At the moment I see my main supervisor when I need to. He doesn't always reply to emails so I arrange meetings through his secretary which works well. I probably see him once a month.

I have another two supervisors one of whom I see once a month too, and the other once a week, but that's more a group session where we discuss a paper and raise any issues we have.

Sorry I've not been very clear here.
In my battery I have tests of depression, anxiety, quality of life, I need something to measure symptoms such as psychosis, mania, delusions, etc.

The assessment is for people with Neuropsychiatric lupus. This can cause symptoms of psychosis but we're likely to have people with very mild symptoms if at all (hence we may leave this measure out). Other researchers in this area have used the Breif Psychatris Rating Scale, but this requires a clinical interview and I'm not qualified to do this, plus I don't have ethical approval to do one.

Is anyone doing a psychlogy PhD? Does anyone use/know of an assessment for psychiatric symptoms that can be filled out by the participant rather than a clinical interview or to be filled out by a spouse/care giver? (as most of them are)

My suspervisor suggested the Neuropsychiatric Inventory, which is usually filled in by a care giver, but she seems to think it might be possible to use it as a self assessment. Has anyone heard of/or used it in this way?

I usedually call myself a student. It tends to be easier than explaining to people that I'm actually doing a PhD. On my emails I call myself an MPhil candidate (cos we get a DPhil and I haven't upgraded) but I stole that from someone else and thought it sounded good!

I started my PhD in October aged 26 (27 now) I worked for 4 years post uni too.I'm glad I had a break rather than going straight on with studying and it helps that a started in a financially secure position rather than scraping the bottom of my overdraft (which is where I'd be if I hadn't worked first. I like to think I'm older and wiser but I don't think I am really!

I found reading through once and writing rough comments and giving a grade, then going back ovver them worked. It is a bit time consuming, but you do get an idea of what is right and wrong from looking at a few of them.

i think my worst was going out wearing a skit. Half way through the evening I rubbed my leg and thought, strange i thought I shaved my legs easlier. then realised I'd only shaved one!

last.fm always good. you put in an artist and they play other people you might like. i like putting the killers into that as you get a load of good but random stuff.

I know a lot of people who swear by r for graphs and datd presentation (another stats package) I've never using it myself but think it is a free download.

I have to agree this is so annoying. It's something I wish I'd considered when applying to places for PhDs - some unis just have much better libraries.

speaking of quorn (which i love) is it true it's banned in america?

i applied for an existing project and had my interview in april. There were still places being advertised after I'd been interviewed and accepted my place.

If you don't see anything that you really want to do, you'd be better off not applying for any old project and looking for places the following year. A year out might be what you really need, and might give you the chance to work on your own proposal so your not constrained by other people's ideas. I say thins cos it took me four years to find the PhD project I'm on now, and I can honestly say the time inbetween has helped me to get on in academia.

Yep staying sane too. I agree with ROsy - the PhD is important but not worth losing my mental health over. I manage to do a lot of non PhD things with my time (tho perhaps this won't happen so much in my second year... we wil see)

At my uni you have to go on a teaching course if taking seminars. As part of the corse you have an optional portfolio to complete and if you do so satisfactorily then you get some sort of a qualifiation from the higher education academy. The trouble is the coursework is all dull and would take time away from my project trying to complete it. My question is, does anyone know whether this will help with getting an academic job post PhD? (which is pretty much the only reason i'd do the portfolio)

sometimes I wish I was never given optional work to do. It's so easy to go down the not doing it route!