The importance of maintaining a healthy workplace has been increasingly recognized in recent years. However, although physical health has received much attention, many places have shied away from addressing psychological health. However, not talking about mental health issues does not make them go away, and avoiding discussing these issues may make the problems worse.

Avoiding the Issue

“It could be difficult for participants to talk about that.”

“People may feel uncomfortable if we try and discuss that.”

“Program managers are not health care professionals, so they might feel overwhelmed with that kind of topic.”

Those are some of the comments that came up earlier this year at a meeting to discuss a professional development day for LPAs (Language Program Administrators) at an upcoming 2014 conference in England. As a member of the event’s organizing committee, and based on my experiences as the director of a large university English language teaching unit in Hong Kong with around 4,000 students and 40 staff, I proposed the topic of “Managing Mental Health in the Workplace.” This caused some understandable concern, as the above comments show, and we eventually decided to frame our 2014 PCE (Professional and Continuing Education) meeting in terms of building a culture of resilience and avoiding burnout.

The concern came from feelings that mental health was a “negative” topic with “negative” connotations, which I completely understood. But reflecting on the challenges I faced during my five years (2007–2011) as the director of the unit in Hong Kong, it was clear to me that most of those challenges were personnel-based rather than funding constraints, curricular concerns, or assessment of learning outcomes—although all of those things did pose considerable and recurring obstacles along the way. But greatest of all were the challenges based on personnel, and I started to notice that some of the most difficult situations showed a pattern that pointed to the mental health problems of certain individuals.

A Growing Awareness

Part of this awareness came from my first professional incarnation, working as a medical science officer in hospitals in England for some years, before leaving in my mid-20s to start all over again as an English language teacher. But my time working as a health care professional taught me much that I still use today: in the language classroom, for example, how to listen closely, sympathetically, and empathetically to someone who is struggling to make him- or herself understood.

Whether that struggle to understand and to be understood comes from being in a foreign country, culture, and language, or whether it comes from being in a hospital in one’s own first language and culture, the communicative needs of the individual can be surprisingly similar. Although hospitals are usually filled with kind and caring staff, hospitals can also be deeply dehumanizing places, where we are, in many ways, stripped of our identities—put in a hospital gown, in a hospital bed, on a sterile hospital ward. Likewise, although most schools are filled with similarly kind and caring staff, schools can still be scary places for those newly arrived, who may feel metaphorically stripped of their language and their culture.

Although my move from hospitals to language classrooms raised many an eyebrow—especially during some of my early job interviews, when I was attempting my “leap of faith” from one field to the other—there are more similarities than might at first appear to be the case. For example, it is no coincidence that websites such as schools.com, in their list of 10 “helping” professions, list teaching first and nursing second, with social workers, counselors, and psychologists listed as third, fourth, and fifth, respectively (Hosler, 2011).

Many TESOL professionals would list all five of those as necessary parts of their repertoire—and many more roles and responsibilities as well. So, it is possible that, because of this unusual career path, I have been sensitized to mental health issues in the workplace and spotted some of the signs early on. But when I attempted to discuss the issue of mental health in the workplace, this was met with considerable resistance, with the same concerns expressed by my staff and by my supervisors as were expressed by the planning committee for the LPA event in England.

An example of this discomfort was the teacher who threatened to bring legal action against me for using the phrase “mental health” in an e-mail that I sent to the staff in the ELT Unit in Hong Kong, who were very concerned when she suddenly resigned halfway through her first semester teaching with us. The individual turned out to be suffering from severe depression, to the point of going up to the roof of the 10-storey building during a lesson break, sobbing uncontrollably there, then coming back down to the classroom and attempting to continue her lesson. If we had not noticed her depression and not expressed our concerns, a terrible tragedy may have happened up on that rooftop.

