Mental health is a significant issue facing Australia today. Estimates suggest that approximately 20% of the population will suffer some mental health issue in 2012 alone. The most common mental health issues that people suffer from are Anxiety and/or Depression. This article looks at mental health in the law and looks at ways of becoming more optimistic to overcome these issues.

A world-renowned authority in Happiness research Dr Martin Seligman takes a different view towards mental health than the profession of clinical psychology has historically taken. Up until the late 1990s, mental health was conceptualised as being about “What is Wrong With You”? Providing people with a diagnosis. For example, “You’re Depressed!” “You’re Anxious!” “You’re Bi-Polar!” These diagnoses were based on the DSM-IV. The DSM-V will be released in 2013. The DSM-IV detailed the symptoms for each psychological issue and clinical psychologists and psychiatrists were able to diagnose, “label people” and treat them based on it.

Seligman was instrumental in what is known as the “Positive Psychology” movement, which moved away from the “labeling” or “diagnosing” method towards focusing on the positive. In his book Learned Optimism he detailed methods (based on research) about how you can improve your happiness and mental health (detailed at the end of this article) and introduced a concept called Optimism. Which is the way that people look at success and failure in their life (more on this later in the article).

He went on to look at individuals in optimistic professions and those in pessimistic professions. For example, he classified the Law as a pessimistic profession! Why? Generally lawyers are looking at fault, why people or organisations can’t do something? Are you going to be exposed? When working in a firm environment for example, the mindset created is of making sure that you don’t make a mistake. Ingenuity or creativity is often not encouraged. A lot of lawyers can get into this pessimistic mindset very quickly and stay there. Where their work is only noticed when they make a mistake. Is this a sustainable way of operating? Will this negative motivation be able to sustain them throughout their career?

The happiness research suggests that optimists are happier, live longer and suffer from fewer mental health issues in life. The real question is how can you work as a lawyer and operate with an optimistic mindset? Optimism is about how you interpret your environment. For example, if a set-back happens to an optimist (e.g., your boss/ client is critical of their work), they will view it as an isolated event and not take the feedback personally, so that it doesn’t affect their confidence in future work projects. A pessimist will react in the opposite manner, believing that the criticism or negative event is a reflection on them personally and something that they are unable to change. In psychology will call this a global character attribution.

The first secret to becoming more optimistic in the Law (especially as a graduate), is how you handle criticism? When it occurs (which it will) try to attribute it or explain it to yourself based on specific task details rather than global or relationship dynamics (e.g., “They don’t like me”, “I’m not suited for the law”). Vice versa when positive events occur to you at work. Attribute them to global character traits (e.g., “I’m really suited to the law”) and not specific task areas (e.g., “I was lucky on that project”).

To finish this article (as promised) I’m going to summarise eight scientifically validated ways of improving your happiness and improving your mental health. They are:

• Count your blessings
• Practice acts of kindness
• Savor life’s joys
• Thank a mentor
• Learn to forgive
• Invest time and energy in friends and family
• Take care of your body
• Develop strategies for coping with stress and hardship