Career Practitioner Conversations with NCDA

The Role of Mental Health in Career Development with Dr. Seth C. W. Hayden

September 13, 2022 Season 1 Episode 7
Career Practitioner Conversations with NCDA
The Role of Mental Health in Career Development with Dr. Seth C. W. Hayden
Show Notes Transcript

This episode is the third in our Presidential Series - hosted by NCDA president, Dr. Sharon Givens – it features a conversation with Dr. Seth C. W. Hayden, a licensed mental health counselor and associate professor of counseling at Wake Forest University. This conversation addresses the interconnectedness of mental health and career development and the goal of providing services that best reflect the lives of those we serve. Learn more about Dr. Hayden’s work at: https://counseling.graduate.wfu.edu/faculty-staff/dr-seth-hayden/.   

Career Practitioner Conversations with NCDA

 

Season 1. Episode 7: The Role of Mental Health in Career Development

 

Transcript

 

Sharon Givens: Good afternoon, Dr. Hayden.

 

Seth Hayden: Hey, Sharon, how are you?

 

Sharon Givens: I'm, good. I'm, good!

 

Sharon Givens: So, you are a past president, and you've done an amazing job over the last two years, and I really wanted to take this opportunity to have a good discussion. One of the things that I've learned about you, particularly in the last two years, as I've gotten to know more about you, is that we really have a passion for career, development, and mental health, and looking at ways that they constantly connect. And so, I thought. Why not have just a real conversation tonight about career development, mental health, and ways that we can do this particularly so

our members and overall career development professionals can be more successful and have more understanding about this. 

 

So, just maybe give me an overview of the intersection, through your lenses, the intersection of for development and mental health.

 

Seth Hayden: Yeah, well, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it, Sharon, and I agree. It's been interesting over time how you and I have engaged around this topic, and have a shared interest in this. And so, in order for me to share a little bit about how I kind of see this topic. I do think it's important to give a little backstory, and how I came to be interested in it. But I’m not going to go too far into this, because I don't think this is necessarily the focus of our discussion. But, I am trained primarily as a mental health counselor. That's my background. I went to a counseling program that was focused on mental health, and then I started seeing in my work the impact of career on people's mental health and vice versa. And so I was actually in Virginia at my doctoral program and I was doing some work with the clinic there at the University of Virginia, and I was seeing people come in from the community who were struggling with their career, and the implications for their mental health, and then also in terms of mental health, and how it was impacting their career, and this was from 2008 to 2012, which has been termed as kind of “The Great Recession.” And so, I was like, Wow! This is interesting, and that's when it started to pique my interest as something I wanted to look more at. 

 

I went to Florida, and I actually worked in a career center at Florida State University. And so again, I was socialized as a mental health practitioner. I was working in a career center at a university that also served the community which I thought was really useful, and so similar would see a lot of career development, mental health connections in my work. And so it's really been something I've been committed to both in my clinical work, I still practice. But then also in my scholarly work.

 

For me, when I talk to people about career development, mental health, and I imagine you've probably seen this yourself, it doesn't take too long for people to see that there is a connection. I mean, you talk about your life like, “Tell me about your career. Tell me about your family,” and you start to hear these things and how they're connected. Certainly, the pandemic has, I think, really shined a bright light on how all these things are connected in terms of aspects of career development, aspects of mental health. And so I think you have this anecdotal understanding. My own life. I think about how I got to where I am. Decisions I made impacted my family. Things going on in my family impacted my career, and so it it's connected. But one of the things I really want to continue to specify and identify is, how are they connected, the implications of that, both for people who work in mental health environments. But then also people who focus primarily on the career. And so that's something that I really focus on is career development. Mental health connection is, I think, a broad thing that we can understand. But what does that mean? Specifically? And what are the implications in terms of our work? And so that's where I focus a lot of my attention.

 

Sharon Givens: Yeah, one of the things that you said that I think really stands out for me is being aware of that connection like, understand that connection. We know that connection is there. But I guess I often wonder. As professionals, do we really know how to address that connection. I think that a really important, I think question for me, and I imagine for other professionals. They say, well, I recognize. I see that there's a strong connection that it exists. But…

 

