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ABSTRACT
Many people with mental health issues are workless; despite this, good quality work is often promoted as beneficial for wellbeing. In this article, I explore my personal reflections about managing my experiences of mental distress in the workplace, whilst working as a senior lecturer in social work in the UK. The potential of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to support the improvement of my mental wellbeing in the workplace is discussed alongside the central role of the therapist in delivering this intervention. The opportunities ACT offers to support a person with mental health issues to manage the impact of mental health symptoms in the workplace are highlighted, and its potential for wider implementation across mental health services is considered.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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Notes on contributors
Joanna Fox
Joanna Fox is a senior lecturer in social work at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, with lived experience of mental distress. Her experiences of recovery from mental ill-health are central to her teaching and practice of social work. She is committed to participatory forms of research which involve people who use services and their carers at all stages of the research process. She has expertise in the recovery approach, working with mental health carers, and educational approaches that emphasise the perspective of experts-by-experience and their carers.