Trigger Warnings #4
How flexible is your mental health?
CW: precarious living, racism, ableism, ageism, drug abuse, victim blaming
This article is part of the Trigger Warnings series, examining environmental factors that effect mental health. To get early access to the next articles as they are released, please support Ollamh Counselling through their Patreon. All articles will become available to everyone through Medium, in the interests of accessibility.
Flexibility & Vulnerability
“A military vet who suffers from PTSD, Gary drives with Uber because it helps him get out of the house so that his depression doesn’t make him feel isolated. The flexibility to set his schedule lets him focus on his mental health.”[1]
This is how the Uber website opens their page on flexibility, a list of individuals who see the gig economy as a boon to their mental health. Along with Gary is Jesus, another military vet, and Manni, a singer-songwriter who supports his creative life with Uber driving. Of this list, the majority are people of colour, followed by men like Gary, veterans of war who have to continue working to support their way of life. As much as I will presume Uber sees this as a showcase in diversity, what I see is some of our most vulnerable people having to take on precarious occupations to continue to survive. What they see as a bubble of support for people with mental health difficulties, I see as some of the most vulnerable of us being exploited for an advert.
For those not in the know, “[i]n a gig economy, temporary, flexible jobs are commonplace and companies tend to hire independent contractors and freelancers instead of full-time employees. A gig economy undermines the traditional economy of full-time workers who often focus on their career development.”[2] Capitalism precludes itself as being at the forefront of emerging sociological discovery[3], and yet it relies heavily on creating this precariat. The precariat is the natural product of the gig economy, where the pay may seem good, but without regularity can create no stability for those involved. Jesus, Gary, and Manni may all be presented to us as the best of Uber — and this may well be the case — but they are being exploited by this system. Rather than the government supporting Manni with his music, or offering financial aid to those of us who fought to protect this country[4], these vulnerable people are having to work in an economic model with no long-lasting support structures. No healthcare. No dental. Not even regular hours for regular pay. Each of these individuals are regarded as self-employed, and yet it is Uber that takes the profits of their labour. Capitalism regards this as an acceptable model for respecting their work force, and yet I find it difficult to imagine this as a great innovation when it requires veterans, vulnerable adults, and the ostensibly depressed to make it function. Rather than help improve the mental health of the nation, this creates a landscape where having mental health difficulties should be regarded as something to be capitalised upon.
“Several studies have documented that “work” defined as the type, tenure, and precariousness of employment has been changing substantially since the early 1980s (OECD, 2019). Whether through globalization, automation, changing bargaining power or other influences, the rate of precarious employment, turnover, and alternate forms of work has been increasing. In particular, gig economy type jobs are rapidly developing, due to technology growth. In Europe, 9% of the population in the UK or Germany and 22% of the population in Italy report having done some work in the gig economy. Coincident with these changes in employment, rates of mental health disorders, such as depression and other chronic mental health problems, have been growing over the past 25 years” — The Effects of Uber Diffusion on Mental Health, Bénédicte Apouey & Mark Stabile[5]
This level of correlation cannot be ignored by those of us in the therapeutic professions. Whether we view it as something that gig economists are capitalising upon — finding depressive individuals to use as a work force backed up against the wall — or as response to a precarious way of living, this ouroboros of suffering must be challenged at all costs. What may be advertised as a flexibility of working arrangements, is in truth a brand-new method of exploitation.
The Precariat
“Although its definition of may vary according to the country, economy, labor markets, and social policy, it is commonly related to one or more of the following terms: temporary, atypical, contingent, or non-standard work; job insecurity; lack of work rights; and inadequate salary” — Precarious employment and migrant workers’ mental health: a protocol for a systematic review of observational studies, Ozlem Koseoglu Ornek, Tobias Weinmann, Julia Waibel and Katja Radon[6]
I use this term — precariat — often in these essays. Rather than distinctions of the working class versus the middle/upper (which I find simplistic, and growing increasingly incorrect as the wealth disparity increases), and proletariat/bourgeoisie (which similarly is rooted in philosophies in need of decolonialisation[7]), I find this notion of an exploited working population kept in a constant state of precarity a far better expression of how the average person feels in our gig & grind economies. The precariat can act shorthand, linguistically, for a lot of the intersectional discussions: a black working-class mother of three can find themselves in similar positions of precarity as the white Northern ex-miner. This precarity may manifest from very different sources, but in all instances it evolves from the racist, ableist, post-colonial capitalism that birthed the notion of Uber-styled self-employment.
