Organizational psychologist and author Melissa Doman, MA joins IMS Client Success Advisor and podcast host Adam Bloomberg for a special series in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. Listen, watch, and/or read the transcript below. (Part 2 of 3) 

Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to the IMS Insights Podcast. I’m your host, Adam Bloomberg. Today we’re speaking with Melissa Doman about mental health in the legal field and how to focus on mental well-being during high-stress situations like trial.

Melissa Doman is an organizational psychologist, author, and former clinical mental health therapist. She works with clients around the globe—including Google and Dow Jones—and has partnered with IMS since May 2021. Her goal is to equip companies, individuals, and leaders to have constructive conversations about mental health in the workplace.

Adam Bloomberg:

Alright, so let’s focus in on the legal industry. So in your experience, how do you think the legal industry ranks when it comes to stress levels and mental health issues? And again, I must be throwing you a big softball here because I’m guessing you know all about the stress levels.

Melissa Doman, MA:

Well, let me first say I am actually related, I’m biologically related to six attorneys, six. Do you want to know how many of them still practice?

Adam Bloomberg:

I want to hear it.

Melissa Doman, MA:

One. One. Because just the stress of being in the industry, of living and dying by billable hours and the expectations from clients, it just, they couldn’t do it. And it’s I’ve learned not even just from a professional lens, because I have, you know, law firms and other legal-adjacent organizations as my clients, but also from a personal perspective. Where I have seen on the back end what that stress can do to people, and that’s even just passing the bar before they get to practice. I distinctly remember hearing those stories about how I have a relative who is getting ready to take the bar. And he told me what he saw at the lobby, and I was like, “Oh, my God, really?” But this is before I got into this work. And now, being in this work, I’m like, “Oh, I can see exactly how that happened.” So, when it comes to the industries that have, in my opinion, the highest levels of stress and the least amount of permission to talk about it, in no particular order: law, medicine, and finance. Because if you think about those industries, and especially if you have to carry licensure to provide very specific services to other human beings, the stakes are a lot higher, and therefore the ability, to not to sound too crunchy, to just be human is not allowed as much, because if you talk about the struggles, the concern is well, they think I can’t do the job, or my license will get pulled, or there are lots of, there’s lots of systems in place to make people feel like that. Especially doctors. If you, if you claim to have gotten any sort of psychiatric care that can make it back to your medical board. So it’s almost like they’re de-incentivizing people who have the highest stress levels in those industries to get help for it and talk about it. It’s absolute lunacy.

And so those three industries. So, I would say to be really honest, that law and medicine are tied for number one, and then you have, I’d say, finance and government and aeronautics as tied for number 2. And that’s what I take it down to is that when you have to carry a license and you have the ability to impact peoples’ literal livelihood, especially from a legal perspective, that is a lot of weight to carry. And I think that people who don’t work in industries that require that sort of licensure, it’s not to diminish the struggles that they go through, but that is a different level of pressure.

Adam Bloomberg:

We see clients who work 20-hour days. They can be in a courtroom and in a trial for 3 months at a time, doing 20-hour days. I had an experience I was in, in New York, several years ago, and the lead associate in the case, this was June, and he had already gotten all of his billable requirement for the year in June. It’s just insane. Granted he was young, not married, no kids, and he lived in an apartment in Manhattan, one block from the law firm.

Melissa Doman, MA:

Oh, my God. Well, that’s just ideal, isn’t it? I say being facetious.

Adam Bloomberg:

No, go ahead.

Melissa Doman, MA:

That’s not even including the emotionally charged statements that clients put towards them. When people are afraid in legal proceedings, who do you think gets the brunt of that? The lawyer. There’s lots of other people, obviously, but that’s a lot to take directly from clients.

Adam Bloomberg:

Yeah. So alright. So what trends are you seeing when it comes to mental health, just, I guess, overall, with the legal industry. What are the trends?

