Mental Health; the final taboo? Approximately one in four people suffers from depression or anxiety at some point in their lives, many of whom go untreated or struggle through their careers with no real understanding of what it is that affects them. Symptoms are varied and seem to wax and wane but rarely disappear permanently, instead reappearing at times of heightened stress. To make matters worse there are often no visible signs of suffering as are present in better understood illness. Depression and anxiety are only two of a vast range of mental health issues and yet it is one of the only remaining taboo subjects which affects so many. Academia is widely regarded as a highly stressful environment in itself but when considered within the context of our multi-faceted discipline, archaeology stands to gain the most from an open and honest appraisal of this subject matter. Approximately 53 percent of UK academic staff have at some point in their careers suffered from depression and/or anxiety (Kinman 1998: 13) caused by increasing stress levels. (Kinman and Wrail 2013: 3 and Shaw and Ward 2014), though there is a general paucity of data available. Recently two articles were published in the Times Higher Education as to whether or not one should hide mental health conditions in academia. The arguments on both sides are poignant; being open to asking for help from colleagues and superiors to create better understanding and appreciation or to hide the issues that are present to prevent repercussions from colleagues that do not understand the complexity of the conditions. A recent survey published by The Guardian has shown that people who told their superiors had been offered help in various ways (Thomas 2014). Furthermore, the survey reveals that more than half of those surveyed still keep their mental illness hidden from colleagues and even more so from superiors (Thomas 2014). The question arises that if in archaeology the same problems exist as they do elsewhere in society, is understanding mental health issues even more important given the unique challenges of our discipline? From research through to excavation mental health issues can be difficult to deal with both as someone with the conditions as for those working alongside them and no one of these situations come without risk. Many people in academia appear to be understandably afraid of presenting themselves as having mental health problems lest it impact their career, yet with so many people suffering from these conditions we want to examine this critical topic in an open session. We ask: why not rid ourselves of the awkwardness of disassociation with mental health and unite across our disciplines to engender discussion and to further the professions to which we are all responsible? This session seeks to answer some of these questions and discuss if there are possibilities to improve the situation and also to see if there is a general opinion given the experience of people with mental health in archaeology about openness with mental health issues. We invite everyone regardless of personal experience to discuss these and related issues. The discussion panel is planned to include the introductory speaker, a mental health professional with a deeper insight into mental health issues and several member of academic and commercial archaeology staff that represent the professional side of archaeology and the employer’s perspective.
Kinman, G. (1998) Pressure points: A survey into the causes and consequences of
occupational stress in UK academic and related staff. (London 1998).
Kinman, G. and Wrail, S. (2013) Higher stress. A survey of stress and well-being among staff in higher education.
Shaw, C. and Ward, L. (2014) Dark thoughts: Why mental illness is on the rise in academia at http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2014/mar/06/mental-healthacademics- growing-problem-pressure-university. Accessed on 22/05/2015, 13.27 GMT.
Thomas, K. (2014) We don’t want anyone to know, say depressed academics at
http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/may/08/academicsmental- health-suffering-silence-guardian-survey. Accessed on 22/05/2015, 13.43 GMT.
Unknown Author (2015) Mental illness: Shedding light on the darkness“ at
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/mental-illness-shedding-lighton- the-darkness/2018979.article Accessed on 18/05/2015, 15:32GMT.
