Mental Health amongst University Staff

[Feline1]

I don’t know whether you’ve seen this new research on mental health in universities. I suspect it’s the tip of the iceberg. If you are suffering poor mental health in HE, you aren’t alone. Any thoughts? More specifically, any thoughts about how to deal with this? www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/23/higher-education-staff-suffer-epidemic-of-poor-mental-health?fbclid=IwAR2PwuJW_BLbx64WDbGPDNec-rQEo47PKmZeWsyVUsckWkYIlMUEQ-dM8uU

Here is the researcher’s blog, if you want more detailed information on this issue. She writes a regular critique of HE and it’s always worth reading. academicirregularities.wordpress.com/

They will do it for as long as they can get away with it. I could talk about my situation, but it would be too revealing. I would add though that it has gender dimensions with women being under some particular stresses - I think having a dick really counts in academia.

I actually find women are worse interestingly for treating other women poorly. But it's generally men who get the better deals.

I agree @bakedbeanzontoast I have witnessed some appalling women managers. One of my former colleagues compared an infamous one of ours to Thatcher not wanting women in her cabinet.

@YetAnotherSpartacus I’m sorry to hear about your situation and I agree - they will. I’ve often seen these policies supposedly supporting and safeguarding mental health used as tools of power, control and punishment. I’ve had colleagues had them used against them to prove they were not capable of their jobs.

I would say in my experience women tend to end up doing the 'emotiinal labour' re students. As a course leader I found myself picking up the slack when our student wellbeing team (v good but massively overloaded) could do little but add a student to their waiting list. Some of my students have some really serious problems, it was quite harrowing stuff that I as an academic and NOT a trained counsellor was expected to just deal with. I had a particularly horrible year last year, struggled and have now insisted on shedding my course leadership duties. A male colleague has taken them over and I'm going to be interested to see how much of the same problems he experiences. In fact I
dealt with a lot of students from other programmes too because their (male) course leader set firm boundaries. I'm not knocking him for that - if anything I probably needed to learn from him! But it was interesting his students didn't complain about that, but another female colleague with the same attitude came in for a lot of criticism. My sense is that students go more readily to female lecturers and we seem to be judged more harshly if we DON'T deliver on the 'nurturing' pastoral care front, set boundaries etc. And dealing with it ended up taking a huge toll on my own health! Here's hoping they don't end up at my door anyway...!

Interesting point. The boundaries between “pastoral” and “psychological “ support are not clearly defined (can they be?) and you can face some distressing situations that, as you say, do take their toll on you. The “training” you get just tells you to refer students to wellbeing, but does not tell you how to address the real situations we face in situ - eg how help a student who is kicking off in class (happened to my colleague last year) or in extreme distress.

We were offered an 'intro to counselling for academics' type course and although I could see the point I put my foot down and refused to go - I am NOT a counsellor and I felt I'd be doing my students (and myself!) no favours by assuming the role!

Aside from that there is a university 'wellness week' type thing with free yoga etc. once a year... In term time.... That no one has the time to go to between teaching and all the rest. I.e. the university just passes the buck. Take ownership of your mental health, staff! Look, free yoga and craft sessions!!! Great. Any chance you could look at workload, student mental health etc.... No? OK then.

“Pass the buck” is the operative phrase. Let’s do some yoga to deal with systemic problems! As the report and other studies I’ve read clearly indicate, if universities want to work towards a positive culture for staff, then they must look at issues such as workload and demands on staff not represented within the specious counting systems they set up; abusive managerialism; the constant threat staff live under with the regimes of power and control staff face (eg via appraisal, student feedback etc). Many, many staff are suffering.

Some places have started bringing in 'therapy dogs'.

Can they teach and mark also?

I mean, yes. But I work at a university and have used the free counselling service for personal issues (nothing to do with work) because it's free, easy to access, and recommended so much these days.

If every single workplace had free counselling on site, I wonder if rates would generally be going "up"?

We have a free phone counselling service supposedly available but I don't know of anyone.who's actually used it (I did ask a few people last year when I was in need myself). People generally seemed quite worried using it would be used against them.somehow, which says a lot! I paid to go privately, which has turned out to be a bit of a waste of money but that's a whole other thread.... Rather than some faceless phone counselling service I'd much rather they sorted out my workload and supported me in practical ways. Like maybe finding someone qualified to tell my students one of them has killed themselves, rather than making me do it (badly, while crying, after having been informed BY EMAIL myself). For example, and speaking completely hypothetically, of course 🙄

@QueenRefusenik @yulet Access to uni counselling services (phone or otherwise) usually enquires official permission, eg, from your line manager. In other words, it would be recorded and potentially used against you. I’d rather pay privately too.
What a terrible thing to have to do @queenrefusenik. A tragedy.

