Meet Scientist Pieter Derksen
Our first guest on the podcast!
Hello! Welcome back to another segment of Picking the Brain of a Scientist. In this newsletter, I will be discussing some key points from my conversation with Pieter Derksen in the second episode of our podcast.
Meet This Episode’s Scientist
Pieter is currently a graduate student in the Physics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He just finished the first year of his Ph.D. program. I first met him through club sports at our university, him being on club volleyball while I was on the club rowing team. When envisioning this series, he was one of the first people I knew I wanted to have on.
Pieter grew up in East Bay, particularly Oakland and Walnut Creek, of the Bay Area. Similar to many others who grew up in the bay area, he was exposed to the competitive environment that is fostered through the idea to be competitive for college applications. He then went on to attend UCSB for his undergraduate, where he majored in Physics in the College of Creative Students. Once he completed his undergraduate in 2020, he took a gap year working in a physics lab before applying to Ph.D. programs. Pieter’s current Ph.D. focus is studying how organisms develop proprioception, which is the body’s ability to sense movement, action, and location.
Getting Help and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Diagnosis
One thing I’m glad Pieter brought up was the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPs) at our university. During his time as an undergraduate, he utilized the resources at CAPs and got diagnosed for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). He noted that he thought he had it before going to seek a professional and that receiving the diagnosis provided him relief in the sense that he was no longer thinking “is there something wrong with me”. Pieter mentioned he has gone to CAPs a few times and found it helpful each time he went.
During my time at UCSB, I have heard many negative stories about CAPs. I mainly see the complaints on community discussion boards such as the UCSB subreddit. However, I know CAPs can provide many benefits when actually used. Aside from hearing about Pieter’s experience with CAPs, I had a close friend who experienced a traumatic hate crime event on campus and a therapist at CAPs helped them a lot throughout their healing process. If you want to seek help at CAPs, do not hesitate to do so. I know there are many horror stories on UCSB subreddit about the poor services or how long the wait is to see a specialist at CAPs. But it is important to consider the stories you see online are mainly the negative ones where people need to vent and find solace in others, which is what a lot of the UCSB subreddit does. It is also important to keep in mind certain methods for mental health help will not work for everyone. It does not hurt to try out sessions. And if it doesn’t work for you that is okay. Everyone is different, so everyone will have different methods to help with what they have.
If you are strongly against using CAPs, there are other resources on campus you can utilize. I have had friends who have used CARE to find therapists as well. Regardless of what service you use, it is important you do seek help. If you have the opportunities to do so, you should utilize them. Not everyone has access to resources such as these. If you want more information on CAPs and CARE, I have linked their websites below.
Pieter also emphasized that OCD, while viewed as mental health/illness, is like any other biological illness. It is the same as having an illness that your heart or lungs would have. Your lungs and heart are all organs, just as your brain is also an organ. This is an important point because mental illness is still very stigmatized. When people hear there's something wrong with their brain, they automatically jump to preconceived notions, such as “you’re crazy”. While more conversations have started on this topic, there are still many people who have this belief. Hopefully, as society talks about mental health more, these ideals will dwindle over time.
His Wish for His Field
Visibility of mental health in the physics field was a key issue Pieter wanted to focus on, and this issue can be applied more broadly to STEM fields as well. Because people want to be seen as competent and want others to think they know what they are doing, this has further perpetuated the stigmatization of mental health. Many leaders in the physics field, and in STEM overall, have presented themselves in this manner. And because they want to be seen as someone who has all the answers, they don’t talk about their own experiences with mental health. Keeping this cloak of bravado up makes students who look up to these figureheads feel like they need to present themselves through the same lens as well. So when the student starts to struggle mentally, they feel less inclined to reach out and ask for help. This further instills the mentality of pushing through your struggles until you finish your work, but sometimes that finish line may never come. Thus, the cycle of stigmatization that follows mental health and illness continues. Visibility can help break that cycle, and being more open to others about mental health builds on visibility.
Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is a powerful action, and it is hard to do. But being vulnerable is a humanizing action, and helps create connections that can be very rewarding. Being vulnerable by talking about mental health is not a weakness, but instead can show courage and strength. It also shows a willingness to be open with others. Everything I have said is just my two cents on the topic, but I strongly think there is beauty in vulnerability. If students are able to see the people that inspire them being willing to talk about their own mental health, these discussions can help trump the stigma surrounding the topic. This is what this newsletter/podcast aims to do, and what Pieter’s newest project also hopes to achieve. Currently, Pieter is working on establishing a Mental Health in STEM class at UCSB. While the exact details are not finalized and the overall picture may be completely different from what he has imagined, he hopes to invite professors and figureheads in various STEM fields to talk about their experiences with mental health in front of students. I believe this class can have a positive impact, at least for the UCSB STEM community, and I hope it is able to come to fruition.
If you need more persuasion to talk more about your own mental health, Picking the Brain of a Scientist will provide you with ample reasons. The potential benefits of visibility and willingness to be open are just one reason you should be more open about mental health. If you want to hear how Pieter deals with the pressures and stress that come with being a Physics Ph.D. student or simply the rest of the conversation we had, check out his episode in the link below. Thank you again Pieter for sitting down with me and having a conversation about mental health in the STEM field. I appreciate your willingness to be open and to have a candid discussion about your experiences. For more information on what was discussed in this segment and in the podcast episode, please refer to the links I have provided below in the resources section. See you next time on Picking the Brain of a Scientist.
Resource
News in Mental Health (podcast feature)
How to contact Pieter: pieterderksen@ucsb.edu
UCSB Resources -