Debunking … Part II– Questions and Answers

On Friday November 28^th, 2014, a group of students at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law sat down for a presentation and Q&A with Doron Gold, former practicing lawyer and psychotherapist with the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Member Assistance Program*.

Student questions included:

1. How can I create a supportive community for myself and my friends?
2. What do I say when friends or classmates are focusing on unhealthy thoughts; being judgmental; catastrophizing or panicking about exams or jobs?
3. How can I create a healthy environment for myself?
4. When should I speak to a professional (student services professional, therapist) or encourage a friend to speak to a professional?
5. I’m already tired and stressed. How can I turn things around and start to feel better when I have no energy or motivation?

Read on for Doron’s responses!

Image by opensource.com | CC BY-SA 2.0

To read about Doron’s presentation on isolation and unhealthy perfectionism in the law, check out Part I.

Q: How can I create a supportive community for myself and my friends?

A: Create a circle of trust and allow yourself to show vulnerability around friends that you trust.

Try to create a safe space for vulnerability by maintaining a non-judgmental, open attitude. Ups and downs are natural part of life; allow for this in yourself and your friends and try to support one another to practice self-care and take it in stride.

[JB: It goes without saying that disclosures made in this manner must be kept confidential and treated with respect.

• If your friend seems very overwhelmed or distressed, or you haven’t heard from them in an unusually long while, you may want to reach out and ask, with compassion and using open questions that invite comment, if everything is okay.
• Don’t worry about giving advice, just express non-judgment and be an attentive listener.
• Know your boundaries but respect your friends’ boundaries as well – – you can suggest referrals if your friend is experiencing a great deal of distress, but it is better if they ask about this information.
• If you need to take a step back for your own mental health, do so respectfully and with kindness – – now might be a good time to gently suggest bringing other friends in and/or seeking professional help.]

Photo by geralt | CC0 Public Domain

Q: What do I say when friends or classmates are focusing on unhealthy thoughts; being judgmental; catastrophizing about exams or jobs?

A: You can’t control what other people believe, and consequently, what they say. You can only control your own thoughts and actions.

[JB: students who participated suggested:

• Speaking up and expressing your countering views, to bring balance to the discussion.
  • For example: “I don’t think that doing poorly on one exam will ruin your chances for professional success forever. Many students who aren’t the best students in law school go on to become very successful and competent lawyers”.
• Ask the friend or colleague, respectfully, to refrain from discussing the particular situation around you.
  • For example: “Can we please agree to not discuss exams while we’re taking a coffee break? I find it stressful not to have a break from it.”
• Removing yourself from the situation, or spending less time around people who contribute to an unhealthy environment.]

Q: How can I create a healthy environment for myself?

A: It is important to practice “deliberate, active self-care”.

Instead of seeing the time taken to eat healthy meals, exercise, or connect with loved ones as wasted study time, see it as an investment into peak performance. A top athlete wouldn’t train for a big competition by eating junk and sleeping poorly.

Deliberately departing from the top athlete analogy, consider “good enough” instead of perfect. What would be a “good enough” performance for you? How you feel about events is as important as the events themselves, and can help you ease pressure that may be largely internally generated.

Consider context. Ten years from now, any exam or paper will be a distant, likely unimportant memory. Try and take a step back to see the big picture: law school is a means to an end, not the end itself. What is the “end”? Ultimately, to live a meaningful and fulfilling life – – and law school is just one part of this journey. Think about the other aspects of your life (friends, family, community service) – these are important too.

[JB: As we mentioned in Part I, there are online self-paced CBT resources that you can work through to help you develop healthier beliefs and practices, such as the comprehensive modules available at the Centre for Clinical Intervention.]

Photo by JJ Harrison via Wikimedia Commons | CC-BY-SA-3.0

Q: When should I speak to a professional (student services professional, therapist) or encourage a friend to speak to a professional?

A: It never hurts to speak to a professional if you are experiencing distress – they can often help you improve the way you deal with life’s stressors. However, if you begin to feel that your distress or your life is getting out of control, you may want to seriously consider speaking to a professional.

Early intervention is ideal but it is never too late, nor is the situation ever too far gone to seek help!

Anxiety, depression, procrastination and other mental illnesses can become especially problematic during times of stress. Be mindful of your mental health during especially stressful times. Although some stress is natural and even healthy, you should consider seeking help if the stress becomes overwhelming.

[JB: early intervention is also important if you feel you may need to seek academic accommodations. These accommodations often require documentation to be presented. You can speak to a professional:

• through your university – either in student services (i.e. Dean of Students) or health services (often therapists/counsellors),
• via the free e-counselling or in-person therapy provided by the MAP [requires registration], or
• via private therapy [scroll to bottom], which may be covered by some health plans.]

Q: I’m already tired and stressed. How can I turn things around and start to feel better when I have no energy or motivation?

A: Make incremental changes – don’t be perfectionistic about improvement!