Some Lessons Learned

That incident, together with a number of others, taught me many things, including the fact that teaching is not for everyone, and for some people it is not just a question of burnout but can be something much more serious, even life-threatening. I also learned that even when we are dealing with clear cases of mental health problems, people can still be extremely resistant to the idea. But several committee members at the university in Hong Kong thanked me for raising the issue of mental health in the workplace, and they were all able to give examples of similar personnel cases, which had become long, drawn out, and often legal, cases. They also explained that they had little or no training in managing such issues, and felt unprepared and overwhelmed by having to deal with these cases. In some cases, the mental and physical health of the department heads themselves suffered as a result of having to cope with the challenges they faced without being trained or prepared for them.

One of the difficulties of having discussions about mental health in the workplace is the notion of “disability,” which is fraught with negative connotations and complications. However, in many countries, including Canada, where I am currently based, the accommodating of physical disabilities in the workplace is required by law. It should also be noted that Canada might be somewhat ahead of the curve in its openness in the discussion of mental health. For example, in September 2009, Canada Post issued its second set of stamps on the theme of mental health. They asked on their website: “Did you know that one in five Canadians will suffer from a mental illness at some point in their lives? Unfortunately, despite its far-reaching scope, this issue is too often overlooked and stigmatized” (Canada Post, 2009, p. 1).

In Canada, there is also a government agency, the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) which states on its website, under the heading “A Massive Impact”:

In any given year, one in five Canadians will experience a mental health problem or illness. Nearly a quarter of the country’s working population is currently affected by mental health problems or illnesses leading to absenteeism, “presenteeism” (coming to work but being less than fully productive) and turnover. Adults in their early and prime working years are among the hardest hit. (MHCC)

The Costs of Avoiding the Issue

The costs of coping with mental health problems in the workplace are high, not only for the individuals dealing with those problems, but also for the individuals who work with them, including language program administrators. In terms of dollar-costs, the MHCC goes on to state that:

Approximately 30 per cent of short- and long-term disability claims in Canada are attributed to mental health problems and illnesses. Of the total economic burden caused by mental illness in Canada—about $51 billion per year—a staggering $20 billion stems from workplace losses. (MHCC)

This aspect is not unique to Canada, as Mark Raderstorf, a licensed psychologist, and Jennifer Kurtz (2006), a disability case manager, point out in their article on mental health in the workplace in the United States:

Over the past decade, mental health issues in the workplace have emerged as the second leading cause of disability. For example, in 1990, depression was the fourth leading cause of disability; now depression is second only to musculoskeletal disorders. Some say it will be the leading cause of disability by 2020. (p. 55)

It is possible, then, that we may just be seeing the tip of this particular personnel iceberg.

Conclusions

It has been a couple of years since I completed my time as the director of the ELT Unit at the university in Hong Kong, and I am only now finding the courage to write about some of my experiences as an LPA coping with mental health breakdowns in the workplace. I used to have nightmares about that young female teacher, sobbing on the rooftop of that building and what might have happened up there had we not risked legal action to address the matter. I don't have those dreams any more, but I do still feel strongly that, no matter how uncomfortable we may find the issue of mental health in the workplace, as LPAs we are often on the front lines of these issues. So, I am hoping that this article will help open up the discussion and create a safe space and place within which we can share our experiences of dealing with these potentially life-threatening situations.

References

Canada Post. (2009, September 14). Mental Health. Retrieved from
http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/personal/collecting/stamps/2009/2009_Sept_Mental_Health.jsf

Hosler, A. (2011, July 14). 10 ‘helping’ professions and how to train for them. Retrieved from
http://www.schools.com/articles/10-helping-professions-and-how-to-train-for-them.html

Mental Health Commission of Canada. (n.d.). Issue: Workplace. Retrieved from
http://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/English/issues/workplace?routetoken=073331ed05ca7cd8f975cda3e4fa0c88&terminitial=30

Raderstorf. M., & Kurtz, K. (2006). Managing mental health disability in the workplace. The Case Manager,17(1), 54–59.

Andy Curtis received his MA in applied linguistics and his PhD in international education, both from the University of York in England. He was the director of university English language programs in Hong Kong and in Canada from 1998 to 2011. He served on TESOL’s Board of Directors from 2007 to 2010.