How To Cope With Unemployment? A Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

A wide range of negative mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety and increased suicide risk, is associated with unemployment. Also, across the world, unemployment is increasing and this is even more true for young people. Therefore, being able to cope with unemployment so it doesn’t damage your mental health, make you feel hopeless and start a vicious cycle of unemployment leading to negative mental health and then negative mental health impeding your ability to find a job, is vital. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn how to cope with unemployment, what are the tips and techniques we can use to protect our mental health and more great insights. If you enjoy learning about mental health, clinical psychology and unemployment, then this will be a great episode for you.

Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Suicide Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Introduction To the Mental Health Impact of Unemployment

Before we dive into how to cope with unemployment, I want to set the global stage for a few moments. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to let you know that yesterday at the time of writing, I finished my employment at a special educational needs school and whilst I’ve been job hunting for three weeks, I am still unemployed. I want to mention this because I just want to be honest about my perspective and that I am basically one of the statistics that we’re going to be talking about in today’s podcast episode. As well as after the completion of my Clinical Psychology MSc I was unemployed for three months between August and October 2025.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of February 2026, the unemployment rate in the United States of America is 4.4% and this is a slight increase from January 2026, as well as according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2025, the youth unemployment rate was 10.8%.

When it comes to the United Kingdom, according to the Office of National Statistics, the overall unemployment rate as of December 2025 was 5.2% and we won’t know the current unemployment rate until later this month, because the Office of National Statistics produces these sort of figures every three months. As well as when it comes to youth unemployment as of December 2025, 16.1% of all young people were unemployed in the UK.

That is shocking, scary and when I first read that figure I did feel rather hopeless, shocked and just annoyed. I am in that 16.1% and it isn’t good that young people don’t have the opportunities, skills and experience to get a job. This isn’t a political show but it’s flat out critical that there is more investment and government intervention in this area.

Finally, in terms of the European Union, so across its 27 member states, in October 2025, the average unemployment rate is 6% and this is a historical low point because during the 2010s the unemployment rate in the EU was over 10%. The source for this information came from Statista as well as the youth unemployment rate across the European Union is 15.1%.

Personally, as a young person, this is disheartening, it does make you feel a little hopeless because it makes you wonder how are you meant to get a job when it’s so common for people your age to be unemployed. As well as for me, it’s even more frustrating that I have two degrees, I have 7 years’ experience working in education and more, but I still cannot find a job.

Why Is Unemployment Bad For Our Mental Health?

Anyway, in terms of clinical psychology, it’s important to be aware of unemployment because unemployment can have a wide range of negative impacts on our mental health. For example, unemployment causes people a lot of uncertainty and this can lead to anxiety as well as stress. Also, prolonged periods of unemployment can increase the risk of depression and it can lead to social isolation. This makes any existing or other mental health difficulties more severe. Another negative mental health impact of unemployment is self-esteem, because job loss can lower our self-esteem so this can lead us to feel less valued or important. A final negative impact is long-term unemployment can lead to chronic stress because you’re worried about running out of money, never being able to find another job amongst other factors.

Therefore, as a society and we’re edging into politics here but I don’t care. I strongly believe we need to invest in opportunities for people to upskill, create more jobs in sustainable sectors as well as we need to invest in our young people so they can get into the workforce and start earning. Also, young people want to work, they want to contribute to society and they want to start developing skills and learn from experiences that are going to serve them for years to come.

If we don’t invest in our young people then they aren’t going to find a job, get experience and the longer you’re out of work, the harder it is to find a job. It’s a well-known rule of thumb amongst managers, because my family has spoken to their bosses over the years about this. All their managers confirm that whilst they aren’t opposed to hiring someone who’s unemployed, they prefer people who are already employed.

It just goes to show one of the most annoying things about the job market. Everyone wants you to have experience, but how do you get experience without a job?

In addition, I understand in clinical psychology, there is the unethical expectation that aspiring psychologists are meant to do years of unpaid work experience and in most cases, they are expected to do the same work as someone who’s fully paid. Yet if you’re too busy dealing with your own mental health struggles, too busy focusing on your degree and you’re too poor to do years of unpaid work. Then how are you meant to get the years of work experience just to get your foot in the door in clinical psychology?

How Do You Cope With Unemployment?

Now I want to mention numerous tips and tricks to help you cope with being unemployed so hopefully you won’t fall into depression, despair and a sense of hopelessness.

Cope with Unemployment by Understanding Unemployment is Normal

Whilst I honestly wished that I never had to write that subheading, it is the truth. Unemployment is a sad but normal part of life. Research shows that 41% of people will be unemployed at some point in their life, and if I think about my own family that is definitely true. All of them except my dad has been unemployed at different times of their life. They all found another job, they’re all thriving and enjoying work.

