Mental health in design education – Infusing empathy and cross-disciplinarity

Team: Tasoulla Hadjiyanni (lead - Interior Design); Quynh Akers (instructor - Product Design); Kira Davies (Undergraduate RA); and Resha Tejpaul (Computer Science)

Program: Interior Design           

How can complex problems with transformative societal implications, such as mental health, be infused into the curriculum in ways that are sensitive to students as well as empowering?

In Spring 2022, a cross-disciplinary pedagogical partnership was formed between interior design, product design, and computer science that tackled the question of how to infuse complex challenges, such as mental health, into the curriculum in ways that are both sensitive to students as well as empowering. This partnership followed an earlier interdisciplinary collaboration between interior design, psychiatry, and computer science that explored how aspects of interiors relate to behaviors tied to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) through video recorded experiments. During the handwashing experiment, youth with OCD were significantly more likely than controls to exhibit ‘‘other’’ behaviors (e.g., cleaning or drying the sink, inspecting the sink, touching and tapping the sink, and rubbing the countertop).

Students in PDES 2772 – Product Design Studio 2 developed prototypes for sink hardware and soap dispensers that can be used in practice for diagnosis and treatment for youth with OCD. Anxiety about proper understanding of OCD compulsions, fear of producing something that could do more harm than help in treatment, and concerns of how a single product could serve individuals with vastly different experiences were questions that arose during the process. In parallel, figuring out ways to account for these types of engagement in performance evaluations and in college-wide communication materials can help spearhead more innovations in teaching and scholarship.