“As they used to say in the 1930s — ‘Are you working?’ If you are, here are some quick questions to consider:
Do you feel secure in your job and if so, does it reflect your abilities and provide opportunity for progress?
Do you feel protected from a hire-and-fire culture, from accidents at work or illness, or from being pressed into working long hours without extra pay?
Is your regular pay adequate and stable enough, and would you feel protected if help from the benefits system became a necessity?
If you mainly answered no, then you might be entering, or already have entered, a new and significant global class of people called the Precariat, according to Guy Standing, Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath, [author of] The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class”[8]
James Egan goes onto say that “[…] the dominant picture of the Precariat [is] a floating labour supply, lacking common vision and having no “shadow of the future”, which lessens their sense of empathy and reciprocity but increases short-term, opportunistic behaviour.” As much as I find this description as something bordering victim-shaming, it is commonly recorded people in positions of financial insecurity rely on dangerous behaviour models to shortcut around what damages their mental health[9]. The ‘end of history’ may be becoming an outdated theory of the current era[10], but it is undeniable that the Uber-styled working dynamic is fuelling this “new dangerous class”, as Prof. Standing says.
Further research into the subject of the precariat often takes me down the wrong avenues, however. I find the term is often used almost with cute-affectation[11], as if this precarious class of the population requires mollycoddling rather than a restructuring of the systems that created them. As I covered in my piece on the DWP and ableism, our country lacks the moral fibre to move beyond models that place the victim of circumstance as the centre of responsibility; England, and Britain, presumes the precariat should care for themselves or that they should be cared for as an undeniable thread to the national fabric. Instead, as mental health workers, we must push for the apposite, that victims of precarious employment should be moved into stable manners of living. If we are to see a substantial shift in depression & anxiety in the psychoculture, we must begin at the source. Treat the disease, not the symptom.
The Assault on the Precarious
As counsellors, we utilise a Western model of therapy where we frame the client as the one and only node of our attentions; by this, I mean that we presume to help — one on one — this client with whatever outward facing issues may present themselves. Although such a framework may include signposting our clients to aspects of the community they are from, the actual therapeutic work we undertake focusses on the individual before us. Unlike the communities of anarchistic systems — although I use the term loosely, as they may feel remiss to be described as such[12], as this precludes an authority to be removed of — which present models of openness, radical honesty, and the freedom to share mental health concerns with the collective, counselling promotes heightened spaces of privacy. I mention this not to debate the pros & cons of group therapy versus the individual in a private, safe space, but to illustrate that when it comes to economic factors upon mental health that this dichotomy of privacy/publicity is not easy for the counsellor to ignore. We are told to leave our politics at the door, and to focus our attentions on the internal workings of the client, and how they react to their circumstances. But how are we meant to focus solely on such practices, when — to bring it back to the content of this article — Uber-driving clients are handling the following:
“Khadka said that he turned his camera on when he realized they weren’t budging, and that was when the woman started coughing into his face and screaming at him. Seconds later the video shows the woman snatching Khadka’s cellphone out of his hand. […] Khadka claimed that one of the women sprayed Mace inside the car after getting out. “She emptied her pepper spray can in my car. I accidentally put my hand on my face and it started hurting,” he recalls.”[13]
There is no amount of internal work we can provide as counsellors that can alleviate this level of suffering. People like Khadka, those of the precariat, are in a position of being assaulted without being able to condemn their attackers. Throughout the article, it is evident Khadka had to debate — very swiftly — what was more important: the payment from this singular job, or his overall wellbeing. This is not the only instance of a Uber-driver being assaulted[14], and that is only of the ones that are reported. If each of these drives amounts to your payment for the day, and Uber (Deliveroo, the government) have no intention of offsetting your costs and livelihood if you cannot fulfil enough gigs for the day, we are going to see more quick decisions being made by these drivers between wellbeing and financial security. This is the foundation of the precariat. And I firmly believe that a 1:1 styled counselling arrangement, where we ask the client to consider how they may react to these situations in the future, should be regarded as part of this assault if we do not also provide alternatives for the community. In short, if we are to only work with the client, and not the origin of their suffering, we are merely adding to the victim-blaming discourse surrounding the precariat.
