Mental health graduate student experiences of advice- and support-giving in their personal lives

What is it about?

We asked mental health graduate students about their experiences providing advice and support in their personal lives. In medicine and other helping professions, it is common for providers and trainees to be asked to provide medical advice to family members, friends, and other members of their community in their "off duty" time. It's called "informal medical consultation" and the vast majority of medical trainees experience it. We wanted to know if mental health trainees experienced something similar; we called this "informal psychological consultation." We wanted to know what trainees get consulted about when they are "off duty" and how they handle it.

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Photo by Patty Zavala on Unsplash

Photo by Patty Zavala on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The "off duty" provision of advice or support can be tricky for trainees. On the one hand, they may be very knowledgable about certain topics and can help their loved ones in ways that feel empowering, like helping connect someone to a mental health professional or an evidence-based resource. On the other hand, they are still in training, and may not know what to do, or feel that their own boundaries are pressured when others ask them for help. We found that 80% of our sample reported being sought after to provide psychological advice or support, and sometimes, this posed ethical challenges for trainees. We also found that trainees usually didn't talk to their program mentors or supervisors about informal psychological consultation. We think program should consider addressing this topic during clinical training onboarding or as part of ethics/professional development classes or seminars.

Perspectives