Seth Hayden: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's an important point. So, I think that weighs a little bit into scope of practice, like what am I trained to be able to do? And then what am I comfortable doing? And how far are we going to go with this? And at what point do I need to take a step back, and maybe bring other resources to bear? Given the situation. I think each person to some degree has to answer that question for themselves. But I will say that when a person sits down and starts to talk about what's going on, they are going to share a lot with you. I've found that to be the case for me. They're going to talk about their career, the things they're trying to figure out. And then, with all of that, other things are going to be brought to bear. And so, I do think that career development is a very sophisticated experience. There's a lot there, and so I think we have to have a sophisticated response to that. And so I do think that even if you're not a trained clinical mental health provider as long as you're practicing ethically and within your scope of practice. It is important to be willing to think about that. See what it is you can do with that as opposed to immediately stepping away from that when someone's starting to talk about some mental health dimensions of their career concern. I mean for me, when you start to think about anxiety, and maybe someone has anxiety about their career, well, how do you say I'm just going to talk about the career? But you go deal with your anxiety somewhere else, where your anxiety is related to the career concern that the person is currently facing like, how do you do that? And so I do think that it's an important consideration, and it's not to minimize people's uncertainty, but it's also to recognize the reality of the experience of the people were serving and then you're going to have these things that are coming together. And so how much can I look into that, and see what I can do with that? And do I partner closely with a person who provides mental health services and have an ongoing relationship with them to where we're collaborating and understanding each other's work and engaging in referral when appropriate. But an informed referral. I do think that career concerns, again, there's a lot to them, they tend to be fairly complex, right? And then we need to have a framework that accounts for that.

 

Sharon Givens: Absolutely. Tell me your thoughts about the phrase, “Mental health wellness is essential to success and career development.”

 

Seth Hayden: What are your thoughts about that? Hmm. Mental health. Wellness is essential to success in career development. Yeah, I think there's uh it's an interesting way of uh terming it and thinking about it. And I mean, absolutely. There's tons of research around the connection between mental health and career, depression, hopelessness, anxiety, and the degree that it impacts people's career development. I mean it's, there's no question if it does. I mean, there's a mountain of evidence that indicates it does. And so, you know. And coming from a counseling background when you talk about wellness, that really kind of triggers for me. These conceptualizations we have of wellness, and how they're so interconnected. All these different domains of our life are so interconnected. And when we have challenges in one area, we're going to have challenges in other areas. But the flip side of that is when we get help in one area we often benefit in other areas. And so I think that's really interesting when you say wellness to me that's like a whole picture that we're talking about. And so, it's like a painting, and you know you put everything together for the full image, and you can't just take out the one part, because that and you don't have the full image anymore. So I think there's something to that, and I think that has implications for us personally, but then certainly within the helping professions, in terms of how it is that we engage with people. But yeah, I would say that there's a lot to that. I would align with that viewpoint, and I think it requires us to think deeply what that means for us in relation to how it is that we engage in our own lives, and how it is we help others.

 

Sharon Givens: Absolutely. And I have to agree with that whole concept about wellness, and I think if we are true helping professionals, we are looking at it from a comprehensive approach, and not just a targeted approach. So, walk me through, maybe some effective strategies to help career development professionals, address, mental health concerns with clients. You know. Here I am a development professional, seeing some things that I think first of all, that it's really with our work, and through my lens as it's occurred about like, there's a lot of anxiety. The person is hopeless, but I really want them to be successful in finding a job and keeping a job. You know what would be some strategies there?

 

Seth Hayden: Yeah, that's really interesting to kind of think about that specifically. What does it mean for us like, what do I do as a person who focuses my energy in the in the career realm to try and deal with those things. And so, for me, I see it as like different degrees of assistance, and so picking it can be from the point of a resume review. And so, when I used to do a lot of resume reviews when I worked in that career center. While it's a document, I'm going to offer some thoughts on it. I would take a step back for a moment and say, “Well, tell me a little bit about what it is. What is this resume is intended to do for you? Tell me a little bit about the context of this resume. Where are you with your career development? What are you trying to use it for? How do you feel about where you are with those kinds of things?” And acknowledging that I’m going to look at your resume. I'm going to give you. I'm going to critique it so it's not to like totally step away, but I’ll try to get a little bit more of the story about what brought them to this point, and wanting me to look at their resume, and then just check in about their thoughts and their feelings around various things that we're doing. And so, as we're going through the resume, you know. “How do you feel about this? What do you think here? What are your thoughts moving forward after?” Maybe we've concluded that engagement. So, I think, it's really just having curiosity like having curiosity about the full story to the degree that it seems reasonable within what they came for. So, it's not to divert too far away from what they're wanting, but it's just to take a step back and try to get some more of the story. I would say it's checking in on people's affective experience. 

