by DANNY CARRAHER
Creighton Digital Storytellers

Every year, medical and health care professionals present new research that expands our understanding of mental health. In addition to advancements in mental health treatment, this research introduces technological, communal and organizational factors that could pave a path toward better mental health care.

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Some of these new theories offer insight into why mental health concerns are so prevalent among young adults.

Licensed clinical psychologist at Creighton University, Rebecka Tompkins, PsyD, suggested that the developing concept called emerging adulthood plays a role in these mental health concerns.

“You don’t just jump from adolescence to adulthood anymore,” Tompkins said. “You have this middle, in-between phase of emerging adulthood. And the biggest challenges for that is no longer being as reliant on your parents and starting to take on a lot of responsibilities.”

Several studies indicate that this period of emerging adulthood shows increases in mental health concerns for many individuals.

According to mental health statistics from Johns Hopkins Medicine, the age when signs of bipolar disorder and depression often begin is in an individual’s early and mid-20s.

Tompkins suggests that having to take on new responsibilities during emerging adulthood has an effect on many young adults’ mental health.

“That transitional stress, for a lot of people, is the hardest thing they’ve ever been through,” Tompkins said. “It’s a big deal leaving home and coming to college. It’s an even bigger deal once you graduate and try to figure out what in the hell to do because you don’t have as much structure.”

Of course, there are a variety of reasons for why someone might develop a mental illness or a mental health concern.

Kailey Kocourek, the project coordinator of the Kim Foundation – a nonprofit organization that focuses on mental health education and suicide prevention – said there are a number of risk factors that could lead to mental illness and suicide, including physical sex abuse, a death in the family, bullying, harassment, and others.

The fact that there are so many possible reasons for what may be exacerbating a person’s mental health issues demonstrates the vast research that has been conducted over the past years.

However, mental health was not always such an understood concept.

According to Unite for Sight – an organization that focuses on making health care more accessible – the early history of mental health is fraught with misunderstanding.

Unite for Sight’s website says, “Many cultures have viewed mental illness as a form of religious punishment or demonic possession.”

According to Lumen, the mentally ill were often mistreated and were not taken care of, which motivated a woman named Dorothea Dix to lobby for the first mental hospitals in the United States in 1849.

Ever since then, mental health has grown more prevalent in American culture.

Although there continues to be new research every year that broadens our knowledge of mental health, there are also new challenges every year.

According to Mental Health America’s 2019 report, over the last four years there have been “alarming increases in adult suicidal ideation and major depressive episodes in youth.”

The report also ranked mental health prevalence and access to care by state, showing Minnesota as number one overall and Nevada as the worst.

This further demonstrates how region is just another factor that can contribute to mental health issues.

While all this research offers insight into the state of mental health, it also offers challenges that must be dealt with in order to improve mental health treatment.