Introduction
In recent years, with the increasing pressure on academic and scientific research among doctoral students, the anxiety and depression problems of doctoral students have also increased from "personal trouble" to "social issues". The author of this article believes that depression has become a disease of the times. Doctoral students at the top of the ivory tower are not only not spared, but are also facing high risk of depression.
To explore the era symptoms of depression in the doctoral student population, the author analyzed the depression experience of doctoral student population and the structural incentives behind it through field surveys. The author believes that as a normative "moral system", Research Institute contains the "doctoral study clock" and moral commitments that doctoral students should abide by. PhD students plagued by depression are essentially subject to this moral system and encounter various risks and uncertainties in their academic careers. They have a complex and extremely personal moral perception of sunk costs and are difficult to live a dignified moral life.
In the author's view, the process of doctoral students seeking healing has gone through a process of turning from one to multiple, from linear to complex view of time, and is highly dependent on the understanding and support of others. Undoubtedly, the breaking and reconstruction of moral order is the key to understanding the mechanism of occurrence and treatment of depression experience for doctoral students. Paying attention to the risk of depression of doctoral students requires understanding their moral situation, breaking through the cultivation and evaluation mechanism that is not conducive to concentrating on research and blindly pursuing the number of results, reshaping a healthy academic culture, and providing a relaxed and supportive academic soil for doctoral students' academic innovation.
This article was originally published in the 7th issue of " Educational Research " in 2022. The original title is "Melancholy at the piscopal ivory tower - Narrative Research on the Depression Experience of Doctoral Students". The article has been edited and deleted. Please refer to the original text if you need it. The article only represents the author's views and is for your reference.
Melancholy at the spire top
—Natural study on the depression experience of doctoral students
At present, my country has built the world's largest higher education system, but the mental health status of doctoral students is not optimistic. Studies have shown that doctoral students in my country's universities are facing high risk of depression. The issue of doctoral depression is not only a topic in the field of psychiatry or psychology. It truly exists among the doctoral student groups in higher education institutions, but also a common concern for doctoral students, supervisors and higher education administrators. As the highest stage of in national education system, doctoral education is an important manifestation of the country's core competitiveness. The physical and mental health of doctoral students is not only related to whether they can fully realize their academic potential, but also the quality of training of high-level innovative talents in my country. Therefore, it is urgent to explore the structural, institutional and cultural roots behind the depression problem of doctoral students, in order to provide reference for promoting the cultivation of talents in higher education institutions and the improvement of academic and cultural and mental health intervention systems.
Problem
In the world, depression has become a disease of the times, and the spire of the ivory tower has not been spared. Surveys from many well-known universities abroad show that college students' mental health is worrying and the risk of depression is increasing. Evans (T.) and others' research found that graduate students are 6 times more likely to experience depression and anxiety than the general population. The 2019 Global Doctoral Student Survey of " Nature " magazine showed that 36% of doctoral students had asked for help due to depression or anxiety, a three-fold increase compared with 2017.
At the end of the 20th century, the expansion policy implemented by my country's higher education institutions promoted the rapid expansion of the enrollment scale of doctoral students, from 17,724 in 1999 to 63,762 in 2010, and by 2020 it had reached 116,047. A 2019 report by Nature magazine showed that in a survey of 690 Chinese doctoral students, 40% of respondents said they had sought help due to depression and anxiety during their doctoral studies, compared with 36% in other countries. In 2016, according to Beijing Youth Daily , 40 people from a famous university in Beijing were confirmed to be depressed, and the number of masters and doctoral students became more and more ill.On the question and answer website " Zhihu ", the question "How to alleviate the symptoms of repeated depression in a doctoral degree?" A total of 267 people answered, and the highest vote answer was liked by 5,156 people. In September 2020, the " Exploring Special Services for Depression Prevention and Treatment of Depression" released by National Health Commission proposed that "all high schools and universities will include depression screening in students' health examinations", which has aroused widespread attention and discussion. Some scholars pointed out that "our children are very fragile today" and "education must return to students' health", including physical, psychological and mental health.
Although topics related to depression of doctoral students often attract people's attention, they often "discuss them with fear" in real life. Most of the public's knowledge of doctoral students' depression comes from news reports that they choose to end their lives due to depression. They are accustomed to attribute the reasons for their depression to "can't think out", "high pressure", and even lead to moral accusations such as selfishness and unfiliality. This kind of rough, static understanding is difficult to help us understand what doctoral students troubled by depression have experienced, and also simplifies the social roots of depression problems and ignores the interaction between the pain and the subject.
There is a hypothesis in the field of medicine that the method of effectively alleviating depression for undergraduates is also applicable to doctoral students. But some research in recent years has shown that many of the experiences of doctoral students are unique compared to other students, and their mental health problems should be taken seriously. Some related analyses involving doctoral students' depression problems are either attributed to shallow external factors such as "excessive graduation requirements", "scientific research work involves very complex and profound work", or attributed to personality traits such as "strong desire to win" and "perfectionism". Few is known about the differences in the mechanisms of depression problems among doctoral students and other groups, but researchers are increasingly aware of the importance of independent research on doctoral students' depression and are gradually turning to structural explanations of the causes of depression for doctoral students.
