Psych in Action!

Psychology in ACTION!!!!!!!!

This semester I am in an experimental class through the Psychology department taught by Professor Janet Schichnes, the department faculty adviser. The class is called Psychology in Action; An Introduction to Social Justice. It is so exciting to be in a class where we do more than just talk about the issues in our society; we get active.

Our class is working on reducing the stigmatization associated with talking about mental health while also striving to educate our campus and community about mental health resources available to them.  UAF offers multiple resources to our students: any student who pays the Health and Counseling fee (the majority of students) can receive up to 6 counseling sessions per semester. UAF Clinical-Community Psychology students do counseling sessions with students, and members of our community, as part of their education; additionally, the counseling program recruits volunteers for their program every semester as well.

We are also doing some awesome creative projects that are focused on removing stigmatization surrounding mental health issues. A group in our class is putting together a “Post-Secret” art exhibit. Post secret is an underground grassroots movement where people anonymously write a secret about themselves on a post card, decorate the card as they see fit, and send it to the people facilitating the art exhibit. The facilitators hang the postcards up in a room and open the exhibit to the public for viewing.  More information about UAF’s Post Secret can be found at www.facebook.com/uafpostsecret.

The group I am working in is called Let’s Talk. We are using social media to convey the message that is alright to talk about mental health issues. Our goal is to be humorous while still getting the message across. We plan on making You Tube videos and memes, and spreading them through different social media outlets. We are spreading our message through a Facebook group we created: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lets-Talk/455556071176603. We also hope to reach the community through our local media outlets such as the news, talk radio, and local access television.  School has been in session for three weeks, and already, our class has been featured on the local news.

I think it is important  to get hands on experience doing something related to the field you are going into, or your major, while an undergraduate student. For the majority of my undergraduate career I have done this either through research or school clubs. As this is my final semester at UAF, it is awesome to be able to participate in something like Psychology in Action as part of my curriculum.