#Xayk Hates College

[xaykwolf]

Learning how to market myself as a therapist is such a struggle. Went through a bit of painstaking reflection a couple weeks ago to make a good bio about myself for my new prac's website so they can market me to potential clients (so I can hit the ground running on face-to-face hours). Got what felt pretty good after another round of revisions...and then now I have to pare it down by 700 characters to be put on PsychToday :|

[xaykwolf]

I think I'm starting to pinpoint why things have become progressively harder for me in my program.

So much of psychology doctorate school is learning why we do certain things and avoid other things, especially when we hold others' lives and well-being in space. It starts out simple: administer this test, score and interpret it this way, learn these diagnostic criteria, practice these basic interviewing skills and internalize these theoretical ways people conceptualize clients. After a while, though, the reins get let loose: okay, now apply these things to real people(!!!) and make sure not to hurt them while you do that.

Great. Cool. It's part of the program process, so just don't worry about it, it's FINE.

All oversight is then shifted toward making sure we're doing things the "right" way, whatever supervisors think that looks like. There's liability on the line, and so very often it becomes "how do I keep you from getting me sued while doing this work for me?" instead of "how do I help you develop into the clinician you're meant to be?"

At best, you get a supe that will provide constructive feedback in a warm manner, taking into consideration that this is literally your first or second year of doing therapy. At worst, well...you get my supervisor from two pracs ago (he's now on a blacklist for all doctorate programs in the Chicago area). But when you look at the totality of things, there's something big missing.

"Good job!"

Unadulterated positive feedback, praise that isn't nearly immediately followed up by some other critique or criticism of the work.

I KNOW these programs are here to push us, help us grow, and give us the best tools possible to make the most helpful and ethical choices when working with people. That's great, that's part of what I signed up for in all this, in fact. But at the end of the day, I've spent going on 9 years now pretty much not hearing any unmitigated compliments about my work. Despite the long nights and long semester cramming this information in my exhausted cranium and the years of training I've put in (and had to redo for reasons unrelated to my actual performance).

It almost feels like self-flagellation at this point. Which is to say, it's starting to really hurt.

I DON'T expect my supervisor to give me only praise, but I'm certainly not getting it from anywhere else either. And it's not the same coming from people who are otherwise not involved in my training somehow. The incentives and motives for positivity are different in a pretty significant way.

And it's leaving me progressively more tired with each passing semester.

[xaykwolf]

Everyone say thank you to Norwegians for the most prevalent scales to measure resilience lmao

[xaykwolf]

5 more pages to edit, and I was right about both "citation needed" places actually having citations but just needing clarification on where exactly I'm referring to them (which...one of them was like "really? it's right THERE" and the other was "...yeah, you got me on that one lol")

And then writing up a questionnaire, flyer, and a (rough) informed consent.

So close...

[xaykwolf]

In the process of finding one of the articles I cited but not in the way my chair wanted (and I say finding because for some reason it never made it to my references list???), and I realized that the primary author is literally my old Positive Psych professor from my bachelor's. This man changed my life back then by introducing the idea that psychology doesn't have to be ALL about addressing the bad, that we could also talk about bolstering strengths, and now here he is a LITERAL DECADE LATER directly giving me information on writing a scale to measure resilience, LIKE I'M CRYING??????

[xaykwolf]

Finally got my dissertation proposal back from my chair last Wednesday (to her credit, I could've wasted 2 hours of my life picking it up in person Monday the 13th to have it, but she mailed it to me instead). And because of the whirlwind of the move and the pure anxiety of knowing the intro and methods are highly marked (because she warned me lol), I've put off looking at it until now.

Of my 56 pages, 12 of them are references and were not touched for edits lol

Of the remaining 44 total pages, it stands: 7 intro pages, 31 lit review pages (barf), and 6 methods pages, and a grand total of 25 of them had edits

6 of the 7 intro pages (which she has not even looked at since 2020) had deep edits 6 of the 6 methods pages (which was heavily rewritten since she last saw it in 2022) had deep edits 13 of the 31 lit review pages had edits -- most of which were just...semantic or minor word choice changes (or "citation needed" and I'm like "whut, oh goddamn it!")

