Introduction to Self-help Books/Texts for Design Students

Abstract

Time spent at college is a happy experience and a fond memory for most of the students but for some, it has many rough patches. Everyone’s situation is unique, but there are a few problems that almost all college students deal with at least once during the time they spend in college. 72% of students in India are unaware of how to deal with stress and its ill-effects as studied by Dr. S.G. George. A study by NIMHANS has also found that 11% of college students have attempted suicide because of stress. The purpose of this study is to analyze the kind of stress design students go through and how taking help from a self-help books/texts can guide students to deal with the feelings, thoughts or behavior that come with stress and anxiety and can act as bibliotherapy for them. Self-help books take insights from psychological science and draw in particular on the newly developing “positive psychology”. There is evidence that bibliotherapy is effective in the treatment of psychological disorders. To know how self-help books can help the design students, eight in-depth interviews with the current and former design students were taken who have experienced the stress and triumphed over that with the help of self-help books. A survey amongst the students was conducted to know about the stress they go through and how they deal with it, what they most need at that moment and their awareness about self-help books.