The coalition has more than 50 representatives from non-governmental psychology organizations, including Fordham faculty and alumni—most notably, PCUN’s president, David Marcotte, S.J. The scholars work together to develop research-based recommendations for policymakers at the U.N. 

“The primary goal of PCUN is to promote evidence-based policies,” said Harold Takooshian, Ph.D., PCUN’s treasurer and secretary and professor of psychology and urban studies and director of the organizational leadership program at Fordham. “We behavioral scientists feel that the best way to make policies is based on evidence. We conduct research on timely topics like migration and hunger, and research helps us find better solutions to problems.”

Throughout the pandemic, PCUN not only continued to work, but experienced its greatest growth, including a new book series that released its latest book this May, said Takooshian. Thanks to virtual programming, PCUN was able to increase the number of participants in its annual U.N. Psychology Day celebration from hundreds of people at an in-person gathering to nearly 2,000 virtual registrants in a Zoom call last year, said Takooshian. PCUN also started a monthly webinar series where scholars are invited to discuss their work, including renowned psychologist Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., and Fordham GSS associate professor Marciana Popescu, Ph.D., an expert on forced migration. 

‘We Need Help From Everyone’ 

One of PCUN’s biggest contributions is its book series on how scholars can use behavioral science to address today’s global challenges, particularly the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030—a list of global challenges that the U.N. aims to address. 

All three books in the series can be used as resources in college courses related to psychology, social work, and international studies, said Takooshian. The books can also help people become more aware of timely issues—not just scholars, but people from all walks of life, said Elaine Congress, Ph.D., a book editor for this series and associate dean and professor at GSS. 

“Psychologists and social workers don’t have all the answers. There are so many problems facing the world, and we need help from everyone,” said Congress, a social worker who serves as the the main representative of the Fordham NGO at the U.N. “Our book contributors—psychologists, social workers, U.N. officials, heads of NGOs, and experts in other fields—really manifest this. It’s important that this is a multidisciplinary effort.” 

Researching Life-Changing Conditions and Potential Solutions

The book series was developed by not only Fordham professors, but also undergraduate and graduate students, some of whom are now alumni. 

Sanhaya Soi, FCRH ’21, connected with Sameena Azhar, Ph.D., assistant professor at GSS, over their shared Indian heritage, and they collaborated on a chapter about mental health in India in the most recent book, Behavioral Science in the Global Arena: Global Mental, Spiritual, and Social Health. 

“The way that mental health is viewed in Eastern societies versus Western societies is pretty different. In individualistic nations like America, mental health has a scientific outlook. In India, mental health is seen in regards to what karma or fate you are born with,” said Soi, who was born and raised in India and immigrated to the U.S. four years ago. 

Soi said she hopes her chapter helps people understand how stigmatization of mental health developed in India and other countries—an issue that will continue to stay relevant after the pandemic is over.   

“Mental health is something that people have been struggling with since the beginning of time,” said Soi, who earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Fordham and now works as a recruitment consultant for Kintec Search, Inc. 

Shenae Osborn, GSS ’21, who earned her master’s degree in social work and interned at the U.N., co-edited two books and co-authored two chapters. One of her book chapters, which will be published in the upcoming book Behavioral Science in the Global Arena: Global Health Trends and Issues, describes the difficulties of caring for a family member with dementia—an illness that is on the rise—and explains how to support people with dementia and their caregivers. Her other chapter, published in Behavioral Science in the Global Arena: Global Mental, Spiritual, and Social Health, shows how Christians and Jews often turn to their religion for hope, especially when they encounter a difficult situation like a terminal health diagnosis. 

Osborn, a psychotherapist and volunteer U.N. representative for the International Federation of Social Workers, said that she hopes her overall work makes a difference in the world. 

“I have had the opportunity to work on improving policies to reflect real modern-day situations like COVID-19,” said Osborn, a California native who plans to own her own practice where she can continue to work with low-income individuals. “My contribution, although small, is still a step in making a difference.”

