Lawyer Depression: Part 2 - How Depression Can Affect Our Career Choices
A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the high rate of depression among lawyers. As I noted in my earlier post, the article cites “escalating billable hour quotas, . . . ceaseless deadlines and [the] adversarial nature of [lawyers'] work” as some reasons for why lawyers are so depressed.
Others have noted that lawyers are extremely pessimistic. As psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman notes, people with a “pessimistic explanatory style” tend to see “bad events as pervasive, permanent, and uncontrollable.” While people with a pessimistic outlook tend to fair worse in many situations (e.g. sales, athletics), pessimists actually fair better in law. Pessimists tend to see many more potential problems in any given situation than optimists do — a skill that the legal profession rewards. As Seligman notes:
The ability to anticipate the whole range of problems and betrayals that non-lawyers are blind to is highly adaptive for the practicing lawyer who can, by so doing, help his clients defend against these far-fetched eventualities. If you don’t have this prudence to begin with, law school will seek to teach it to you. Unfortunately, though, a trait that makes you good at your profession does not always make you a happy human being.
Unfortunately, the pessimism which makes some lawyers miserable in their careers can impact attempts to change careers as well. In 2001, career counselor Robert C. Chope wrote an article (abstract, full article pdf) identifying several pessimistic messages that career changers sometimes tell themselves, and his advice for overcoming them. While his advice is geared toward how career counselors can help clients overcomes these messages, much of the advice is directly applicable to career changers themselves.
The messages and Chope’s advice:
- “My career is a hopeless, oppressive endeavor.” Advice: Learn how you developed this mind set. What is the evidence that your circumstances are hopeless? What are the arguments against hopelessness?
- “I’m helpless, who would hire me?” Advice: Do one positive search activity a day and keep a record of the activities. Also, try activities that are unrelated to career search (e.g. improved eating habits, exercise, volunteering) to confront helplessness.
- “I can’t start at the bottom again.” Advice: Focus on what you will contribute, not where you will start.
- “I’ll never get work.” Advice: Evaluate the search process, instead of looking at a career search as a win or lose game.
- “I need to be certain about my search techniques.” Advice: “[R]ecognize that there are no certainties in the career change process.”
- “I feel as if I failed.” Advice: Recognize that failure “is simply part of moving forward.” Break down the career search into controllable activities.
- “I feel worthless.” Advice: Don’t evaluate self worth with other types of worth. Take an inventory of yourself which may include attributes that you may not have considered.
I know that I’m generally a pessimist and also a perfectionist (another trait which makes lawyers prone to depression). I also know that I’ve thought (and sometimes said aloud) some of the messages listed in Chope’s article. The two which I’m most prone to are “I feel as if I’ve failed,” and “I’m helpless, who would hire me?”
With regard to the first, I tell myself sometimes that I must be a failure — after all, I’m choosing to possibly leave a career which thousands of new graduates clamor to enter each year; one that I entered myself only recently. I also tell myself that I’m a failure because I haven’t figured out what I want to do next. I know both of these messages aren’t accurate — there are hundreds of other lawyers who have left the profession, and they aren’t failures — strong evidence that I’m probably not one either. Also, career change takes time — logically I know it , but emotionally I sometimes forget it.
With regard to the second, I’m not sure why I feel like employers wouldn’t hire me. If I think logically about it, I know there is no evidence supporting that. I’ve been fairly successful in the jobs I’ve had, and a legal career provides plenty of transferable skills. At this point, this message probably comes from not having developed a new career direction — I’m right that I won’t be hired (in fact, I’m not even able to really search effectively) if I don’t know what I want to do! At this point, my “who would hire me” message to myself is really putting the cart before the horse!
Now you know that pessimist messages I tell myself. What messages do you tell yourself that keeps you from moving ahead in your career?
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I tell myself exactly what you tell yourself. . .exactly! You have articulated with specificity exactly what it is that holds me back from taking the plunge myself. I appreciate the responses you have offered here to counter the crippling self-talk. Thank you!