PR and Mental Health Problems

PR is stress­ful — take your men­tal health seriously.

This post will provide sev­er­al power­ful mind­sets and tech­niques to help com­mu­nic­at­ors- and PR pro­fes­sion­als avoid stress and men­tal illness.

According to a recent study, 41% of all sick leaves in the Swedish com­mu­nic­a­tions industry are men­tal illnesses.

During my 17 years in the PR industry, I know of count­less former industry col­leagues who suffered peri­ods of stress-related men­tal health problems.

And I’m no excep­tion; in 2016 (the same year I was awar­ded Cision Scandinavia’s PR Influencer of the Year Award), I had to turn the volume down on my career to get my head back straight.

It took me three whole years to get back into men­tal shape.

Here we go:

PR is a Stressful Job, But …

Public Relations is one of the most stress­ful jobs in the world. Slowing down in a world where everything is instant­an­eous can be chal­len­ging. We work long hours and rarely get paid what we deserve.

“Our annu­al State of the Profession report (2019) revealed that 21% of pub­lic rela­tions prac­ti­tion­ers live with, or have pre­vi­ously lived with, a dia­gnosed men­tal health con­di­tion reflect­ing nation­al data. Over half of those respond­ents said their work con­trib­utes highly to their dia­gnos­is. Around a quarter (23%) of PR pro­fes­sion­als say they have taken sick­ness absence from work on the grounds of stress, anxi­ety or depres­sion. This is an issue that has far reach­ing con­sequences for employ­ees and busi­nesses. Organisations have a respons­ib­il­ity to take steps to pro­tect the well­being of all their staff.”
Source: Chartered Institute of Public Relations ¹Chartered Institute of Public Relations. (2019). Mental Health. Cipr​.co​.uk. https://​cipr​.co​.uk/​C​I​P​R​/​O​u​r​_​w​o​r​k​/​P​o​l​i​c​y​/​M​e​n​t​a​l​_​H​e​a​l​t​h​.​a​spx

PR pro­fes­sion­als often face the men­tal stress of work­ing in a high-pres­sure envir­on­ment. This can lead to more severe men­tal health prob­lems like depres­sion or anxiety.

Mental ill­ness is an epi­dem­ic, with 1 in 5 Americans suf­fer­ing. This is not only a men­tal health issue but also a social prob­lem. And the PR- and com­mu­nic­a­tions industry seems espe­cially afflicted.

Why are PR jobs so stress­ful?
Are we … weak?

Doctors and nurses save lives. Construction work­ers and engin­eers build homes, hos­pit­als, and roads. In con­trast, we might brain­storm names for a cor­por­ate insur­ance pod­cast that will likely be for­got­ten in six months.

What right do PR pro­fes­sion­als have to com­plain about our cor­por­ate jobs? Was the cof­fee machine broken this morning?

Low Professional Self-Esteem

We all com­mu­nic­ate all the time. Still, no one knows what the heck is going on. When com­mu­nic­at­ing, we know more about quantum mech­an­ics than what’s hap­pen­ing inside our brains.

We don’t know how our brains grew to con­sume 20% of all our energy. Did we devel­op large brains because we strived for com­plex forms of com­mu­nic­a­tion — or was it the oth­er way around? Why have we evolved to think and com­mu­nic­ate with such com­plex­ity when it was unne­ces­sary for early hunter-gather­ers? ²If you’re curi­ous about how little we know about the ori­gins of lan­guages, Noam Chomsky has plenty to say on the sub­ject. ³There’s also sci­entif­ic evid­ence that our brains are shrink­ing and that we’ve lost a chunk the size of a ten­nis ball in the last 20,000 years. I’ll save that nug­get of inform­a­tion for anoth­er … Continue read­ing

Most people work at jobs where they know things. We don’t.

We sel­dom know any­thing for sure. Although I have been work­ing with PR every day since 2005 (and stud­ied it at the uni­ver­sity between 2000 and 2005), I rarely know if the press release I wrote will take off.

I don’t know if the pitch will res­ult in a full-page art­icle. I don’t know if the web­site copy will con­vert at 0,5% or 3%. I don’t know how many sub­scribers will for­ward that last news­let­ter. Will our bril­liant PR strategy work? I mean, I hope so. ⁴There are no stand­ards when it comes to con­ver­sion rates. To find bench­marks for your website’s niche, you should expect that online num­bers might be exag­ger­ated for effect. Still, con­ver­sion rates … Continue read­ing

What if some­thing in our pro­fes­sion­al life worked once before? We can almost always be sure that it won’t work pre­cisely the same way ever again. The gist is that we don’t know — but we have to deliv­er tan­gible res­ults repeatedly.

