'I’m an occupational psychologist who specialises in supporting doctors. I’m also a woman who has experienced a number of periods of depression at different times in my life. I’ve taken anti-depressants, had psychiatric treatment, and benefitted hugely from a long period of psychotherapy. When a doctor comes to see me and talks about their depression, do I share my own psychiatric history? Probably not. 

‘But why not?’ you may ask – and that’s certainly a valid question. My reticence is partly due to my training, which discourages telling clients too much about one’s own personal stuff. And partly because people have come to talk to me about the difficulties they have been experiencing, and there’s always the danger that by adding in your own history, the focus can shift from them to you. 

But the fact that I typically refrain from talking to a client about my own experience of depression doesn’t mean that I have to remain silent. In my book ‘Also Human: the inner lives of doctors’ there’s a chapter which looks at the stigma doctors can face if it is known that they have suffered from a mental illness. When writing the chapter, it struck me as deeply hypocritical to, on the one hand, be arguing that there needed to be a culture of openness so that doctors could talk about their own mental health issues - and on the other hand, keeping shtum about my own experience of depression. It wasn’t exactly the bravest of self-disclosures, or the loudest, but if you read that chapter carefully, I mention that I too, like some of the doctors who come to see me, have had struggles with depression. 

Perhaps it’s a symptom of the stigma that still surrounds mental health issues in the medical profession – but in the hundreds of emails that I’ve received from doctors all over the world since my book was published – very few have commented on my self-disclosure. But Dr Louise Freeman – Co-Chair of DSN picked it up – and she asked me to write this brief piece. 

So #&Me. And whilst I don’t typically talk about it to the doctors who come to see me – I don’t want to collude with the fantasy that depression, or any other mental illness, only happens to other people. It has certainly happened to me. '

Buy Caroline's book 'Also Human' via the link here (a small percentage of the price will go to DSN without any extra cost to you)

&me is our joint campaign, with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons' Mind Matters Initiative, to encourage senior, currently well healthcare professionals including doctors, vets, dentists and pharmacists to informally self identify as having experienced a mental health condition in order to reduce the stigma of mental health in the healthcare professions.   

Find out more about our campaign and how you might get involved here