If you are reading this, it may be assumed that you are interested in getting through grad school with not only a great education, but also with your health intact. That is wonderful. Since forewarned is forearmed, let’s spend a few minutes thinking about one unexpected obstacle—an obstacle that often seems surprising, and even counterintuitive. That obstacle is your academic advisor. If you happen to have an academic advisor who encourages good habits, gives sound advice and whose own life appears to be in good order, you are invited to skip this post and come back for the next one. Everyone else—read on.

When people pick an academic advisor and join a lab, they are picking not just a teacher, but a mentor. A person who will instruct them not only in the specifics of their chosen field, but also in how to look at research as a whole, how to build relationships in academia, how to react to failures, when to persevere and when to give up on a question, and also, if not directly then indirectly, how to structure their life outside of work.

For this reason, if I were in a position to give mental health advice to students still in the process of picking their advisors, I would strongly encourage everyone to look at how well-adjusted potential advisors seem in addition to their publication record.

Of course, this is often impractical. Many students don’t truly get a choice, and if they do, they often don’t find out how professors are as people until it is too late. Thus, students often end up being mentored by advisors who actively encourage behaviors and ways of thinking that are detrimental to emotional well-being.

Here are a few examples that I’ve seen in my clinical work. Now, I don’t presume to understand the intricacies and politics of all academic departments, but I do know a mental health trap when I see one, and these are decidedly traps:

1. This is unfortunately a common one: Advisors actively encouraging students to work without taking any days off and insinuating that utter exhaustion, loss of hobbies, and no social life constitute the only path to success. This path may have led someone sometime to success, but more often it leads straight to burnout.
2. Advisors creating an atmosphere of extreme competitiveness that overrides collaboration and teamwork. Again, I’m sure there are instances when this kind of attitude paid off for someone, but more often it leads to feelings of isolation, paranoia, and loss of valuable relationships.
3. Advisors modeling a life dedicated entirely to science and implicitly suggesting that having a family is antithesis to academic success. This message seems to harm women disproportionately, but is harmful to any student who desires a family.
4. Advisors engaging in general “poor humanship.” That is, behavior that is not reportable, but is regrettable. Examples include, but are not limited to: Being condescending, gossiping, constantly suspecting colleagues of malicious behavior, being neglectful, picking fights, acting out insecurities, being unnecessarily critical, failing to consider students’ unique life situations when making demands, etc.

It is not uncommon for me to work with two people from the same department but different advisors and get incredibly different accounts of everything from how the department functions, to what the job market is projected to be, to what to expect from life as an academic.

One advisor teaches that being rested improves creativity, while the other teaches that when you sleep other groups are busy beating you to your results. One is married with kids and takes weekends off, another has no family and spends weekends with reluctant students who wish they could be elsewhere. Students from the more “intense” lab might be tempted to believe that their advisor’s sacrifices and privations are requirements of the job, but of course, both professors, even the one who slept, ended up with the same exact job.

The thing to understand about all of this is that you cannot change your academic advisor’s beliefs, behaviors or habits. However, by understanding what’s going on—just how your advisor may be leading you astray, you can protect your own mental space and, though it can be challenging, live a healthier life than your advisor. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Step outside of your own lab and talk to people from other groups, or even other departments, to get a fresh perspective. Without this perspective, it is easy to let your advisor’s specific views and ideas become your whole world.
2. Set firm boundaries wherever possible. This topic deserves a full post (coming soon), but basically, even people who tend to be pushy or intrusive usually find it much harder to make demands when there is a boundary earnestly held. If someone makes it known that they have a firm commitment on a Friday night, they are much less likely to be asked for their time on a Friday night. The challenge is that this only works as well as you are able to take your own boundaries seriously.
3. Resist the instinct to idealize your advisor. Even if your advisor is extremely impressive, renowned, and charismatic, it helps to remember that they are, in the end, just a mortal with flaws, blind spots, and shortcomings.
4. Maintain a firm grip on what it is that you want and dream of for yourself. Do you want a career in academia? In industry? Do you want to teach? Do you want something entirely different? Well, your advisor almost certainly wanted a career in academia, and even if at some point they didn’t, they have been in it now for a pretty long time and they may not remember what else one might desire. But you have to hold on to what you actually want for yourself—you do not have to adopt anyone else’s dreams.
5. Some advisors are disorganized, forgetful, or self-absorbed. Unfortunately, some of them need to be “managed.” Some may view “managing others” as a negative or manipulative behavior, but it doesn’t have to be. It can simply take the form of taking charge of scheduling, avoiding certain topics, phrasing emails in a certain way, or keeping “minutes” during meetings and having them ready at your next meeting (this last tip is useful for people whose advisors routinely forget what they told their advisees to do).

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