“While Bruce’s case may seem extreme, the threat of violence has become commonplace. Ahmed*, another Uber driver, had been threatened repeatedly by a customer who refused to leave the car after not putting on a mask. He ended up sat in a standstill for 15 minutes “waiting for them to calm down,” he recalls. Likewise, George* had been kept waiting by a customer searching for their mask and eventually cancelled the trip after being sworn at repeatedly. Such incidents are not only distressing but are also costly for drivers who are only paid for their time driving.”
It is difficult for us as counsellors to accept a level of responsibility outside of our counselling rooms. Our entire profession is built on the premise that the person we are within that space is different from without it, or rather that we are not to be held responsible for what happens to our client outside of our care. I do not wish anyone to believe that I want to upend that dynamic. I firmly believe in these notions of ‘leaving our politics at the door’ and creating firm boundaries between the activist I am outside of that space and the counsellor I am within it. Without such, neither my client nor myself would be safe. Counselling is predicated on the client arriving at conclusions themselves, otherwise these ideas will not incept and bind to the prevailing psychology/personality/mental state with efficacy. Helping a client come to terms with the suffering in their environment must still come from the client themselves, however, for us to deny the fact that this suffering is coming from anywhere other than the client’s response to that suffering is tantamount to abuse. It is true that we have more control over our emotions than perhaps we are led to believe. It is also true that a situation is only as bad as we make it, including these abusive attacks that these Uber drivers face. But this proto-Buddhist attitude that everything comes from within also must be balanced with the belief that if we are all indeed as one, then any suffering we provoke or provide is also aimed at ourselves. The assault on the precariat cannot be merely ignored by the counsellor as something happening out there, but something intrinsic to the nature of the safe space that is the counselling room. We need boundaries for our own safety & protection, but to completely eradicate the outer environment from our understandings is dangerous.
“Almost one in three Deliveroo riders in Scottish cities have been paid below the minimum wage for making food deliveries, according to data analysed by the Bureau Local and The Ferret.
The delivery company claims its self-employed riders are paid more than £10 per hour on average and says rider satisfaction is at “an all-time high”.
But analysis of crowd-sourced sample data from thousands of invoices uploaded by riders across the UK, suggest that 41 per cent are receiving less than the minimum wage of £8.72 per hour for those over 25. In Scotland 29 per cent of the riders who contributed their data received less than this amount.”[15]
Rather than taking the abusive realities of our clients as something separated from the help we can offer, we should begin by envisioning a cycle between the safe space of one-to-one therapy and the outer world where these sufferings are nurtured and grown. If Deliveroo drivers[16] are indeed fighting for even minimum wage in Britain, how are we to presume that we can help the client find peace, serenity, positive affirmation, and the motivation to grow into their truest self, when the very environment they are working within will not allow such. It is naïve for us as counsellors to presume that our care, attention, and unravelling of negative mental health traits is enough for the client to blossom; we must also attack, evolve, and develop the systems that deny our clients the basic circumstances for that growth to continue. If the counsellor helps remove the thicket from the vine-laden mental environment, then the activist helps provide the soil in which those seeds of fruition can grow. In a gig economy, that soil is barren, or at least, only allows for the smallest of shoots to thrive. Our clients deserve better.
From Gig to Grind
This is not to say that our clients are not already finding alternative psychologies & ideologies to manage the suffering created by precarious living. As James Egan said, the precariat begins to display “short-term opportunistic behaviour”, which I argue is manifested as The Grind.
