Objectives:
- To debunk common misconceptions about anxiety and depression.
- To understand mental health challenges in doctoral programs as a systemic issue, leading to the prevalence of anxiety, depression, isolation, and imposter phenomenon in graduate students relative to similar populations.
- To discuss ways that each student can help make our academic environment a protective factor that promotes wellness for all students, as opposed to a risk factor. Changing our academic environment is challenging work that can take a while to manifest!
- To build resilience in students by providing them with strategies to increase mindful emotion awareness and cognitive flexibility, as well as strategies for countering emotion-driven behaviors. We hope that in developing these skills, students will gain the additional capacity necessary to meaningfully contribute to a more supportive culture.
- This workshop was designed for graduate students, by graduate students, to share evidence-based tools for navigating stress and building resilience, within and beyond academia.
Pre-class work
- Watch: 1:15-14:50 and 36:05-45:45 of Professor Sapolsky’s lecture on depression
- Understanding depression:
- What are the differences between what the speaker refers to as the colloquial vs. the psychological definition of depression (i.e. “major depression”)?
- What does the speaker say sets depression apart from other diseases? (hint: what’s anhedonia? psycho-motor retardation? etc.)
- According to the speaker, why can’t people with depression just “pull it together”? (hint: the biology of depression, “vegetative symptoms”)
- Factors leading to depression:
- Connecting depression and stress, what does the speaker say can happen after experiencing 4-5 major stress episodes?
- What does the speaker mean by “depression is aggression turned inwards”? (hint: why is it important to have outlets for frustration?)
- How does the speaker define “learned helplessness” and how does it relate to depression?
- Understanding depression:
- Watch: Why Do Depression and Anxiety Go Together?
- According to the video, in what ways are depression and anxiety different? And in what ways are they similar?
- What’s the relationship between the “fight or flight” response and stress with anxiety and depression?
- From Harvard’s Report from the Task Force on Managing Student Mental Health, read pages 18-25
- Given what you’ve learned about depression and anxiety from the videos, and what we’ve already discussed about isolation and imposter phenomenon in class, were you surprised by the prevalence of all of these conditions at Harvard? Why or why not?
- Relating the videos to the state of mental health at Harvard’s graduate and professional schools, what are ways in which these issues are systemic (i.e. caused by the academic culture and environment, by the incentives of the program, etc.)? Hint: consider relating your response to the aforementioned factors leading to depression, including stress, “depression is aggression turned inwards”, and “learned helplessness”.
In class
The in-class materials are taken from, A Single-Session Workshop to Enhance Emotional Awareness and Emotion Regulation for Graduate Students: A Pilot Study by Emily E. Bernstein, Nicole J. LeBlanc, Kate H. Bentley, Paul J. Barreira, and Richard J. McNally.