Irish University Students with Mental Health Difficulties
ISBN 9781916704855
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Table of contents

Notes

Chapter 3 Transition to higher education

1. In so far as possible, the words, terms and diagnoses that the students used will be represented in this book. This is done to honour the language and meaning of the students themselves. For example, Leon spoke about having “paranoid schizophrenia” – a term that is no longer recognised by professionals and was removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) in 2013 and the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Diseases when updating to its 11th edition in 2019. As described in chapters one and two, the professional and cultural understanding and language of distress is constantly shifting. What matters here is how the person whose experience we are trying to understand names, describes, and makes sense of their experience. This is in line with hermeneutic phenomenology’s aim to turn to the nature of the lived experience itself.

Chapter 5 The lived experience of navigating higher education with a mental health difficulty

1. Level 4 refers to a level on the National Framework of Qualifications. The framework consists of 10 levels. Level 4 aligns with a basic Leaving Certificate, or school leaving examination, while level 8 represents an honours bachelor’s degree, level 9 a master’s degree and level 10 a doctoral degree. Students typically progress from one level to the next in this framework.