Adam Levy: 00:02
Hello. I’m Adam Levy, and this is Mind matters: academia’s mental health crisis, a podcast from Nature Careers. This episode: the mental health landscape of academia.
Research is, by its very nature, challenging. Academics push boundaries, expanding knowledge and understanding, breaking new ground as they do.
But this process can also challenge academics themselves. The profession has been marked by what many have labelled a mental health crisis.
And so, in this eight-part special series, we’re going to be investigating the mental health and wellbeing of researchers.
Helping us understand how academia is impacting the wellbeing of researchers, we’ll be speaking with a wide range of people, whether they’re sharing their own experiences or their expertise, and we’ll be touching on the deep suffering that can exist.
Unidentified source quote: 01:05
I saw the only way out as ending it all.
Unidentified source quote: 01:09
We all have our own strengths and challenges.
Unidentified source quote: 01:11
I was already, like, in a really dark place. I was unable to really work, so I was sort of in automatic mood.
Adam Levy: 01:20
And we’ll also be talking about how to turn things around, for individuals, and for the academic system as a whole.
Unidentified source quote: 01:29
I’m really excited about the work that I do, and that was sort of hard to do when I was struggling throughout my career.
Unidentified source quote: 01:37
If you’re a kind colleague and supervisor and student, then you’re going to help the mental health of everyone around you.
Adam Levy: 01:45
But I want to kick off this series by taking stock of where we are today with mental health in academia. How are academics struggling in particular, and what is it in particular about academia that contributes to, or even drives this?
In a moment, we’ll be speaking with a multidisciplinary researcher who has shifted her career to improve awareness of wellbeing in academia.
But first, I want to introduce you to Desiree Dickerson, who lives in the Valencia region in Spain. Desiree is a clinical psychologist and consultant in academic mental health.
Desiree Dickerson: 02:21
Predominantly my clients are all institutions around the world, and I help with the mental health and wellbeing programs often. The master plan: to take a healthier and more sustainable approach to research.
Adam Levy: 02:35
Well, to enact this master plan, you have to first understand the problem you’re dealing with. And so I kicked off my conversation with Desiree by asking: “Well, what is it then, about research which needs that approach? What is it about research which presents particular challenges to mental health?”
Desiree Dickerson 02:52
Our brains are the weapon we wield, right? These are the tool, and we wield them quite well, generally speaking, right? So and often, our approach is, “Listen, if I can, bet, you know, if I can apply my mental sort of power, my cognitive bandwidth, to a problem, I can, and I should.”
And that’s absolutely applicable when it comes to our work, and it’s not actually as useful when it comes to our emotional and sort of mental state.
It’s easy then to say, “But if I can think about this problem at all times, shouldn’t I think about this problem at all times?”
Which means when you close your laptop five or, let’s say, six or probably seven o’clock at night, your brain says: “Oh, but we could think about this more. Shouldn’t we think about this more if we’re going to do this as well as we can, and if we’re going to be successful?”
Which means I do not have the chance to power down. It’s not a switch we’ve learned to turn on and off.
It’s something that, because this is the tool we wield, we’re very good at just turning it on and leaving it running. And of course, that, that hurts us in the long run.
Adam Levy: 03:48
What you described there is, I suppose, somewhat about the fundamental nature of academia and doing brain-based work.
What is it, though, not just about academia itself, but around the structures we’ve built in academia that I suppose, push people towards practices which may be not so good for our mental health?
Desiree Dickerson: 04:11
It is very evaluative and performative and always that sort of goal, to strive for excellence. And I think that the terms we use hurt us a lot, because excellence can only be 10% of that.
We’re always fighting for the very top, and that is a very challenging space when you are surrounded by peers who are equally brilliant.
You know, there’s often that that sort of inbuilt belief that it’s a one-to-one ratio of input to output, right? We don’t take into account, you know, the starting points of each individual, the other factors that come into play, where your life, your family structures, where you come from, all of the other variables that play into how we think, how we work.
There’s just precarity, right? Really, you know, it’s a very precarious position to be, and you’ve been told, if you work hard, then you will be successful in life, or at least, that’s for many the myth, you know, the messaging for all of us.
And then suddenly you are, you know, realizing that actually, that the chances of getting an academic career that you’ve always thought you wanted are suddenly not possible or not palatable, given that you have to then live a world away from your family, your friends, etc, etc.
But then the messaging around leaving academia is very heavily based in failing, and I think that hurts us a lot.
Adam Levy: 05:24
Given all these pressures around success and quite brutal definitions of failure in academic spheres, what issues do these lead to? What do you see in your work as kind of common themes in mental health issues among researchers?
Desiree Dickerson: 05:41
The rates of depression are increasing. The rates of anxiety are increasing.