Therefore, whilst you might not be happy that you’re unemployed, and I’m certainly not happy about it, please know that you aren’t alone. Being unemployed isn’t strange, abnormal and it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you.

As aspiring or qualified psychologists, we can reflect on this tip very well from two angles. Firstly, when it comes to our own profession, in the United Kingdom, there are tens of thousands of psychology graduates that finish university each year, so few of them will ever become practising psychologists or assistant psychologists. As well as I’ve written before about the importance in other places of having a backup plan because the chances of you ever working in psychology is so remote.

In addition, I need to write a clinical psychology reflection on this topic later but I firmly believe that psychology has a qualification issue. There are so many degrees in the United Kingdom where an undergraduate comes out a fully qualified professional that is eligible for registration and then they can start practising. Of course, finding a job can still be impossible but if you do a nursing degree, midwifery, podiatry, speech and language therapy and so many other licensing degrees in the UK. You are at least qualified in that profession.

A psychology degree doesn’t get you qualified in anything. Therefore, I strongly believe at least some psychology courses should be restructured, made longer and include practical, work experience elements so you can at least finish your undergraduate degree or postgraduate masters with a professional qualification in something.

Anyway, I’ll jump off my new soapbox for a moment. Another way how aspiring and qualified psychologists can use this tip is when we’re supporting unemployed clients who might be experiencing clinically significant levels of distress, depression or anxiety because of their employment situation. We can work with them to recognise that unemployment isn’t easy, it’s not a happy place but it is normal. As well as I think we can tap into some negative automatic thoughts here and possible “rules to live by”. This approach might help us to understand why a client could struggle to understand that this is normal, and it could help us understand what is maintaining the depression or other mental health condition.

Cope with Unemployment by Not Taking It Personally

As I mentioned a moment ago, being unemployed doesn’t mean you’re useless, not good at anything and it doesn’t reflect your worth. So many other people are unemployed for no fault of their own. I have a lot of clinical skills, I have two degrees and 7 years of experience in education settings. I am kind, compassionate and very easy to like according to my peers, but I can’t find a job. Does that make me a failure or a useless person?

No. It doesn’t.

As a result, a lot of unemployment is simply down to market conditions as well as the problems that an agency or a company might be having and this has nothing to do with you, your skills and your abilities. Also, for a lot of people, there is very little job security and in the United States, there are over 7 million people out of work at any one time every single year.

As an aspiring psychologist, if I was trying to use this tip with a client, I might try and do some work on their locus of evaluation or locus of control. Since I would be curious to see if employment is validating for them, if they have any beliefs about them getting their self-worth from their work or their employment status. If this is the case, then I would try and work with the client to restructure these beliefs so they get more of an internal source of evaluation, as this might help them cope with unemployment as their self-worth isn’t tied up to whether they’re employed or not.

On the flip side, as an aspiring psychologist, I would add that this is an attitude I always try and adopt. For example, last year when I finished up my Masters and I was going job hunting for a wide range of different mental health roles and the rejections started to pile up. I always had the attitude of “I know that I’m good, I know I want to learn and I want to have a role where I can learn from professionals”. Yet there are always people with more experience than me so the jobs tend to go to them.

That isn’t a reflection of me, my ability or my drive to improve. It’s a reflection of the job market not giving me a chance or any space to gain the experience that other people have.

That’s one way to look at it.

Cope with Unemployment by Validating Yourself

Ever since I did a podcast episode before on the importance of validation, I’ve been really hot on wanting to validate myself and others whenever I get a chance, because it can be a communication superpower. Therefore, as we know from the statistics I shared in the opening section, a lot of other people are unemployed and this means that you should validate yourself and respect any feelings or emotions that you’re having. Whatever you’re experiencing it’s okay, it’s normal and it’s understandable for what’s happening to you.

For example, it’s okay, understandable and normal that I’m anxious. I still have bills and rent to pay on a house I’m no longer living in because of my abusive housing situation that I escaped last year. I’m anxious about running out of money, possibly having to take money out of my business to cover my living costs and I’m anxious about how this period of unemployment will impact my future.

Furthermore, feelings of anxiety and other negative emotions can help you to take a more proactive approach where you commit to taking an action. This can help you tolerate the present situation whilst giving a sense of taking a step forward to improve your current situation. This helps to reduce feelings of helplessness.