At present, in-depth research on the depression problem of doctoral students is rare, and pedagogical theory also rarely observes the significance of mental illness in the growth of adolescents. Once adolescents face problems such as depression, they are classified as psychology or psychiatry. As a "scientific knowledge that is obsessed with the growth of others", or taking the "healthy development of the mind" as its essence, pedagogy should not be absent. At present, the "sensitivity" and "stigmatism" about depression still exist. It is particularly necessary to exert the imagination of sociology and elevate the "personal troubles" brought by depression to doctoral students to "social topics". Based on this, this study attempts to analyze the social roots of doctoral students' depression problems by deeply describing the inner experiences of doctoral students in the face of depression, getting along with depression, and seeking healing, and explore the mechanism and way to relieve depression problems for doctoral students.
Concept, paradigm and method
The concept of depression is hidden behind the complex social construction process. In the study of the depression problem of doctoral students, it is necessary to explore the origin and disputes of the concept of "depression", find appropriate research paradigms and methods, and then deeply describe the depression experience and mechanism of this group.
(I) Depression: "Wastebasket" is also a disease entity
In April 2002, the "China Mental Health Work Plan (2002-2010)" identified depression as a key disease to prevent and treat. The strong promotion and extensive publicity of the government have made depression a mental illness generally recognized by the Chinese medical community. Based on different understandings of the nature of depression, the following three research paradigms are mainly formed.
First, the dominant biological psychiatry believes that there is an objective existence of a disease entity called "depression". Second, the anti-psychiatric paradigm, or as what Goffman thinks, "everyone may also show any basic mental symptoms", or as what Foucault thinks, madness is an "irrational experience", but is transformed into "disease" in the evolution of civilization, or as what Sars believes, "psychiatry is a tool of political power."Business forces will also penetrate the psychiatric community, making "mental disease diagnosis increasingly manipulated by pharmaceutical companies." Third, medical anthropology in cross-cultural contexts believes that depression reflects "a relationship between individuals and society", "a social emotion and obstacle", and is closely related to social systems, social suffering and social relations. "Depression" connects the body, the self and society, and is also rooted in the local cultural context. If you want to break through people's daily understanding of depression among doctoral students, you must thoroughly examine the social construction process of "depressive experience".
(II) Research Objects and Methods
This study is dedicated to exploring the "depression problem" of doctoral students through painful narratives. The "depression problem" mentioned here not only includes depression diagnosed in the hospital's psychiatric department, but also covers "depressive emotions" that have not been diagnosed by the hospital but have different degrees of depression symptoms, and seriously affect normal life and study and destroy individual living order. The "depression problem" not only points to depression symptoms, but also covers various social experiences that accompanies the occurrence and development of depression. Considering the risks and ethical issues that may be faced by doctoral students who are experiencing moderate or severe depression as the subjects, the interviewees mainly selected doctoral students who were experiencing depression or who were experiencing mild depression.
Depression is a very sensitive topic, which brings considerable challenges to the collection of research data. A report from Nature even wrote: "Frankly speaking, talking about the death of a certain depressed patient, is much simpler than talking about a person living with depression." The tendency to stigmatize mental illness in Chinese society and culture makes physical problems rather than psychological problems a reasonable reason for seeking help. Even if a person with depression realizes the possibility of depression, he may hide his true situation from others because he is worried about being treated with a different eye, concealing and suppressing their feelings of depression. Given the complexity and privacy of the depression experience, approaching this complex human experience through the narrative of the actor subject is of particular significance for research. Therefore, during the research process, two methods of collecting data were mainly adopted: in-depth interviews and autobiographical sociology.
1. In-depth interview
In-depth interviews can adjust the questions at any time to help researchers "interpretically understand the world of meaning of the interviewees." Through online invitations, private relationships, etc., we conducted in-depth interviews with 11 doctoral students who are pursuing a doctorate and 3 postdoctoral students who have experienced depression during their doctorate studies3. Among the 14 interviewees, 5 were diagnosed with depression or depression through the hospital, and 9 were diagnosed with depression or had been troubled by depression. (See Table 1)
study attempts to deeply describe what these doctoral students who encounter "depression" experiences, how they describe the experience of depression, and how they understand the causes, processes and the impact of depression on them. During the interview, we respect the wishes of the subjects and do not over-interview. In some cases, shorthand is used to respect the interviewee's requirement not to record. At the same time, the interview records are kept confidential and anonymously, fully protecting the privacy of the interviewees.
2. Autobiographical Sociology
2018 to 2022, the research team successively collected records of depression experiences by 24 doctoral students who had a depression experience on the online platform (21 in Zhihu, 2 in Douban, and 1 in Xiaomuchuan), and regarded this personal record as a text with autobiographical nature. There are two criteria for screening the biographical depression experience of doctoral students: First, it clearly reveals that the hospital has been diagnosed with depression or depression and that it has a "depressive mood" that obviously disrupts the order of life; second, the records are relatively detailed and rich. According to these two standards, the depression experience records collected were nearly 60,000 words.