Stress and psychological distress is increasing. I mean, on the one hand, yes, it’s becoming, thankfully, very slowly, but thankfully increasingly okay to talk about mental ill health.
Just put your hand up and say, “I’m struggling.”
So of course, the rates are increasing, because finally, we are getting to spaces where we can talk about what we struggle with.
But it’s also just the increasing precarity in the environment, the increasing instability in our environments, wider environments, workplaces in general, not just in academia, but certainly outside.
I mean, the world is seeing increased rates of mental ill health, increased rates of suicide, increased rates of psychological distress, etc.
So it’s just that academia tends to have higher rates than the average already. So those impact on us dramatically.
Adam Levy: 06:33
Desiree Dickerson there. And we’ll hear more from Desiree in future episodes where she’ll join us to discuss both burnout and what we can do to make academia healthier and happier.
And in our future episodes, we’re going to be covering a wide range of topics, from the mental health of faculty and supervisors, to the stress of researching politicized topics.
And we’ll be looking at some of the positive steps that can be taken at every level of research.
But first, I want to dive a bit deeper into the problem itself and take some stock of how we can begin to rethink academia.
Simona Lackner started out as a microbiologist, before transitioning to a PhD in systems neuroscience.
She then did a postdoc in computational and complexity social science, where she investigated how humans make decisions.
And now based between Lisbon and Vienna, she’s broadened her work even further. She founded The Empathic Scientist, which works on research advocacy and science-based interventions with the aim of improving awareness of wellbeing in academia.
And she’s part of REMO, Resarchers Mental Health Observatory, a community of over 300 spanning institutions across Europe.
Given her experiences on both sides, as an academic and as someone hoping to understand and aid academic wellbeing. I kick things off by asking how today’s academic landscape poses particular and profound challenges for researchers.
Simona Lackner: 08:10
Well, one of the things is, of course, that more and more people than ever are entering the academic field and also performing PhDs, which is really amazing in terms of increasing higher education for society.
The other thing is, of course, that also the resources in terms of funding are not necessarily increased or appropriate to the amount of people that are entering the academic system.
There are certain barriers in succeeding in this publish and perish culture.
If a first generation academic is entering the system, maybe that person still has also to understand how the system works, how to navigate it, besides doing the science, right?
Figuring out how the pathway is, we are a huge group of very diverse people coming from different backgrounds, speaking different languages, but we all have to speak English and publish in English.
So there are several different not to say, obstacles, maybe challenges, that a young academic has to face.
Adam Levy: 09:15
Can you explain then what the consequences of this are? What do we see when we actually look at the mental health of academics?
Simona Lackner: 09:22
Nature itself runs a service, I think, since 2011, in all the different continents and countries, to predict what are the factors for wellbeing and mental health.
And in this research over all these years, predictors were definitely relationships with supervisor, and, of course, also inclusivity.
As I mentioned before, like it’s a very international field, so people come with different cultures into a quite homogeneous system of thinking, and need to adapt. And also need to find a way to belong.
So there was a review done across different occupational groups that suggested that academics, together with teachers, are among the groups with the highest levels of common mental health issues like depression anxiety. They showed with an estimated prevalence of 37% compared to 19% in the general population.
Now we don’t even speak about what impact COVID had, and social isolation, right?
Adam Levy: 10:24
What can this actually lead to for the academics who are suffering and for their careers?
Simona Lackner: 10:31
Yeah, I think the consequences are huge, as also the data shows. So we know about this “quiet quitting” phenomenon more and more. But also what we know from psychological terms of view, that there was a study that showed that it takes eight years to seek help.
And that is quite a long time where maybe a whole PhD time was already passed, or one already is in the postdoc level, or even in the Senior Principal Investigator level.
And from neuroscience and behavior science, we understand that self-degrading neural patterns manifest in the brain during such a long period can jeopardize career advancement due to negative thinking loops, toxic behaviours that may be consciously or unconsciously developed. Imposter syndrome and, of course, burnout and worst-case scenario, suicide.
As a consequence, people who are suffering from the impact of mental health issues fostered by our research culture are then more prone to leave academia.
A huge consequence for society is that when people leave academia with low confidence or imposter syndrome, that they maybe cannot use their highly trained talents for society as a whole and jeopardize maybe their career progression, even in industry.
All these predictors for mental health and wellbeing, unfortunately, but also not surprisingly, have the highest impact on historically marginalized groups such as women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, or students from low-income economies.
So if they are hit the most by these predictors of mental health issues and wellbeing, and they are the ones that are quiet quitting, the leaky pipeline for diversity is increasing more than ever.
Adam Levy: 12:17
And is this something that you have witnessed yourself personally with your experiences in academia?