Melissa Doman, MA:

It’s actually quite dichotomous. So there are the folks who, you know, when they remain in the field. What I’ve noticed is that, well, thankfully, there is more of a conversation that is starting to creep up slowly in the legal profession. There is an association actually in Canada, a legal association, I’m blanking on the name, but they sent out a newsletter in recent months talking about mental health in the legal industry. Oh, this is great, you know, I really hope that this is going to be catching on in other places. I actually also know an attorney who is going to be working on a piece of work that is centered around, you know, happiness in the legal field. It’s because it’s just not talked about. And so, what I unfortunately am noticing is that in the legal industry in particular, high, high, high rates of anxiety and depression and substance abuse. Because it’s, you can only take so much as an individual before you start getting symptomatic or trying to find ways to mitigate those symptoms, and that is not a criticism. It’s just very much cause and effect. And so, some of which is in a clinical nature, some of it is not.

And so, you see a lot of those general trends around, you know anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. And then I’m also seeing, there’s some people who are going off on short-term leave due to mental health struggles from working in the field because it’s just too much. There’s also a lot of folks who are developing panic attacks, which is another form of anxiety. And it’s really, it’s really worrying because it’s all happening behind the scenes, but no one is really talking about it as much on the front lines, because people don’t want to get their licenses pulled. They don’t want to be able; they don’t want to be seen as not being able to do the job. There is someone who I know who’s been an attorney for, honestly, longer than I’ve been alive, and he only now, later in life in his sixties, is finally talking about his mental health and actually his mental health conditions. And he said, “When I was at firms in the eighties, nineties, early 00s, if I would have said a word, I would have been kicked out the door.” And there’s still a lot of people in the field who feel that way. And it’s all happening, and just because people aren’t talking about it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. That’s a common misconception. And so, I think that with all the other industries who are having these conversations. I would say, law and also medicine and finance are a few years behind that, and it is happening, which is great, but I say with much more trepidation.

Adam Bloomberg:

Yeah, all right. So thinking about the client I had the associate working, I think it was 2,200 hours by June. How could we teach the next generation to learn from this to prioritize their mental health from the beginning to avoid burnout?

Melissa Doman, MA:

So I want to be realistic with you. I think there are certain industries that if you choose to take them on, with what is required of those professions, that burnout is always a risk. But it’s how you try to mitigate those risks, and how you talk about the experiences that you’re having, that can really take the edge off. So, I think that’s the more realistic way to go about it. So, I think that there really needs to be a narrative change first, to be honest with you, that if you’re newer into this industry, I think it’s really about setting the expectation to people around you, because people will say stupid things when you’re trying to do this healthy practice. Saying something to the effect of “talking about and managing my mental health is a healthy adult practice, and it helps me do my job better.” The end. That’s what it really comes down to. Because who can, who can argue with that?

Because it’s not like you’re going to sit there and be talking to your clients that you’re representing about your mental health struggles. That’s not the time and place. They don’t need to hear that from you, but you should be able to talk about it to your colleagues, who understand. It’s not like we’re, and I give this other comparison when I get the same spiel to doctors, and I say, I’m not telling you to tell your patients, I’m telling you to tell your coworkers who will understand. So I think it’s really about understanding, you know, if you’re going to try to talk about your mental health in the legal field, what is the narrative that you’re going to try and share? And that’s the one that I suggest. Talking about my mental health is a healthy adult practice and helps me do my job better, so I can serve my clients better and not burn out. That’s it.

And then, when it comes to doing things to try to prioritize your mental health, there’s 2 things that I often recommend. One of them is a creation of my own, and one of them is from Steven Kobe, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. So there’s something called “The Circle of Control and Influence”. I love that model. I wish people would have it posted everywhere that they could see.

It’s basically an instant infiltration system where it kind of looks like a bullseye. On the smallest one in the middle, you have what you can control, obviously. The next one out is what you can influence, and the next one out is what I like to call, “I wish you the best of luck” but what the model calls “you can’t influence”. And so it is really difficult, working in the legal field, to try to implement something like that, because you have to try and control the uncontrollable, especially when it comes to interpretations of the law and trying to defend people. So, but there is something to be said of trying to focus on what you can control and influence, particularly when people around you, or clients, make you feel like you have to control the uncontrollable. You can’t.

