Re-addressing Emotional Anguish: Critical Analysis of a University's Mental Health Services

This thesis works from a disability studies perspective to explore the meaning of ‘mental health and illness’ in a university setting. I use the concept of ‘emotional anguish’ as a way to shift the meaning of pain from its taken-for-granted understanding as a medical issue to a more open conception of pain as a category that is always-already an issue of and for interpretation. I use interpretive sociology to show how all conceptions, including conceptions of health, illness, and disability, are socio-historical phenomena, reflecting the culture from which these concepts arise. I use the work of Michel Foucault to discuss the limits of conceiving of emotional anguish as a 'medical problem.' I draw on Sara Ahmed as her work orients to emotions as social phenomena. I conclude by discussing how we might begin to think about emotional anguish as more than a ‘medical problem.’MAS