I’m on a bit of a bender using the term literacy at the moment, having also recently finished my piece on feedback literacy. In this post I do a light exploration of the term “psychological literacy”.
A couple of weekends back, I gave a short conference presentation on burnout to a group of clinical trial coordinators. They invited me because clinical trial coordination is busy, demanding and often high-pressure work and they had noticed increased stress and burnout levels in the workers. [As an aside, it was super weird getting up at 6.30 in the morning on a Sunday, to get ready to give a morning presentation].
But honestly, the phenomenon isn’t limited to clinical trial coordinators. I frequently hear of work and study contexts where people are feeling similar pressures at the moment: do more, do it faster, keep up, stay productive, AND somehow also manage the rest of life. It is leaving people feeling “burnt out”. I hear students use this term often.
During the Q&A, one of the other panel members asked a really good question. He said (paraphrasing) “Lots of people talk about stress and burnout. But what should people actually look for?”
It was a useful reminder that whilst words like burnout and stress are useful to start a conversation, they are describing very large clusters of experiences and thus aren’t necessarily informative on their own.
For example, a bunch of students might say:
> “I’m burnt out.”
But this could mean many things:
- feeling emotionally flat and detached
- being physically exhausted
- becoming cynical about the value of their degree
- noticing their thinking has become foggy and inefficient
- withdrawing from peers
- all of the above.
Same broad term but a whole lot of different experiences.
So, my answer was to dig underneath the label. Specifically, I focused on the idea of being able to describe what has changed.
If you feel “stressed” or “burnt out”, what is it that has actually changed for you?
🟠 In your feelings? (e.g. I’m worrying a lot more)
🟠 Your thoughts? (e.g. I’m thinking negatively about most things)
🟠 Your concentration? (e.g. I am having trouble paying attention to what I am doing)
🟠 Your sleep? (e.g. I’m lying awake at night thinking about the day)
🟠 Your behaviour? (e.g. I am drinking more than usual)
🟠 Your interactions with other people? (e.g. I find myself irritated by other people)
🟠 Your sense of motivation, meaning or control? (e.g. I’ve lost interest in the work)
The more specific you can get, the more useful the information becomes. Why? Because the approach to managing worry might be different from the approach to managing poor sleep, interpersonal tension, increased drinking or loss of motivation.
To be clear, specificity does not solve the problem by itself, but it gives you a better starting point.
That ability to put more precise words around your experience is one part of psychological literacy. It means having enough psychological language to describe what is happening in your mind, body, behaviour and relationships.
It is one of the benefits that people get from seeing a psychologist when they are struggling. The psychologist can help you find the words and concepts for what is happening. And with a better description, you are often in a better position to understand what might be contributing to it, and what might help.
When I was driving home from the conference, I thought that a relevant comparison was exercise.
Imagine you were seeing your GP and they said, “It would be good for you to get more exercise”. How effectively you can act on that advice depends partly on your knowledge of exercise.
You don’t need to be an athlete or an exercise physiologist. But it helps to know that exercise can mean different things: aerobic fitness, strength training, resistance work, flexibility, mobility, balance, incidental movement.
A basic vocabulary gives you better options. You can translate the doctor’s relatively broad suggestion into something more specific. You can choose the type of exercise that best fits your needs and current life circumstances.
The same is true for psychological experience.
You don’t need to become a psychologist to improve your psychological literacy. But having a better vocabulary for what happens in your mind, body, behaviour and relationships can help you understand your own experience more clearly.
The distinction between “mental health literacy” and “psychological literacy”
Around the time I was training, there was (and still is) a strong focus on “mental health literacy”. The basic idea was to teach people enough about mental illness that they could better recognise difficulties in themselves and others, respond helpfully, and know where to seek support.
That work has been hugely important. It has helped many people become more comfortable talking about mental illness and seeking help [Editor’s note: there may also be some downsides, including the possibility that clinical terms drift into everyday use in ways that are not always precise. But that is probably a topic for another post]
More recently, I’ve noticed attempts to expand mental health literacy to include “mental wellbeing”, so not just recognising illness or distress, but learning what helps us grow, connect, recover, function and flourish.
A good example is that MindSpot. They have long provided free, confidential psychological assessments and treatments for different mental health conditions, but they now have a campaign focused on positive mental health – the Big 5. And they aren’t the only ones. For a long time, Beyond Blue was focused on helping people identify and get treatment for mental illness. Now they are equally focused on giving people the tools to build positive mental health (e.g. their PACE app).
Psychological literacy is bigger again.
Psychological literacy is about developing a practical understanding of psychology: the study of the human mind and behaviour. It is about building a useful language for being human. For example, just being able to better name your emotions is an example of psychological literacy.
Other examples.
Instead of only saying:
> “I’m burnt out.”
You might recognise:
> “The emotional exhaustion part is the thing troubling me most at the moment.”
Instead of only saying:
> “I’m stressed.”
You might recognise:
> “It is the interpersonal tension with a couple of people at work that is driving most of this.”
Instead of only saying:
> “I’m not coping.”
You might recognise:
> “My sleep is poor, my attention is scattered, and I’ve stopped doing the small recovery habits that usually keep me steady.”
And the detail matters. As our language becomes more precise, our ability to assess situations improves. And when our assessment improves, our next steps can become more targeted.
Ok great, but how does one become more psychologically literate, other than doing a psychology degree?
Good news! If you are reading this, you are in a relevant place – BetterU.
BetterU is the student wellbeing portal at Flinders and it is a place where we (myself, students on placement and guest authors) regularly publish articles and resources on wellbeing, study, mental health, behaviour change and student life. Subscribe and you’ll get a steady stream of psychology-flavoured ideas from the team, as well as information on programs where you can learn more. If you’re especially interested in mental health and procrastination, you might also consider joining one of the more specialised mailing lists I run.
And if you simply want to add some high-quality psychology resources to your regular reading, I often recommend the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest and Psyche. Psyche, in particular, is one of the best digital magazines I’ve found for thoughtful, accessible writing on psychology and being human. The more you read, the more you will start picking up terms, ideas and frameworks that help you describe your experience more accurately.
And yes, I am mindful that the average student doesn’t want more to read. But most of us could look at our information diet and make strategic decisions that improve the quality of our lives, by choosing a few resources that help us better understand ourselves, other people and the situations we find ourselves in.
If you’ve found a resource that has helped you better understand your own psychology, consider sharing it in the comments below (use your Flinders login to access comments).