Unknown Author (2015) “Mental Illness: I keep Mine Hidden” at
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/mental-illness-i-keep-minehidden/2019639 article Accessed on 19/05/2015, 18:17GMT
Session organisers: Sarah BOCKMEYER and Lewis COLAU
Myth, materiality and mental health
Archaeologists are familiar with the idea of objects with biographies, and the concept that the materiality of things helps in the construction of meaningful assemblages. I would like to take these ideas further and explore how objects, documents and places help to construct the narratives of an individual in the present day. I wish in this paper to explore what an archaeology of the self might consist of and how such an archaeology might help people who have for a number of reasons partial amnesia(s). Memory loss and dysfunction plays an important role in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD can be diagnosed for many reasons but it is particularly severe for those who have survived intense life threatening trauma. For people with this illness, while parts of their memory will be bright and vivid other parts may have lacunae; there may be partial amnesia either organic or psychological in nature. I will argue that objects, documents and photos assist the process of therapy in several ways. They can help bridge memory loss either by stimulating the recovery of lost or buried memories, or by filling in details lost to time or to amnesia. Secondly, the process of therapy often involves grounding. Grounding is important within the healing process in two ways firstly it is a means for patients to bring themselves out of the more disturbing aspects of their illness when they occur and secondly in therapy it is a way of returning to normality after revisiting traumatic events. Grounding can take several forms but physical contact with significant objects has an important role to play in this process. This paper is a reflective piece on the role materiality and the archaeology of the self played and continues to play in the treatment of my own PTSD.
Andrew HOAEN (University of Worcester)
Are you OK? An exploration of suffering during archaeological fieldwork
The relations between Archaeology and Health remain a hidden topic which have not received any attention from Academia. This paper seeks to shed light on this problem through the analysis of three issues. The first one is a preliminary exploration of why archaeological reflexivity, which has paid attention to matters of power, class or gender, among others, has ignored the mental and emotional health of researchers. In contrast it is shown how Anthropology has dealt with this problem in a different way, acknowledging it as an important element to consider in the production of ethnographic knowledge. The second issue is the analysis, in an ethnographic key, of various case studies showing the importance of a very frequent phenomenon during archaeological fieldwork: suffering. The third and final one is a short review of a few mechanisms that might prove helpful when coping with suffering during fieldwork, with the intent of fostering an open and interdisciplinary debate regarding how to face this important problem in the production of archaeological knowledge.
Guillermo DIAZ DE LIAŇO DEL VALLE (Brunel University of London)
An out of the box perspective on archaeology and heritage as contributors to dementia care in Europe
Dementia is prevalent among the elderly population of Europe, and cases of dementia are expected to increase rapidly in the coming years. While dementia has severe psychological impact and social consequences for individuals, it has notably been studied from a neuromedical viewpoint. The psycho-social implications of the syndrome and consequences for wellbeing and quality of life are topics that have begun to emerge only in the previous two decades. An involvement of disciplines other than those stemming from the neurological and medical fields can enrich the way dementia and its effects on the wellbeing of individuals are handled. This paper argues that in this light, archaeology can potentially make a valuable contribution to European dementia care. It sets out a theoretical argument that builds on previous initiatives involving archaeology and heritage in a health care context. The argument I present highlights specific characteristics of archaeology that make it suitable for such an involvement. I conclude that engaging in archaeology-based activities could be beneficial for the wellbeing of people with dementia.
Lilla VONK (Universiteit Leiden)
Inclusion and therapy: archaeology and heritage for people with mental health problems and/or autism
Whilst completing a PhD relating to inclusion in heritage I have been working with people diagnosed as autistic and with people experiencing mental health problems. I have worked on projects which use archaeological fieldwork as an occupational therapy for people with mental health problems and/or autism. I am also interested in how the management, presentation and organisation of heritage attractions may serve to exclude these people and what changes might promote inclusion. This paper, therefore explains how Mind Aberystwyth members have experienced opportunities to work on archaeological digs in Wales and what difficulties the focus demographic have found accessing heritage and how these difficulties can be overcome. Having learned of therapeutic archaeology projects including Mind Herefordshire’s ‘Past in Mind’ project and the Defence Archaeology Group’s Operation Nightingale, and with the encouragement Fiona Aldred (chief executive of Mind Aberystwyth) I took members on archaeological digs in 2014 and 2015. I shall explain how participants found their experience and the benefits they gained from it. I shall then question how the designers and managers of heritage attractions in the UK have succeeded or failed in the ethical imperative (championed by John Carman, Emma Wateron, Laurajane Smith and others) with regards to those affected by autism and mental health problems. One colleague has told me of problems he experienced taking his autistic daughter to Stonehenge. However I can also point to at least one voluntary organisation in the heritage sector which has demonstrated great success in supporting and encouraging self-esteem and coping strategies for members affected by mental health and autistic spectrum conditions. This paper seeks to show that archaeology and heritage have a valuable role to play in promoting inclusion of and participation by people on the autistic spectrum and affected by poor mental health and to encourage further research in order for this role to be fulfilled.