Melissa Doman, MA:

And so there has to be a level setting of expectations, focusing not only on what you can control and influence, but the acceptance of what you can’t, and building that tolerance to people who make you feel like you should be able to. It is a practice, a daily practice, that takes time. I’m not saying this is easy, but you have to at least try. I highly recommend actually taking a screenshot of that image of the model online. Put it on your phone screen, put it on your laptop screen, print it and put it in your office. I don’t care where you need to see it, but that is a surprisingly helpful tool. The other one is something that I created and trademarked, called “The Mental Well-Being Non-Negotiables”.

What I often find, and baffles me, is we have to focus on sleeping, eating, bathing, and breathing. Why, why is it managing, and managing your physical health. Why isn’t managing mental health on that list? That makes no sense to me. But the problem is that the wellness industry often gives these lofty, unachievable, hashtag-able goals that just aren’t helpful. And they try and tell you what you should enjoy for your mental health. But what if you don’t like it? What if you don’t like yoga? What if you don’t like doing these certain, you know, prescribed activities, and you just don’t do it anyway? So, the way that I tend to approach it is, do things that make you feel emotionally good, that don’t bring harm to yourself or others, do it at a realistic cadence that you decide, and stick to it barring death, dismemberment, hell, high water, and I am not playing.

So, if that means laying on the ground on Sundays for an hour, and drawing comic books with your kids, that’s what that means. If it means taking your dog for a walk for 20 minutes, 4 days a week, that’s what that means. If it means dancing in your underwear to Queen in the living room, that’s what that means. But you have to find what that is and do it consistently, something you actually enjoy, and stick to it, no matter what. Because if you’re going to be servicing those other basic parts of your general well-being, mental health has to be on that list, and it has to be something that you actually enjoy. I am a former therapist. I don’t like to meditate. I don’t like yoga. I know it’s sacrilegious, and people will be like, “What? How could you say such a thing?”

My meditation is salsa dancing. That’s what works for me. So, pandemic made that a little bit difficult, so I adapted, and I said, “Well, I have hardwood floors, salsa music, and a mostly willing husband. That’s going to have to do.” And so you just find little things that you can do, and you adapt it over time, but no one will do it for you, if not you. So start small. The paradox of choice is having too much choice means you don’t do any of it. Start small. Pick one thing, two things, and just stick to it, because how are you going to survive long term if you don’t have just one or two things that you do for you?

Adam Bloomberg:

Right, salsa dancing is not my thing. Walking my dog, taking him to the dog park when everyone else is asleep at my house is the thing. So I’m going to give you a hypothetical. The trial setting. I talked a little bit about that before, but this is a very common thing for our teams. We go onsite. Pick your city, it doesn’t matter where it is, we’re all over. Typically, what will happen for us, is we will go a week before the trial starts. We’ll be in a war room. We’ll be there with anywhere from two to 20 attorneys and paralegals and clients on a case. We’ll work non-stop for a week and then we’ll go into a trial. And when I say non-stop, it is typically, I would say, on the low end, it’s 12 hours a day. The average is 14 to 16 hours a day. That’s just in the week leading. Now we’re going to do a one-month trial. And depending on who’s on the team, who’s interacting with us, and which witness we’re prepping or the attorney we’re helping with a cross of a witness, we, for real, can be working those 16, 17-hour days. We’re doing that. The trial team is doing that.

How would you recommend, in that scenario, you’ve essentially got a 5-week period where you’re going on 4, 5, 6 hours of sleep, on average. How would you recommend trial teams protect their mental health and well-being while that’s going on?

Melissa Doman, MA:

So, I would actually use the 2 tools that I recommended, because they’re snap easy and quick to use without a lot of investment time, but they take repetition. So, there are some people who will, for example, in a case like that, will focus more on basic physical needs, where that will be, I say loosely in quotes, enough. There’s some people where they just want to make sure they eat some form of a vegetable every day, or making sure they take a shower every day, or making sure they’re doing, you know, deep breathing when they can. For some people, that’s what works. For other people who are more cerebral, they need something different. And so in those cases I would actually recommend “The Circles of Control and Influence”, because if you are doing that much work and that much of high capacity in such an analytical and high-stakes way, there has to be at least some form of brief daily reminder of what you can control and influence, but also remembering that in those trial periods, and I say this again loosely, because when you work as an attorney, you have long days in general, when you’re doing these trial periods that have a much higher time investment each day, the reminder that that time investment is time-boxed. That it is not going to be indefinite, because there is something comforting of that light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel sort of approach.

