Between taking classes, teaching classes, completing clinical internships, managing research assistant positions, writing theses or dissertations, and juggling family responsibilities, psychology graduate students are under enormous pressure. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only added to that stress for most (see June Monitor).
Yet graduate programs typically don’t teach their students how to take time for self-care, despite evidence showing that self-care behaviors make trainees happier and healthier. A meta-analysis of 17 studies led by Joshua K. Swift, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Idaho State University, found that self-care behaviors were linked to increases in self-compassion and life satisfaction. and reduced psychological distress among professional psychology graduate students. (Training and education in professional psychology, Flight. 10, no. 4, 2016). And a survey of 358 psychology doctoral students, led by Evan Zahniser, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in neuropsychology at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health System, found that higher levels of self-care were associated with better progress self-reported among respondents’ graduates. programs (Training and education in professional psychology, Flight. 11, no. 4, 2017).
Fortunately, encouraging self-care doesn’t have to be a stressful project. Professors and recent graduate students say simple changes can have a big impact. Here are their tips for encouraging students to take care of themselves:
Know stressors and obstacles. Financial stressors and time constraints regularly top the list of challenges faced by psychology graduate students. In a 2012 APA survey, 68% of respondents said academic pressures were a significant challenge, and 64% cited finances or debt among their top stressors. These stressors also stand in the way of stress reduction, the study found, with 47 percent of respondents saying money was a barrier to self-care and more than 70 percent blaming a lack of time.
“More and more, there is this pressure to really excel and stand out in all different aspects of your professional identity,” Zahniser says. Trying to fit self-care into your schedule can be very difficult.
First-generation college students and those whose sexual, racial, or ethnic identities are marginalized may face unique challenges compared to their peers, says Nicholas Grant, PhD, a clinical psychologist in the U.S. Navy and GLMA president-elect: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ. Equality. These students may lack family support or face discrimination and feel that they do not fit into the dominant culture of a graduate program.
Program culture can also be a barrier to self-care. Karen Saules, PhD, a psychology professor at Eastern Michigan University, remembers the wake-up call she received when her students expressed concerns about whether it was safe for them to admit they had fun over the weekend or went on vacation. a school break. “We started to worry about the climate where it wasn’t acceptable to balance work and home life,” Saules says.
Registration. The first step toward combating this type of environment is to make self-care a welcome topic of conversation. Self-care is integrated into the ethical codes of mental health organizations, including those of the APA, but students and trainees do not receive explicit instruction on what self-care is or how to do it. do, says Arianne Miller, PhD, assistant professor of counseling. and school psychology at San Diego State University.
Miller broaches the topic with students with this question: “When was the last time you felt well mentally, physically, and spiritually?” (Most, she says, report that this last happened before graduate school.) Carolyn Allard, PhD, associate professor of clinical psychology at Alliant International University and president of the APA Div. 56 (Trauma), makes sure to ask her students about their mood and physical well-being, looking for the warning signs they need to take more time for themselves. Anxiety, tension, headaches, lack of empathy toward others and irritability are all signs that a person’s mental health might be deteriorating, she says.
Acknowledging that graduate school is difficult can combat the stigma of stress, says Melanie Arenson, a psychology graduate student at the University of Maryland.
“The cultural element ends up trickling down to create a sort of systemic space to have these conversations,” Arenson says. “It puts it on the radar of faculty members, so they are more likely to check in with their students.” »
Integrate self-care into the classroom. One of the dangers of focusing on self-care is that it can become just one more task on a seemingly endless to-do list. To avoid this, integrate self-care into classes students are already taking, suggests Robyn Gobin, PhD, assistant professor of clinical psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “During class time, they are invested in learning, they are invested in obtaining good grades,” explains Gobin. “So that’s part of their grade.”
Gobin has her students complete a self-care assessment and identify areas where they can improve their self-care. Miller incorporates self-care lessons into her clinical classes when she discusses self-reflection. She also encourages self-care through additional assignments, such as asking students to reflect on their own self-care practices.
Encourage small steps. Another key strategy is to encourage students to start small. “If you Google self-care, it’s like a photo of Oprah in a bathtub with bubbles and champagne,” says Miller. “But taking care of yourself is just very basic little things: going to bed a little earlier. Go to the dentist. Spend time with friends. Experience joy and have fun.
Encourage students not to make perfect the enemy of good. Graduate students are typically high achievers and want to excel in everything they do, even self-care. It’s important to encourage students not to be perfectionists when it comes to self-care, she says: “My logic is that 15 minutes is better than zero minutes.” »
Gobin encourages her students to choose one area, such as social, physical or mental, and work on self-care in that area alone for a semester. “It makes things much more manageable, by identifying an act of self-care that they can pursue consistently,” she says.
Part of helping students identify small steps they can take is determining how self-care fits into their value system, Grant says. Focus on what a student wants most from self-care: a boost of energy? A mental break? – can help them identify activities that will give them what they need.
Sponsor a wellness committee. After Saules and his colleagues noticed that graduate students in their program were afraid to admit that they were enjoying the weekends, they launched a graduate student wellness committee to work to change the culture.
The committee is led by students, usually first-year students, who typically have more time than older students, and meets twice a month for an hour, Saules said. The group plans inexpensive fellowship activities, like hiking or kayaking, and hosts a weekend writing retreat for students for about $15 a night. The committee sends care packages to internship students (faculty pays postage) and tracks milestones students reach, such as passing qualifying exams, and recognizes that progress with a grade. The group also hosts lunchtime seminars in which professors or older students lead discussions on topics such as writing a thesis or the pros and cons of having children while studying. higher or later.
Model self-care. The most important way to encourage self-care is to practice self-care and let your students know that you do it.
When Allard asks her students to think and learn about self-care, she joins the discussion alongside them. When Grant speaks to students, he talks about his running and how he fits it into his schedule.
Setting boundaries for students is also crucial, says Gobin. Let them know that you don’t check emails late at night or on weekends, for example, and encourage them to take these breaks at work, too. If working odd hours is productive for you, let students know that they don’t need to respond to your emails when they arrive, but rather when they are working.
“The type of culture in which people are encouraged to set boundaries is important, whatever those boundaries are,” Zahniser says.
Of course, teachers are also under a lot of pressure and may feel that their own self-care practices are lacking. That doesn’t make it any less important to put in effort and share strategies with students, Miller says.
“Modeling imperfection is just as important,” she says, “if not more important.”
