However, the best protection you can offer yourself is to be as prepared as much as possible, bone up on your various rights, look at what kind of options you might be asked to consider when going into the Job Centre, and try to find that rhinoceros skin. If anything odd or untoward happens during your "processing", including long delays, unhelpful staff, etc, then write it all down, and keep records. If nothing else it will be a useful device for externalising difficulties. You can complain to the Job Centre management, if unhappy with the way your claim is progressing - check out their website for more information. I personally have made two complaints about how my claim was handled over the years - one was a rather feisty attempt at getting compensation for my monies being randomly affected by a computer glitch - like one week I'd get money, the next starve. I think I did get £10 eventually, which was a very small victory for a very disempowerd woman, who had probably spent the equivalent of about three weeks work into getting that £10 - somehow I think my logical brain was suspended while I tilted at that particular windmill - and I recently complained when a Disability Employment Officer managed to waste about 5 months of my life faffing around and giving me incomplete information about a course I wanted to go on. A letter got it sorted. It's worth doing.

Being stigmatised in any way is not particularly good. Carrying around labels or tags is something many of us do - we identify ourselves with our work status, marital status, hobbies. So carrying around the label of unemployed/scumbag-of-the-earth/loser is rather difficult. In fact, I have found this whole project rather miserably confusing - like, if I personally identify too much with my unemployed tag, then it really threatens to engulf me totally, the gap between me, the victim, and the supremacist workers becomes illogically more huge but doing this website is supposed to be empowering.... I don't think anyone really likes carrying the label of being unemployed. It is a burden. Perhaps Liam Gallagher of the pop group Oasis was good at laughing it off, but for most of us, it isn't terrifically useful.

What, for instance, do you say you do when you are out socialising with new people? I have used a variety of fogging tactics - I am inbetween jobs, I am retraining, I am self employed (the latter can cover a multitude of sins as it explains one's apparent lack of workplace) - but one is still in this rather difficult situation, because to use the word unemployed then invites a whole host of negatives to come raining down on your head if you use it. It is one of the most sobering moments in life when you are chatting to someone as an equal, mention you are out of work, and watch the barriers come closing down, watch them look at you differently. Very unpleasant. And one issue I have found that just does not go away.

Some days one just avoids all human contact just because one does not want to have to explain or engage with that label. It can get that difficult that using devices such as cards which give you free leisure facilities at your local centres can be another nail in your self esteem coffin - like, who wants to have to show their proof of poverty everytime they go out to exercise?

The extent of discomfort that one will feel at this will be personal. And to some extent determined by geography and social grouping. Back in the 1980s, in towns with terribly high levels of unemployment, then being out of work was totally normal and acceptable and just not a big deal. But in affluent south eastern towns, where unemployment is low, then the label is a lot harder to hear. You are more of a sore thumb, fact. Mind you, moving house to somewhere with high unemployment isn't that much of an option, although Cornwall apparently is very poor and beautiful....

So how do you live with this label and not get destroyed by it? An NLP technique of distancing might be useful - you could say to yourself "I am more than this label of being unemployed/I am more than this negative label" and see if it helped. Reframing, another NLP technique, might be another option - this is the "I am rethinking my career" statement rather than "I am unemployed" - stating that you are actually in control of the situation, rather than being a victim of the job market is what you are aiming for. It comes down to self esteem again. Somehow thinking you are a valuable person, a worthy person deserving respect, rights, and personal happiness, even though you have this label.

I don't have the final answer on this one yet - most big stigmatised groups do tend to survive this process by getting strength from the group eg gay people hanging out with other gay people, black people joining black-orientated groups. Having solidarity in the general knowledge that you aren't alone, and that other people are there for you to draw comfort and support from. Of course, being bloody unemployed you are not even going to get that spin-off - being part of the invisible millions, we have so far survived by default, so far just existed in our own tiny pockets of misery, dotted as we are across towns, across counties, across countries. I would so dearly love to see a national organisation for the unemployed, at least in the UK. I just do not see how successive Governments have gotten away with trashing the rights of its nonworking sector for so long - no one stands up for us, no one lobbies on our behalf, at least not directly. It would be so fantastic to stick some figures in people's faces and get them to account for the system's ability to dehumanise and emisery its people. So Good. Maybe then things might get a bit better.

