Posted by bob on May 31, 2000, at 17:49:05
In reply to How to cope with a sudden low, posted by Louisa on May 31, 2000, at 14:03:18
Hi Louisa
I snuck a peek at your email -- please, tell me you're not at ILS! If that were the case, I'd say escape while you still have the chance! ;^)
The first thing that you have to realize about doing the big D is that dissertating is a cause for depression itself, so you might actually be properly diagnosed as having "double depression" (or even triple depression!) if you'd be depressed even if you weren't writing a dissertation. Anyway, you may not be able to do so, but putting it aside for a day or two and taking care of some other matters in your life, just to put some space between yourself and the EVENT of receiving that feedback (which is often at least 50% of the trauma), might be a good thing to do. I know it's difficult, but stepping away from your writing every once in a while can give your conscious mind a bit of a rest while your subconscious keeps rewriting -- you may have a different perspective on it when you do pick it up again.
Now, if you can put that away, realize just where you are and what you are doing. The fact that you are a PhD student where you are means you're already within some ridiculously small fraction of a percentage point from the top of your field. You wouldn't be there if your own ideas had no merit.
Next thing to remember is that the game of academe at your level is like taking a dive into shark-infested waters. Are you going to be bait, or another shark? The rhetoric of academics at that level of the game is rarely kind or supportive. The program I was in was ranked regularly as one of the top five in the country, and our faculty could be brutal at times. Not because we did something to deserve it, and not because they were mean nasty people -- that is just the name of the game. I call it saber-rattling. If you can learn how to face this sort of "feedback" down, you will soon be able to dish it right back at them. From that day on, you'll know how to handle article reviewers with agendas, questioners at conference presentations who just want to score a point for their own theory at the expense of you, and so on. Not only will you know how to handle them, you'll probably be able to shred them ... like I said, it ain't pretty, but it's the name of the game at your level.
Finally, once you've realized this much, take another look at the feedback. Share it, if you have someone you can trust to help, with a colleague and try to look for what might be reasonable feedback and where your advisor is flat-out wrong. Don't give up on this stuff, if it really is important to you. Try to work in any "corrections" with what you really think should stay, and develop your arguments for why it should stay. Although your advisor's name is going to be on not just your dissertation but your career (aren't academic bloodlines such a lovely thing?), it's still YOUR dissertation and you've got to do some thinking for yourself.
Again, you wouldn't be where you are if you weren't up to the task.
cheers,
bobPS: if you ARE at ILS and your advisor is RS, then I'd grovel, beg forgiveness, and then write exactly what he thinks you should say. That, or just start running -- pull a Forrest Gump -- and get as far away as you possibly can. ;^)
poster:bob
thread:35390
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000526/msgs/35423.html