 

So as you’re navigating career focused concerns. Um, just asking those questions around you. “Tell me a little bit about your feelings about this, and what is it like for you to be struggling with this at this point? How is that playing out in other aspects of your life? You're really struggling to find a major. Has it affected you in other ways, and if so, how? And so I think it’s just exploring a little bit with them. And then, as you said, I think it's interesting, because if you do have a mental health concern that seems to be inhibiting progress with their career development unless the mental health concern is dealt with. You're going to continually be inhibited with whatever it is, and so whether it be you like you're going to work with them around it. Maybe it's there's some things you can do as a career practitioner again partnering with the mental health provider. And I do say, partnering, I say that intentionally because I do think that there's experiences people have with mental health that they have for very long periods of time. And so, to think that, well, you go deal with your depression. And then, when that's resolved, you come back to me for a career, I mean, people live almost their whole lives with depression. So I think it's more of a partnering way of seeing how it is that we engage with other practitioners, so get a consent to release with their mental health providers. Say, hey, I'm going to have you work with this person. I'm going to continue to work with you. Here's a consent to release. If it's okay for us to talk. So, we're all on the same page with supporting you, and then having that engagement and make sure that what's going on there aligns with what the work you're doing, and so on. And so, I think for me it's accounting for that exploring it being curious about it, and then, when outside resources are seemingly needed to still be engaged with them when those resources are employed, so it's not just simply okay, go deal with that, and then come back to me, because again, these states of mental health are continually ongoing for many, and so it's important that we still stay engaged with them around whatever it is that we're trying to help them with.

 

Sharon Givens: That's a good point. You brought up specifically depression, and how people possibly deal with that for years, or in some cases, all of your life. And that's why I'm such a huge proponent for co-treatment, as you said, partnering with others to make sure that we address the whole person. Because if the depression is not managed, can we really successfully do career work if they're feeling hopeless? Think about that If they're going on an interview, what that looks like.

 

Seth Hayden: Yeah. And I mean going on an interview or some of the things we do within career. I mean it's in there. There's degrees of depression obviously and degrees of other mental health experiences. But I mean one of the things we do in career often is, give people an interest inventory. “So here's the interest inventory if like you’d to fill this out”, and one of the elements of depression is that you have a lack of interest. And so how does that work? How do you work with somebody and try to get a sense of what they have some enthusiasm around when their experience doesn't have a lot of enthusiasm. There's not a lot of excitement and energy around anything. And so, I think, it's important that we be mindful of that when we're using various resources, assessments, and interventions.

 

You know one of the things that I like to use are card sorts. And so I'm a kind of proponent of card sorts. I think there's some real value to that. And so when I have someone complete a card sort, I like to be there and engage with them as they're completing it and see their process of making these decisions. And so, when they're struggling with one, I'm going to ask them a little bit about it. It looks like you're really trying to figure out where this one goes, and so I want to get some insight into their thinking. But then card sorts are often organized around least interested, interested, most interested. And so, when you have certain experiences with mental health, it may be difficult that might be hard to be able to think about things in that way, and to organize things in that way. So when you see those things again, it's worthy to explore when you start to have these kinds of experiences in the career space with people, and they start to the things that you're seeing. Give you some glimpses that there might be something else going on here and given what you said earlier, that if there's something going on there, if I just continue to try to work around it. It's going to continually inhibit our progress. And so, it's going to be important for us to account for it, whatever that may be.

 

Sharon Givens: You know That was a great example about the card sort. It was great that you mentioned that, because I think, of course, their mental health, you know, kind of their thinking, their feelings and kind of where they are at that time will certainly impact the results of the assessment. And so, we do have to consider that. Yeah, I like that.

 

So what are your suggestions, though, for a successful referral process, Because there are many career development professionals who so in some cases are maybe even afraid. “I'm not trained as a counselor. But I’m a career development professional. I want to make sure that this person can address the mental health concerns, and I can work with them. But what do I do?” What's the process to make sure that they are working with the right person to do that. And what role will I play to make that connection?

 

