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Thriving, Not Just Surviving

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Managing your Mental Health during your PhD
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Abstract

This chapter covers possible avenues for seeking help if you find yourself struggling during your PhD, including example conversation starters and information on communities out there to support you as a PhD student.

(Trigger Warnings: suicidal ideation, depression)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Personally I much prefer ā€œmental health managementā€ to ā€œrecoveryā€ as in my own experience I have learned that my mental illness(es) are chronic, thus I likely will never ā€œrecoverā€ from them, but to function well I certainly have had to learn to manage them.

  2. 2.

    This is a huge failing at the institutional level, and if you are subjected to this, I am so sorry. Affordable medical support and access is a basic human right.

  3. 3.

    I myself occasionally experience night sweats on my fluoxetine (Prozac) tablets but I deemed this a small price to pay for improved mood.

References

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  2. World Health Organisation (1992) Classification of mental and behavioural disorders. WHO, Geneva

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  3. SalĆ³-Salgado L, Acocella A, Arzuaga GarcĆ­a I, El Mousadik S, Zvinavashe A (2021) Managing up: how to communicate effectively with your PhD adviser. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03703-z. Accessed 15 Feb 2022

  4. Serani D (2021) 6 Antidepressant medication myths. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/two-takes-depression/202009/6-antidepressant-medication-myths. Accessed 21 Jun 2022

  5. VanDerBill B (2021) 7 Myths and facts about psychotherapy. https://psychcentral.com/health/myths-about-therapy. Accessed 21 Jun 2022

  6. Samaritans (2022) Supporting someone with suicidal thoughts. https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/if-youre-worried-about-someone-else/supporting-someone-suicidal-thoughts/creating-safety-plan/. Accessed 15 Feb 2022

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Ā© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Ayres, Z.J. (2022). Thriving, Not Just Surviving. In: Managing your Mental Health during your PhD. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14194-2_12

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