A quick reference guide to mental health on university campus: a brief rhetorical analysis of fear

Abstract

I was teaching rhetoric at the University of Victoria when I received the ‘Quick Reference Guide: Assisting Students in Distress’, part of the university’s initiative to address the increasing problem of mental illness on university campuses. I immediately read a rhetoric that presented mental health as Madness, as something to be feared, a threat to the university, class and the individual. This short article is a brief rhetorical analysis of this Guide, and suggests that we must move beyond fear if we are to begin to address the mental health crisis on university campuses.

Keywords:

• Mental health crisis
• rhetoric of fear
• Mad Studies
• depression
• madness