Simona Lackner: 12:24
Of course. As a female and first generation academic, I observed it, I would say, my whole career. I was maybe not aware what were the factors, until I dig deeper into the actual research that has been done, not only on mental health, but also on diversity, women in science.
That then allowed me to find words, and also numbers, for my experiences and observations
Adam Levy: 12:50
In terms of how we begin to shift this, do you feel that institutions are beginning to take this mental health crisis more seriously and are beginning to act?
Simona Lackner: 13:01
Well, my first reaction would be, of course, not enough, but there is finally some awareness about it. Some of the institutions that I know are offering emergency consultations with psychologists.
But I think that is not enough, because that is kind of putting the responsibility only on the person that is suffering, not on the system as a whole.
And as all the studies that have been done for the past years show that this mental health crisis in academia is highly related to the environment and that academic system.
I think that we really need to take actions as a community, basically put the microscope on ourself as an individual, not only as a researcher, but also as a faculty, as institution leader, and ask ourselves the uncomfortable question: “What are we doing? What are we not doing?” And how is our behaviour and our attitudes adding to this mental health crisis in academia?
Adam Levy: 14:02
So then, how should these structures change? Whether those changes are coming, for example, from lab heads or from institutions themselves.
Simona Lackner: 14:11
Well, as we are scientists, and we like to collect data and use the scientific method to understand an issue, the first idea, of course, is to set interventions that are monitoring the status quo, namely, understanding what are the factors in my institution or in my laboratory that lead maybe to issues of wellbeing or maybe also issues of exclusion?
Yeah, I would say I’m a very strong advocate of empathy and emotional intelligence. One of the things that we are really good, trained in, in academia, is the rationality and the critical thinking.
At least in my experience, what was left behind a bit is how to learn to deal with our emotions and to have intelligence about the emotions of others.
And for that, maybe we should consider to develop new ways of communicating with each other.
Maybe, if we are spending a bit more time on empathy and emotional intelligence of how we communicate with each other, we already maybe create a safer space for academics.
But also, I think we as academics, we are all part of the system, so we all have a say of how we want to shape it and how we want to live together.
I think there are many possibilities of how to improve or change the publish or perish culture.
Adam Levy: 15:33
We’re talking here about a structural problem. But are there steps that individuals themselves ought to be taking to safeguard themselves, to safeguard the other academics around them?
Simona Lackner: 15:44
One point for sure is to acquire more self-knowledge. What do I mean with that? Self-knowledge is meaning to understand how I work as an individual. What are my routines? How do I manage my energy throughout the day, or throughout the week? And not only how do I manage my time, it’s for sure, helpful to invest in that.
And I think also that the institution has a huge responsibility in supporting this, because self-knowledge takes some time, it takes investment, it takes reflection, and that is not necessarily always given in the academic process, especially doing a PhD, right?
So I really believe that investing in the individual researchers of an institute is the way to go to secure excellence in science for society.
Adam Levy: 16:35
And how does your work actually engage with individuals, engage with institutions, to put these kinds of interventions into play?
Simona Lackner: 16:42
What I’m doing currently is advocating, of course, across Europe, about the mental health crisis.
And in the past years, I got lots of training and different tools that that can be meaningful, especially for individuals to preserve their wellbeing, regarding building up resilience, tools for burnout prevention, also how to non-violently communicate.
I’m trying to build programs that are meaningful for especially early career researchers, tools that I would have liked to have when I started out.
Adam Levy: 17:16
What’s your dream then, of how academia can change in such a way that it really fosters an environment that supports good mental health and wellbeing?
Simona Lackner: 17:27
Oh, what a tough question. I mean, I’m completely aware of all the financial constraints, right?
But yeah, for me, the academic dream was always understood as the privilege of securing existential needs while focusing on lifelong learning. To discover the unknown and build human capital for society and to basically be in service of society.
Yeah, I wish that this academic dream is continuing in terms of wellbeing. If I could travel back in time during my PhD I definitely would have loved to have more time to really understand the process, where it’s not so much about the product at the end, but on focuses.
What is happening during the process. How do I grow as an individual also, and how do I build knowledge?
The future perfect institute would be maybe something for me that still holds true, that I can focus on lifelong learning, but that has also space for the artistic process that allows deep self-reflection, not only about the data, but also what the data that is collected means to the individual as a whole and to society.
Adam Levy: 18:39
That was Simona Lackner giving a sense of the challenges of academia and how we can begin to reimagine it, topics we’ll be coming back to throughout this series.
But how can academia impact researchers who are already dealing with particular needs, whether these arise, say, from mental health or from neurodivergence?
We’ll be speaking with two researchers in our next episode, sharing experiences from their careers, from challenges to victories.
Until then, this has been Mind Matters: Academia’s Mental Health Crisis, a podcast from Nature Careers. Thanks for listening. I’m Adam Levy.