If you’re PR- and com­mu­nic­a­tions, and you don’t have a touch of low pro­fes­sion­al self-esteem, please let the rest of us know how you do it.

Theory of Mind: A Blessing and a Curse

A “PR super­power” is the abil­ity to ima­gine one­self in anoth­er person’s situ­ation and reas­on from their perspective.

Those with strong empath­ic skills can recog­nise hid­den motives and emo­tion­al sub­texts behind sur­face beha­viour. They can anti­cip­ate escal­a­tion before it occurs, inter­cept mis­com­mu­nic­a­tions early, and act with stra­tegic empathy. 

Such skills are crit­ic­al in media train­ing, nego­ti­ations, and crisis response, where under­stand­ing inten­tion is as import­ant as what is said.

The term “the­ory of mind” was first coined by Premack and Woodruff (1978) and referred to people’s thoughts and reas­on­ing about their minds and those of oth­ers. The assump­tion that we need a the­ory for our thoughts is called intro­spec­tion. ⁵Theory of mind. (2023, December 4). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​T​h​e​o​r​y​_​o​f​_​m​ind ⁶Schwitzgebel, E. (2019). Introspection (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford​.edu. https://​pla​to​.stan​ford​.edu/​e​n​t​r​i​e​s​/​i​n​t​r​o​s​p​e​c​t​i​on/

The the­ory of mind is the abil­ity to attrib­ute men­tal states — thoughts, intents, desires, pre­ten­sions, and world-views — to one­self and oth­ers and to under­stand how those men­tal states influ­ence behaviour.

This form of empathy is a crit­ic­al devel­op­ment­al skill that helps chil­dren exper­i­ence empathy and under­stand oth­er people’s feel­ings and inten­tions. ⁷Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the aut­ist­ic child have a “the­ory of mind”? Cognition, 21(1), 37 – 46. ⁸Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chim­pan­zee have a the­ory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(4), 515 – 526.

In a way, the the­ory of mind is the psy­cho­lo­gic­al anti­thes­is to the philo­soph­ic­al idea of sol­ipsism:

Solipsism = the philo­soph­ic­al idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist and that know­ledge of any­thing out­side the self is ulti­mately unknowable.

A Brief History of Theory of Mind

The the­ory of mind was first intro­duced in the 1970s by devel­op­ment­al psy­cho­lo­gists study­ing how chil­dren under­stand oth­ers’ beliefs, inten­tions, and emotions.

Through vari­ous exper­i­ments, research­ers dis­covered that chil­dren begin to under­stand that people have dif­fer­ent thoughts and feel­ings based on their unique per­spect­ives and exper­i­ences around age four. ⁹Theory of mind. (2023, April 21). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​T​h​e​o​r​y​_​o​f​_​m​ind

As the study of the the­ory evolved, research­ers found that it plays a cru­cial role in social cog­ni­tion and inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships. It enables us to pre­dict and inter­pret oth­ers’ actions, empath­ise, and com­mu­nic­ate effect­ively. ¹⁰Apperly, I. A. (2011). Mindreaders: The cog­nit­ive basis of “Theory of Mind”. Psychology Press.

Today, the the­ory of mind is con­sidered an essen­tial aspect of human inter­ac­tion, which can bene­fit PR pro­fes­sion­als in numer­ous ways.

“Poor the­ory of mind skills lead to pref­er­en­tial atten­tion to neg­at­ive facial expres­sions in inter­per­son­al inter­ac­tions, poten­tially due to vigil­ance for threat.”
Source: Scandinavian Journal of Psychology ¹¹Ribeiro, L., & Fearon, P. (2010). Theory of mind and atten­tion­al bias to facial emo­tion­al expres­sions: a pre­lim­in­ary study. Scandinavian journ­al of psy­cho­logy, 51 4, 285 – 9. … Continue read­ing

Theory of Mind in Public Relations

A bet­ter under­stand­ing of oth­er people’s inner worlds could improve any­one’s com­mu­nic­a­tion skills. 