Pick one small habit or practice that you think will improve your well-being. Really commit to doing this one thing over a determined period of time and do it deliberately. It can be eating one extra serving of fruit or veg, exercising for fifteen minutes (or even showing up at the gym), taking a walk, cutting back on one coffee per day; whatever you think would be helpful to you.

Even the tiniest changes can eventually have a huge impact – – negative momentum has a tendency to perpetuate and making a small, positive change can turn this around into positive momentum. A person who is feeling unwell often feels disempowered and believes that change is not really possible. Successfully making one change, regardless of how small, can build a belief in the possibility of change and build capacity for further changes.

To read about Doron’s counselling experiences with isolation and unhealthy perfectionism in the law, check out Part I.

*Doron Gold works with Homewood Human Solutions, which administers the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Member Assistance Program. MAP provides free, confidential mental health and wellness services to law students, lawyers, judges, paralegals and immediate family.

Debunking the Law Student Lone Suffering Myth, Part I

To view the Q&A with Doron, please see Debunking the Law Student Lone Suffering Myth, Part II – Questions and Answers [coming soon].

Doron Gold has had hundreds of legal professionals confide in him. He is a long-time staff clinician with Homewood Human Solutions, provider of the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Member Assistance Program, which provides free, confidential mental health and wellness services to law students, lawyers, judges and paralegals. In his role, Doron receives telephone call after telephone call in which legal professionals ask some variant of this question: “am I the only one experiencing depression?” Am I the only one suffering from anxiety, addiction, bipolar syndrome, ADHD, deep and general dissatisfaction with life? The frequency of these calls combined with their content – a vast number of professionals feeling completely alone in their distress – was near “absurdity”, says Doron.

Photo by Jackman Chiu | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Doron chalks it up to a perception among many legal professionals that perfection is required for success in the law. Lawyers are imperfect, as all humans are. However, some lawyers perceive that everything matters at all times – – that any mistake is irredeemable. Life can also be unpredictable. It is unfortunately not unusual for a client to present after suffering a professional setback, the loss of a parent, and a serious health issue in short succession. Often, such clients perceive that they should be coping perfectly with such serious setbacks. They may perceive that others are not struggling, regardless of their life circumstances.

This perception that perfection is required at all times leads to a lack of trust between peers and colleagues and a fear of appearing weak or incompetent if vulnerabilities are exposed. Therefore, legal professionals don’t talk to one another about these issues. Consequently, they feel needlessly isolated. These unhealthy beliefs often begin or are exacerbated in law school, which is why Doron believes strongly in early education and intervention.

Unhealthy perfectionism can extract an immense toll, sucking the joy and vitality out of an otherwise comfortable life. Perfectionism is about remediation and leaves no room to celebrate the good.

Doron recalls one recent client (details have been changed to preserve anonymity) who painted a poignant portrait of the very real, negative impact of unhealthy beliefs. The young woman in question was accomplished; highly educated; professionally successful and respected by her colleagues; in good health; attractive; had a loving partner, family and friends. By all objective accounts, her life invited contentment. Nevertheless, she described a constant existential dread arising from the fear that her string of successes couldn’t possibly go on. She worried that she might be fired; that her partner might leave her; that something might go terribly wrong. Her energy and motivation were constantly sapped through worry. Something had to change.

Photo by geralt | CC0 Public Domain

Doron combats this kind of unhealthy thinking by encouraging clients to test distressing thoughts and beliefs with concrete evidence. He asked the woman to consider whether there was any evidence she was doing poorly or would do poorly at work (there was none); whether there was any evidence that her partner was unhappy (there was none); whether her belief that disaster lurked around the corner was supported by evidence (it was not). Gratitude journals, he suggests, can also help retrain a mind that tends toward pessimism to take a more balanced view of life.

Challenging core beliefs and keeping a gratitude journal are two cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) tools which aim to unearth maladaptive beliefs and challenge them, thereby changing the filter through which events are interpreted, the thoughts and feelings evoked, and any behaviours that result. The goal is to replace maladaptive beliefs with adaptive, more realistic beliefs, resulting in an improvement in feelings and behaviors.

CBT can be done with a therapist through your university, through the free e-counselling or in-person therapy provided by the MAP [requires registration], or with private therapists [bottom of page]. There are also self-paced online CBT resources that you can work through independently. The comprehensive multi-module programs available at the Centre for Clinical Intervention can help manage depression, distress intolerance, panic attacks, procrastination, social or generalized anxiety, or perfectionism.

CBT is just one approach to help minimize the distress experienced by “lone sufferers”. In the following Q&A, Doron also discusses how to create a supportive law student community, how to know when to seek professional help, and how you can make positive changes, even if all your energy seems occupied in just keeping up.

To view the Q&A with Doron, please see Debunking the Law Student Lone Suffering Myth, Part II – Questions and Answers [coming soon].

This post was adapted from a presentation given by Doron Gold to students at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law on Friday November 28^th, 2014.

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