Having control over your life is one of the keystones of being adult. If you have been made unemployed, or perhaps chosen it, and its gone out far too long and now what seemed your decision has become something else altogether, you will probably be wondering how on earth you will ever have or take control of your life again. This issue comes up for me personally all the time - on a daily and global level.

Having structure in your days is pretty key to keeping positive mental health: and it could be one way that you could cope with your unemployment by imposing structure upon your time. I know one friend who structured her time obsessively, and made appointments and kept to her life plan very rigidly - it was the way that worked best for her and made sense of her timelessness. Obviously some sort of routine is good - even if it's just eating at the same time of day, or exercising in the same park. Most humans like routines -its one of the ways we find comfort and security. However, if you are a bohemian, and have embraced a timeless way of existing, who is to say that isn't right anyway. The typical stereotype of the unemployed person lying in bed all day and staying awake all night is generally speaking unhelpful. If any human does get into that state of being it probably comes from being depressed - why bother getting up when you have nothing to do, and the world seems a shitty place? I do hate those stereotypes.

After being unemployed for a long time, when security and control are sort of centred on the very joblessness which we detest, going for jobs thus becomes a rather schizophrenic experience. One feels vulnerable after so long on the sidelines of life; one detests the power this thing, this interview has over one. Like, now its here, I have to prepare, I am supposed to be all the things the potential interviewer wants. Plus, its practically difficult - do you have enough money to get there, what are your interview clothes like?

When faced with interviews, does one respond positively or from fear? Does one think, I can handle this, I am good enough? Nope. Usually, the long term unemployed person is so shocked that to have been offered the interview that they cannot think clearly or straight? All the logical things to do - wait until head clear, plan interview questions, try and think that this job doesn't really matter, another will be just around the corner - are completely out the window when you are suddenly presented with a job opportunity. Quite frankly its agony. Its like, oh God this could change my life - if I get it - versus, I don’t' want to be disappointed again - versus I will never get it anyway, with my miserable track record, etc. The mental health of an unemployed person does not allow for straightforward logical thought on these issues.

One of the factors that most unemployed people do not seem to realise, or be given any leeway on, is that they are under permanent levels of high stress. Living in a state of financial insecurity, with no future ahead of any promise, plus hassle with Benefit Agencies, constant strain and anxiety 24 hours a day to get work, is it any wonder that many long-term unemployed people become ill? The mystery is that there is no real recognition of the way stress affects this rather unpopular minority - like, its perfectly OK to be stressed out if you are working, but not if you are not working. Its like stress is not a term given to those non-working, which is rather stupid, given the reality of the situation.

If you are suffering from high levels of stress, then physically you will be relying on certain hormones to keep you going, and your brain chemistry will begin to alter as a result. There are many books on stress - if you can pay some attention to this aspect of your existence, you stand to gain. Learning about how your body is reacting and behaving to its surroundings might give you some edge on how your current life is working out. For example, knowing how your body will go into flight or fight when faced with a threat such as a clash with an authority figure, or an interview, might give you some more tools in order to deal with such incidents successfully. There's nothing more soul-destroying that to find that you are flunking your life's opportunities and don't know why. Heart-breaking.

Personally, I think this issue is HUGE for the unemployed. Huge. And I don't know the answers. Probably you need a serious amount of luck to get a handle on this. If you can get a good GP on your side, and learn lots of good relaxation techniques, and get support, and somehow destress, then you might find your life looks very different. Its certainly a route to consider if you are feeling totally burnt out, demotivated and pissed off with everyone and everything, and are feeling like a total negaholic about yourself and life. But how do you take more time out in a life filled with so-called failure to recharge when already frustrated with one's lack of progress?

If you handle stressful situations badly, and don't perform well at interviews, then the dejection and sense of failure will probably affect you adversely. While one part of you still longs for a job and makes efforts to find one, another part - that knowing how stressful interviews are, and how badly you perform - will probably try to argue that you shouldn't do them at all. Becoming full of conflict over these issues I feel is part of the whole syndrome of being stuck in unemployment. How you resolve these conflicting messages is again, going to be a personal matter.