Personally, every day this week, I’m applying for two jobs a day, or I’m trying to. For instance, yesterday, I spent 40 minutes trying to apply for a job at the UK Home Office for a civil service position, because the pensions are amazing there and it’s a job. I need a job. Yet I failed the civil service judgment “exam” for the second time (the first time was for the Health and Safety Executive), so I still tried. As well as I’ve decided that I will no longer apply for any civil service jobs because I cannot pass that judgement exam.

Yet I am still trying, pushing myself forward and I am taking slow steps to improve my employment situation.

Cope with Unemployment by Finding a Job and Looking After Yourself

Building upon the last point, it’s critical that you start trying to find a new job. If you don’t take any proactive steps to change your employment situation then you will feel hopeless, anxious and your mental health will be harmed. For example, every week I check jobs in the National Health Service, I look for NHS apprenticeships, Indeed and the various political parties and social campaigns that I’m passionate about to see if they have any jobs. I’m a little desperate. As well as every day, I check Health Jobs UK to see if any NHS trust is hiring assistant psychologists or any other mental health jobs. Yet it is the wrong time of year to be honest.

However, I am still being proactive, I am searching for a job and I’m trying. This doesn’t make me feel more hopeless and I haven’t been as anxious or concerned about employment this week compared to last week.

As a result for aspiring and qualified psychologists, if you find yourself unemployed, and I want to mention here that it isn’t uncommon for fully qualified clinical psychologists to finish the doctorate and be unemployed for a while. It’s important that you do apply for jobs, you keep job hunting and you keep being proactive so you don’t start feeling hopeless and like you’ve wasted for your life studying for a degree that you can’t get a job with.

Personally, I will be honest, maybe a little too honest. Sometimes I need to catch myself. Since whilst I flat out love psychology, doing my psychology degree and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Sometimes I think I should have done another degree that would allow me to become qualified in something, because all the jobs I see at the moment require you to be qualified. I am not qualified in anything, because I “only” have two degrees and I’m educated to Masters level.

Moreover, whilst you need to keep finding a job, you also need to look after yourself, practice self-care and protect your mental health. As much as you might believe you “need” to look all day for a new job, that will only prolong the unpleasant experience of job hunting that leads to rejection and it’s a constant reminder that you’re out of work. This is why it’s important that you balance your time with pleasurable activities that aren’t related to job hunting or work.

This might be one of the reasons why I haven’t written or researched the job hunting topic on how to answer “tell me about yourself” interview questions. I don’t want my entire life to become about job hunting when I’m already trying to do so many things to advance my career and job hunt.

Nonetheless, this is why in addition to applying for jobs every day, I make sure that I write, I do business things and I hang out with my friends and family. At the end of the day, I am the most important person to me so I need to look after my needs, my mental health and my emotions, because no one else is going to do it for me.

Cope with Unemployment by Planning Activities Every Day

As a result of my life, my autism and my business, I have never really had this problem, but a major struggle that the majority of people experience after unemployment is a loss of daily structure. This is why when you’re unemployed it can be important to have daily and weekly plans of rewarding and productive goals that aren’t related to work. You might want to read or listen to my podcast episode, What is Behavioral Activation for more information, because this episode is packed full of great advice and tips to help you do this.

For example, you could write out, keep track and tick off what you achieve this day and week. This can be useful because it will give you a clear direction and help you track your progress, so this can help to reduce feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of being useless and not achieving anything. Also, your list could include activities like volunteering, seeing friends, taking a class or learning new skills. Volunteering and new skills can be particularly useful as they might help you with changing your employment situation.

Personally, a very small section of today’s To Do List for me includes writing this blog post, proofing it, editing it, uploading it to Patreon so my patrons can get early access, applying for two jobs amongst other things. All these activities help me to feel useful, like I’m achieving things and it makes me happy. Being positive can be a massive protective factor for your mental health.

Cope with Unemployment by Reducing Your Shame

When you’re unemployed it’s normal to feel shame and disappointed in yourself, and a lot of people are ashamed of what others must think of them, because they’re unemployed. Some people even try and hide it from their neighbours and friends. However, it’s important to realise that there is nothing immoral or unethical about being unemployed and if you isolate yourself then you’ll fail to take advantage of the social support that your social network can provide you with. As well as you might find that someone in your social support network knows of a great job for you.

For aspiring and qualified psychologists, this is why networking is so important. Your network allows you to talk about job hunting, get some empathy and you’ll find like-minded people who are struggling like you, so this can be validating and give you a sense of community. Yet your professional network can also give you job recommendations and they can keep an ear out for jobs in their mental health service for you.

Cope with Unemployment by Reframing How You See Unemployment

Our next suggestion is utterly fascinating to me because this is so true, so powerful and it can be immensely useful. Instead of seeing your period of unemployment as lonely, hopeless and a time full of concerns, you can think of it as a sabbatical. Since because you’re unemployed you now have the time to do things and activities that you couldn’t do before. For example, take care of your children, learn new skills and connect with new people. Also, some people report that after they find a new job that they miss the free time that they used to have.

