Hi all, this is my first message here.

I' m going through an uneasy situation and it seems here that other PhD candidates are facing the same problems. But my case might be a little bit different.

I study contemporary history at a faculty where only one professor specializes in my field: my supervisor. Having completed an MA in the same faculty and field, I switched from domestic politics to foreign policy and Cold War. I had to do much reading and seek for classes in other Universities in my city. I got two scholarships as a visiting research student in two of the world's top universities, one in London and the other in New York.

In the meantime I have presented in two conferences and have these papers published. I am a co-author of a chapter as well, that is published in a collective volume from Routledge.

All these would seem encouraging if I had done any progress with my PhD dissertation. Only recently I managed to write my first ten pages. Our faculty is characterized by strong politicization which divides the postgrad students and prevents them from emerging as a productive academic community.

So I have ended up working mostly at home, that makes me lose motivation and end up with obsessive thoughts that my research is worthless comparing to the international research standards. This has led me to seek for new bibliograpy and talk to distinguished researchers from abroad. Despite the progress, I am facing the writer's block and each time I think of writing, I end up thinking that I am not ready for that yet.

My supervisor seems to be a little bit upset by the fact that in my third year I have not finished a chapter and I feel like he's losing faith on me. Program is meant to last from 3 to 5 years.

Anybody sharing the same thoughts? Thank you in advance for your time!