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Time to Talk About Why So Many Postgrads Have Poor Mental Health

posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 02 2018, @12:05PM   
from the constant-stress dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Poor mental health is an issue for many of our readers. That fact is underscored by the response to a tweet sent by @NatureNews earlier this week, which highlighted that rates of depression and anxiety reported by postgraduate students are six times higher than in the general population (T. M. Evans et al. Nature Biotechnol. 36, 282–284; 2018), and asked what should be done to help. The figures are a shock, but it was the reaction that blew us away: more than 1,200 retweets and around 170 replies.

“This is not one dimensional problem. Financial burden, hostile academia, red tape, tough job market, no proper career guidance. Take your pick,” read one. “Maybe being told day in, day out that the work you spend 10+ hrs a day, 6–7 days a week on isn’t good enough,” said another.

The feedback emphasizes something that Nature has highlighted often in recent years: there is a problem among young scientists. Too many have mental-health difficulties, and too many say that the demands of the role are partly to blame. Neither issue gets the attention it deserves. “I’d love to see some of the comments under this thread published,” wrote one responder. “There needs to be real conversation about this, not just observation.”

We agree — which is why we are publishing some of the responses. (You can read the full thread here.)

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Original Submission

• Re:Identify the problem (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @02:46PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @02:46PM (#661487)

  for shame AC!

  I apologise, I should have enclosed in sarcasm tags as a substitute for satire tags.

  As someone with a PhD, I can concur that the thought "why the fuck am I doing this to myself? how can this be worth it?" occurred often when I was finishing off writing my thesis.
  An unthinking sense of "I started it so I'll finish it" and a loving girlfriend pushed me through the barrier.

  Rather, you evaluated priorities and pushed yourself through the barrier? There is a world of difference self-esteem and narcissism. [psychologytoday.com] That article too goes of the rails after a good start, it talks about self-esteem being a social construction. Self-esteem does not require external validation, rather building self-esteem requires a process of evaluation, failure, re-evaluation and eventual success. Assigning responsibility to nebulous "oppressive" concepts like "the system" [kafka-online.info] is not healthy, "every child gets a trophy" is not healthy while concepts like "white privilege" are completely disgusting.

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