“Do you hit the ground running as soon as your feet touch the morning floor, checking electronic devices, slurping coffee, and stuffing a Danish in your mouth as you bolt out the door with a million ideas exploding in your head? Are you someone who sets short deadlines, overloads yourself with more than is humanly possible, and rushes at lightning speed moaning about the shortage of time? Do you create crises for everyone in your wake, wail at the clock and shake your fist at the heavens because there’s never enough time to do everything? […] If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you could be a member of the hustle culture. Perhaps non-stop hustling makes you feel important. You have a lot on your plate, and you stand out from the masses because you’re superhuman and can do it all.”[17]
Although once again framed as if such an individual is the problem, and not a product of their environment, this description is apt in summarising the nature of the Hustler, or a member of The Grind. “The toil glamour of the hustle culture extols overworking and burnout and signals you’re a hard, dedicated employee, and 45% of the workforce brag about being modern-day members” Bryan E. Robinson Ph.D goes on to explain, and we can see this come to complete fruition in the likes of GirlBoss TedTalks[18]; although this ten-year old wishing to be an adult with a job[19] is perhaps a dramatic outlier, it is still indicative of the fact capitalistic cultures create people such as her. The Hustler, the opportunist born from the gig economy, is much the same.
Within the gig economy, there are no opportunities for a career with the balance, foundations, and financial security such a position offers. An employee — or rather, self-employed member of a company who only offers the use of an iPhone app — must jump, repeatedly, from one job to the next, constantly finding the next gig to provide for themselves, and their families. Although this may come with a certain rush of elation — that of the hunter finding their next challenge — living in a constant state of work (The Grind) comes with many adverse health effects: “[s]tudies suggest that overworking can lead to serious health issues and sometimes death. An increase in stress sometimes causes the heart to work too hard, and in very unlikely cases, this irregular heart work can lead to death. Chronically working oneself to its limit can additionally lead to type II diabetes, heart disease, fatigue, depression, and anxiety.”[20]
Companies capitalise on this. “Rise. Grind. Shine. Again.” comprised a campaign for Nike — and I’d go as far to say this notion of “flexibility” is merely a toned-down synonym for the same economic environment. Some companies promote the boss narrative, that your constant burn-out is proof of your excellence; the other side of the coin is that your excellence allows you to operate within the gig economy. But no one can live under that level of stress, anxiety, and physical-emotional crashing for any period of time. This isn’t just about the toll it takes on the body, or even on the mind, but on the way we perceive ourselves, the way we construct our identities:
“I got a job as soon as I could, and then a car, so I added another job to pay for the car to get me to and from work and school. I was not afraid to work, and eventually I saw my value as a person reflected in the bathroom mirrors I cleaned as a maid to wealthy people who vacationed in the Hamptons every summer. I had something to prove to someone, not only myself but to others. I didn’t know it then, but I was a bonafide member of the “grind culture.””[21]
If we begin to only value ourselves by our workload, our output, we begin to lose sight of the complex arrangement of thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, and behaviours that create the human identity. We are not just here for The Grind, and even if you believe this is benefiting your mental wellbeing, I assure you that this can only stem from a place of financial security. There will be many hustlers who see themselves as excellent, and this will even benefit their mental health, but these are not going to be the same people coughed on for wearing a mask, and driving your taxi. The gig economy leads to the grind, but the grind is promoted by those who live outside of that economic structure; they need to exploit you[22].
Framing Flexibility
It is a natural counterargument to say that the flexibility these jobs provide is still beneficial. The Garys, Jesus’ and Mannis of the world still find benefits in the flexible, self-employment that Uber & Deliveroo can offer. Even in my examination of this working economy as something to be abolished, I have to admit that freedom within a system such as this will always have the potential to benefit those within it. Gary says himself it helps his mental health. Who I am to tell him not to work in that manner?
When talking about re-evaluating and restructuring entire political/economic systems, it is less about creating Utopia as it is about creating the fairest variation of that system. What we can gather from flexible working hours, is that possessing self-autonomy benefits mental health; being able to follow your own path & truth decreases the chance of depression & anxiety. However, the gig & grind economic models frame this freedom only through the lens of work. We know there is more to life than work: culture, arts, creativity, community support, environmentalism, love. It may seem like the ramblings of a witchy hippy — of which I certainly am — but if we frame freedom as simply a product of our working environments, we head towards some dangerous territory[23]. If we could take the autonomy offered by the gig economy, but apply that to other aspects of the human experience, we may begin to see huge shifts in the psychological landscape for the better.
