Keywords

Mental Disorder; Mental Health; Creativity; Rumination; Reappraisal; Recuperation

Abstract

Mental disorder has been misunderstood and misrepresented throughout history, leading mental health research to be severely behind where it needs to be. Years of misinformation, over-medicalization, negative rhetoric, and stigmatization at the hands of the very same institutions that were believed to care for mental disorder have kept this misunderstanding alive. Further, studies throughout history have failed to look at the nuances of mental health, prioritizing generalizability. This thesis explores the relationship between mental disorder and creative expression, how other factors like cultural discourse and cognitive processes inform this relationship, as well as how analyzing this relationship can provide a stronger framework for caring for mental disorder in the future. Through qualitative rhetorical analysis performed in both autoethnography and interviews, this research highlights existing considerations like the lack of flexibility in institutions when working with individuals with mental disorder, creating both out of love and necessity, conflicts with self-perception and identity in creative expression, and how rumination and reappraisal interplay with all these concepts in art. Through framing the research in this way and having experience with depression personally, this research aims to stress the need for non-generalizable care in mental health care, as well as highlight the importance of prioritizing the perspectives and voices of the people who actually experience mental disorder, rather than continuing the cycle of having others without that lived experience speak for them.

Thesis Completion Year

2026

Thesis Completion Semester

Spring

Thesis Chair

Scott, Blake

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

Writing and Rhetoric

Thesis Discipline

Writing and Rhetoric

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus Access

None

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

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