As a text record from the Internet, although it is difficult to confirm the authenticity of its narrative (some netizens narrate it through the anonymous function of the website), its advantages are exactly this.Most of the records come from anonymous netizens in Zhihu. The narrator can express his experiences with confidence and less consider the impact on existing social relations. Therefore, it is more real and credible overall. These personal records are a kind of memory backtrack, and "retrogression" is a "transcendence of repression." This method is more suitable for research on sensitive and private individual experiences and can be used as a supplement to in-depth interviews. In addition, in order to have a deeper understanding of the current doctoral student training and mental health prevention and intervention systems in higher education institutions, the research team also interviewed three doctoral supervisors and five counselors (including part-time class teachers).
Doctoral student's experience of depression
Psychological and medical discourse dominates the domestic discourse system related to depression. "The patient's words are obscured and hidden, and the patient has failed to become the subject of the discourse construction of depression." approaches the doctoral students' feelings of depression, and needs to see the marks flowing through their narratives.
(I) Stress
The experience of depression is tightly entangled with the experience of stress. Although stress is a common factor in depression, the stress experience of doctoral students is unique and is closely related to the doctoral students' academic experience, academic environment, peer pressure, age anxiety, gender and other factors. In the interview, a doctoral student mentioned that he had been in periodic mild depression since his undergraduate degree.
When I was in high school, I had a lot of academic pressure because the competition pressure was particularly fierce in that (place). When I first went to college, I was still in a state of full firepower, just to be admitted to the postgraduate. When it’s time to relax, it’s still too much pressure on yourself. I have been in a high-pressure state for a long time, which is where the emotions accumulate... I don't want to go to class or get up... After two weeks, my parents couldn't sit still, so they took me to the hospital for a check-up. After the examination, they were diagnosed. (X-F-14)
On the one hand, I hope to do the work that others have not done, and at least make some contribution to the subject. On the other hand, after receiving countless suppressions, I thought, I will graduate! I want to make a paper and get it done! Angels and devils kept tearing my spirits, and finally collapsed in such a tangle. (X-F-4)
pressure comes from comparison and competition among peer groups. Although doctoral students are relatively independent of each other, competition and comparison of academic achievements is inevitable in the same academic field. The difference in speed and slow pace between students in terms of topic opening and publication can easily add additional pressure.
Some of my classmates have already started the project in November. But at that time, because my project was not going well, the teacher felt that I was not mature now, so he moved a little further... With some chance to breathe and when I had time to face my emotions, I felt something was wrong, very wrong. It seems that I have been forcing me because of deadline before, but now when I have a little time to breathe but the pressure has not disappeared, I find that I can't do anything. (X-F-3)
For girls, because you usually have been studying for a doctorate for four or five years, and you are almost thirty years old after you come out. If you have not decided on your boyfriend yet, you have no way to get married, and you have no way to determine which city to work in the future, this pressure is greater than that of a boy. (X-F-5)
(II) Loss of
Once the pressure accumulates to a level that the individual cannot bear, it may significantly reduce normal learning and work efficiency.
After October last year, the instructor could not proceed at all after I explained the task, and it is difficult to describe that state. Even if you sit in front of the computer and can’t read a word, you really can’t do anything. At night, I probably passed by in a daze, and when I woke up the next morning, I cried.(X-F-2)
The depression experience of doctoral students is often accompanied by loss - losing the ability to study and work efficiently in the past, unable to achieve the expectations of themselves and others, disrupting their original order of life. Loss is a vicious cycle. In a certain aspect, the impairment of ability can easily affect the individual's physical and mental state, thereby causing more frustration.
Sleeping for a long time is not good. I dream all night and feel like I’m not sleeping in the morning, but my whole head is very dizzy. I was in a bad state the next day and couldn't concentrate all my heart. In this way, at night, you will feel that you are not efficient, and then you will feel a little depressed, which will affect your sleep, which is a vicious cycle. (X-F-5)
I think I am really sick, the kind that I can't control, I don't know what to do, I'm very numb and desperate, and I can't be interested in anything. (X-M-7)
It turns out that such a lively person becomes such a taciturn person. My mother said to me, I used to be happy birds, why are you like this now? (X-F-8)
When a doctoral student plagued by depression loses the interest in experiencing and enjoying life, academics almost become a burden to life, and the ability to live a normal life is also deprived. The vicious cycle of loss is reflected not only in the accumulation of academic pressure, but also in the continuous setback of personal self-confidence. It is like a constantly pressurized balloon, one day it reaches the critical point of collapse until it loses confidence in oneself and the courage to rebuild life.
(III) Negative cognition
The mental tension, insomnia and anxiety caused by depression make doctoral students unable to maintain their normal work efficiency, and their academic pressure has not been relieved for a long time, and even this pressure increases every day, like drowning. Long-term frustration will make individuals tend to attribute failure to their own inner, universal and irreversible defects, and create irrational deviations in their own cognition. Unsuccessful academic progress leads to doubts about one's academic ability, which will then extend to doubts about one's own all-round ability.
