You know about looking after your physical health, but what about your mental health?
Life in the field can be stressful in many ways. If you are feeling disillusioned, jaded, unsafe, anxious, can’t sleep, burnt-out, need a drink, stressed, exhausted, overwhelmed, struggling to cope…We are HERE to HEAR you.
The commitment of therapy can be hardest to make for the people who need therapy most – those who travel constantly, have no home base and a severe work environment that can include war and natural disaster. We can see you wherever you are in the world. No travel, no waiting room awkwardness or stigma, no stress, no hassle. Even if you do not have regular Wi-Fi access, you can keep in touch with your therapist via email, sent whenever you can connect.
We understand firsthand how complex life in the field can be, and we are here to give you a safe space in which to work through your issues and anxieties. Our therapists have lived and worked in the field and have experienced similar challenges. There is no reason to avoid therapy because “I’ll never find someone who understands me or my reality.” We are here to listen, to understand and to support you.
At the Mind Field, we want to de-mystify and de-stigmatize mental health for people living and working in the field. Through our blogs and links to articles on issues that resonate, we hope you will find that you are not alone and that there are choices available to you.
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I have worked in international development for nearly 15 years, including field postings to post-conflict and transitional countries such as Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. My experience living and working overseas, especially as a woman, led me to specialize in empowerment projects. One of the best ways to empower others and yourself is to listen to people’s stories, learn from their experiences and your own reaction to their experiences, and accompany each other along the way. I hope that the Mind Field can be a great tool and support for people who are dedicating their time and energy to others. Look for my story soon under “The Mind Field Blog.”
I am an international development specialist and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience working in the development field both overseas and at “headquarters.” Most recently, I have been focusing on supporting grassroots organizations improve their organizational capacity and helping them become the change they want to see. Equally rewarding has been serving as a coach and mentor to young career women and other development professionals. I have shared my story here to reflect on why I strongly believe in the support “The Mind Field” has to offer.
I’m a former journalist, once Moscow correspondent for The Times (London). I grew up with a war correspondent father, who was killed in El Salvador in 1989. I was 19 at the time and thought he was tough, glamorous, hard-bitten and generally pretty cool. I only realized later that he was chronically anxious, alcohol dependent and probably quite traumatized by the horrors he’d experienced on the job. He was, as an obituary writer put it, “penitentially lonely” with a string of catastrophic relationships trailing in his wake. In my own analysis, I experienced and processed the damage passed on to me from my father’s disturbance. In thinking and reading around psychoanalysis and seeing training patients, I understood how these lives on the very edge of human experience can seriously impact on mental health. There are no prizes for toughing it out alone, for not getting help. This is what I have learnt.
