{"id":60323,"date":"2019-10-07T11:53:57","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T15:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=60323"},"modified":"2025-10-20T10:32:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:32:45","slug":"researchers-focus-diverse-mental-health-topics","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/researchers-focus-diverse-mental-health-topics\/","title":{"rendered":"Carleton Researchers Focus on Diverse Mental Health Topics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Carleton Researchers Focus on Diverse Mental Health Topics\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

\u201cWe’ve always studied mental health in the Department of Psychology<\/a>,\u201d says Prof. Joanna Pozzulo, chair of the Carleton University department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the subject has become more prevalent, we\u2019re seeing more faculty members embrace the area of mental health and well-being as part of their research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the department hosts its second annual Psychology Mental Health Day<\/a> on Thursday, Oct. 10. (9:30 am- 4:30 pm). Speakers include Carleton President Benoit-Antoine Bacon and researchers presenting their work on topics including addiction, anxiety, autism, workplace mental health, and using the natural environment to promote well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s just some of the significant mental health research that\u2019s happening at Carleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tina Daniels: Cyber aggression in intimate relationships<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Technology enables new forms of communication \u2013 and new forms of aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at a partner\u2019s phone, monitoring their social networking sites, using their passwords to gain information, using surveillance apps. Recent research at Carleton University indicates that as many as 76 per cent of first- and second-year students in an intimate relationship report that they have committed at least one act of cyber aggression toward a partner in the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniels and doctoral student Alyssa Bonneville are exploring how attachment relationships influence cyber aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAttachment is established in early childhood,\u201d says Daniels, associate chair of the Psychology Department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut it stays with you for the rest of your life. It can shape all of your subsequent relationships.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniels and Bonneville examined two types of insecure attachment: avoidant and anxious-ambivalent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe found that people who have an avoidant-insecure attachment style don’t engage in direct forms of aggression such as physical or verbal aggression, Daniels says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey tend to use more covert, subtle types of aggression, like privacy invasion. People with an avoidant attachment style are more likely to engage in direct threats, insults or the sharing of private information, whereas indirect forms, such as privacy invasion, monitoring, etc. were used more by anxious individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniels and Bonneville hypothesize that a person\u2019s attachment style could make them more concerned about their relationship and they might engage in cyber aggression as a reflection of that insecurity. Knowing a person\u2019s attachment style can help predict the kinds of behaviours they might engage in \u2013 and prevent them.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Nassim Tabri: Eating disorders and our sense of self<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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The concept of self is an amorphous one. In our own personal sense of self, each of us places a different value on areas of life like relationships, wealth and appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAppearance weighs very heavily in how people with eating disorders understand and define their self. How they look matters a great deal when judging their self-worth,\u201d says Tabri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve been studying this construct and how it may lead to behaviours that can seriously affect a person\u2019s health.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When appearance is really important to someone\u2019s sense of self, they are more likely to engage in behaviours like excessive exercising, dieting and food restriction. And it\u2019s not uncommon \u2013 it\u2019s estimated that about a million Canadians have an eating disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany people also experience subclinical symptoms,\u201d says Tabri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey won’t necessarily meet the diagnostic threshold for an eating disorder, but might engage in unhealthy dieting and exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing a more varied sense of self can help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFinding meaning, importance and satisfaction in other areas of life — and not just appearance \u2013 is important to treatment approaches, but it’s also important for informing prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Janet Mantler: Mental health in the workplace<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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The pressures of being a student can be hard on your mental health. So can the pressures of being a professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFaculty members suffer anxiety more than many other professionals,\u201d says Mantler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFaculty are always being evaluated. Grant applications and journal submissions are reviewed, students evaluate teachers. You ask yourself if you\u2019re measuring up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mantler\u2019s research on professors\u2019 mental health is part of “Healthy professional knowledge workers,” a pan-Canadian study led by Ivy Bourgeault at the University of Ottawa. It\u2019s examining and comparing mental health of seven professions: nurses, doctors, dentists, midwives, teachers, accountants and professors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unique demands of a professor\u2019s role can make it difficult to seek help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFaculty members tend not to take a leave of absence,\u201d says Mantler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPartly, it’s stoicism. Partly, it’s because we\u2019re able to manage our time and work from home. But another important factor is that you can’t call in a supply faculty member. If you’re teaching a course, and you’ve developed that course and it’s part-way through the term . . . you can’t call one of your colleagues. So we self-manage in secret. There’s still a stigma about taking a leave of absence, even among faculty members who do mental health research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every professional work environment has its own dynamics and it\u2019s important to understand what they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWork takes up a large majority of our time,\u201d Mantler says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I interviewed faculty members for our pilot study. I started by asking: ‘How many hours do you work?’ Some people answered: ‘All of them.’ When things are not going well at work, it\u2019s going to be one of the dominant factors in our mental health. We asked our survey participants about the biggest contributing factor in their mental health issues. It was work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rachel Burns: Depression and Diabetes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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People who suffer from diabetes are about twice as likely to suffer from depression \u2013 but we\u2019re not exactly sure how the two conditions are related.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere seems to be two major pathways through which depression and diabetes are linked,\u201d says Burns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first is behavioural: physical activity, diet and smoking are all risk factors for type 2 diabetes and are linked to depression. The second is inflammatory. Inflammation is associated with both depression and diabetes, and some people think that it drives the connection, or at least part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, the two conditions can create a sort of negative feedback loop for a patient\u2019s health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you have a lot of depressive symptoms, you feel like you have less social support. And the less social support you have, the higher your depressive symptoms become.  General depressive symptoms and diabetes-specific worries also seem to be a vicious cycle. If you have depression, you worry more about your diabetes. And the more you worry about your diabetes, the more your depressive symptoms elevate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this can get in the way of patients caring for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt takes a lot to manage diabetes: medication, diet, exercise. It’s difficult to do all of those behaviours if you have depression and you feel like you can’t get out of bed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe’ve always studied mental health in the Department of Psychology,\u201d says Prof. Joanna Pozzulo, chair of the Carleton University department. \u201cAs the subject has become more prevalent, we\u2019re seeing more faculty members embrace the area of mental health and well-being as part of their research.\u201d This year, the department hosts its second annual Psychology Mental […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":60343,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13],"cu_story_tag":[1920],"class_list":["post-60323","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-arts-and-social-sciences"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98045,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60323\/revisions\/98045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=60323"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=60323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}