(Presult in PhD) At that time, I would have thought about dropping out of school. At that time, I couldn't let go and could not stay in that environment anymore. You think of many of my classmates, many of them who have direct to , have become college teachers, and their development is smooth, and the junior sisters are almost getting up, but it is still difficult for me to graduate. There is too much pressure from the tangible, invisible, my own, and outside world. I have too much fragility in my bones... those you can't bear, you think of the eyes of people outside to evaluate you and your inner denial of yourself. (X-F-12)
Academic difficulties make them always press on a mountain. Just as Masama Morita said when analyzing "neurasthenia": "Concentrate your attention often on a specific feeling. The deeper you pay attention, the sharper your feelings, the stronger your feelings, and the more focused your attention." The depression state makes individuals turn from active outward exploration to fighting with their own struggles, forming an inner dilemma that is difficult to break free, destroying the efforts of doctoral students to self-drive and integrate resources, and continuously hurting self-esteem and self-confidence. They will ignore their achievements, find it difficult to look at their situation dialectically, and are easily trapped in a black and white mindset and think that they are useless.
(IV) Sensitive
PhD students in depression will pay special attention to other people's reactions to their own words and deeds, become particularly sensitive, and have a strong emotional reaction. Even themselves are often surprised by the intense outbreak of their emotions.
Once I was with my mother, and the teacher sent me a WeChat message that day, which caused me to have a little depression that night, which was an emotional collapse. Then my mother said a little bit, how could you say that? Then I started to lose my temper. If I had either lost my temper, I wouldn't have said it, or I was in great pain.That day, I couldn't stop crying with my head alone for an hour or two. I ran away from home and frightened my mother. (X-F-2)
I often call the corridor with bare legs (to my boyfriend) in winter, and they start to make a noise as I am afraid that the corridor will affect others' rest, so I run outside. The cold wind outside was about ten degrees below zero, and the angry me, the emotional out of control... I screamed wildly. I almost didn't know myself anymore. (E-Z-22)
Due to emotional abnormalities, doctoral students in depression are not only troubled by the pain themselves, but may also suffer from interpersonal relationships and face deep frustration and powerlessness in getting along with important others. When a person is in a state of physical and mental weakness and is immersed in a dispersed sense of insecurity, it is difficult to balance his inner emotions. Sensitivity is not a personality trait, but an inner projection, and an emotional catharsis and self-protection. Academic pressure and family members’ incomprehension will also aggravate the negative psychological experience of the patient themselves, and the continuous internalization of external pressure will be transformed into self-report and aggression.
(V) Somatic
Depression is not only an individual psychological and mental tension, but also a feeling and symptoms of somatic sensation. Once you face unfinished tasks and continue to be frustrated and have to complete them, the unbearable stress will trigger a series of physical reactions, and common discomfort symptoms such as insomnia and headaches will occur.
can’t eat, and I feel like a walking corpse. The world is gray, very tired and tired, and I can’t sleep at night. My brain hurts when I sit in the camera during the day, but I can’t sleep well or can’t sleep well. (X-F-6)
The somatosification of depression can be understood as "the pain between individuals and individuals is expressed through the idiom of a physiological disease, including a medical seeking model based on this", that is, "the individual has experienced serious personal and social problems, but uses the medium of the body to explain, express, experience and deal with these problems." In a study of depression patients in Hong Kong, some researchers believe that although patients are aware of their emotional disturbance, they still tend to express it with "somatic" symptoms when seeking help. X-M-7 initially thought she had stomach disease , but later she saw a psychiatrist at the doctor's advice and was diagnosed with moderate depression. Kebowen points out: "Physical problems have social marks, but psychological problems do not." The symptoms of somatogenesis seek a discourse that can be recognized by culture for spiritual pain. Even for doctoral students with long-term higher education, it is difficult to accurately judge their mental health, and they often seek help first due to physical discomfort.
Generally speaking, in the depression experience of doctoral students, they are defeated by pressure and wrapped in the sense of loss. They are filled with negative perceptions of themselves, are particularly sensitive to interpersonal relationships, and even have various symptoms of somatogenesis. These symptoms are not only an exaggeration of the inner pain of the doctoral students living in the ivory tower, but also reflects many hidden worries in the current higher education system environment.
The risk of institutionalized survival
British anthropologist Douglas has an explanation of society in "Cleanness and Danger": "The concept of 'social' is a powerful image. It itself has the right to dominate people or make them take action. This image has its own form, and There are external boundaries, edges and internal structures. Its program has the ability to reward compliance and repel attacks. "The cultivation system and academic culture in the ivory tower where doctoral students live together also form such a local moral system, and there are also some visible and invisible "boundaries, edges and internal structures". The essence is an institutionalized classification system, namely, demarcate the order of time, the boundaries of speech and behavior, and establish the moral commitments that actors should abide by. Such an institutionalized classification system forms the soil for doctoral students to experience growth in depression.Therefore, it is necessary to go beyond the depression experiences of doctoral students and examine the institutional framework and academic culture in which they are located.
