Assembling Self-Care in the Time Of Covid-19 Among Filipina College Students

Date of Award

8-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology

First Advisor

Nico A. Canoy, PhD

Abstract

This study proposes the concept of self-care as a constitutive practice of the therapeutic assemblage and explores the spatiotemporal and discursive-material processes of caring for one’s mental health during the pandemic. A key aim was to understand how self-care practices were reassembled in different spaces within the home, particularly in a sample of Filipina college students. Combining visual and qualitative methods, the ‘work-home assemblage’ was identified as the site of self-care, delineated by boundary-making and place-making practices and the creation of time spaces. Two major cofunctionings were identified, namely: (a) caring for the self as fostering different relationalities with the self, and (b) caring for the self as copresencing with human and non-human others. Findings demonstrate the importance of material and spatial relationalities in the process of facilitating caring relational encounters with the self. The paper concludes with implications for the mental health of Filipina college students in the time of COVID-19.

Keywords: self-care, assemblage, mental health, pandemic, college students, qualitative

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