At the SMCU conference, Wendy Ingram, PhD, from Dragonfly Mental Health, presents the results of a mental health stigma intervention conducted at three university departments. Does hearing faculty talk about their own mental health struggles help reduce stigma in the department?
Wendy
Hello, and thank you so much for joining us. Today my presentation is called in English: A film, breaking the stigma: an evidence-based approach to tackling the stigma associated with mental health issues in academia. My name is Wendy Marie Ingram. I’m the co-founder and CEO of Dragonfly Mental Health. And I’m pleased to be presenting this work to you today. A number of years ago, we noticed a detrimental myth among academics. Many students expressed the concern that if they struggled with mental health, then that indicates in and of itself, that they’re not going to make it in academia or they don’t have what it takes. In many discussions with faculty, however, I found that many faculty had struggled with their own mental health. But they indicated that there was no appropriate platform to share their struggles professionally. We decided to do something about this, we created a method to break the stigma. First, we invited faculty with lived experience to be interviewed. We then edited this these interviews into short films, and screened these films at departmental retreats. The screening was followed by facilitated small group and then large group discussions. Following this event, we surveyed participants on their perceived effectiveness of the event, impact on stigma and free responses as well. Here is an example of a film. It’s abbreviated with only three of six faculty at University of California, Berkeley who participated in one of these events.
Richard Holland
Certainly, as a developmental biologist, I find it astonishing when anybody makes it to adulthood. Never mind with the level of function that most of us have. So I think it’s not surprising at all that there’s such a prevalence of depression. I’m Richard Holland. I am a member of the molecular and cell biology department. I’ve been the chair of that department twice. And I now work in the dean’s office as an associate dean.
Elcin Unal
My name is Elcin Unal, I’m a faculty at the MCB department in the Division of genetics, genomics and development here at Berkeley.
Kathy Collins
I am Kathy Collins, and I’m a professor in biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology.
Richard Holland
Have I struggled with mental health conditions? Yes, I struggled with depression, I had a major episode back in the 80s and subsequent cycles of mild depression, which I learned to recognize for what they were fortunately.
Kathy Collins
Do you ever get the answers that people no no one who struggled with mental health conditions? I’m not sure that would be possible in today’s world? So the answer would be, yes.
Elcin Unal
Yes, I have personally struggled with mental health conditions. And I also know people who has struggled as well.
Richard Holland
How does it affect your work? I think at its worst, where you have a feeling of self loathing and lack of value, and you really don’t know what to contribute. It’s very difficult to do anything.
Kathy Collins
These mental health challenges that make me withdraw from a lot of social and professional opportunities that I should be taking, because I don’t want to take on too much.
Elcin Unal
So at a personal level, it has both positive and negative effects in my life. From the positive perspective, it allows me to be creative and think a bit outside the box. And from a negative perspective, at times when I feel lower, obviously, the productivity and just you know, day to day events can become a bit more of a struggle, but knowing oneself, it helps to be able to deal with, you know, both the good and the bad. Getting help via therapy, proper medication, and getting support from people that I trust and am connected to.
Kathy Collins
I think if I am feeling a lack of respect for myself for not motivated for a reason that’s clearly biochemical. Doing what you’re avoiding is great just throwing myself into a social network. And I really didn’t know how valuable that was.
Richard Holland
The first episode was quite severe. But then I got out of that with the help of medication, therapy and time and success of the lab. And then there were subsequently several episodes, milder episodes, which I learned to recognize and learn to recognize that they would come and go, until I decided that I didn’t want to deal with them anymore and permanently went on medication, which fortunately has prevented any subsequent episodes.
Elcin Unal
I would say that you’re not alone, that you’re not weak, or you’re not helpless. There are a lot of us that have struggled through different states of mental health. And it’s good to know what kind of state you have and get help. But it doesn’t define your capacity or your potential, it may actually be very helpful in certain ways.
Richard Holland
The main thing to say to students is that it’s remarkable how much your colleagues will give you support. It’s amazing how effective modern therapies are both verbal and chemical. They really work. And so those are really important messages to pass on. You don’t need to suffer, forever, it can end.
Kathy Collins
talk, share. It’s like, there’s a thing we say about questions. The only stupid question is a question not asked. So the answer here is the same. Don’t worry about imposing, you’ll get a response quickly. If someone like your mentor doesn’t want to be involved in this, then you can go to the next person. We confess our science problems to each other all the time. So why shouldn’t we talk about the things that are affecting our science also. Science is about interaction, you don’t have ideas in a vacuum, you have to go to seminars, you have to go to lunch with your peers, you have to talk over the centrifuge in the hallway. And if you’re not motivated to do that, if you’re not feeling engaged, then you’ll pass up those opportunities, and you’ll never know what you don’t know. So I think that it is extremely helpful to think about it in terms of being part of a group because science is a group effort.
Wendy
Thank you so much for your attention during that film. Following the film screening, we invited participants to break into small groups of their choice and discuss the following five questions. What was most striking to you about the film? How is stigma expressed in your experience? What would most benefit your mental wellness? What is preventing you from achieving that? How can or do you personally cultivate your own mental wellness and combat stigma? What can others and the department do to support mental wellness and better combat stigma? In our survey following the event, we found that an overwhelming majority of participants found the film beneficial, also found the small group discussions beneficial and a slightly smaller percentage, but still, the vast majority of folks found that the large group discussions were beneficial as well. We also asked about participants perspectives on the impact of having this film and discussions on stigma. The vast majority again said either yes or somewhat to the question, did you think the film and discussions reduced stigma? A larger percentage said that it definitely reduced the perception that suffering from mental illness prevents success, which was our leading question. And an even larger percent, said that this did lead to meaningful discussions about barriers to wellness. We also asked the question, did you engage in discussion about the film beyond the allotted time, and nearly three quarters of individuals indicated Yes. We also had a free response category. And while there’s too much to go into here, you can look at our manuscript once it is released, where we go into much more detail, but I did want to highlight a few things that we found. Participants in general indicated that more direct storytelling with more details was perceived as more impactful in improving perceptions on mental health then vaguer statements and stories. There’s an overwhelming positive sense of belonging, though, when participants saw faculty that they knew share their personal experiences. There was an indication however, that if there was a method to maintain anonymity during this discussion session section, that would be more ideal. We also had folks indicate that a lot of people thought structural issues within the department or institution or academia itself, promote and cause negative mental health effects. And they also felt that departments and institutions should be involved in improving this mental health and take responsibility for doing so. Finally, a lot of individuals indicated both that they would like more tools to take care of their own mental health as well as be able to support others in their community. I’ll finish with attributions and thanks, especially to my co presenter, Jaishree, and my co-authors of the manuscript, Adriana, Malgorzata, César, Linda, and I’d like to particularly acknowledge the wonderful folks at molecular and cell biology department at University of California Berkeley, Dr Matthew Welch, and a graduate student there, Ashley Albright, who were both instrumental in getting this project delivered and having this data collected. So thank you all for your attention. Please visit us at DragonflyMentalHealth.com or follow us on Twitter or Instagram DragonflyMH or dragonfly_mh, respectively. We have a rich volunteer program. We provide services directly to universities, and we also conduct research such as that which we presented to you today. So thank you so much, and please direct any questions you have to Jaishree.