(I) Going forward in uncertainty
"Exit if you don't publish" has become the default unspoken rule in the scientific research community. A doctoral degree is also a journey with anxiety. With the prevalence of new public management concepts and audit culture that pursue performance in recent years, the publication of doctoral students has become an important part of the scientific research strength of higher education institutions. The hard regulations on the results of doctoral generation are still the "tight curse" for every doctoral student. As a doctoral student said in an interview with the media, "A doctor without articles is like a concubine without children." Most universities and universities clearly stipulate that several papers of the corresponding level must be published before applying for graduation defense. At the G College of T University, where X-F-12 is located, the publication requirements for doctoral students' papers: "During the school period, at least 2 academic papers related to the research content of the dissertation should be published as the first author. At least one of them is officially published in the journal included in the "Catalogue of Important Academic Journals for Doctoral Students of T University G College" and the other one is published in the Chinese Social Science Citation Index , hereinafter referred to as CSSCI) , in the journals; or as the first author, publish an academic paper about the work of a dissertation in the social science citation index included in the journal. The supplementary journals of the above journals and journals are not counted. "
. In universities where X-M-9 are located, more than 2 CSSCI journal papers must be published as required. Some colleges require one of them to be an authoritative journal specified by the college. Studies have shown that there is a huge contradiction between the number of published papers for doctoral students and the carrying capacity of journals. The reality of the publication of academic papers and the proliferation of postponed graduation have led to the low feasibility of publishing qualification papers. Unable to graduate on time without a compliance with the regulations also largely indicates that one cannot find a place to live in a highly competitive job hunting environment.
The reason why I suffer from depression is that I have not been able to get my paper during the doctorate period and have been in a high-pressure state for a long time. During that period, it was indeed painful, and hesitant to drop out of school and continue to study for a doctorate. I feel that I am useless and living is a waste of food and worthless. (E-Z-18)
The pressure during the doctoral period is both continuous and full of various risks and uncertainties. As a "qualified" doctoral student, you often need to coordinate the relationship between your own small papers and big papers, and you also need to coordinate the relationship between your academic research and the tutor's topics. The production and feedback cycles of academic achievements are relatively long. For doctoral students who are just entering the academic school, they need to explore in chaos for a long time. X-F-5 admitted that "the biggest pressure on doctoral studies is that there is no timely positive feedback... It is not that there is financial pressure to study for doctoral studies, but mainly because there is no feeling of 'you give and then gain'." In most animals, uncontrollable and stress-filled events can lead to "acquired helplessness." Once doctoral students lack positive feedback for a long time, they are easily trapped in the dilemma of learnt helplessness due to heavy pressure. Of course, it should be noted that each doctoral student has different real situations and the limits of pressure he can bear are also different. Even if the same pressure is the same, it will have different impacts on individuals under different institutional situations.
(II) "Doctoral Reading Clock" and Time Management
Social clock refers to important life transformations defined by age. If an individual does a given age and a new role conforms to social norms, it will be considered appropriate, and vice versa. We can regard studying for a doctorate as a life journey with a tight rhythm, and then there will naturally be a doctorate clock. That is, a specific view of time that is regarded as "right" and achieves corresponding goals in the appropriate time range and node.
The S University where I was studying for my doctorate at X-M-12 was the "standard" graduation time.The best time rhythm is to complete the course credits in the first year and start the last semester of the second year. At the same time, considering the increasingly intense academic positions in China, applying for joint training from the National Scholarship Fund Committee for half a year will increase your job hunting advantage. Under this clock, doctoral students are prone to unconsciously demanding themselves to carry out strict time management, for fear that they will become imminent or expired doctoral students. Only by being highly self-disciplined can they achieve their expected goals within the specified time.
There is an error in one link, and it may develop in another direction. There are many such obstacles. If you can't get through one, your previous work will be denied. (X-F-3)
third grade, it is not time for me to graduate. The result is that there is no question yet... When I was in the fourth grade, because of the most outbreak in the fourth grade, I didn’t dare to leave the dormitory door for 3 months. It’s not that I didn’t dare to leave, but that I didn’t want to leave, and I was afraid of seeing the light. (X-F-8)
At present, in most universities in China, the academic doctoral study period is generally three to five years, and can be extended to six years. "Delay" not only means that it is difficult to obtain a degree on time, but also means that at least half a year, one or even a few years of the extension, it may also affect major life choices such as finding a job, even getting married and having children. Compared with elastic "quality time" and "soft" time, the institutionalized time that doctoral students live in is a very small elastic "quantity time" and "hard time". Doctoral students must not only make research that truly has academic value for , but also need to constantly face the pressure of publishing papers and graduation in the increasingly competitive academic market. In order to include themselves in such a compact timetable, they need to keep running, racing against time, working hard to avoid risks, and accumulate chips for an uncertain future.
I always worry about graduation, it took me three or four years to do a doctorate. In the normal four years, if you can't finish your career, you will be wasted four years of hard work. (X-M-1)
In this "blocking and passing levels"-style doctoral study career, every level is full of hardships, uncertainties and risks. Once time is delayed at a certain stage, the opportunity cost may be unbearable. Under such a time view, doctoral students are easily firmly bound by the "doctoral study clock" and can only accept success and not make any mistakes. In order to achieve this expectation, normal relaxation and enjoyment of life are easily considered as lowering one's own requirements, a "waste" time, and even a strong sense of guilt. Over time, the strictness of time means the strictness of the mind, and the self has been completely occupied by a set of moral norms hidden in the system. The moral meaning of doctoral students' depression experience reminds us to further pay attention to the social role of doctoral students and the implicit moral connotation of doctoral students.