A Longtime Relationship with the United Nations

Fordham’s relationship with the U.N. extends beyond PCUN. In 2013, Fordham became one of 16 universities to work with the UN as a non-governmental organization (NGO) that raises public awareness about U.N. activities and global issues. Fordham and the U.N. have co-hosted events, including the U.N.’s first International Educational Day. The University has also selected students for leadership training at the U.N. and developed a special field practicum for Fordham social work students who intern at U.N.-affiliated organizations. 

Takooshian said he hopes that PCUN will continue to help scientists reach policymakers, particularly with its book series that will expand in the coming years. 

“Almost everything related to peace, urbanization, and health is behaviorally-based. That is, human behavior shapes these problems,” said Takooshian. “The premise of our book series is that studying human behavior is able to reduce the problems, and I’m glad to say that the U.N. itself embraces what we’re talking about. In the past three years, they started a behavioral science unit. PCUN does not work with them yet—but it’s just a matter of time.”

She and other Fordham experts offered advice for coping with the psychological effects of this pandemic while also strengthening overall well-being.

Give Thanks

David Marcotte, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, clinical psychologist, and associate professor who teaches a popular undergraduate course on the psychology of well-being and living  a happy life.

“Negative events are like a sponge” in the mind, he told students in one class session last year. “When [sponges]get wet, they start getting bigger and bigger, and if we’re not doing something to counteract that, the sponge gets so big that it fills our head.”

He begins each class with a five- minute mindfulness meditation and teaches other techniques for building resilience and keeping calm. Gratitude is better than optimism, hope, or even compassion for boosting mental health and satisfaction, he said.

Studies have shown that people who practice gratitude generally fare better than people who don’t. They cope better with stress, take a rosier view of life—and recover faster from illness.

Journal writing is one of many ways to practice gratitude. Carol Gibney, GSS ’03, an associate director of campus ministry at Fordham, said that she and her friends have started a daily text thread, sharing “three things that we’re grateful for.”

Find Community and a Sense of Purpose

In times of crisis, “what we know is important is a sense of family and community and connection,” even if it’s attained virtually, Mamber said.

Dr. Philip A. Pizzo, FCRH ’66, a pediatric oncologist and immunologist and former dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, has called for physicians to prescribe ways for their patients to foster this sense of community and connection. In a January 2020 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he noted that poor social relationships are tied to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and strokes.

“Having a purpose, seeking social engagement, and fostering wellness through positive lifestyle choices (e.g., exercise, nutrition, mindfulness) are important in reducing morbidity and mortality and improving the life journey,” he wrote. “These variables are important at all stages of life and particularly for those in midlife and older.”

Volunteer

Finding ways to help  others,  like making phone calls to seniors or sewing protective masks, can provide purpose and address the sense of helplessness associated with not knowing what to do, Mamber said.

It’s also a way to cope with any sense of guilt at being spared others’ suffering, said Hilary Jacobs Hendel, GSS ’04, a psychotherapist and author of It’s Not Always Depression: Working the Change Triangle to Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions, and Connect to Your Authentic Self (Random House and Penguin UK, 2018).

Helping others could mean bringing food to a neighbor’s doorstep, for instance, or simply doing your part to contain the virus, she said. “Just taking care of your family and staying at home is being a good citizen,” she said.

Feel Your Emotions

Hendel emphasized the need to address and validate the emotions triggered by distressing news. It could be as simple as taking five minutes a few times a day to tune in to them. “If you start to just block the emotions, eventually it’s going to make one feel worse,” possibly leading to anxiety and depression, she said.

One tool for addressing strong emotions is the change triangle. Detailed in It’s Not Always Depression, it’s a way to identify blocked emotions, work through them, and keep them from becoming debilitating, Hendel said. Other techniques for managing anxiety include going to a quiet room, closing your eyes, and imagining a favorite place as experienced through all five senses.

