Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects 6-17% of college students in the United States, which can negatively impact academic achievement and is associated with other emotional difficulties. Exposure therapy, including written exposure therapy as been found to be efficacious for treating. However, concerns of treatment dropout and low symptom…

Anxiety is an emotion that consists of worrisome thoughts, physical tension, and physiological arousal regarding the perceived potential of danger. College students have increasingly endorsed anxiety as a primary difficulty during the collegiate years. Due to this increase in anxiety and an increase in utilization of therapy services, the overall…

Hispanic adolescents' accessibility to treatment options for depression is met with limitations associated with financial barriers and cultural misalignment. This research study aimed to bring to light an alternative psychotherapy treatment through the foundations of mindfulness interventions. The goal was to understand the experience of Hispanic…

The issue of college student retention remains a critical concern in higher education. Institutions have begun to address this issue through the development of academic enhancement programs. These programs are designed to increase student success and prior research largely supports their efficacy. However, a paucity of research exists to…

Mental health stigma is a ubiquitous concern impacting help-seeking in the United States and worldwide, including in college students. Insufficient attention has been given to the cultural context of stigma and help-seeking in Asian Americans, constructs in which culture has inherent relevance. The current study was the first to develop and test…

Psychotherapy is effective (Wampold & Imel, 2015), however, some clinicians consistently achieve better outcomes with patients than others (Rousmaniere, Goodyear, Miller, & Wampold, 2017). This known difference has been recognized across disciplines including psychiatry, medicine, nursing, psychology, and social work (Gerdes, K. E., &…

Graduate students report to experience distress at high rates. Research suggests that self-care behaviors such as sleep, exercise, and mindfulness practice can helpful for mental health and wellbeing. The current study examined the effectiveness of a brief Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based intervention on increasing self-care behaviors…

This dissertation presents an ethnography of equine-assisted psychotherapy (EAP) based on nine months of fieldwork at "Equine Healers," a non-profit organization in central Colorado that specialized in various therapeutic modalities associated with EAP. In bridging scholarly work around animals, a literature suffused with the notion of…

Adolescent depression is a prevalent and debilitating disorder that is associated with social and academic impairment, suicidality, comorbid psychiatric disorders, and high-risk behaviors (Horowitz, Garber, Ciesla, Young, & Mufson, 2007). Yet many adolescents experiencing depressive symptoms do not receive adequate services, and those that do…

Alternative education students face many interacting challenges that put them at significant risk of dropping out of school (Carver & Lewis, 2010), as well as deleterious health and psychological outcomes, and intergenerational cycles of sociopolitical disadvantage (Laird, Kienzel, Debell & Chapman, 2007). Despite the persistent national…

This study looked at the interplay of the analyst verbal speech acts and the process of change in a psychoanalytic treatment. Using a single case design on the session transcripts of the well studied case of Mrs. C., following Halfon and Weinstein's (2013) methodology the study tracked linguistic patterns as represented by the interaction of…