Fear and the fear of fear really does create a vicious circle. Who wants to suffer high levels of stress and fail? Who wants to ride the rollercoaster of disappointment? You basically become programmed to take less and less risks, as in the past taking risks on interviews has failed, so your confidence diminishes further and life can seem very very small. It also becomes the case that your very unemployment, ie the fact that life is just, life, days are just days, and it isn't going to change much, starts to give you security. In fact, it becomes a bit of a womb, the endless timeless nothingness thing. A womb you can hide in. Of course, the intelligent person sort of knows this still isn't OK, and that really life could be a hell of a lot better, given certain things changing, but does that make any difference? Not really if you are stuck in deep dismpowerment. No really at all.

I feel that it is a combination of factors that start to press one down so convincingly into long-term unemployment. One becomes so vulnerable to disappointment, so afraid of vulnerability, that one does cling rather desperately to the leaky boat of unemployment, because that, after all, is the only stability and security that you have, however, unsatisfactory.

Interestingly, David Fryer tells me that research shows that stress levels drop and mental health improves once you basically give up all hope of getting work - you accept the parameters of your existence, you are now no longer anticipating an enormous change, or even an enormously stressful interview, and things get better. I am not sure how I feel about this one, never having entirely given up the ghost on getting a job. Again, its not exactly what society and Tony Blair wants, but perhaps it is an option to consider. Reconstruct your life around your unemployement?

There are many issues around control that fascinate me. And as a long-term unemployed person, with very little sense of it, again, I am curious as to how my life differs from the employed persons. To the employed person, the priorities in life are that much more clear - turn up to work at a certain time, perform, go home, spend money made from job in surviving and possibly thriving. To the unemployed, priorities are things other people have. I find my priorities are all on default mode - to not spend too much money, to not try to do too much, basically to just survive on my benefits and to not cause myself or anyone else too much stress. Which is crap really, but I think again, this is priorities set in timelessness, with lack of hope of change, and it is entirely valid. Infact, I am sure it is laudable, Tony Blair is probably proud of me, trying to liveon this meagre allowance and not sinking into total clinical depression. Way to go, Roz!

However, I find that being unemployed does seem to rob one of one's sense of personal power. And by that I mean having power over your own reactions and emotions. The slightest threats seem to invoke irrational terror, the brain seems to gibber and swill on various unhealthy emotions that to be honest are not too pleasant to describe or own. People and events create great fear in one; one's emotional life is compromised; one's physical being is affected. It is not good. It is completely obvious when one is feeling better and one isn't totally decimated by life and events, compared to when one is being or feeling disempowered.

Many, many self help books are out there describing how you can change your thoughts to change your reality, how to do this, how to do that. Let me say now that this approach has only limited applicability to an unemployed person, and you can probably avoid a lot of grief and hassle by not going too far down that road. If your body is primed on adrenaline, and you live on fear, or are depressed, then your reactions are not those of "Normal" people. You cannot apply the same rules to yourself as you see others doing. It is much better to learn a healthy acceptance of one's lot in life, and go with the flow, rather than waste excessive amounts of energy doing a big number on yourself to change.

Another issue for the unemployed person is choice. Are you choosing to be unemployed, or is an unhelpful job market keeping you there? Are you choosing to be unemployed, or is a job market slated against your age keeping you there? Are you choosing to be unemployed, or is an unhelpful psychological climate of fear and intimidation keeping you immobilised? Are you choosing to be unemployed, or is depression or anxiety keeping you down and out?

A healthy adult believes in choice. They have to. The idea is key to our healthy functioning. Some of the self-help books boom it so loud that you can grow deaf from reading them. Obviously, you would rather be happy than sad; you would rather choose certain lovely events in life than experiencing misery. You would rather have a life full of "abundance" than lack. Yet if your brain is fixed into certain patterns of behaving, of reacting, then do you actually have any choice?

To make my point, let us think about the obsessive-compulsive, who has to check the cooker is switched off 8 times before leaving the house. That person has no choice in this - they are compelled to do so out of neurosis and fear. Equally, the woman living in an abusive relationship, regularly being beaten, clearly doesn't want to be in that situation, but does not feel that she has any choice in the matter, as she is so afraid to leave. Neither person may be unemployed, but each has got brain patterns going on which are keeping them stuck in their own situation.

