This resource toolkit is one of several toolkits the LTER Network Office developed to help sites address common problems. You can see the other toolkits here>>
Fieldwork is often touted for the rewards and benefits, but it is also filled with physical, emotional, and mental challenges:
Purple boxes represent environmental factors, dark blue boxes group dynamics. Stressors (which have a negative impact on mental health) are represented by red arrows, and positive impacts by light blue arrows. As suggested by the figure, overcoming difficulties in the field associated with the positive impacts of field work ideally leads to personal growth. Image credit: Cédric Michaël John, Saira Bano Khan, from John, C.M., Khan, S.B. Mental health in the field. Nature Geosci 11, 618–620 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0219-0
Our Field Safety Toolkit includes more broad resources for considering safety in the field, but below you will find readings on the intersection of field work and mental health as well as resources for Mental Health First Aid training nationally available. If you would like to submit a resource please reach out to us here.
Readings
“The show must go on!” Fieldwork, mental health and wellbeing in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Fieldwork is central to the identity, culture and history of academic Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES). However, in this paper we recognise that, for many academic staff, fieldtrips can be a profoundly challenging “ordeal,” ill-conducive to wellness or effective pedagogic practice. Drawing on research with 39 UK university-based GEES academics who self-identify as having a mental health condition, this paper explores how mental health intersects with spaces and expectations of fieldwork in Higher Education.
Mental Health and Fieldwork Successful fieldwork and fruitful academic careers hinge on acknowledging and managing our mental health. This paper discusses peer-support networks, secondary trauma, coping skills, therapy, and researchers’ mental health options before, during, and after fieldwork.
Not just muddy and not always gleeful? Thinking about the physicality of fieldwork, mental health, and marginality This paper acknowledges that geographical fieldwork and fieldtrips can be deeply stressful, anxiety-inducing, troubling, miserable, hard and exclusionary for many colleagues, students and pupils. This paper draws on on qualitative data from research with UK university-based Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) academics who self-identify as having mental health conditions which substantially affect their daily lives. These data prompt reflection on the nature and experience of fieldwork in two ways. First, they require acknowledgment of fieldwork as not just ‘muddy’, widening disciplinary imaginaries of fieldwork accessibility to encompass marginalities in/of Human Geography fieldwork practice. Second, contrary to pervasive disciplinary idealisations, these data demand recognition that fieldwork and fieldtrips are not necessarily gleeful but can be sites of intense latent anxiety and intersectional marginality.
Mental Health in the Field This article speaks to the importance of mental health in field work and summarizes the factors that impact mental health in the field.
QPR Training QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer — the 3 simple steps anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide.
Mental Health First Aid from OSHA Campus This Mental Health First Aid training is OSHA aligned, and teaches workers to recognize mental health warning signs and direct at-risk employees to helpful resources.
