Title: Need to heal thyself?
Headings: Need to heal thyself?
Degree In Sight
Need to heal thyself?
To Tell or Not to Tell
Steps for Self-care
Letters to the Editor

Content: A lot of different books and articles have been written about the crisis of campus mental health in the last ten or fifteen years, mainly looking at undergraduates," says Lisa Brandes, assistant dean for student affairs at Yale University in Connecticut. But mental health problems appear to be affecting graduate students as well. " Some of the graduate student mental health issues are just as serious or in some cases more serious than what we may be seeing in undergraduates," she adds. For people with mental illnesses, "the stress and structure of a graduate program can exacerbate their issues or [overwhelm] their coping skills." There's a saying that psychology research is actually "me-search," meaning that some people go into the field to understand themselves and deal with their own mental health concerns. And to some extent, that may be true. " I think people who are drawn towards professions such as psychology, usually their interest comes from something very personal," says Russell Federman, PhD, the director of counseling and psychological services at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. " It's not because they've had a simple, gilded, wonderfully supported life." To Tell or Not to Tell
You might assume that psychology graduate programs would welcome and accommodate people coping with mental health problems. However, that's not always the case, says Foster.