Mental health in academia: What's it all about?

Abstract

Should your PhD sacrifice your mental health? Seems like a silly question to ask in 2020, maybe even rhetorical to some. However, a great deal of postgraduate researchers experience mental health issues as an unwanted by-product of their PhD. At what point does this become too much? Mental health has become one of the biggest issues put under the public spotlight in recent years, so why do we still have this archaic culture in academia? Maybe it is time for a change in how we think about what is and is not acceptable, and what resources are available to those of us who find ourselves struggling with our mental health during our research.