The other day, a client told me she was “waiting until after the holidays” to get back to her dissertation. I paused briefly. After the holidays? January, when everyone returns exhausted, broke and facing three months of dark and cold weather? That...
Let me tell you about a former client of mine—let’s call him Brad. Brad was kind, well-read and simply hell-bent on writing his dissertation on the use of punctuation in 14th-century French legal manuscripts. Yes, I’m sure someone out there finds that topic riveting....
As a Ph.D. student, are you concerned about your mental health? The journey of a dissertation can often feel astonishingly solitary, a terrain where the weight of stress, anxiety and daily worries can create a profound sense of isolation. The modern world carries its...
We live inside an exhausting mythology: that the most successful among us are always in the process of doing, creating, producing. Certainly, this mindset thrives in dissertation culture in most academic programs. “You’re so lucky to be here in this Ph.D. program,”...
It’s the end of September, which means that unmistakable back to school vibe is definitely in the air. Perhaps you’re sending off your teens to high school. Or you’re secretly wondering if it’s your turn to take a step into the wild and wonderful world of academia. If...
When I was finishing my dissertation, I didn’t use meditation to get through it — but I truly wish I had. Back then, I thought meditation was something reserved for yogis on mountaintops, not for an over-caffeinated, middle-aged grad student buried under stacks of...