Personally, this is something that I actually love about being unemployed, because it gives me tons of time to write, work on business projects, focus on the podcast and most importantly, interview new and engaging guests. I really struggle to interview people for The Psychology World Podcast when I’m working because working uses up energy and it’s hard balancing a full-time job, writing and my business without adding the extra task of interviewing.

As aspiring and qualified psychologists, we can apply this to ourselves by seeing a period of unemployment as a positive experience. We can use this time to connect with our interests, experience the real world and focus on what truly matters to us. I wrote in Clinical Psychology Reflections Volume 7, that we need to experience the world, interact with others and learn about how current events impact people because our clients don’t live in a vacuum. One of the best ways to help our clients is to live, understand what impacts them and interact with the real world. The added benefit is that unemployment gives us time to learn new skills, learn about new areas of psychology and read up on different therapies that we simply haven’t had the time for until now.

See unemployment as an opportunity not a disaster, as tough as that can be at times.

When it comes to our clients, as aspiring and qualified psychologists, this can actually be a major benefit. Since if they’re unemployed then it can make behavioural activation a little easier. Our clients will have the time to focus on activities that they enjoy and find pleasurable as well as they can focus on social activities. They might struggle with the necessary activity part of behavioural activation but I would focus on the positive aspect of unemployment. A client can custom design their entire week around the three types of activities that behavioural activation shows is critical to our mental health.

Of course, some clients will struggle to plan an entire week of activities but it’s always about being positive, taking baby steps and slowly ramping up activity levels over time.

Cope with Unemployment by Give Yourself Time To Find A Job

I am definitely guilty of this from time to time, because after we lose our jobs or enter unemployment, we typically feel a sense of urgency. For example, we have to find a job immediately or it will be a complete disaster and it will ruin your life. That isn’t true. Therefore, it’s important that you give yourself time to find a job so you don’t make it an emergency, and you should be flexible. As well as, if you focus on balancing your job hunt with activities that you enjoy then it helps to turn off the “emergency thinking” that’s driving your panicked sense of urgency.

Personally, even though I gave myself three weeks, because I was being paid to relax, focus on my writing, business and other activities that I enjoy. I still panicked after those weeks. I was concerned that I had wasted time, that I hadn’t used my time as effectively as I should have and so on. Yet looking back, I am really grateful that I gave myself that time to relax, to refocus and see what I actually wanted to achieve. It was useful and I know mentally I am in a stronger position because I took time away, compared to if I had always panicked from the beginning.

Nowadays, I just need to keep reminding myself that it’s okay to take time and as long as I keep taking steps forward, then I will be okay in the end. That’s also my unofficial tip for aspiring and qualified psychologists. You might have just finished your doctorate or Masters and you’re panicking that you need a job, but please relax. Finding a job takes time and your mental health will only decrease if you maintain your sense of urgency.

Moreover, when it comes to reflecting on this tip with our clients. It will be difficult and no one can realise any of these tips for themselves until they’re ready, and there are no therapeutic techniques that spring to mind about how to help a client realise this isn’t a “now” problem or something they need to be anxious about. Normally, my mind would jump to a behavioural experiment, but you can’t do that in this case.

You might be able to have a deep, honest and open conversation with the client with some psychoeducation about how giving the task of finding a job a sense of urgency is harming their mental health. Then you could work with a client to get them to do thought records so they can see and reflect on these thoughts and how it makes their body feel. Then in future sessions, you could work with the client on self-soothing techniques so they can relax themselves whenever they have a sense of urgency flooding through them.

Just some thoughts.

Cope with Unemployment by Being Flexible In Your Job Search

I understand that this next tip is difficult but I firmly believe it’s important and it is something I have had to change my thinking on in recent months. People tend to get tethered to what we’re used to and where we are. Be it in our careers, the industry we work in or even our neighbourhood and our physical location. Therefore, when you’re unemployed, it can be useful to think about expanding our search for a new job to include different levels of work, a different industry, compensation as well as a different location altogether. This might not always be possible but it can help you find more alternatives so you can change your employment status.

Personally, this is something that I am slowly starting to consider more and more. For example, I never would have looked at the Civil Service before in the United Kingdom, because there are no civil service jobs that directly relate to psychology. Equally, two days ago, I applied for a dental nurse apprenticeship so I could become a fully qualified dental nurse. It has nothing to do with psychology but I need a job.

