THE UNIFYING THREAD: Unpacking Filipino Emerging Adults’ Social Representations of Mental Health Help-Seeking (MHHS)

Abstract

Individuals at the emerging adulthood stage (ages 18-24) are susceptible to mental health-related risks as they experience distinct life events that bring change, tension, and strain that consequently affect outcomes in adulthood. With the rise of mental health needs among young people living in the Philippines, there is an urgent need to understand how Filipino emerging adults conceptualize and participate in mental health help-seeking (MHHS). Using the critical approach of Moscovici’s Social Representations Theory (SRT), I proposed this qualitative inquiry to explore Filipino emerging adults’ mental health help-seeking and discover the socio-cultural meanings that emerged within their shared understanding. The existing literature studying Filipinos’ mental health and mental health helpseeking have all threaded an attitude-based approach, which does not discuss social and cultural aspects involved that can actually influence help-seeking. These studies have also been focused on prevalence and risk factors associated to specific mental disorders and on a more specific group of people such as Filipino immigrants. I therefore used the Social Representations theory as the framework of this study because it can effectively capture the integration of the self and culture, and can explore the collective views that emerge when Filipino emerging adults try to make sense of mental health help-seeking. The data collection procedures that I utilized in this study was in a form of a semi-structured, open-ended, and in-depth online interview due to the restrictions brought about by the Covid-19 lockdown. Nonetheless, these interviews were conducted successfully, and I was able to gather a pool of 6 individuals who voluntarily participated and fit the inclusion criteria. I used the 5-step qualitative thematic analysis procedure (Creswell, 2007) to analyze and treat the information that the participants provided to develop the emerging themes and construct the wider socio-cultural discourse on mental health help-seeking. The methodology and analysis anchored to this framework, which deviates from the individualized and disorder-focused orientation of other help-seeking studies, helped in addressing the gap in the literature and looked into the importance of society and culture in mental health and wellbeing.