Seth Hayden: Yeah, I would say that that's a useful consideration just in general, and not just on a case-by-case basis. So, I would just encourage someone to just network within your community of providers and not just with career development professionals, but also people in the mental health sphere like who are providers in your area and then get to know them and say, look, this is the work I do. Curious about your thoughts on the work that you do, and how it is that we can potentially connect. And so, I would encourage people to do some networking within their community around the mental health resources that they have and get to know who those people are who are those providers, and they get to know you. And so then, when you're making that referral, or say, it was you who is a mental health provider. “I'm referring you to Sharon, and this is Sharon. And this is the kind of work that Sharon does.” And so, it's an informed referral. I would encourage someone to have an informed referral to have relationships with those providers, and it not just be something that all of a sudden you're trying to find somebody, because the situation necessitates that, because I think there's a couple of dimensions to that. First of all, you would feel comfortable with who this person is going to, because You've gotten to know them, what their work is, what that's going to look like. And then they would also get a sense from you about what it is you're trying to accomplish in doing this, and then that also makes it more likely that that person is going to access that resource. In my opinion, if it's a warm hand off as opposed to, “here’s a phone number of this person. Go ahead and give them a call because I think they could help you.” I think that's a different experience. When you have that warm hand off that you know who that person is. You walk them through that. And again, you continue to partner to agree that you're able. There's a high likelihood that that person will continue to work with you and them as opposed to simply giving them a phone number and saying, hey, this is a person to call, because that that requires a lot from them to establish that relationship when there was an opportunity for you to have already done some of that leg work for them.

 

Sharon Givens: A lot of it just really requires us to be pretty proactive around that, making sure that we have some resources on demand,

 

Seth Hayden: I would say so. Yeah. And that's, I think that's mutually beneficial, too, because I mean when the mental health sphere, if there's a connect between mental health and career, goes both ways. So, people who are providing mental health services depending on obviously what your circumstances is a career practitioner there, and it could be instances where you could be of service to them, so they might have someone who's coming primarily from mental health, but there's a career dimension to that that you could be of assistance with. So, I think again, when you establish those relationships, it can be mutually beneficial.

 

Sharon Givens: That's a great point which goes back to this whole concept of partnership, and I think it's important for us as career development professionals to embrace that concept and make it intentional to work with others who can help support our work with our clients? What final thoughts would you share um around this topic?

 

Seth Hayden: I think for me it's this integration of theory, research and practice. I would just encourage people to try and think about how that plays out in their work, how it is that they utilize theory, how it is that they utilize research. And how does that inform practice, because I personally feel that when we're doing that, and we're fully realizing all the different elements of

the helping engagement. And so, you might subscribe to one particular theory or a different theory. And so I would just encourage you to think about that and think about how that plays out in your work, and there's research out there that aligns around career, development and mental health. How are you accessing that? What is it telling you how you engage? And then again with practice. How does that inform theory and research? So, I think, just asking yourself that question is useful. And just to stay informed. Professional associations like NCDA, you know, I think, are great resources. I mean the experience of people we serve continually evolves over time. And so how is it that we're staying current with the resources out there? The information. I just would encourage people to think about how it is they can utilize those resources to their maximum benefit.

 

Sharon Givens: That's a good point staying connected, and I think of course, particularly in the last couple of years here at NCDA. We've done a good job on really highlighting that connection of career development and mental health, and really seeing the value of assisting others and addressing. So lots of professional development and networking and we really could build a strong coalition within the association around this topic, and being support for each other

 

Seth Hayden: Yeah, and I would just, my hope is that career services can better reflect the lives of the people we serve. And so, when we think about how it is that we assist them, and we talked about that connection between career and development and mental health, and I think we have to respond in kind as career practitioners. And so, if I'm engaging with somebody, they're going to want for me to provide as much help as I possibly can, and ensuring that I'm able to do that, again ethically appropriate and within my scope of practice. But when we think about how these things are connected, we have to account for that in some form or fashion, whether it be within our own work, or bringing other resources to bear. Because I do think that the services they receive again would be useful to mirror the actual lived experience that they're having. 

 

And so I think NCDA is a place where we seem to consider that there's been obviously a lot of theory that we consider within NCDA as lots of research within the publications and various resources that recognize the impactful nature of career development. So I, just again, my hope is that career services can reflect that reality of the people that we serve.

 

Sharon Givens: Absolutely. You know, I think we owe them that. It's our responsibility. I do think we owe that to each and every person that we serve.

 

Seth Hayden: Yeah, it's. Yeah, Absolutely.

 

Sharon Givens: Well, I certainly appreciate your time and your expertise. I think this is just such an important conversation for us to have, and for hopefully our listeners and for our career, development professionals around the world.

 

Seth Hayden: Yeah, thank you. I like how you termed that a conversation, because my hope is that the conversation continues around this topic, and then we continue to consider it and talk about it, and that people feel open to considering it within their work, and like-minded people, can come together and find ways to support each other. As we deal with challenging things for the people that we serve. I mean the last couple of years, certainly, again have magnified our understanding of these things, but I don't think they created them. I think they magnified them.

 

Yeah. And so, with this raised awareness comes responsibility. And so, I hope that we can all support each other with in that effort. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. And yeah, hopefully, we can continue to connect on this topic.

 

Sharon Givens: Absolutely. Thank you.