During these trying times of the COVID-19 pandemic mental health among the country has been perceived to be declining. COVID-19 has revealed how important understanding mental health is and gives us a chance to analyze the effects of stress on the mind. Even those with stable living have been mentally uprooted. I focused on studying the mental health of BUILD students who participated in the BUILD Research Collaboratory (BRC). The question that I studied along with Justin Carthage and Willow Weibel was, “How has the psychological stress of COVID-19 affected BUILD Scholars?”. We chose this topic because We are all passionate about addressing the century old stigmas of mental health. As psychology and neuroscience majors we understand the history of mental health, and it’s ever evolving status in the world. We hypothesized that African American BUILD Scholars are more affected by the stresses of COVID-19. It is a fact that COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted POC, especially black POC. This is due to underlying racial disparities that are still being perpetuated in society today.

This research focuses on Mexican and Mexican American women's identity and how their gender and ethnicity influence their own perceptions about mental health. Studies have indicated that the stigma surrounding mental illness is greater for ethnic communities. However, of the research present, there are hardly any in-depth interviews conducted in understanding what roles racialized ethnicity and gender play in shaping Mexican American women's perception on mental health. How are the attitudes of mental health created and influenced by various factors of identity? For women of Mexican ancestry, it is important to understand how the roles of ethnicity and gender influence their perceptions of mental health because these social factors can create real and lasting barriers to receiving mental health care that otherwise go unrecognized. To achieve a fuller understanding of how social identities influence perceptions on mental health, in-depth interviews with Mexican American women will be conducted.

This paper provides a historical analysis of mental health diagnoses and treatments through the perspective of philosophy of mind. This will be accomplished by use of a systematic review of previously published books and scholarly articles. The paper will trace various treatments, starting from ancient civilizations and ending with modern treatment types, which will then be correlated to the two overarching categories in philosophy of mind, Dualism and Physicalism. The intention of this paper is to create a better understanding of how the individuals who developed treatments for mental disorders perceived the mind and its interaction with the body. I will be asking, specifically, what Mind/Body interaction is assumed by the development of each treatment. The analysis of these assumptions raises an important question regarding the status of current mental health treatments, which will be addressed at the end of this paper by discussing just how likely it is that the contemporary treatment approaches are not any less mistaken than treatments from the past.