mental health

Three Months of Saturdays—One Busy Lawyer’s Most Excellent Summer Sabbatical

By Chris Connelly Imagine every day is Saturday. The week is over, the successes and failures of the week are yesterday, the prospect of another week—stress, demands, egos, self-importance—is days away. Do what you want, where and when you want. Sit back and watch the world go by, or maybe even choose to be part […]

Messy, Unruly, Chaotic Life

After working at the NC Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) for the past 5 years, I can say with confidence that most of what we see clinically is lawyers’ and judges’ responses to the serious difficulties of life and a career in law. Not that there isn’t true psychopathology, because there certainly is. But it is […]

How I Almost Became Another Lawyer Who Killed Himself 

The legal profession has a problem. Lawyers are suffering and, far too often, they are taking their own lives. Lawyers, as a group, are 3.6 times more likely to suffer from depression than the average person. A John Hopkins study found that of 104 occupations, lawyers were the most likely to suffer depression. Further, according […]

Good Mental Health Starts With Becoming Real

A man and his wife and small daughter go into a restaurant for dinner.   The waitress comes over and takes the orders of the husband and wife.  Immediately the five year old daughter pipes up and gives her own order:  “I will have a hot dog, french fries and a Coke.”  The dad immediately interjects: […]