Change Your State of Mind

Also helpful is keeping a list of “state changers” such as exercising, taking a bath, playing with a pet, calling a friend, watching a funny show— anything that can reliably help you feel better, Hendel said.

“The tiniest bits of relief are good enough just to take the edge off,” she said. “If the nervous system is firing away ‘danger, danger, danger,’ releasing adrenaline into the system, we don’t have conscious control over it. All we have conscious control over is how to try to calm it.”

She noted the many support groups that can be found online, as well as apps that help with meditation. Also useful are simple things like positive self-talk or mantras—“this is temporary,” “one day at a time.”

Take Time to Grieve

It’s important to balance empathy for others’ travails with self-care, she said, noting that highly sympathetic people can be “triggered all day long by the suffering.”

“Find your own balance, because it’s unique for everybody,” she said. “It’s an ongoing lifetime practice of getting to know yourself and what you need and what’s best for you.”

Be Kind to Yourself and Your Loved Ones

Jeffrey Ng, Psy.D., director of counseling and psychological services at Fordham, noted the importance of self-compassion.

“The current circumstances will likely make it more challenging for us to stay on track or get things done as effectively as we might have wanted or planned for,”  he said. “Being kinder, gentler, and more patient with ourselves when this happens will go a long way toward preserving and enhancing our mental health and well-being.”

Also, parents should be sensitive to all the events—concerts, plays, sporting events, graduations—that their children are missing because of school closures, said John Craven, Ph.D., associate professor of education in the Graduate School of Education.

“The impact of this pandemic on students emotionally may run in deep, quiet waters,” he said.

Go On a News Diet

Mamber advised moderating one’s consumption of pandemic-related news to avoid being overwhelmed. “I have to monitor that for myself, something I learned during 9/11. You feel compelled to watch the news to learn what’s going on, but find it hard to disconnect. Finding the right balance will help support your natural resilience.”

Hendel recommended scheduling news watching for the least disruptive time of day (not right before bed if it impedes your sleep). Ng recommended focusing on more factual news rather than sensational pieces that could spread misinformation.

Get Outside If You Can

Unless there’s a public advisory to the contrary, “social distancing doesn’t mean never leaving our homes, going for a walk, shopping for groceries, or interacting at all with others,” Ng said. “What it does mean, though, is that we’ll need to be doing these in a more limited, intentional, and conscientious manner.”

Gibney said one of her favorite ways to feel centered is to explore nature. “The great outdoors always speaks to me. Looking at the clouds, looking at a tree, being aware of nature’s beauty— [these]are ways that can help people find consolation,” she said.

And then, sometimes, consolation comes from displays of community. Mamber said it’s been inspiring to hear people in her Manhattan neighborhood open their windows and call out in support of health care workers every night at 7 p.m.

“It’s amazing to hear that, to know that people in that moment are apart, yet together,” she said. “Creating something beautiful, a new social ritual and structure, out of the uncertainty and fear gives us hope for the future.“

When to Seek Help

Seeking help is “a sign of strength and maturity rather than weakness,” said Jeffrey Ng, director of counseling and psychological services at Fordham. He encourages people to seek professional help for any of the following:

• persistent sadness, anxiety, anger, irritability, hopelessness, or feelings of being overwhelmed;
• sustained loss of interest in social or pleasurable activities;
• significant impairments or changes in daily functioning, such as sleep, appetite, or hygiene;
• thoughts about death, dying, or suicide; or
• impulsive, reckless, or risky behaviors, such as substance abuse or self-injury.

Mental health resources have been posted online by these and other organizations:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: cdc.gov
• The American Psychiatry Association: psychiatry.org
• The American Psychological Association: apa.org

Today contributor Donna Farizan spoke to college students about how they boost their well-being and find happiness. One student noted that serving others made them the happiest. “I think that when you take time to give back to our community, to give back to our loved ones, that’s the most rewarding experience.”