While being unemployed isn't quite such a dramatic example of oppression or compulsion, it is in its own way a prison, and an intimidating one at that.

The interesting book "I'm OK, you're OK" by Thomas A. Harris (Arrow Books, 1967) contains a useful explanation of the theory of Transactional Analysis, which describes personality in terms of a triad of tensions - we are either adult, parent or child, our personality swinging between these various stances when put in different situations.

If you have a good relationship to authority figures, then dealing with the powers that be who have the authority to create opportunities via New Deal, or force you into employment, is probably going to be a bit easier. In terms of the TA model, you will probably be able to stay an Adult.

If however, you have poor internal relations with your own authority figures, then it could very well be a factor that is keeping you miserable and unemployed. A brush with authority for you could mean coming up against what you feel would be a critical, bullying system, which puts you back into being a rebellious, adaptive child, which then limits your options to interact with the system. Some people enjoy being rebellious, and can stand back from the system and see it for what it is, a rather poorly constructed Government agency with very little humanity in its fabric, and enjoy the fight with it. For others going through Authoritarian figures is however a total nightmare, inducing great fear and terror, and in part, this could be to do with the TA predisposition to be pushed back into childhood every time you are faced with a DSS or Housing Benefit Officer.

I would imagine that most long-term unemployed people, if they didn't at the beginning have problems with authority, will have developed them, and possibly be in the throes of a TA vicious circle. Because unfortunately, if you are a person who swings into rebellious child and pouts and stamps feet and has temper tantrums (at home, of course!) then you probably also have a rather critical inner parent, who is coruscating your every move with a barrage of negativity - the two seem to come hand in hand, which is rather sad, as it appears such people have to suffer twice as much as everybody else.

It might be useful to look at that book, and explore how this model of personality works. Again, it comes down to choice. If authority figures are pressing your buttons and you are reacting in an unconscious way, then it isn't helping you, so…I will refrain from sounding too sorted on this, as this site isn't meant to patronise or push, just give information and let the individual use it as they so wish.

It is pretty crap that the long term unemployed do not receive any psychological help per se, being long term unemployed does not in itself justify any extra health or psychological resourcing from the State at present. If you want to get some, then you do have some options.

1. Approach your GP. You could ask to be signed off sick if your mental health is so poor that you are not coping with looking for work. Most GPs will probably be open to this. However, a word of warning. If you are signed off sick because of mental health problems, then it might affect how you regain employment, and also, on a personal level, you could very well end up believing that you are madder and more sick that you actually are (especially if you have useless counselling and read lots of self help books!).It is also very tricky - if you get signed off you don't have to deal with the dole, but you are then more isolated, you are more at risk because of that, and it is very hard to "sign oneself" back on, as let's face it, who the hell wants to go through all that again. Bear that in mind - you don't want to trap yourself into further pockets of depression.
2. Medication is one option if you are suffering from anxiety or depression. Most GPs will offer you these.
3. Referrals to the GP surgery's counsellor will give you access to cheap counselling - however, unless you know exactly what you want from seeing a counsellor, it can be a negative experience. There is any number of counsellors out there, most with qualifications, few with experience of long term unemployment. If you want support on this issue, you might be disappointed.
4. Ask to be referred to a psychiatrist - if you think you have real problems, ie problems that might need severe medication, or hospitalisation.
5. Ask to be referred to a psychologist - depending on your local health authority you could have to wait several months for an appointment, which will not help your temper, or, believe me, your self-esteem. If you are lucky, you could get some decent cognitive behavioural input, which might help you regain some sense of control over your own reaction patterns.
6. Go private - if you have money, see if you can find a local counsellor or counselling psychologist, who wlll help you through your personal difficulties. It is possible to negotiate discounted treatment from these people; in my experience it isn't easy and its often not worth the hassle, as you get there only to find that the counsellor has certain set in stone attitudes to the long term unemployed which are counterproductive to rapport….However, if you have money, you have more choice - the eternal catch 22….As I write, there aren't any psychologists specialising in working with the unemployed - surprise surprise, the rapists and serial killers get them, but not the potential workers of the world, so good luck. I have yet to find one of any worth.
7. Some cities run Short Term Advocacy Projects, where you can apply to get helped by a volunteer who will act as your advocate. This is useful if confronting authority figures or dealing with problematic situations on which you would like some support. Check with your local CAB or Council to see if such help exists.