“In psy­cho­logy, the­ory of mind refers to the capa­city to under­stand oth­er people by ascrib­ing men­tal states to them (that is, sur­mising what is hap­pen­ing in their mind). This includes the know­ledge that oth­ers’ men­tal states may be dif­fer­ent from one’s own states and include beliefs, desires, inten­tions, emo­tions, and thoughts.”
Source: Wikipedia ¹²Theory of mind. (2023, November 28). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​T​h​e​o​r​y​_​o​f​_​m​ind

PR pro­fes­sion­als and com­mu­nic­at­ors with a strong the­ory of mind can bet­ter under­stand their audi­ence, cre­ate more com­pel­ling mes­sages, and build last­ing relationships.

Here are some real-life situ­ations where the the­ory can make a dif­fer­ence for PR professionals:

Boost Your Theory of Mind

To improve your the­ory of mind as a PR pro­fes­sion­al, con­sider these priorities:

Beware of Empathic Stress

As PR and com­mu­nic­a­tions pro­fes­sion­als, we must always con­sider what oth­ers think and feel. Our empath­ic com­mu­nic­a­tion skills can poten­tially make us more sus­cept­ible to emo­tion­al stress. ¹³Silfwer, J. (2022, January 27). PR and Mental Health Problems. Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​m​e​n​t​a​l​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​p​r​o​b​l​e​ms/

Alas, a strong the­ory of mind can be a stressor.

The the­ory of mind might res­ult in empath­ic res­on­ance, which absorbs the emo­tion­al states of oth­ers. For example, you may inter­n­al­ise a client’s shame dur­ing a media crisis, a journalist’s frus­tra­tion dur­ing an inter­view, or a colleague’s anxi­ety before a launch. Over time, this becomes a low-grade, per­sist­ent form of vicari­ous trauma.

If emphat­ic pres­sure is allowed to build for long peri­ods, vari­ous men­tal health prob­lems might follow.

“I always thought burnout happened when you work too much. Now I get it. It’s invest­ing emo­tion­ally and not get­ting a return on that invest­ment.”
— @spamap

Read also: Theory of Mind: A Superpower for PR Professionals

How To Avoid Stress in PR

Public rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als often report feel­ing over­worked, stressed, and anxious. In 2019, PR ranked eight out of the 10 most stress­ful jobs in the US. ¹⁴Blagojević, I. (2023, May 19). PR Statistics 2023. 99firms​.com. https://​99firms​.com/​b​l​o​g​/​p​r​-​s​t​a​t​i​s​t​i​cs/

However, many are not aware of the stressors present in their every­day work. These stressors can be related to the job or per­son­al struggles affect­ing work per­form­ance. When these stressors are allowed to pile up, stress can neg­at­ively impact men­tal health.

I know — I’ve been there myself.

The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic isn’t doing us any favours, either. In a recent news­let­ter, PR blog­ger Arik Hanson writes:

“In my con­ver­sa­tions with folks the last couple of weeks, one theme is com­ing through loud and clear: People are at their wit’s end. Burnt to a crisp. FRIED.”

I’m not a med­ic­al pro­fes­sion­al, but the five strategies below have helped me improve and stay men­tally healthy. Here are some ways to reduce stress levels while mak­ing an impact­ful career.

1. Stop Moving the Goalposts

One of the many things I’ve learned as a PR con­sult­ant is that cli­ents are nev­er sat­is­fied for long. If you deliv­er top-notch res­ults, cli­ents will reward your efforts by expect­ing the same out­put level (or high­er) at the same com­pens­a­tion level the next time.

If I deliv­er way above what I’m being com­pensated for, it’s prob­ably because I got lucky that time. One could wish that cli­ents would remem­ber this if I’m not so for­tu­nate at some point. But no, that’s not the way the busi­ness world works.

And it’s no dif­fer­ent work­ing in-house, either. There’s always someone walk­ing around with unreas­on­able expect­a­tions, which also out­rank you in the workplace.

But it’s still up to you to con­stantly man­age such expect­a­tions. Today, I’m always reas­on­ably explain­ing to every­one around me what to expect. 

I’m describ­ing when we got lucky due to unfore­seen cir­cum­stances.
I’m explain­ing before, dur­ing, and after streaks of bad luck.

