{"id":904,"date":"2013-09-21T15:20:37","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T22:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/?p=904"},"modified":"2020-03-26T03:20:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T10:20:16","slug":"lawyers-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/lawyers-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyers’ Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent article in the Louisville Courier-Journal<\/a>\u00a0discusses a disturbingupward trend in attorney suicides.\u00a0 This is not an altogether ne\"\"<\/a>w concern.\u00a0 More than 25 years ago, Dr. Andy Benjamin and his colleagues identified legal education and the resulting culture that has been created as leading to serious mental distress among attorneys<\/a>, as reflected in much higher than normal rates of substance abuse and depression.\u00a0 There are many causes for this, generally unacknowledged, problem.\u00a0 Perhaps the greatest is that it is unacknowledged<\/em>.\u00a0 Lawyers are trained from the inception of their education, and are probably self-selected as well, to eschew emotion at the expense of reason. I came across the\u00a0inpatient rehab near me<\/a>\u00a0when I was researching more about this topic, and the number of attorneys admitted in it was staggering to me. I recall at the beginning of law school we would exalt the ARM (the Average Reasonable Man).\u00a0 No greater disdain exists than that heaped by lawyers upon anything that is “touchy feely.”\u00a0 No wonder that lawyers (who are<\/em> human beings, after all – with active limbic systems that generate the normal amount of fear, caution, anger and grief over loss) will erect concrete mental defenses against acknowledging\u00a0 their fear, caution, anger and grief….well, not anger.\u00a0 That emotion gets a pass.\u00a0 It’s easy to protect oneself against appearing vulnerable with the expression of anger.\u00a0 When we are forced to protect ourselves from judgment – which is leveled at our natural thoughts and feelings – life can become exhausting and alienating.\u00a0 I see this even among my colleagues in the collaborative law community.\u00a0 These are a group of lawyers (and other professionals) who are striving to make the experience of law healing, rather than damaging, for those who encounter it.\u00a0 Yet these lawyers, too, avoid disclosure of personal doubt, worry, sadness or fear.\u00a0 These precise feelings that are universal and which can form the real basis of a bonded community are dismissed as inappropriate within this professional world.\u00a0 More’s the pity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent article in the Louisville Courier-Journal\u00a0discusses a disturbingupward trend in attorney suicides.\u00a0 This is not an altogether new concern.\u00a0 More than 25 years ago, Dr. Andy Benjamin and his colleagues identified legal education and the resulting culture that has been created as leading to serious mental distress among attorneys, as reflected in much higher Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27],"tags":[33,11,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":905,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}