Escaping from a Black Hole: Facing Depression in Academia

[1] This essay will consider some common causes of and ways of coping with clinical depression and anxiety in musical academia, specifically discussing its potential impact upon both teachers and students. One of the primary contributors to depression in junior faculty is the anxiety associated with functioning in an academic environment without the security provided by tenure. While the tenure crunch is thus a common cause of faculty depression, it is certainly not the only one; depression may be brought on by a wide variety of factors-also in tenured faculty. These factors may include ongoing faculty-administration and faculty-faculty conflicts, dissatisfaction with the amount of research time allocated, frustration with inefficient bureaucracy, poor student behavior and performance, etc. Depression in students is frequently associated with apprehension concerning their ability to meet academic expectations. Also, among undergraduates, especially young adults who are away from home for the first time, the challenges posed by "unsuccessful" relationships, especially sexual, can lead to serious depression, negatively impacting their academic performance. Although this article is largely a subjective account of a single individual's experience, many readers will recognize their own, their students', or their colleagues' struggles with depression. It is hoped that, by reading this account, faculty and administrators will better understand the real and unique disability that is caused by clinical depression. Ultimately, I shall delineate strategies for identifying clinical depression and discuss ways of coping with it in an academic context.[2] The term "depression" is somewhat infelicitous in describing this condition, since it may imply that it is solely an emotional state of mind and not also a physical condition. For this reason, many have refused to recognize clinical depression as a disability, imputing it to emotional weakness of some kind. But scientific studies have demonstrated that clinical depression is indeed a physical disability-although it is generally less visible than some others-because it is caused by chemical imbalances and especially deficits in the brain. While we know that there may be (and usually is) an interdependence between mental states and the chemistry of the brain, clinical depression can also occur in people who are otherwise well-adjusted simply because they have inherited the physiology of depression.[3] There is a widespread popular belief that artists, composers, poets, performers, and intellectuals have a greater propensity or predisposition to suffer from depression than the general population. Famous cases in the history of music, like that of Robert Schumann, are cited in support of this contention. However, the scientific facts suggest that a certain proportion of the population in general experiences serious depressive disorders without regard to occupation or walk of life. The reason people believe that artistic personalities are more prone to depression than the average person may be simply that depression in the famous attracts greater attention.[4] In my family, my sibling and I both suffer from exactly the same type of clinical depression; therefore it is highly probable that we inherited it from our mother, who endured it without ever being properly diagnosed. As an academic, a condition that negatively impacts my ability to think, write, and teach is especially painful, and overcoming it has posed constant challenges.[5] Until I was diagnosed with clinical depression in 1997 at the age of thirty-nine, I was ignorant of the medical condition. Growing up, I had been aware that my mother, an artist, suffered from some kind of "mental anguish" but, in line with the common belief that artists are innately different, I attributed my mother's ailment to her "artistic personality." At one point during my early teens, my mother believed herself to be seriously ill, but the doctors could find nothing physically wrong with her. …