(III) Moral perception in sunk costs
For many doctoral students, it is already difficult to maintain a pure student role. They may need to assume multiple roles such as academic researchers and even family supporters at the same time, shoulder corresponding moral responsibilities, and bear pressure far beyond the academic itself. Once doctoral students cannot complete a series of work such as publishing papers, starting a topic, pre-defense, blind review of , and defense on time according to the "doctoral study clock", it will be difficult to graduate on schedule and will also have to bear tremendous pressure in the comparison of peer groups. Whether the doctoral degree is successful is not only related to your years of hard work, family expectations, and your future, but also means the full fulcrum of your self-worth. Once this fulcrum is shaken, the entire life world will be shaky. For a struggling doctoral student, whether to continue working hard or give up is a difficult choice. They have a complex and extremely personal moral perception of the sunk costs of studying for a doctorate.
It’s during the day, I feel so uncomfortable that I’m worried that I won’t finish my career. My master and doctoral degree student only has a bachelor's degree certificate. I am worried that I can't graduate and how I can meet my parents' expectations. In short, all kinds of complex moods are like evil spirits, sticking to you all the time.It’s finally easy to be in the evening, lying on the bed, your head is still filled with all kinds of despair about the future. When you are sleepy, it’s like someone pulling your eyelids, making you sleepy but unable to sleep. I finally fell asleep and woke up again in less than 3 hours. (E-Z-16)
X-F-4 also said: "(If I were to study for a doctorate) it will be empty in the end. Then my youth and life have no meaning." E-Z-10 wrote: "Why did I work hard for more than 20 years, but in the end I fell to the bottom of society." E-Z-5 was afraid during the three months of taking a break from school, "If I had not finished this doctorate, it would be the shadow of my life." The cost of dropping out is very high. Once you give up your doctorate, or you can only get a master's degree, or even get a bachelor's degree to find a job, then the past few years will become a "sinking cost". If you want to work directly after dropping out of school, "compared with other doctoral graduates, they do not have a degree. Compared with other people who have entered the job market after graduating from undergraduate studies, they lack experience." For doctoral students from poor families, studying for a doctorate is considered to be a must-find, and it is almost the only way to go. E-Z-10 asserts: "Without a degree, there is no job, and without a job, there is no future." They are both difficult to give up and go forward, trapped in the airtight inner cage, "became the prisoners of the most free and open place: firmly bound at the intersection with countless destinations."
The more doctoral students rely on and recognize the series of moral norms hidden in the institutional environment in which they are, the more likely they are to be in a state of "institutional survival". Once you fall into a vicious cycle of academic studies, the past time can no longer be recovered, and the current difficulties cannot be relieved, you will become a morally difficult person. After encountering various risks and uncertainties in their academic careers, they are easily trapped in the dilemma of "de-moralization". After all, depression is an inevitable risk that accompanies institutionalized survival.
The breaking and reconstruction of moral order
No matter where we are, we must always be in a basic framework of human life and a specific local system scenario. In the narrative of the depression experience of doctoral students, we see that the process of studying for a doctoral student is also a process of continuous collision between self and institutionalized environment, inner expectations and external reality, which is filled with rich emotions and complex expectations, responsibilities and guilt. It can be said that the narrative of depression experience is also a narrative of moral experience. Understanding the depression mechanisms and the way to slow release of doctoral students requires careful examination of their moral world. From the healing process described by the doctor who is troubled by depression, we can see them working hard to break free from the original moral cage and restore the creative practice of moral autonomy.
(I) The shift in the view of time
"The scientific research and cultural environment of "taking 'overwork' and 'overtime overtime' as virtues" has gradually transformed overtime work into a moral responsibility, eroding the physical and mental health of doctoral students bit by bit. Under the pressure of the "doctoral study clock", doctoral students will desperately squeeze out more time for academics and struggle to balance academics and life, "feeling that all the time you don't write a paper is a waste" (E-Z-1). Because academic research is not going well, doctoral students are often prone to self-punishment, postponing or giving up normal communication, exercise and daily enjoyment. This single-purpose view of time not only comes from the institutional and cultural environment in which doctoral students live, but also further deteriorates their actual situation. After depression, many respondents began to examine the boundaries between their academic time and life time, and turned to a more diverse view of time.