And what I’ve found is after you open your mind to other possible career options, there are a lot of fun and interesting jobs out there.

As a result, if you’ve finished your undergraduate or postgraduate psychology degree and are struggling to find a psychology job, maybe look at other locations or jobs. Sometimes it seems like there’s a lot of psychology jobs in the north of England, but I can’t move there because I cannot afford it and I don’t think that would be a good move for me at this moment in time. You could look at other healthcare jobs or statistics or data science jobs.

Psychology really does open a lot more doors to you than you realise.

Additionally, when it comes to supporting a client with mental health difficulties after unemployment, I would suggest this tip and there might be a chance that the client is resistant to this expanding of options. If this happens, I would be very interested in why and I would want to explore this resistance. It could be because of a mental block, a self-limiting belief or another maladaptive factor that is holding the client back.

For me, one maladaptive belief that I have is, I could try hard for an apprenticeship, I could do a licensing degree or I could do a whole host of other options, but my annoyance comes back to I’ve already done 6 years at university. I already have an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree and I’ve already done 6 academic research studies. I’ve worked really hard, I’ve had to deal with a lot of mental health difficulties and 3 suicide attempts after my rape. Haven’t I given university and my career enough? Haven’t I done enough university learning to get ahead in life? And so on.

Clearly I just lack any sort of work experience after working 7 years in education.

It isn’t right, just or fair but I need to keep going, developing my skills and expanding my options.

Cope with Unemployment by Giving Yourself Credit

Our final tip is possibly the most important because every day is a time for you to balance practising self-care with finding a new job. You could focus on ruminating why you are where you are, but it’s healthier, better and more adaptive for you to focus on validating, accepting, normalising as well as taking action daily to help you look for a new job and take care of yourself. You should always give yourself credit because you’re trying, you’re moving forward and you haven’t given up.

You haven’t failed. You only fail when you give up.

Use this example of self-compassion with yourself, your friends and your clients. Help everyone to realise just how amazing they are.

Clinical Psychology Conclusion

As I continue to look for a new job in this period of unemployment, I am really happy that we looked into the mental health impacts of unemployment and how to manage it. This was fun, insightful and I certainly learnt a lot that I can use with myself and hopefully future clients.

Therefore, as a brief recap of how to cope with unemployment because after I finish this podcast episode, I’ll be returning to the job hunt, here’s a list of ways to cope:

·       Normalise the fact you’re unemployed

·       Reduce the shame of unemployment

·       Don’t take it personally

·       Validate your feelings

·       Practise self-care

·       Plan pleasurable activities every day

·       Increase your social support

·       Reach out to your social network

·       Give yourself time to find a new job

·       Reframe your unemployment as a sabbatical

·       Expand your job search

·       Give yourself credit

I know how tough finding a job can be. It can be soul-crushing, depressing and it can really mess with your mental health, but it will pass. This doesn’t represent the rest of your life and there is support for you out there.

So please, follow some of the advice in this episode, keep moving forward and hopefully you’ll find a job sooner or later.

I believe in you.

I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.

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Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading

American Psychological Association. (2020). Unemployment and mental health. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/unemployment-mental-health

Blustein, D. L., et al. (2020). Unemployment in the time of COVID-19: A research agenda. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 119, 103436.

Brenner, M. H. (2021). Will there be an epidemic of corollary illnesses linked to a COVID-19–related recession? American Journal of Public Health, 111(4), 625-627.

Buffel, V., et al. (2017). The mental health consequences of the economic crisis in Europe among the employed, the unemployed, and the non-employed. Social Science Research, 64, 263-288.

Farré, L., et al. (2020). How the COVID-19 lockdown affected gender inequality in paid and unpaid work in Spain. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13434.

Ganson, K. T., et al. (2021). Job insecurity and symptoms of anxiety and depression among U.S. young adults during COVID-19. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(1), 53-56.

https://usafacts.org/answers/what-is-the-unemployment-rate/country/united-states/

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm

https://www.health.org.uk/evidence-hub/work/how-employment-status-affects-our-health

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgwy/lms

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115276/unemployment-in-europe-by-country/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266228/youth-unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/

Kawohl, W., & Nordt, C. (2020). COVID-19, unemployment, and suicide. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(5), 389-390.

Leahy, R.L. (2013) Keeping Your Head after Losing Your Job: How to Cope with Unemployment. Coraopolis, PA: Behler.

Paul, K. I., & Moser, K. (2009). Unemployment impairs mental health: Meta-analyses. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74(3), 264-282.

Wanberg, C. R. (2012). The individual experience of unemployment. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 369-396.

World Health Organization. (2020). Mental health and psychosocial considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/mental-health-considerations.pdf

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