others).

1. Open/Free Area – Known to self
2. Blind Area – Not known to self
3. Hidden Area – Known to others
4. Unknown Area – Not known to others

Quadrant 1 (Open or Free Area)

In this area, the information about the person like their behavior, attitudes, experience, feelings skills, and views are known by the person and also known by others /groups

The open area or free area which is also known as “the arena” is the space was good communication and cooperation occur free from distraction, misunderstanding, confusion, and conflict. The open area can also be increased or expanded by reducing the hidden area when the person discloses/reveals information about him/herself to group members or to another person.

Quadrant 2 (Blind Area)

In this area what information others know about the person is unknown to the person him/herself. This blind area is not productive or effective for individuals or groups. This area could also be defined as the area of ignorance of oneself. The group members can help the people to reduce their blind area by conducting feedback solicitation which is done by understanding and listening to the feedback from another person, in this way the open area can be expanded horizontally by decreasing the blind area.

Quadrant 3 (Hidden area)

This area is what the person is aware of him/herself but is unaware of others. Here the hidden represents the person’s information, experience, hidden agendas, manipulative intentions, feelings, etc. Anything that is known to the person about him/herself is not revealed to others. This area can be reduced through disclosure. People should reveal their information at the depth that they personally feel comfortable with.

Quadrant 4 (Unknown area)

This is the area where the person is unknown about him/herself as well as others. The person will be unaware till they discover their hidden qualities and capabilities by observing others. large unknown areas would be expected in younger people and people who lack experience and self-belief.

Limitation of Johari window

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks to the Johari window. For example, some people may pass on unwanted information that they received than desire, also there are some things that are better not to communicate with others ( for example, large failures, sexual behavior, mental health problems).and some people may react negatively, and aggressively.

My personal learning

The class started with an interesting ice-breaking section where, Veerapandian sir presented a video of a dance performance with four simple steps and asked students to make three groups and imitate the same steps in groups, which was really fun. After the ice-breaking section, we moved to the next task in which each student was given a small sheet of paper and was asked to write each other’s qualities. Also, there was the instruction that only when the task finishes the students can go through their sheet and check what all qualities have others written. After the task finished, we got 5-10 minutes to go through the sheets. I was very curious to check what others have written about me and when I read it, I felt very excited that some of them have written some qualities that were unknown to me, also some qualities of mine which I was already aware of.

Later Veera Pandian sir started the academic session with a new chapter of understanding the self. He thought us about what is Johari window model and its four different quadrants. When sir was teaching the 4 quadrants of the Johari window, I was able to compare those qualities that others have written during the task to each of the quadrants. For example, someone wrote I am very innocent which I was unknown, this was in my blind area which I came to know through the feedback from others. After this session, I got the most awareness about my strengths, and weaknesses and also some new information that I was unaware of.

Professional learning

From this class, I gained much information about the Johari window which I can use with clients who have difficulties with their personal development, interpersonal development, to improve communication, etc. I can use this model to make people aware of his/her strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats through feedback solicitation. Feedback solicitation means sharing information such as feelings, opinions, experiences, and motivation on an individual or group basis.

Even I can use this with a group of people to develop mutual trust among group members and within myself, by broadening the open space and being continuously aware of this, the mutual trust with others will increase. The hidden area and blind area will shrink if there is more knowledge of each other and if one is going to discuss issues in an open manner.

Overall, the class was very useful for me. I was able to collect more information about the Johari window and also, and I can use this in the future to help clients to improve their personal development, communication, and interpersonal relationships. Also, I was able to compare my qualities with the 4 quadrants of the Johari window, this made me feel very confident and know more about myself.

Reference

1. · Abrahams, D. A. “Emotional intelligence and Army leadership”. Military Review, vol.2, (2007) pp 86-93
2. · Duval, S., and Wicklund, R. A. “A theory of objective self-awareness” (1972) New York: Academic Press.
3. · Gowing, M. “Measurement of individual emotional competence”. In Cherniss, C., and Goleman, D., The emotionally intelligent workplace, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (2001) pp 83-131
4. · Malcolm Higgs, “Do Leaders Need Emotional Intelligence?: A Study of the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Of Change”, International Journal of Organization Behavior, vol.5 no.6, (2002) pp. 195-212
5. · Mirvis, p.” Executive development through consciousness-raising experiences”. Academy of Management Learning and Education, vol7no.2, (2008) Pp 173-188