William RATHOUSE (University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
Doug's Archaeology 
dover1952
May 16, 2016
Hi Doug. I am glad you and your colleagues are addressing this important subject. I do think many people in archaeology have problems with mental health issues, and I do think doing some archaeology can help mental health patients who are outside of archaeology.
Confession Time: I am a life-long sufferer from clinical depression. It was first officially diagnosed when I was about 30 years old. However, many years of clinical psychology help and support have clearly and unequivocally revealed that there is a powerful biological propensity for it (genetically based) on my mother’s side of the family where assorted people are plagued with depression, anxiety, and paranoid schizophrenia. Doing some genealogy work, we have even identified the person who most likely brought those bad genes into the family in the late 1800s. In my particular case, I had the bad genes when I was born, and my clinical depression pretty much began in my crib when I was only one day old. My mother was a mentally ill person who was extremely depressed to the point of almost total nonfunctionality, and she took occasional delusional walks into the psychotic zone and back. Combine that with the appalling third world poverty situation I was raised in for my first 18 years of life and the fact that my sick mother was my primary caregiver all those years, I think any sane and intelligent person would understand how my clinical depression began so early in life.
I cannot speak for pubic mental health attitudes in the UK, but I can here in the United States. Succinctly: “The brain is the only organ in the human body that cannot and must not malfunction under any circumstances whatsoever.” Everyone understands that a kidney can get sick. Everyone understands that a liver can malfunction. Everyone understands heart disease. Everyone understands a large intestine with malignant polyps can kill you. Everyone understands that our skin can turn on us with malignant melanoma. “But goddamn it, your fucking brain had better not ever malfunction because we do not allow shit like that around here.” That has been the case here as a matter of history—and many people still feel some degree of social stigma is associated with mental illness.
Things must be changing at least some because it sometimes seems as if every second or third acquaintance I meet is taking antidepressant medication. The very, very, very bad news is that we have an extreme shortage of clinical psychologists, LCSW psycotherapists, and psychiatrists in the United States—and it is getting far worse because people in these professions are rapidly retiring as the Baby Boomers hit age 65 or 66. One reason for that is the fact that American health insurance companies do not like to pay for mental health treatment and have found every way under the sun to weasel out of doing it since the HMOs took over American Healthcare in the late 1980s. Moreover, if you will recall, President Obama planned for physical health and mental health treatment to achieve parity under the Affordable Care Act of 1910, but it is my understanding that the insurance companies have found a creative way to weasel out of that too. American police officers have a hard time discriminating a tough punk from a mentally ill person who is just having a bad day—and more often than not the police shoot and kill the mentally ill person in a standoff in the street or even in the home of their mother—which is really sad. As one former high-level executive in a health insurance company confessed on “60 Minutes”: “We denied mental health treatment to patients because we know many mentally ill people do not have the emotional and mental capacity to fight back—and we took full advantage of that fact.”