And that's literally counting the pages where she just said anything. There are a couple lit review pages where she just says "YES!" or "GOOD! Also XYZ example!" that I'll probably add in for posterity lmao which will take longer than the ones that are actual critiques where I change "swim" to "survive" or "with" to "on" or some shit :b

25 pages that have edits...a little over half the actual meat of my proposal but less than half the total page length. I can do this.

[xaykwolf]

Six more weeks of timesheets to input and then I'm FREE for the semester...

I feel like I deserve some sort of reward for finishing this...maybe a small treat...but what?

[xaykwolf]

Once again...deadlines matter...

Been floundering on getting my fucking dissertation proposal done, my chair just would not give me a deadline to be done and would always waffle when the concept came up. Had to have a meeting to discuss my leaving my prac site, and my lack of progress on my dissertation came up, and I said having harder deadlines might help. Flashcut four weeks later I not only get a list of deadlines for my proposal, I get deadlines for ALL the steps (with the unspoken threat of academic probation if I don't get shit done, but w/e).

I still waited till the last minute for my first full draft of my proposal, and yeah, maybe I stayed up way too long to get it done (and turned in technically 7.5 hours late), but it's done and over with! And now I have deadlines for the next round of edits! And for getting it to my reader! And then submitting to IRB! And THEN--

[xaykwolf]

School bullshit stress aside, I forgot to mention that not only did I apparently get an interview to the one place I applied, I also passed the vibe check and got the offer for prac next year! I formally accepted at 9am this morning, so ya boi will be riding smooth at a private practice working with the worried well (in this case, after the ride I've had, affectionate) to finish off my unpaid labor era ;w;

[xaykwolf]

Love how my school's practicum administration (as it were) does or says something that I'm like "???" and then my prac seminar leader goes "What??? No........" and then gently guides me to do things that I wanted to anyway.

[xaykwolf]

Over halfway done with inputting my hours for the midyear eval and uhhhh

I realized I forgot to take a pic of all the times I covered for other people's patients (no identifying info present tyvm HIPAA), so I have to text a prac homie to send me a picture and then hope I don't have to fuck around too much with the numbers I've already put in XP

Whoever designed this hours-tracking system should be shot (or if necessary, dug up and then shot)

[xaykwolf]

Okay so the silly 5-7 page paper is on an interdisciplinary team of any sort that we choose, so long as a psychologist might be involved in whatever team it is and we can find 1 psychology article and 1 non-psychology article (both peer-reviewed ofc) on the topic. And I, being me, chose a video game development team (hello Hellblade, duh).

We're supposed to describe the members that typically make up that sort of team and their roles, and naturally audio designer and composer are in there. And now the two wolves in me are STRUGGLING, because it's:

"I will not spend at least six entire lines describing the bullshit with Tommy Tallarico, complete with the cited source of the HBomb video"

and

"I do not need to inject my agenda of making sure everyone in existence knows Yoko Shimamura by name because 'composer' is an succinct enough descriptor and my prof doesn't need an example"

And the only thing keeping those wolves at bay is that there is a MAXIMUM PAGE LIMIT, and my poor prof doesn't need that shit so late in the semester.

[xaykwolf]

Just looked at an email from my dissertation chair, and apparently she isn't quite aware of how long my lit review already is, cuz she's talking about me aiming for 25-30 pages total and needing another 10-20 weeks for that cuz I've been giving her about a page or two per week this semester...

Gurl...I have at least 22 pages now, with a couple snippets to add in from other word docs...GURLLLLLLLL

[xaykwolf]

Well, I've already heard back from the third choice of practicum about scheduling an interview for tomorrow, and this place would be at LEAST an hour and a half commute ONE-WAY from my new place...

I haven't replied, but like...they'll understand if I say I'm waiting for other interviews if they ask about if I want to work there,,,,,RIGHT? ;n;

[xaykwolf]

The problem with having a 5-7 page paper assigned is that, now that I've gotten the research for it done, it's so easy I could do it blindfolded with an arm tied behind my back...

So naturally, I can't even fucking start.

[xaykwolf]

My favorite part about FAFSA renewal is that, generally, they say it takes approximately an hour, maybe a little less.

My brain then proceeds to "I Do Not See It" until the deadline (or like this year, well after it), and when I finally get around to it, it takes MAYBE 20 minutes. I then think "well that was EASY, I'll surely remember this isn't a huge deal next year and thus won't procrastinate nearly as badly!"

And then I don't remember and I still procrastinate lmao