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Setting the Scene: Understanding the PhD Mental Health Crisis

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Managing your Mental Health during your PhD

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Abstract

This chapter deep-dives into research that has explored the so-called “PhD mental health crisis” looking at both statistics and common stressors that PhD students may face during their studies, as well as the possible causes for increased incidences of mood disorders in the PhD population.

(Trigger Warnings: suicidal ideation, suicide, self-harm, anxiety, depression, discrimination)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Highly educated was deemed to be having successfully completed an educational program of 3–5 years outside of the university setting or having a bachelors or master’s degree.

  2. 2.

    Note that the 2019 survey was the first time that the survey was offered in four additional languages including Chinese, Spanish, French and Portuguese which may have impact on the results.

  3. 3.

    If you are experiencing suicidal ideation and/or self-harming, there is a range of support available to you, detailed in the online resources accompanying this book.

  4. 4.

    You will note I have placed “failed” in quotations. This is because I do not believe that choosing to leave a PhD is failure, it is just a different decision. We will discuss this in detail later on in the book.

  5. 5.

    Many of these studies use IQ as a measure of intelligence, though there is evidence to suggest that IQ tests have biases, and a person can improve their IQ results over time with practice, suggesting it is not a true measure of intelligence.

  6. 6.

    For me, it was really feeling like a fraud (struggling from the impostor phenomenon that really fuelled my struggles during my PhD. I used errors made in the lab as “proof” in my own head that I did not deserve to be doing a PhD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rugby, UK

    Zoë J. Ayres

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  1. Zoë J. Ayres
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Ayres, Z.J. (2022). Setting the Scene: Understanding the PhD Mental Health Crisis. In: Managing your Mental Health during your PhD. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14194-2_3

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