The counsellor functions within a system of 1:1 engagement with a specific client, helping them navigate the complexity of their inner world (thoughts; feelings; memories; ideas) so they can construct their own truth, discover that truth, and follow it of their own volition. It is not the job of the counsellor to tell the client how they are to navigate the sufferings of the world, or how to respond. But respond the client must. Deliveroo drivers in Liverpool went on strike[24] in an attempt for better pay, with “Maho Korkmaz, 29, who has worked for the company for nearly eight months, claim[ing] delivery riders have seen their fees reduce to the point they are no longer able to provide for their families.” If Korkmaz had been our client, we could not have told him to go on strike, but if he had concluded for himself that such activities would benefit him and his colleagues, it is our duty to support such. This is what I mean about the cycle of the inner-and-outer worlds of the counselling safe space, and how we navigate this without breaching our own personal boundaries.
I suggest counsellors reach out to organisations, unions, and activist groups who perform such radical acts against a system that denies the most fundamental rights for our clients. Whilst people like Korkmaz fight for the financial security they rightly deserve, perhaps we as therapists can offer the mental fortifications to undertake such action. If Uber truly believes that their gig economy allows for flexibility in the working environment, then such precariousness requires a certain flexibility of spirit. How can we as counsellors create a flexible mentality for a flexible economy? And more importantly, how can we remove such precarious forms of living so we no longer need to find such methods of therapeutic care? In short, what can we offer the precariat as they fight for what they rightly deserve?
Nathan T. Dean is a writer, artist, trainee counsellor, practicing chaos witch, and founder of Ollamh Counselling.
All of these essays are part of an evolving documentation. Ideas the author may have now may shift in the future. This is the lot of the therapist, who must continuously explore their empathy in radical ways as the environment around them shifts. If you find anything in these documents you find offensive, please contact the author at ollamhcounselling@gmail.com. Without discussion, correction, and open discourse, we cannot benefit our clients as effectively as we might.
[1] https://www.uber.com/us/en/u/flexibility/
[2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gig-economy.asp
[3] And technological, scientific, entertainment — capitalism markets itself as being the perfect system for inspire creativity, and yet I’d argue we only see much the opposite.
[4] Although, I understand this is up for some debate, but we’ll circle back to that another time.
[5] Apouey, B, Stabile, M. 2021. The Effects of Uber Diffusion on Mental Health. Instead. [working paper] — https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3395144
[6] https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-020-01313-w
[7] And also no one can spell bourgeoisise right the first time. Bourgeoissie. Bourgesaoisie. Boourgeisie. I give up.
[8] https://www.gcph.co.uk/latest/news/297_the_mind_of_the_precariat
[9] See, drug abuse, alcoholism, etc.
[10] See Mark Fisher
[11] https://www.moneyandmentalhealth.org/gig-economy-and-mental-health/ — “Protecting the precariat Fintech companies are starting to innovate in this space: Wollit in the UK, Payactiv and Even all offer income-smoothing capacity for those with unpredictable earnings. But there needs to be more work done to help, especially on payments.”
[12] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rowland-ena-emaehkiw-keshena-robinson-the-abc-of-decolonization and other work by Ena͞emaehkiw Wākecānāpaew Kesīqnae [https://onkwehonwerising.wordpress.com/about/], for starters.
[13] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/11/uber-san-francisco-maskless-assault-subhakar-khadka
[14] https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/the-uber-drivers-facing-abuse-from-riders-over-mask-rules/
[15] https://theferret.scot/deliveroo-riders-earning-less-than-minimum-wage/
[16] https://tradesmenbanter.co.uk/2021/02/15/deliveroo-driver-eats-rude-customers-food-and-throws-it-at-her/
[17] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-right-mindset/201910/the-rise-and-grind-hustle-culture
[18] https://twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1405941706650841091
[19] Or rather, that an adult is someone with a job, which is a more important capitalistic distinction — you are immature if you are not working, and thus not worth empathy.
[20] https://www.rubiconline.com/the-shortcomings-of-grind-culture/
[21] https://www.scarymommy.com/the-grind-culture-detrimental/
[22] https://genbiz.com/the-hustle-how-grind-culture-exploits-millennials
[23] I fear quoting this, but we all can translate Arbeit Mach Frei, right?
[24] https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/deliveroo-drivers-strike-city-centre-21148981