Aromatherapy, raising a cat, moving out to live on your own, and continuous exercise are some of the benefits of emotions. The only thing that can make you not anxious is to learn new things and see results within a certain period of time, learn drums, boxing, Chinese painting, and know different people.(X-F-4)
In addition to exploring the value of life in addition to doing a good job in scientific research, rebuilding confidence and sense of meaning, the shift from a linear view of time to a complex view of time is also an important aspect for doctoral students to get out of the depressed dilemma. The linear view of time believes that everyone's life is like a pawn who has crossed a river and can only move forward. The linear view of time cannot tolerate setbacks and discomforts, and it is difficult to restore confidence in oneself after being hit. It will only put doctoral students in an inescapable pressure and increasingly pulling moral conflict, and lose the ability to clean themselves from the cage of time and then break through barriers. Under such a time view, doctoral students immersed in depression will strongly bind their papers, degrees, work and future. But the complex view of time believes that life is not smooth sailing, and there are inevitably ups and downs. In the process of striving to seek healing, these hard logical transmission chains in their hearts gradually loosened and began to rebuild their cognition, believing that many things do not need to be "that heavy" (X-F-2), "not everything can be done as long as you work hard" (E-Z-22). Time is the background board for all people and events. Changes in time order do not only involve attitudes towards time, but also concerns how the subject understands the boundaries between academics and life, the relationship between self and others, and the boundaries of moral responsibilities that he should bear.
(II) Moral situation and moral life
If depression is regarded as a social emotional disorder, the pain experienced by doctoral students troubled by depression must be a social pain and a moral pain. X-F-12 once stood on the roof of the tallest building in the school twice when it was at its worst. During the interview, she reflected on the reasons for her trough at that time.
Why did I not want to live during that period? I disappointed my family, the teachers, and the classmates, and I don’t know what to do... There are too many that I can’t bear.
Similarly, X-F-2 has also been deeply trapped in such a moral pain. As a PhD in Science and Engineering, she has been a good girl since she was a child. "I must work hard to achieve what the teacher said. I must work hard to meet the teacher's expectations and become a good student in the eyes of the teacher." But while she was studying for a doctorate, she met a teacher who often "suppressed" and belittled students. It was always difficult to satisfy the tutor, "and "it could not meet his expectations no matter what." On the other hand, "as the senior sister, I bear the responsibility of helping the junior brothers and junior sisters in the same group."
Here, whether it is "trying to meet the teacher's expectations" or "being a senior sister" responsibilities show that the depressed experience of X-F-2 is accompanied by a strong sense of moral burden. When they cannot afford these moral burdens they think they should bear, the moral self begins to appear cracks until they fall into collapse.
In such a crisis, support from the surrounding interpersonal network is particularly important. X-F-2 once plucked up the courage to meet her mentor after being depressed, but after meeting, the mentor directly denied her judgment of her depression - "You have no depression at all, it's like this when you study for a doctorate." Different mentors have very different attitudes towards depression. After telling the instructor X-F-4, the instructor gave him understanding and care, "It feels like treating children, so that the senior brother will be kind to me." When X-F-12 was on the verge of depression, she reflected that she was able to come out because she was “glad that there were some strengths, including my two mentors and senior brothers, who were willing to help me.” X-F-3 talks about not daring to tell his mentor about depression, fearing that he will be regarded as "a fragile and vulnerable person" and thus lose the mentor's trust and academic resources. If a doctoral student hides his depression because he is afraid of not gaining understanding or losing academic trust, he may be considered by his supervisor to not work hard enough or be careful because he is unable to complete normal academic tasks, which will in turn cause tension in the relationship between teachers and students, which will in turn increase his academic pressure.
However, many doctoral supervisors lack understanding of mental illness and lack appropriate psychological preparation, and do not know how to deal with it.When interviewing D-F-1, a doctoral supervisor at a well-known university, the teacher admitted that he had had depression. He would "talk very carefully" after learning that the students were depressed, and felt inexplicably uneasy. He didn't know how to get along with the students, nor how to help the students. He could only minimize the academic requirements for the students. When interviewing C-F-3, a teacher in charge of student work in a school in Beijing, she admitted that she was most afraid of meeting depressed students when doing student work, and said bluntly, "If there is a depressed student in the class, then you are done." The lack of popularization of mental health knowledge in higher education institutions and their sensitivity to depression have also aggravated the psychological burden on individuals plagued by depression. It is difficult to activate interpersonal support resources around doctoral students if they are unable to ask for help.
As early as the 1990s, Higgins (E.T.) proposed that the difference between an individual's beliefs, standards and practices and social moral norms would increase their likelihood of suffering from depression. Kaibowen also pointed out that "the most basic fact of mental health is morality: individuals with mental illness survive in the worst moral situation." So what kind of moral situation do doctoral students troubled by depression are in? Faced with the hard measurement standards required to complete a doctoral degree, "unexpected" situations such as lack of publication and no time nodes for various levels of study at the doctoral degree will bring huge internal pressure to doctoral students. Once the lack of external support is superimposed, depression is easily fostered. Delaying graduation can sometimes be unbearable and dropping out of school halfway is an extremely difficult and heavy choice. It is contrary to the moral norms that a "competent" and "good" doctoral student should follow.
When a doctor's own moral practice is difficult to meet the "doctoral study clock" that has been internalized in his heart and the moral expectations around him, he will face "the most valued value and feelings are threatened or lost." The painful development has made them often difficult to live a moral life and fall into a vicious cycle, resulting in "desperate, de-moralized, and self-recognized failure." Doctoral students who are troubled by depression often cannot fulfill their moral commitments and responsibilities, are unable to meet the expectations of others, and are even unable to express their emotions. They are constantly tortured by the huge crisis of moral failure and face the dilemma of difficulty in living a dignified "moral life".
