I apologise for a post of doom and gloom but I have been a follower of the forum and was hoping that someone could possibly give me some advice or words of wisdom for the predicament I find myself in.

I am 7 or so months into a science PhD (started October 2011), and find myself at the end of my tether, depressed and considering throwing it all in. Numerous setbacks and problems have arisen through my project.

The project is broad in nature and is in a field I have limited experience in and so the first 3-4 months were spent reading and getting to grips with the topic and writing a literature review. While my supervisor intially was very supportive and offered guidance, this quickly started to drop until the point where I feel I have very little support and am having to take charge of a project that has very little direction and been a bit of a non-starter. Also, external project partners seem to have different expectations about the direction of the project and I feel I am being pulled in two different directions, having to keep both sides happy.

The specifics of my project were only decided by supervisor and project partners 2 days before Christmas break and so I was only able to start lab work after the holidays. In the last 3 months, a whole range of problems arose, and justifiably so... namely because my project uses methods and approaches comletely different from fellow students and research staff they are unable and sometimes unwilling to offer any help or advice and with very limited experience, i have been left to develop methods largely through trial and error which has taken time, something my supervisor is unwilling to understand or accept.It is only in the last month or so that I have been able to make some headway and start collecting some preliminary data and getting methods for one aspect to work.

Throughout this time I have been struggling but largely pushing through by sheer determination, and while I have found it hard and have highlighted problems to my supervisor he largely shrugs them off and has said that I am doing fine.
I also get the impression that my supervisor has very little interest in my project, or in fact what the project should be focussing on!
It was to my shock and surprise I received an email after a progress meeting with independent research staff, that my supervisory team had raised concern with my lack of progress in general and that external project partners had also raised concerns about my literature review.

I was utterly shocked because not once have any members raised any concerns with me personally, quite the opposite: my supervisor said he didnt expect any problems at the progress assessment and that I should relax. All feedback I have recieved about my literature review has been positive, praising the work I had done and offering some suggestions and amendements which I had taken on board and some I wanted to discuss further. I even went through my emails and checked this to make sure I am

Sorry to hear of your problems Electricblue - hopefully someone will be along soon who can offer advice...

OK, well first of all your lit review probably IS fine. It sounds like you are stuck in a massive load of academic politics and are being bounced around like a rubber ball.

It would appear you have more than one captain trying to steer the ship so to speak. I would suggest two things:

1) Your sentence that says that you are "having to take charge of a project that has very little direction and been a bit of a non-starter." is actually in some ways a good thing. Take control of it as much as possible, it's your PhD after all. Try to be confident and certain when speaking to your supervisor(s) whilst obviously trying to not be too confrontational (easier said than done) and make the decisions yourself. For instance if two people are giving you conflicting advice then choose one of them to follow. Sometimes ANY decision is all that's needed.

2) You need to keep your supervisor on side, however they also need to understand what you are going through. Most problems boil down to a lack of communication. Try and set up regular meetings with your sup. If that's not possible then just turn up at their office early (before they can start other things) on a regular basis and ask to speak with them. Your sup is clearly not making a great effort to communicate with you so you need to make a huge effort to communicate with him/her. You shouldn't have to but c'est la vie. Specifically ask your sup face to face about the review that didn't go so well. Take the emails with you but again try not to be too aggressive about it, you need your sup on your side.

Finally and most importantly - You are 7 months in. Most people have issues similar to this around this time into their PhD to a greater or lesser degree. Most supervisors are a bit clueless now and then, especially when it comes to things like student reviews. They don't check exactly what's required and see it all as a tick box exercise because they never had to do it in their day. It is rare (not unheard of though unfortunately) that a supervisor doesn't want to help their student. They are often just very busy and a bit dopey! This is where you need to really push things forward with them.

Sorry that this is a bit general and I appreciate it's easy to say things and a lot harder to do them.