Williams Danielle R, Duncan D'Anne, Rice Mallory M, Sanchez Erica L
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2024 Dec 12;25(3):e0008924. doi: 10.1128/jmbe.00089-24. Epub 2024 Aug 16.
Mental health interventions can help mitigate the unique challenges that individuals in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) face as they navigate these disciplines. We developed the "Mental Health and Wellness: Our Community and our Identity in STEM" workshop, which emphasizes leveraging our STEM community and promoting self-compassion, to foster a conversation among members of the STEM community on how to support mental health and wellness. This interactive workshop begins with a short lecture to define mental health and wellness and introduce evidence-based methods to increase self-compassion. Participants, who are often from diverse backgrounds and various career stages, then explore case studies that highlight experiences related to mental health across STEM career stages. Pre- and post-assessments of workshop participants suggest that participants had positive shifts in their ability to show compassion toward themselves as well as an increased comfort in discussing mental health within their STEM community. This workshop not only provided participants with practical tools and insights but also cultivated a supportive environment, underscoring the importance of mental health awareness and collective well-being within STEM fields. In this paper, we share tips on how this workshop was executed and lessons we have learned from our years of sharing similar workshops in the broader STEM community. We hope this paper serves as a valuable guide for potential facilitators to initiate conversations about mental health and wellness in their respective STEM spaces.
心理健康干预措施有助于减轻科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域的个人在钻研这些学科时所面临的独特挑战。我们开发了“心理健康与幸福：我们在STEM领域的社群与身份认同”工作坊，该工作坊强调利用我们的STEM社群并促进自我同情，以推动STEM社群成员之间就如何支持心理健康与幸福展开对话。这个互动式工作坊首先进行简短讲座，以界定心理健康与幸福，并介绍基于证据的增强自我同情的方法。参与者通常来自不同背景和处于不同职业阶段，随后他们探讨案例研究，这些案例研究突出了STEM职业各阶段与心理健康相关的经历。对工作坊参与者的前后评估表明，参与者在对自己表现出同情的能力方面有积极转变，并且在其STEM社群内讨论心理健康时也更加自在。这个工作坊不仅为参与者提供了实用工具和见解，还营造了一个支持性环境，凸显了STEM领域内心理健康意识和集体福祉的重要性。在本文中，我们分享关于这个工作坊如何实施的小贴士以及我们从多年来在更广泛的STEM社群中举办类似工作坊所学到的经验教训。我们希望本文能为潜在的主持人提供一份有价值的指南，以便在他们各自的STEM领域发起关于心理健康与幸福的对话。
