Whether they are trying to return to work, stay in their current posts, or looking for a job, people with mental health problems experience major problems as a result of ignorance, apathy or discrimination in the workplace. 

In fact, people with mental health problems have the highest rate of unemployment amongst people with long-term health problems, with only around 13% in employment, compared to 33% of people with other long-term health problems.

Yet work is a key factor in mental health - both as a contributing cause to mental health problems (for example through stress), and positively, as an important part of people's sense of well-being, identity and self-worth.

In a survey by The Mental Health Foundation in 2000, 37% of people with mental health problems said they had faced discrimination when looking for work; 47% had experienced discrimination at work, and 55% couldn't tell colleagues about their experience of mental distress. In a previous survey by Mind, over a third of respondents said they had lost their jobs as a result of their psychiatric history, while 38% had been harassed, intimidated, or teased at work. Around half had concealed their psychiatric history for fear of losing their jobs.

Unfortunately, these fears are justified. In a 1998 survey, 200 personnel managers were asked to assess the employment prospects of two (fictional) job applicants.  The applications were identical, except that one applicant had recovered from diabetes, and one from depression. The applicant who had recovered from depression was seen as being 'significantly less employable' than the applicant who had had diabetes.

Other studies have shown similar results. Discrimination persists across the workplace, despite the fact that since 1996, The Disability Discrimination Act has made it illegal in certain circumstances to discriminate on the grounds of mental health. 

Some companies are slowly recognising the importance of dealing fairly and sensitively with mental health issues in the workplace.  They have much to gain.  Work-related stress now ranks as the second biggest occupational health problem after back problems, and 3 in 10 employees will experience some kind of mental problem in any one year.