Our managers are not informed we are using the counselling service and no-one is listening in! I've used it two or three times for an ongoing personal issue, and also had 6 weeks of face to face counselling from calling the helpline. I've just checked their policies and it's completely confidential except for legal/life-threatening matters- so basically like a normal counsellor then. No reporting to uni, or line managers. It's a great service, although I wonder how much it could help with more profound MH issues, but don't put people off it on the basis of rumour.

Yes ours is private too, I checked repeatedly! If there was any hint of them telling managers what was said in a session, I am certain that there would be a massive scandal here.

But I wasn't so much advocating that everyone try it - I was commenting on the rise in demand mentioned in the article.

It is promoted heavily here so I wouldn't be surprised if application rates were on the rise from people with non-work issues as much as work-issues.

I wouldn't want to over-egg what a counselling 24 helpline can achieve. although ours offers face to face too. It is plugging a gap in a very large tsunami of stress, overwork and mental health issues amongst staff primarily (IMO) caused by structural changes to the job (such as shitty workload models that deliberately under-represent the time it takes to teach). But- I wouldn't want to discourage people from using any helpline if it is confidential- they are 24/7, will listen to your problems, help you find solutions. If you just are at bursting point it's a place to start and helps you articulate your problem if nothing else. The counsellors on ours are genuinely very good, I had one amazing conversation with a counsellor who took an approach no-one else has and it was incredibly empathic and helpful at that point.

It's actually encouraging to hear some good feedback about the uni counselling - ours is outsourced so quite possibly the same provider as some of you have used. I might be more inclined to use it next time (while also hoping there ISN'T a next time!).

In the University department in which I work we have in the past few years had one suicide (I am told it wasn't work related but no-one will then say why it happened)(male), one attempted suicide (that person has now left and I am pretty sure it was work-related)(male), at least one person off with stress for pretty nearly a full year (female)(work-related), and now they have broken one of my closest colleagues who is 'likely to be off for several weeks' (female)(work-related). I sometimes wonder how I am still standing; DW keeps trying to make me take semi-early retirement before I have a heart attack (I'm in the old version of Teacher's Pension and 61 so could retire but can't yet get state pension).

Meanwhile we have Wellbeing, which seems to consist of (a) PE for grown-ups (pretty well hated it as a child so I'm not going to get excited by it now) and (b) how to manage your menopause (er, look at the username).

Wellbeing that consisted of reduced workloads and support staff who actually supported instead of expecting academics to meet ever increasing bureaucratic hurdles while doing their own jobs with spectacular incompetence -- now that I could support.

Instead, and with a high degree of luck, I got offered a consulting job and now I am part-time in each. However, I can see me doing more consulting and less university in the near future.

It is sad that it has come to this.

That’s very lucky. For our helpline, you need permission from your line manager.

Dear God. What a terrible, terrible situation. I’m so sorry. Thank goodness you managed to get out (at least partially). I agree with your points on the causes of stress and on “support” services being a bureaucratic source of stress. I thought I’d add, for anyone who is suffering, but does not want to seek permission to access wellbeing services such as phone helplines, that you can access phone counselling via some union subscriptions. Worth checking out, if this applies to you.

Feline1 I wouldn't use your helpline either, I'm not sure that is even ethical to offer counselling monitored by others.

I detest all attempt at this "well-being" stuff that the university wheel out. It is insulting.

"Come and have a walk in the woods with us at lunch time". Yeah.

I like it! I mean, I can’t do anything much about my workload but I can go for a walk in the sun with my pals and have a laugh. But I am by nature dementedly cheerful

Haha. I'm not grumpy - I would take any chance to potter about with my colleagues. I quite like them. It's the fact that they appear to think this is a substitute for a proper consideration of workload that upsets me...

I’ve been an academic for a long time. I think that the environment has changed enormously since I started back in the early 90’s. REF has added a huge degree of pressure and I’m not sure that the quality as opposed to the quality of research has improved. In my department class sizes have tripled. We no longer have the sense of community that we had with the students and hence we are no longer in touch with how they are feeling. They don’t know us well and there is a Spence of us against them which didn’t used to exist. They find it harder, I think, to accept and precess feedback coming from people they have no relationship with, they see us as remote and anonymous. Social space for academics has disappeared under the pressure for teaching space, we can no longer share experience over coffee and lunch and no longer feel the Informal support and guidance of experienced colleagues. We are isolated in our offices. Personally I find this very bad for my wellbeing. Finally the university has gone from a place run by academics for academics and students to one run by “professionals” with a need to monitor and control us, so we feel we are not trusted.