Book review: Managing Your Mental Health During your PhD by Zoe J Ayres

Context

I read “Managing Your Mental Health During your PhD” by Zoe J Ayres from the perspective of an academic who generally wants to think about the structures which can support students. This has been part of my work in the OxICFM CDT, for example, and became extremely important during the pandemic. I have some familiarity with the literature, having supervised an MChem student project on undergraduate mental health. 

Reading Dr Ayres’ book took me about 2 days between other bits of work, and in broad terms I would recommend it.

I’ve split the review into two sections for two different readerships: students and staff. Overall I think this is mostly a book for students but staff might find some of the sections useful as well, especially for reflecting on their specific context in a way which focuses on student mental health and wellbeing.

Review for students

If you are looking for explanations of why you are finding your PhD rough or ideas for how to change things, then read this book. It will be useful for any student who thinks it might be useful, and I guess you’ll know who you are. Get someone else to pay for it! Request it from the library. 

The tone is authoritative but warm - perhaps reminiscent of a well-informed self-help book - and the discussion is centrally concerned with practical steps in understanding and addressing why someone might feel unhappy or unwelcome in a PhD. Importantly, this extends beyond a medical model of mental health (e.g. the specific features of clinical depression) and takes a perspective which embraces aspects of wellbeing. In my view the book’s greatest strength is that it gives a rich PhD-relevant context for the social and professional dimensions of mental health. This is not a generic book about mental health, it is a specific book about mental health in the context of doing a PhD.

The writing about the PhD context is often (appropriately) critical. There is a clear sense that medical issues should be addressed by medical professionals, but also an unflinching account of the ways that things like bullying and poor supervision can be important causes of poor mental health. At the same time, some elements of the PhD context are held up as positive: the community of other students, for example, can be a great source of support.

I imagine a particular value of the book for students is its scope to validate experiences. To see that your experiences resonate with those of other people is sometimes very powerful.

Review for staff

From a staff perspective, I think it would be a good book to have in spaces like “recommended reads” stands in University libraries or on the bookcase of a lab group.

If you are starting from a position of curiosity, then I think reading bits of this book yourself would be useful. It’s great value for staff is that it presents a sustained and coherent perspective on how students can have a really rubbish time during a PhD. Being aware of this is important, and the book could be a good stimulus for thinking about these issues in a more systematic way.

For example, there are good discussions of things like the system-level issues which affect student mental health, and a rich exploration of how some students experience their PhDs very negatively. There is also a section about student experiences of PhD supervisors, which is still somewhat sympathetic to the overwhelming demands placed on academics: the book is pro-student, but it isn’t anti-professor.

It’s unfair to criticise a book on the basis of something it isn’t, but for staff it’s worth stating that this book is not a checklist of things you could do to make the PhD environment more supportive. There are strong discussions of important issues, but the agenda is mostly about helping students navigate imperfect systems. That said, I would be astonished if you finished the book and couldn’t think of a few things you might change.

Summary

This is a useful book. The agenda is to speak directly to students, and it is strongest for this audience. It may still be valuable for staff, particularly those wanting to understand the context their PhD students are navigating.

More than that, though, I think there is a real chance for this book to support the conversations about mental health which so clearly need to happen in academia.