role / Designer, Workshop's Facilitator
company / Private project
Talk To Me
How to talk about mental crises at the workplace?
My workshop idea
Do you know that because of covid-19 number of psychiatric interventions increased about 3,5 times since 2019? We are tired. We are stressed. Our work performance is not perfect anymore, and it's hard to explain why. We cannot even name half of the things that happen to us, so how we can talk about them? We should, so I decided to change this #talk to me mindset into a workshop. Design communication and safe space to share experience and toughts.
Why
I got an intense depression episode at the beginning of 2020. Maybe it was connected with my covid-19 infection and other events in my life. It wasn't easy. It wasn't pretty. But – surprisingly – the only place where I felt safe and could function correctly was my work. I had all I needed: clear rules, strongly defined social contacts, planned tasks and routine. It was an honest thing to do to inform my coworkers that I was facing a crisis. And then I saw how they reacted. And what they ask about.
"I don't know how to help you and what to say"
I was lucky. I got help; I could talk about my depression with my team and my boss. Sadly, the study shows that only 8,3% of coworkers dare to do that. And only 1,8% feel comfortable with this decision.
My question was simple: why? Why can't we talk about the sad elephant? Soon, mental health will become one of the hallmarks of a good employer and caring for it will become as important as other benefits.
Come back to see
how it's going...
What?
I had three main goals:
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Make people understand that psychological crisis is something that happens to us, not something we are
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Make people share their experiences with a small and big crises, just to see that we can all relate
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Create a space just to talk, ask and answer our doubts, questions
How?
I decided that it would be a dedicated workshop. To create a safe space for a talk, I've decided to use a role-playing games methodology that matches human-centred design phases: discovery and immersion.
Using storytelling as a tool and heroes' adventure as a metaphor, I created an open workshop that anyone could attend.
Afterthoughts
Feedback:
I gather feedback and analyze every step of the first workshop.
Some changes and improvements are necessary.
Conclusion
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I have to take more care of the emotional safety of the participants, give them time to cool down
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The role-playing part should be more emphasized as an important tool to keep us in a safe space
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It's easier to empathize when we talk from experience, but it requires trust and a clear contract at the beginning
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Not every group will be that open
Test group
The first test was made with my closest teammates:
- fellow designers
- researchers
Feedback
Gathered during the first workshop, also individual afterwards.
Twelve spoon theory
This simple metaphor is used to explain how we manage our energy in crises. Everyone has their own spoons: we took them from the metaphoric drawer when we need energy and give back or are given when our brain experiences some rest or just a positive boost.
When we're in crisis most of ours spoon are involved in handling a crisis or we simple have limited options to get them back. So we have limited power. And we choose when and how to use it, simply to survive the day.
Improvements I made
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Set and said about basic rules for participants to create safer communication
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Stronger role-playing metaphor: we take crisis as our adversary and try to pass the day in one piece.
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Conclusion about how stress affects our lives and how difficult it can be
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Discussion about how to support a person with that kind of experience, what to say and how to help
What do I plan to do next
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Continuing empathy workshops
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Set a program for teams (when the topic start to be recognizable)
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Set program for leaders and managers, based on gathered experience from workshops
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Generate events, materials to educate the organization and create new mindset about mental health
How not to become therapist
One of the first activities of my workshop was a mind map: the goal was to recognise how we understand the psychological crisis and what symptoms, behaviours, and emotions we can name—finding connections between different situations liberated some honesty and deepness, which was hard to limit or stop. My responsibility was not to let emotion overcome my participants, but I got lost in myself. It wasn't easy. Many vital statements were made there., and some of them were too private.