Beyond the Lab: Managing Your Mental Wellbeing Through Your Career and Professional Development
A webinar – Managing your mental wellbeing through your career and professional development.
Discover practical strategies and expert insights from our recent webinar on managing your mental wellbeing through proactive career planning and professional development, where we delved into topics such as coping with career precarity, loneliness, and psychological safety.
Resources
Resources · MHFA England
Mental Health Support Network provided by Chasing the Stigma | Hub of hope
Samaritans | Every life lost to suicide is a tragedy | Here to listen
Could counselling change your life? (bacp.co.uk)
NHS talking therapies for anxiety and depression – NHS (www.nhs.uk)
The Gold Standard in Coaching | ICF – Credentialed Coach Finder (coachingfederation.org)
Mental wellbeing – Mind
Self-Care Assessment | Worksheet | Therapist Aid
Loneliness at work | Marmalade Trust
Our mission – Compassionate Neighbours
Wellbeing and mental health — Vitae Website
Student Minds – Student Minds
Questions from the webinar
Question 1 – I am currently a PhD student that feels actively discouraged to continue in academia as it seems very damaging to mental wellbeing, but feel like the system will only improve when new, motivated ECRs progress through the ranks and are empowered to make changes. How can we make sure these people feel able to stay in academia and therefore improve things for new generations of students?
We are all part of the research culture and we all have a responsibility to be part of any changes. The challenge is that academic careers are highly competitive. By being proactive and treating your career like your research (having a plan and strategy) is really important.
There is a lot we can do to manage our own mental health – this isn’t “toxic positivity” or the sort of resilience that means you put up with bad behaviour, but we can learn to manage our thoughts and emotions so that we can operate in these competitive environments and actually enjoy it. The great thing is that if you can learn this for yourself, it will make you a better leader of others in the future too. The majority of supervisory issues come from stressed supervisors and leadership issues come from stressed leaders. Supporting yourself to be compassionate and understanding will help those around you too (and often make you a better researcher too)
Question 2 – What measures can be put in place to make therapy more accessible to doctoral and early career researchers?
My answer is more about coaching than therapy, but one way that I use to make this more accessible is group coaching. I have a membership programme at a UK university where the PhD students have access to 2 sessions a week of online group coaching. They get individual coaching in front of other people in a webinar format, so they get to see how other people have the same issues and to learn from how they address them. We often talk about universal issues like procrastination, overwhelm and imposter syndrome. This creates community and gives people access to regular support in an affordable and sustainable way.
Question 3 – After several months in my new job I realised my mental health was detoriating. I reached out to my manager for increased support, communication and opportunities for discussions to help me manage direction and self doubt but nothing changed. What else can I do?
Don’t be afraid to leave a toxic situation. The only person whose behaviour you can change is yours. Yes there is career precarity in life sciences, but it is not a reason to stay somewhere that is not good for you. I have lost count of the conversations that I say ‘you can/should leave’, and the person just tells me another thing wrong with their boss.
If you are not in a position to leave, ask your manager if you can both review what’s happened since your request. It’s okay to say ‘I don’t feel like much has changed’ and ask if you can work together to put some specific changes or actions in place. If your manager isn’t confident in what actions they can take, see if you can bring a member of HR or another manager into the discussion.
About our speakers
Clare Viney
Clare is a Chartered Scientist and Chemist with 20 years’ experience in the science community and not-for-profit sector. She is a member of the ELRIG early career professional (ECP) workgroup and is passionate about investing in future generations and those from diverse backgrounds and experiences, empowering people to realise their potential and achieve their career and development goals. Prior to her role at CRAC/Vitae, Clare was with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) for 16 years in a variety of roles. CRAC is a charity and was founded in 1964. Vitae, non-profit programme of CRAC, is the global leader in supporting the career and professional development of researchers, experienced in working with governments and over 200 institutions in 23 countries. It strengthens members and partners provision through research and innovation, training and resources, events, consultancy and membership. Vitae advocates for a healthy research environment and culture that will attract and develop a more diverse workforce, believing this will impact positively on individual and institutional performance and bring societal and economic benefits.
Faye Allison
Faye Allison graduated in 2013 with a BSc in Biology and initially started her career in scientific report writing for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. She then moved into recruitment, specifically focusing on the chemicals industry in the UK. She has spent the last 9 years partnering with companies of all shapes and sizes and with candidates all over the UK and beyond to match good people with good jobs. She and her team have supported hundreds of companies to find scientific and technical talent from graduate to boardroom level, as well as supporting candidates right through their career, from graduation to management. Faye is passionate about mental health, on both a personal and professional level, so has perspectives from her own lived experience as well as advice for the wider scientific community.
Peter Simpson
Peter is widely recognised as a strategic leader of life science companies, with a track record in driving innovation, growth, and impact. He is currently Chair of Dia Beta Labs Ltd, a peptide therapeutic-based SME in metabolic disease, and of Ephyra, a sponge RNA technology company, and he runs his life science consulting company Peter Simpson Consulting Ltd. He is passionate about building high performing teams that have an inclusive mindset, harnessing and developing a diverse range of talents to deliver strong outcomes. Peter was founding Chief Scientific Officer for Medicines Discovery Catapult, developing its research capabilities, teams and strategy. In the Covid pandemic, Peter led the establishment of one of UK’s 3 national Covid testing centres, which grew to employ 800 staff and delivered ~24 million Covid diagnostic tests. Peter has eighteen years of experience in developing successful drug discovery departments and programmes within major Pharmas (MSD, AstraZeneca).
Fiona Brown
BACP-accredited psychodynamic and person-centred counsellor
Fiona works at Isabel Hospice in Welwyn Garden City, where she offers counselling and psychosocial support to patients with life-limiting illnesses and their families. Fiona also delivers supervision sessions and debriefs for hospice staff and is an EDI champion. Additionally, she works within the NHS Talking Therapies Service in Hertfordshire, delivering counselling for individuals struggling with depression and anxiety. Prior to her career in counselling, Fiona worked for 20 years in drug discovery at GSK. Alongside her scientific roles, she led the Health and Wellbeing Forum for the Stevenage site, delivered coaching to GSK employees to enable their personal and professional development and was an EDI Champion.
Vikki Wright
Dr Vikki Wright is a national award winning lecturer, life coach and podcast host. She runs The PhD Life Coach, where she helps clients reduce overwhelm, procrastination, and imposter syndrome so they can achieve their goals and enjoy their lives. Her main focus is PhD students and academics, but she coaches any professional with an academic background, as we all experience a lot of the same challenges. You can find out more on her website www.thephdlifecoach.com and on her podcast, The PhD Life Coach, which is available on all platforms.
Chair – Cassie Messenger
I am currently working as a senior scientist in Discovery Biology Screening at GSK in Stevenage. Additional to my lab-based role, I recruit and train our industrial placement students and advocate for mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Having recently completed my MPhil degree in collaboration with the Cancer Metabolism lab at the Francis Crick Institute, and volunteering for the ECP workgroup and board at ELRIG UK, I want to use my networks and connections to support ECPs across industry and academia.
