Hi LilyLily,

Your supervisor has low self-esteem and possess powerless behaviour. My supervisor is worse. He accused me of inability of conducting research. He purposely made my life difficult, never give constructive comments and overly critical on my work. I woke up to chest pain in sleep, and under counseling now. I have to withdraw my study.

One piece of advice though you already have a PhD. Not all are fit to become lecturers, they are just humans like us. Some should not be in education. Look for this paper - SE Morris 2011. Doctoral students' experiences of supervisory bullying.

I have been bullied for six years (I am a part-time student) by my supervisor. When I said I wanted to move on to another supervisor, she said my work was so weak she was protecting me from other supervisors' comments! I really don't know at this stage if my work is really poor, or if it's her. Many other people have said she has power issues, is full of envy, and is known to be rude and undermining. I am appalled that an academic in an education department has no idea about how to give feedback. It is downright humiliating and destructive. She also mentions names of other students she has supervised in the context of "her writing was even worse than yours" etc. So unprofessional. What keeps me going is my age - I am 58 and too old to be intimidated by a narcissistic academic with power issues,. I am going to prove her wrong. I have had excellent support from the many people who believe in me. I am sorry I didn;t speak out beforehand and make a complaint, but I have lodged an informal one and will formalise it when the process is over. What saddens me from all the comments on the forum is how widespread this bullying is. Just remember, fellow PhD students - somebody can be an experienced academic, but it doesn't make them a decent human being. Please believe in yourself - you don't deserve to be bullied. If you didn't have the ability to do a PhD you wouldn't have been accepted in the first place. Keep going.