And in addition to that, if you’re going to be doing those “Mental Well-Being Non-Negotiables”, and you’re in trial time, you have to adapt it. What is going to be something very, very simple, very simple, that you can do maybe once a day, a couple of times a week, that will just give you a moment, a moment to focus on that, and not on the trial that you’re involved in. Because for some people, who have the luxury of time, they say, “Oh, I want to find an hour a day. Oh, I want to find 2 hours a week.” What if you don’t have that luxury? What if it comes down to trying to find 5 minutes a day? What if it comes down to that? So that’s why I always suggest, whatever that is that you can personalize, try and make them itty-bitty micro goals, so they can still be used during those trial times, because what’s the alternative? Doing nothing?

And so there are some folks, for example, and this is highly, highly different, when they say, “Oh, I have multiple kids, you know, I don’t have time for myself. When do I find the time?” And I say, “90 seconds a day. Where can you find 90 seconds a day?” So, if you have a long-time investment. That’s what it might come down to, is finding the minutes where you can, to focus on your mental health and what you’ve chosen to do every month with your “Mental Wellbeing Non-Negotiable” as opposed to finding the hours. So I tend to really scale down those time suggestions and decide, what is it you need to not only survive through this period, but try to put a little bit of oil in the tank as you’re going through this time-boxed period. And decide what will work for you and stick to it, no matter what, because the alternative is going “pop”, and then not being able to do the gig.

Adam Bloomberg:

I like to, if we’re in a trial venue that we’re staying in a high-rise hotel, something with more than 3 sets of stairs, 3 floors, and let’s say it’s 20. I like to, as soon as we get done with trial during the day, and then we come back to the war room and then work. Typically, there’s an hour, hour and a half. I like to go back to my room, change, and I take the elevator downstairs, and I walk up, it’s great if you can get 20 floors, I walk up 20 floors, I walk down 24 floors. I go change again, sometimes probably shower, and then I get to work again. For me, that’s what I do for stress release.

Melissa Doman, MA:

And there are some people where it really ranges, so it can go from people who want to do guided visualization, which is actually something I love doing, where you are, you know, for example, closing your eyes and focusing. It can be on a place that you’ve been. It could be a place you’ve imagined in your head, but you want to imagine it like your life depends on it. I’m talking if there’s color, if there is a temperature, if there’s a feeling, if you want to put noise-canceling headphones on your head, but you probably can’t, because you have a call to listen for, and trying to listen to nature sounds that might match what you’re visualizing. There’s some people who love that. There’s other people who are more physical, as you’re explaining, where they want to run stairs. And I’m not joking, there are people who go to something called a Rage Room. Have you heard of these?

Adam Bloomberg:

No.

Melissa Doman, MA:

They’re popping up all across the country.

Melissa Doman, MA:

You can go and put on, you know, goals and safety gloves, and all these things, and they give you a sledgehammer in a room full of glass and breakables, and they say, go have fun. And then in a safe, legal, protected way, where, if some people just need to get the Ajuda out, and they go, and they go to these rage rooms, and they just go to town, and they say it’s like the most therapeutic thing they’ve ever experienced. There’s people who find relief in screaming into a pillow, and I realize this doesn’t sound happy and pretty, and whatever, but these are the emotions that people feel at the very base level, especially with the primitive parts of our brain, that just, it just helps. So you need to find what works for you whether it’s doing the guided visualization running up and down the stairs, screaming into a pillow, going to a rage room, dancing around to Mariah Carey. I don’t care what it is, but you have to find something that you can do that gets that, gets the adrenaline to level off or give some form of relief, because otherwise it goes inward, and it comes out towards people you don’t want it to, when you don’t want it to, in ways that you don’t want it to.