I am now going to offer a personal impression about archaeological academia and mental illness. It may not reflect the current situation today, but I think it may very well have been the situation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I matriculated through the Department of Anthropology at The University of Tennessee in those days. I liked being there and studying there, but from a mental health standpoint, I do not think it was a healthy place to be, especially in graduate school. Both I and a number of my friends (who talked about it in private) felt a background of darkness and foreboding was always looming there. In particular, there was a lingering background attitude among some faculty (no names cited here) that the purpose of graduate school was not to help young people learn a profession. Instead, it was seen in stark, Darwinian tooth and claw terms where the primary purpose was to identify and weed out the weak students so only the strong would be sure to survive. Consequently, many students felt all day long that they had to step on eggshells to avoid offending a faculty member in even the slightest of ways because even the tiniest sign of mental, physical, social, or personal weakness might be honed in on by a faculty member and be the reason for being kicked out of the program. For example, we know that everyone, once in a great while, gets too sick (like maybe from influenza) to attend class or take an important exam. It always seemed to me that there was a very real faculty attitude that: “If you have to turn in that term paper one day late, you better goddamned well have been too sick to write it and have a signed note from the hospital where you spent several nights.to prove it.” Like under an Argentinian or Chilean military dictatorship, I saw new student friends of mine suddenly and mysteriously disappear—never to be heard from again. Rumors of why they disappeared would often surface, but no one was really sure if they were true. Some of the rumors were more than a little disturbing—to me at least. In my honest opinion, it was not really a safe environment where a depressed or otherwise mentally ill person could have been comfortable or safe. To the best of my knowledge, although I was depressed as Hell a lot of days there, I felt an obligation to keep myself safe from being a faculty target—which I did rather well somehow.
Fortunately, while I was there, my depression never kept me from going to class, turning in a term paper on time, or otherwise offending a faculty member—but I did have to fight it really hard without caregiver support to make that happen. If I had still been there between 1982 and 1988, I feel almost certain that I would have been kicked out of the Ph.D. program because my clinical depression, which had been tolerable up to that point without treatment, worsened deeply and rendered me almost totally nonfunctional even with simple things in my own house. After 1982, I had great health insurance (whereas I had none before). I knew I was sicker than a dog who just ate cyanide—but like many American males—I refused to go see a doctor. In 1988, I finally gave in, went for some professional help, and got officially diagnosed with significant clinical depression. With therapy and medication, I quickly recovered and was able to function much better than I ever had prior to 1982. Depression never totally goes away, even with treatment, so I still battle it on some days. Fortunately, in the years since 1988, it has never interfered with the quality or timeliness of my professional work—and I have a great reputation in the environmental science world I inhabit now. My managers and coworkers have always known about my depression—and they have been very understanding about it.
If I had continued in American archaeology after 1982, I feel almost certain this tale would have had a tragic ending before now. Over the years, I have learned to my own dissatisfaction that American anthropology and archaeology are cold, unkind, indifferent, and often very unfriendly places. In my opinion, personal weakness in any form is not well tolerated by anthropology and archaeology people. These disciplines are filled nearly to the brim with all sorts of difficult and uncooperative people: some narcissists, some prima donnas, some social misfits, and some with other significant personality issues. I sometimes think these disciplines are, quite mysteriously, a magnet that somehow attracts such people. The lack of funding and other resources, combined with these often truly odd people, tends to create perfect little storms of dysfunction. As I have said elsewhere, I have seen VERY LITTLE of this strange mashup in my alternative environmental science career over the past 28 years. Honestly, totally honestly, my advice to any person with known mental health issues (small or great) would be to stay as far away from American anthropology and American archaeology as possible for your own health and a happy life. In the 21 years or so since I reinserted a few of my toes (and sometimes a whole foot or leg) back into American archaeology, I have seen nothing that would dissuade me from that opinion. They are not emotionally healthy places to live and work every day of your life.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
May 17, 2016
Thanks for sharing your personal experience Tracy. Mental Health in Archaeology is a iceberg issue. Though I suspect it is like that in many places. Unfortunately the focus on Mental Health has come on the back of several recent suicides. One, would hope it does not need to get that bad before it is addressed in the US…. one would hope.
cwmbrancity
December 18, 2016
As someone in the ‘complex-trauma’ bracket, with an academic background in archaeology, these abstracts and papers provide an outstanding, pragmatic, nuanced and thoughtful framework for bridging mental health support services & the heritage sector. Memory is a huge problem for me following a life-changing car accident & its through the techniques that you’ve outlined above that memory can be massaged back into less intrusive flashback modes, while also developing the deep time maps of the British Isles and respective landscapes & settlements. 11/10 for originality (or is that too Spinal Tap?), chutzpah and dedication!