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I am speaking from my experiences with mental health in academia:

  • After being a grad student and a postdoc for several years, I developed severe mental health issues (after being completely healthy in my youth, as far as I can tell).
  • My friends (around eight people who I knew well) who were graduate students or postdocs at the same time have experienced terrible mental health problems/breakdowns (such as bipolar disorder, psychosis, suicidal tendencies, needing to take a year off work, being placed into a mental hospital for some time, forgetting to eat).
  • Three other grad students I knew developed severe illnesses (unknown physical illnesses for two of them and an instance of extreme anxiety for the third one) that are not compatible with working and they have been unemployed since then.
  • A professor and another postdoc I met can only function when they are taking heavy doses of antidepressants (the professor in fact tends to experience prolonged periods of time when he is not able to function at all). As far as I know, all these people developed their mental health problems after being in academia for some time. In addition to these, I have heard many more people in academia talking non-specifically about often going through periods of depression, which is frequently accompanied by inability to work.

I am wondering what can be done to improve this situation.

  1. Should there be more research into mental health in academia, especially among grad students and postdocs?
  2. Should there be more preventative measures that can ensure better coping of junior academics with mental health difficulties that are likely to befall them? (During my years in academia, I received virtually no specific information or training that could help me to prevent mental health problems).

Note: I see a lot of interest and comments/upvotes even though the question has been closed for being opinion-based. If you are interested in this question and have at least 3000 reputation on this website, please vote to re-open it (apparently I already have at least two votes to re-open, and I need five to re-open it)! Also, feel free to leave any comments (comments are still open, even though a question cannot accept answers while it's closed). In particular, please use comments to suggest ways to reformulate/change this question so that it can be posted as a new question on this website which is less likely to be closed for being opinion-based. I am also interested in any suggestions for other suitable Internet forums where this or similar questions can be asked successfully.

Mental health
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    To the close voters, would you please explain why this question is opinion-based? It sounds a legitimate question to me. I have reviewed hundreds (if not thousands) of questions on this site from those academians who have mental illness . It's a real issue. – Nobody Jun 25 '20 at 09:36
  • @scaaahu It is asking "why isn't there more research" - that smacks of opinion - unless you have the categorical answer. Perhaps there should be some, any or more research but the reasons why may be legion. – Solar Mike Jun 25 '20 at 09:46
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    @SolarMike Could you suggest how to reformulate this question and/or its title so that it is less likely to be closed? All I want to do is to draw attention to the dire situation with mental health of the people I know in academia and to ask what can be done to save the young people who are going into academia now from similar problems. – Mental health Jun 25 '20 at 09:51
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    As unfortunate as the situation is, "I want to draw attention to X" is not an intended use of this site. – lighthouse keeper Jun 25 '20 at 09:57
  • @lighthousekeeper Perhaps you could suggest a different forum for which this question would be more suitable? – Mental health Jun 25 '20 at 09:57
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    You seem to be diagnosing people based on what they write here. "those academians who have mental illness". How can that be valid? – Buffy Jun 25 '20 at 10:00
  • Reddit has dedicated forums (subreddits) for academic audiences, for example, r/Academia/ and r/AskAkademia/. Twitter has big networks of researchers, some of them discussing mental health issues in academia. You can start an interaction with them by mentioning them. – lighthouse keeper Jun 25 '20 at 10:00
  • @SolarMike Also, I don't understand why some people are voting to close this question if there are enough people who like this question, are upvoting it, and presumably want it to be answered. Isn't it automatically a good question for this site if there are enough people on this site who are interested in it? Shouldn't the people who don't like this question just let the people who like it at least get some answers before closing it? – Mental health Jun 25 '20 at 10:37
  • I assume it is down to reputation - and a certain amount has to be gained, but I don't see the detail of close votes so it may be outside reputation. – Solar Mike Jun 25 '20 at 10:38
  • The body of the question is mainly a list of anecdotes, rather than the formulation of a question. The OP also doesn't seem to have checked how much research there currently is on this topic (or even whether there is any), which seems like a necessary step before posing the question. – David Ketcheson Jun 25 '20 at 10:48
  • @DavidKetcheson I included anecdotes to draw attention to the relevance of this topic and this question. The anecdotes indicate that the current level of effort in dealing with the issue of mental health in academia is insufficient, and my question is to try to understand what can be done to improve the situation (whether more research into the topic or the implementation of better ways of dealing with the problem in practice, if the research is sufficient). – Mental health Jun 25 '20 at 10:49
  • @Mentalhealth First of all, best of wishes on your health. In my observation, this site doesn't often take up questions about whether academia as a whole should change. You might ask a question like one of the following: Are mental health issues unusually prevalent among academics? What can a grad student or postdoc do, to improve their own mental health? What can a professor do, to improve the mental health of those in their department? Have any universities introduced substantial preventative measures concerning mental health issues, and have they been effective? – academic Jun 25 '20 at 12:36
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    Hey, I can see that you edited an answerable question in there 'what can be done to improve the situation', even if it's a bit broad. However, you then continue asking 'should this or that be done', and that still makes it very opinion-based. I think the overall question would be improved if instead of "should" you ask "is there any current research on ..." "what would be good preventative measures which research teams could implement..." "are there any examples of institutions providing information, training or guidance on how to cope with mental health issues" – penelope Jun 25 '20 at 13:38
  • Or, (my above suggestions came from the institutional level, so they might not be as interesting to you) if asking from a PhD student/postdoc perspective instead, you might ask something along the lines of "What steps can a student or a postdoc take to learn how to cope with current or future pressure and/or mental health issues coming from the academic environment, and how to approach getting help and support from their own team/institution? Which steps could I take right now to improve the situation in my current team/group for future students?". This could get you concrete suggestions – penelope Jun 25 '20 at 13:44
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    I edited this to make it a bit more readable; perhaps that will help with your attempts to get it re-opened (I see you already have two reopen votes). I would also suggest that you clarify the actor you have in mind. Questions like "what could academia as a whole be doing better" might be fun, but questions like "What could I, as a professor, be doing to help my department do better with respect to X" are much more useful. – cag51 Jun 25 '20 at 18:08
  • Very nice job with all the edits. The question looks much improved. Voted to reopen. – Caleb Stanford Jun 27 '20 at 02:38

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