The Academic Mental Health Collective (AMHC) was formed in 2016, with the aim of providing a resource for graduate students who struggle with mental illness (including but not limited to anxiety disorders, eating disorders, depression, addictions, and so on). Everyone on the AMHC team is either a grad student or former grad student. We are an international collective and our team currently includes members living in Australia, Canada, and the USA. As we’ve worked through our own journeys with mental illness (and/or worked to support our peers who were struggling), we found a serious void in terms of resources – a void that often leads grad students dealing with mental illness to feel very alone.
We also provide materials and resources to promote mental health among graduate students more generally. The stressful environment of graduate school can overwhelm and erode the psychological well-being of anyone, as well as contribute to the development of mental illness among graduate students who may be susceptible to these kinds of problems.
We aim to create a resource that is relevant and inclusive for everyone, while recognizing that experiences with mental illness can be different and especially difficult for people from marginalized backgrounds, including people of colour, people from poor and working class backgrounds, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. AMHC welcomes suggestions for improving the inclusivity and accessibility of our site.
Although our focus is on the unique struggles of grad students (or “post-grads” depending on the lingo where you live), some of the content on our website is also relevant for people pursuing academia and higher education more generally, including post-docs, med and law students, and individuals working on professional degrees. If you find something on this site that helps you, please stick around!
We welcome contributions to the site. If you are interested in writing a blog post or telling your story about dealing with mental illness in grad school, please contact us.
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We hope that the content we prepare for you is helpful and engaging. In order to navigate our website and decide if it is useful for you, please read our How To Use Our Website page.
Academic Mental Health Collective 