I will also add a corollary to this bit. If you are feeling disempowered, then owning it and seeking help can make you feel good, even slightly more powerful, in as much as it helps the isolation and its statistically possible that you might actually get a therapist who can help you forward. However, whether seeing a counsellor actually Improves your 24/7 experience of life, the Universe and everything is a moot point. Also, whether a counsellor can empower you to act, think and behave in new ways is again, a completely open question. In my experience, being counselled hasn't worked - perhaps for you it would be different.

So if you do go for help, try to approach this project with wariness and go as a consumer wanting certain things, not as a helpless victim with mutiple personality disorder needing sorting out. Believe me, a therapist will be delighted if you are the latter, as it means an awful lot of money for them, but it isn't good for you. Try to get clear what issues or help you would like, and then shop around - there are many different types of counsellor, therapist and healer out there, so it could take you a while to get hold of one you like and trust and can afford. Good luck!

I think one of the most enfuriating aspects of being long-term unemployed is the lack of help one actually gets. In my experience, one is in a totally miserable situation once the confidence has gone - it seems virtually impossible to get it back. Time after time one puts oneself through difficult situation, interviews, and job trainings, volunteering, only to still be faced with the grossest sense of inadequacy. How does one find esteem and confidence when there are no real moving forwards ladders for you? In an ideal world there would be psychologists helping to make programs forward for individuals;

The second route forward is to approach your local council offices to see whether they have a list of agencies/landlords willing to take people on housing benefit. If they do, you will be saved a lot of time and hassle. Some London boroughs, e.g. Camden, even have offices in which you can read papers and make phone calls from. It is worth trying to find a shortcut to what can be a very expensive procedure, and I mean emotionally draining as well as financially stressful.

For those with a mortgage, help towards paying the interest part of the mortgage is available either through Income Support or Income Based Job Seekers Allowance, according to Reading CAB. However, there are waiting periods of up to 39 weeks depending on circumstances before even this assistance is paid. Check with your insurance company to see if your mortgage is protected from loss of earning - apparently this is what people with mortgages do...

Again, not something you might see in a Benefit Agency leaflet, but definitely something you must and should consider if you have been unemployed for some time. However tight money is, you need and deserve breaks from the monotony and downward spirals of your environment and routines - let's face it, you aren't ever going to feel fresh and perky if you never have a break from your own particular version of hell.

I have also noticed that it gets in the way of feeling enthusiastic to take a job, like when someone says "Are you available to start straight away?" and theoretically you are and so you say yes, but underneath it, you are yelling so loudly for a holiday, that suddenly the prospect of starting work doesn't look quite so good and maybe you don't approach it so positively and maybe then you don't get the job? So make sure you do give yourself a decent holiday every year, it is a way of valuing yourself and giving yourself some survival brownie points. Investing in yourself is key to staying positive. You will probably increase your chances of re-entering employment hugely. Sorry, Tony Blair that might not be very good, advising the long term unemployed to have a decent holiday, but it is undoubtedly good advice. Oops, I can hear the phone being tapped right now…

Volunteering is one of the more obvious routes forward for an unemployed person; however, I would be rather choosy about how and when you choose to volunteer your time and efforts. If you are at the beginning of a period of employment, and know exactly what sort of job you want, and know that volunteering is going to help you, then definitely go for it. If however you don't know what you want to do, and are at a loose end, then be much more careful as to where you end up.

The voluntary sector has an insatiable demand for volunteers; in fact, most towns have their own volunteer bureau's, complete with volunteers (!) who will help you too become one somewhere else. However, in my experience, most organisations that say they need volunteers rarely have a staffed person capable of looking after the needs, motivation, and belongingness issues that the volunteer has. It is very disappointing; unless one hits it lucky, and meets really nice people, volunteering can be another negative, another thing you can say you have tried and which hasn't worked. And forget all those bollocksy stories you read about people getting jobs from being a volunteer, statistically speaking you probably have more chance of winning money on horses that ending up getting a job from randomly assigning yourself to a charitable organisation.