2. It’s “Hell Yeah” or “No”

Inspired by Derek Sivers’s book “Hell Yeah or No,” I’ve real­ised I used to be too quick to say yes. ¹⁵Sivers, D. (2020, July 12). Hell Yeah or No. Sive​.rs. https://​sive​.rs/n

Today, if I say, “Hell yeah,” it’s a yes. If I’m not too enthu­si­ast­ic but can’t say no, I start dis­cuss­ing what to remove from my to-do list. If I can trade doing some­thing that’s “Fine, I guess,” and get rid of some­thing that’s “Oh god, that’s point­less,” then I’m still bet­ter off than when I had my cof­fee that morning.

It’s Pavlovian con­di­tion­ing. If you take on everything, co-work­ers will quickly learn to send deliv­er­ables your way. 

If you pun­ish bad sug­ges­tions by for­cing tough decisions, you will increase your co-work­ers’ cog­nit­ive load. This type of neg­at­ive rein­force­ment will lessen their unwanted behaviours.

The basic rule of beha­vi­our­al psy­cho­logy is that you get more of what you reinforce.

3. Hug Lots of Trees Weekly

Many vic­tims of work-related stress often say the same thing: nature heals. 

And I agree. Nothing healed me more than spend­ing time in nature. In my case, I took an interest in nature pho­to­graphy (which is why every blog post on Doctor Spin has a cov­er photo taken from some tree-hug­ging excursion).

Today, whenev­er I feel the slight­est stress creep­ing up on me, I grab my cam­era and head off into the woods.

4. Force Positive Change by Removing Friction

One idea to com­bat stress is to add activ­it­ies to your life — and that’s fine. But adding too many non-work-related hob­bies to help you relax and have fun can become a stressor. This is prob­lem­at­ic because if your life is caus­ing you men­tal health prob­lems, you must change your life.

Life change is easi­er said than done. Adding more to your life might not be the cor­rect answer. At least, it wasn’t for me.

I found that remov­ing minor daily frus­tra­tions had the most sig­ni­fic­ant impact. In 2016, when I was in my worst state, I was irrit­ated at some­thing every ten minutes of every wak­ing hour. If I feel irrit­ated over any­thing small or insig­ni­fic­ant, I imme­di­ately remove that fric­tion from my life.

I used to be irrit­ated about com­ing up with what to cook for din­ner, so I auto­mated weekly gro­cery deliv­er­ies. I used to be annoyed over hav­ing a slow com­puter, so I bought a fast laptop and built an even speedi­er desktop. I used to be irrit­ated over being inter­rup­ted by point­less tele­phone calls and voice mes­sages, so I cre­ated a per­son­al phone policy.

You can change your life by remov­ing one frus­tra­tion at a time. 

5. Liberate Your Inner Weirdo

I know you’re a little bit weird; we all are.

Yes, I’m a total weirdo. And I think that you’re prob­ably pretty weird, too.

My best advice is to allow your­self to be you — for your men­tal health’s sake. It’s lib­er­at­ing. And people are, at least in my exper­i­ence, sur­pris­ingly for­giv­ing as long as you’re authen­t­ic to yourself.

In the words of Steve Jobs, “Here’s to the crazy ones.”

Take Your Mental Health Seriously

Stress is a part of life. It comes in many forms and can be caused by many factors. Public rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als are often expec­ted to take on many dif­fer­ent tasks. Juggling vari­ous respons­ib­il­it­ies can quickly pile up and lead to men­tal ill­ness if not dealt with prop­erly. ¹⁶According to a recent study, mul­ti­task­ing will res­ult in a 40% loss of effi­ciency.

Individuals exper­i­en­cing these issues should seek help and not be afraid to speak up about their prob­lems to loved ones. Or to seek help from a med­ic­al professional.

Stress lead­ing to burnout and men­tal ill­ness is real. You’re not weak, but rather too strong for your good. Our industry is los­ing too many pro­fes­sion­als to this silent pan­dem­ic. ¹⁷PR blog­ger Jessica Pardoe points to a UK sur­vey 2020, in which 58% of over 2,000 employ­ees repor­ted some form of stress at work, and almost 70% had exper­i­enced it in gen­er­al. Over 60% claimed they … Continue read­ing

I found my path to well­ness. It didn’t include yoga, group ther­apy, or green tea. But maybe your path will? 

If I can leave you with just one insight: Take your stress symp­toms ser­i­ously. The longer you wait to take action, the longer your path to recov­ery will be.

What should you study next?