Father Marcotte then joined Today’s Hoda Kotb and Willie Geist to talk about how we can all be our best selves.”We need to cultivate skills to live a happy life,” he said. “How do we do that? Keep a calm mind, a positive outlook, build resilience, and be generous.”

Watch the full clip here. 

For five minutes, they focus on only one thing—the cadence of their breathing—and let the rest of the world fade away.

It’s a key exercise that’s part of a brand new psychology course at Fordham this semester—The Psychology of Personal Well-Being: How to Live a Happy Life, taught by David Marcotte, S.J. Every week, Father Marcotte teaches the students strategies to increase happiness, shows them how to cope effectively with stress, and ties everything back to empirical research on the neuroscience of well-being. He begins class with a five-minute mindful meditation exercise, designed to increase self-awareness and help students hone in on the present moment.

“The main goal is to help them be their best self,” said Father Marcotte, “and use that best self to make a difference in the lives of others—to contribute to the community in a meaningful way.”

College students are in the midst of “emerging adulthood,” he explained. This is often accompanied by emotional and mental distress—not just at Fordham, but at college campuses nationwide. A fifth of college students across the country—among more than 67,000 surveyed students—reported they were stressed or suicidal in the past year, according to a study published last September in the journal Depression & Anxiety. Father Marcotte’s class was created to help combat that, he said.

The Power of Gratitude

As humans, our brains are prewired for negativity; fear and anxiety helped our ancient ancestors survive. But that means we instinctively focus on the negative aspects of our environment, Father Marcotte explained. We also harbor emotions like envy, resentment, greed, and bitterness. They’re normal parts of life, he said, but if we allow them to fester, they make us miserable.

“Negative events are like a sponge. When they get wet, they start getting bigger and bigger,” he said. “And if we’re not doing something to counteract that, the sponge gets so big that it fills our head.”

In his penultimate lecture on Dec. 4, he spoke about how students can overcome negative thinking with a simple yet powerful solution—gratitude. Being thankful is more beneficial than being optimistic, hopeful, or even compassionate when it comes to mental health and satisfaction, he said. Studies have shown that when people practice gratitude through everyday activities like journal writing, they tend to fare better than those who don’t. They cope better with stress, recover from illnesses faster, and view life through a rosier lens.

After the mini-meditation session at the beginning of class, he asked the students to review their homework assignment—a written reflection of four things they’re grateful for—with their peers.

Chantal Chevalier, FCRH ’20, said she was grateful for her 19-year-old sister and her mother, a woman she calls her “best friend” who single-handedly raised two daughters.

“If I don’t tell her I love her before I leave [the house in the morning], something’s wrong,” Chevalier said.

The student sitting behind her, Calli Prifti, FCRH ’19, said she was grateful for her health after almost losing her “second mom.” Last winter, her mother’s best friend suffered a brain aneurysm. She was unresponsive for 10 hours and nearly comatose for a week. Doctors said she might not survive, Prifti recalled. But a year later, she’s alive and well.

“We’re on autopilot so much of the time. We don’t think about what could go wrong,” Father Marcotte told the class. “A car accident an hour from now could paralyze us from the waist down—or neck down—for the rest of our lives. It’s pretty terrifying if you stop and think about it for a second.”

In an open class discussion, students shared the little things they were grateful for: pillows, hot water, the ability to attend college, getting advice on a research proposal, being alone in a normally crowded subway car. But when Father Marcotte left the classroom, the students spoke more candidly about their final thoughts on the new psychology course.

“Before I took this class, I always felt like I was kind of alone in my problems,” said Allie Rutter, FCRH ’19. “That everyone else is so put together and has their life figured out, and I don’t. [But] everyone has been really open, and we’ve all gotten very close as a result of the class,” she concluded, as several students nodded their heads in agreement.

Chevalier called it a “safe space” where students receive helpful, day-to-day strategies supported by something that made a difference to her—empirical data.

