Lara - that's a very good idea - contacting a welfare advisor and/or counsellor. Do you know if they are required to inform my supervisor? I presume it'd be anonymous?

Counselling is confidential and you DO NOT need to advise your tutor -- they won't.
I think people need to make the best of such provision.

lol golf pro

i think he genuinely is concerned

because i wrote to the graduate officer in charge of examination forms and him -my graduate tutor. asking them if i could arrange a counselling session and who to contact to do this.

(before i was given the link on this forum)

and my graduate tutor email me today and said:;

Dear Lara

****** can advise you on the student counseling services.

If this is to do with you PhD studies is there anything I can do to help? Perhaps a short chat?

Regards,

--

he was the one that actually supported me that i should write my thesis and not worry about papers, and told me i have enough data.

i wish i had listened to him

no they wont tell your supervisor, is confidential.

you should go for it! seriously, i wish i had done so all those years ago.

Its a difficult balance I think when doing the PhD, because in many ways you need to be alone to do the study, research, writing, etc., too many people around you can be counterproductive. That said, you DO HAVE TO HAVE some contact with other people. Even if you are someone who likes a lot of alone time, its important to have at least some kind of social network or connection or family connection. I like to be around people, enjoy the company of all kinds of people, but equally like to have time to myself, and can entertain myself quite easily. Being bored is not a problem. Too much time alone though is unhealthy--and that is where I think universities fall short. They should be aware of how significant this problem is for PhD students, and that something as easy as an informal coffee hour once a week, or a gathering for lunch, could ease this.

It need not be something formal with officers and organisations and associations, in fact, it would be better if something was offered along with those for natural informal social networking

Students should never feel driven to the point of despair that is brought on by the isolation. Universities ought to be proactive in providing some resources to counteract the natural and inevitable bouts of isolation the PhD entails.

Olivia, I really like your ideas and suggestions, maybe this is your calling!

protecting and helping out phd students and forming a support network to protect them. hehe and devloping and devising a structure so that phd students dont fall into dispair.

Thanks, Lara, for your kind words.

You know, that is something worth thinking about. I wonder if those sorts of positions are in existence within student services offices of one sort or another.

Its something I am going to look into and give some thought to. You know if there was some kind of informal mentoring student to student match up ( I am thinking of something like the Mother to Mother programme where volunteer mothers meet with new mothers periodically to be friendly, provide social contact and support, talk about issues of new parenting) might be something to see about setting up.

Hmmm...!!!

you're welcome Olivia, yah sounds like a good idea! thats cool, the mother /new mother concept, abit like a big brother/big sister programme.

I was thinking, in addition to the so called required lectures and worshops phd students have to attend, there could be a workshop on the psychological aspect of doing a phd. no one ever addresses that.

and then advise newbie phd students, on seeking counselling or welfare advisors. when i first started my phd, i did not know about counselling or anything that was available at the uni.

but informing the phd student, that anything that was said during the meeting would be kept in strict confidence.
and not relayed back to the supervisor. that way phd students are not suffering in silence.

and making supervisors go on proper training courses!! teaching them how to successfully encourage students... something like a dale carnegie training course!

and students can write up monthy reports on THEIR supervisor, and its kept confidential. and that way supervisors would have to watch their behaviour, incase they got red flagged.

dale carenegie has countless of examples of exemplary bosses and how they handled their employees with tact and positive encouragement and respect.

the way i have seen some supervisors talk to their phd students and my own personal experience, i was so naive, i felt that they had the right to talk to me like that, until a collegue told me, that no human being had the right to talk to me like that.

its unbelievable that they get away with actually shouting and harrassing students and intimidating them.

I agree that so much more could be done to be supportive of the PhD experience. The ability to handle the stress of the isolation and other conditions is no barometer of one's ability to do the research at all.

I still think the worst day on my PhD was hiking all over the place to locate a post office, and finding that the local one had been turned from one week to the next into a kebab shop. I now have a chronic stress foot injury that is going to apparently take 12-18 months to heal, and I am sure that day was the last straw that kicked it over the edge...now I have a very painful foot as a longterm reminder of that day.

Someone once told me that emotionally healthy people will feel huge levels of emotional distress if they get placed into dysfunctional environments--that things like depression and anxiety that are experienced by the person could be a reflection of the dysfunctional levels of the environment RATHER than a sign of anything "wrong" with the person.

In other words, the levels of stress, anxiety, and depression that someone might feel is due to the dysfunction they are placed in and must survive in order to complete the PhD.

And, yes, supervisors yelling, raising voices, not communicating, not being respectful of the student, having unrealistic requirements on working hours or conditions, etc, those are all contributors to a dysfunctional environment.

Rather than seeing the PhD as being inherently stressful as a simple fact of doing the PhD, I think an alternate view point should be presented, and that is that the environment in which the PhD student is asked to do the work could be so dysfunctional that it brings on depression, stress and anxiety in the non-dysfunctional student.

Although its unlikely to change, I would think it would be most beneficial for long term and real changes to be made to dysfunctional environments, rather than band-aiding up the situation by focusing on the student as the one with the problem.

To the extent that the student's distress levels are indicative of dysfunctional environments, it is the dysfunction in the environment and NOT the student that needs "fixed."