The social root of doctoral students' depression comes from the complex conflict between individuals and implicit moral norms in local scenarios. These conflicts destroyed the original value system, caused the collapse of the original moral order, and defeated the moral world on which they depended for survival. Liberation from the implicit moral conflict of depression and then rebuilding moral order is the key to transcending depression. It can be said that the "demorized" and "remorized" of the living situation of doctoral students plagued by depression are a basic framework for understanding the occurrence and healing mechanisms of their depression experience. In this way, depression can be regarded as a natural reaction between the actor's body and mind and the external environment, allowing a certain huge pressure beyond the actor's existing tolerance to appear before us. The depression experience of doctoral students allows us to see the complex relationship between the individual doctoral students and the environment they live in.
This crisis moment is not only filled with pain, but may also make sense. In the interview, X-F-12 admitted that "it is the pain I experienced and my own reflection that makes me an indestructible person." Depression is also an opportunity for doctoral students to rebuild their moral order and moral life. After falling into depression, X-F-2 received support from her parents and boyfriend and received a response that "it doesn't matter even if she drops out of school." After that, she temporarily suspended everything related to her studies and chose to take a break from school for half a year. After she recovered, she re-established the boundary between her teacher-student relationship with her mentor, and finally completed her studies smoothly. When it comes to helping friends, I no longer "forced to do anything myself, only if I really want to, really willing, and am very happy, will I go and do my best to help others." Changes in interpersonal boundaries also mean a new moral self and a new creation of moral life, and this reconstruction cannot be separated from the understanding and support from important others.
Depression as a public problem
The depression experience of doctoral students is like a mirror, reflecting the contradictions and conflicts between the individual's inner world and external moral norms. It is not only an individual experience, but also a social narrative. In the interviews and the efforts to enter these experiences again and again, we deeply feel that the pain experienced by each interviewee is complex and unique, rooted in the common interweaving of personal history and social history, and the path to seeking transcendence and liberation is far from being fully described in words. The causes of depression of doctoral students are complex, and risk factors during their growth also have indirect or direct effects on their depression problems during their doctoral studies. This paper’s documentary and explanatory understanding of these social pains is equally “incomplete”, but “academic research helps to discover some possibilities for action.”
In the daily understanding of the depression problem of doctoral students, there is often a tendency to "reverse the result as the cause", that is, to regard depression as the initial and omnipotent cause of explaining their real dilemma and the changes in cognitive and behavior, without delving into what exactly causes their depression symptoms. , the tendency of "reverse result is the cause" thinking covers up the structural factors that cause depression problems for doctoral students, and simplifies the serious consequences of depression problems. One of the possible significance of this exploratory study is to allow doctoral students who are suffering from depression to feel that they are not fighting alone, and see the social and institutional roots of their suffering, so as to maintain the "possibility of being free from self-blame." The research also pointed out a path to eliminating the stigma of depression, which is to place individuals plagued by depression in the moral environment in which they live, understand the mechanism of depression and the structural and institutional roots of depression from a more social perspective, replace the stigma perspective attributed to individual characteristics, avoid turning social and institutional problems into individual problems, and reduce the moral pressures suffered by individuals plagued by depression.
Doctoral students' depression has important warning significance for the doctoral student training system and academic culture. Focusing on the mental health of doctoral students requires understanding their moral situation, and should not stay in pathology, but face up to the high risk of depression for doctoral students and the deep pain caused by "normal" moral experience. "Symptoms are not just individual discomfort expression, but may also become a legal language to express collective discomfort." Doctoral students are in an era of "society time acceleration" and seek their own development space in the academic field that emphasizes performanceism and utilitarianism, which brings special challenges to them living a moral life. For higher education institutions, prevention and intervention of doctoral students' depression risks requires understanding their moral situation, breaking through the cultivation and evaluation system that is not conducive to devoted research and blind pursuit of the number of results, reshaping the "quality time" and a healthy academic culture, and providing a relaxed and supportive academic soil for doctoral students' academic innovation.
In addition, the physical and mental health problems of doctoral students do not exist in isolation, and are closely related to the "involuntary ecology" of college students in the ivory tower and the increasingly expanding "occupational load" and "physical and mental health crisis" of teachers in higher education institutions. Compared with intervention, higher education institutions need to pay more attention to the prevention of depression risks. They cannot just stay at the bottom line thinking logic of "nothing happens", but should systematically promote the construction of systems, culture and resource platforms that are conducive to the physical and mental health of doctoral students, and fully apply various group prevention and intervention models such as doctoral thesis mutual assistance groups and doctoral students' emotional workshops to accelerate the construction of a friendly, professional and timely mental health support and service system. While popularizing common sense of mental health, including depression, needs to pay attention to the public and social nature of depression, break the stigmatized imagination of depression, so that everyone can bravely make a sound of help when they encounter mental difficulties, and also have the ability to provide appropriate help to individuals in mental pain. Only by maintaining a healthy physical and mental state can doctoral students better undertake academic aspirations.
Source: "Education Research" 2022 Issue 7
Author: Cheng Meng Department of Education, Beijing Normal University; Li Jiayi, School of Public Administration, Tsinghua University,