“It’s not like a self-help book,” she said. “It’s actual research that has proved that we can improve our well-being and our own happiness.”

Perhaps most important of all, the class—which is also being taught next semester—inspired a new outlook on life for many of the students. Isabella Russo-Tiesi, FCRH ’19, said she used to complain about little things to her friends: presentations, upcoming papers, school. But after everything she experienced this semester—taking the LSAT, spending time with a little girl battling cancer, and learning strategies to improve her well-being—her mindset has matured.

“Without taking this class,” she said, “I would be reacting in the negative ways that I did before.”

Fordham Professor David Marcotte, SJ, Ph.D., was the program chair and moderator of this annual forum, which had the theme “Promoting Well-being in the 21st Century: Psychological Contributions for Social, Economic, and Environmental Challenges.”

You can watch the forum here.

That was the message of “Students in Crisis,” a panel discussion for faculty and staff members held on March 29 at the Rose Hill campus. The discussion offered practical ways to help students who are struggling with personal problems.

Anne Mannion, Ph.D., associate professor of history and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, noted that faculty and staff should be alert to signs of students experiencing a broad range of academic and personal issues.

David Marcotte, S.J., clinical assistant professor of psychology, detailed three recent case studies. One student was obnoxious and messy while the other two were seemingly self-assured and together. But their outward appearances had little to do with the personal turmoil each experienced—alcohol addiction, infidelity and a parent with depression.

“Apparently well-adjusted, functioning students can have considerable emotional and mental struggles. They can be going on right in front of us and we may not even know,” Father Marcotte said.

“Symptoms are ways in which pain is expressed, so don’t jump to blame their character. It may not be that they’re lazy and don’t care about school. It may be that they’re overwhelmed and doing the best they can.”

Mary Procidano, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, said she could boil down her advice to one phrase—notice a change.

Examples she gave include:
• a punctual student repeatedly arriving late to class.
• a neat student not looking as put together as he or she once did.
• a strong academic student showing a dip in performance.

Starting a conversation, Procidano said, is the best way to help link stressors that a student may reveal to different people.

“It’s OK to say, ‘How are you doing? You look a little tired,’” she said. “Tired is a pretty generic, unthreatening kind of word. They will appreciate that, and it can go a long way.”

Christopher Rodgers, dean of students at Rose Hill, agreed that connecting the dots can be difficult because the traditional campus structure inherently separates departments and offices. Ideally, everyone—from cafeteria and student workers to receptionists—should be gatekeepers who are willing to let his office know if something is amiss, so that no student flies under the radar.

“Caring effectively is very different than simply caring,” he said. “That distinction is sometimes hard to incorporate into our daily work, as we run into students who have sometimes extremely subtle problems and issues that are coming to our attention.”

Jennifer Neuhof, Psy.D., director of counseling and psychological services at Fordham, noted that contrary to some beliefs, it is legal for a professor to contact her office if he or she has concerns about a student.

“There is clear evidence that students are struggling more today with problems of depression and anxiety than in years past,” she said. “In fact, anxiety is a major physiological predictor of failing grades.”

Neuhof also acknowledged that the current economic climate has led to increased pressure on students to succeed. More often, faculty members encounter gray areas where they’re not sure what to say to a student without seeming to invade their privacy. That, too, is something with which the counseling center staff could provide assistance, she noted.

Faculty members who are unsure should make an effort, she said, because it only takes one person to encourage a student to get the help they need.

“We rely on you to be our eyes and our ears, to notice things, and to refer students of concern. You do not have to handle the situation alone,” she said. “We really need to work together as a community to address these issues.”

Panelists provided a link to a brochure designed to assist faculty in finding assistance in cases of mental health emergencies. It can be downloaded at: www.fordham.edu/mentalhealthemergency/.

The event was sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence, Faculty Senate and Office of Student Affairs. It came on the heels of a similar event held on March 25 at the Lincoln Center campus.