Category Archives: Graduate School

These students got authorship and a trip to Hawaii. What are you waiting for?

The saying goes that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Correct! For this prize, write a compelling ethics paper and then you can treat yourself to many delicious lunches.

APAGS and the APA Ethics Committee have teamed up for the 13th time to award a prize to a graduate student whose winning paper successfully examines psychology and ethics.  Applications are due January 3rd.

If you win, you are entitled to

  • $1,000
  • A round trip ticket to our 2014 Convention in Washington, D.C.
    • with free registration
    • three night of hotel accommodations
    • a session to present your paper and receive your award
  • The chance to get your work published in a peer-reviewed journal

Angela Haeny, M.A. from the University of Missouri and Christine Paprocki, M.A. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill were APA’s 2013 winners. Angela wrote a paper on Ethical considerations for psychologists taking a public stance on controversial issues, and Christine wrote on Trainee perspectives on tensions between religious beliefs and affirming treatment of LGBT clients (follow the links to their articles in Ethics and Behavior).

From L-R: Dr. Nabil El-Ghoroury, head of APAGS, stands with winners Ms. Angela Haeny and Ms. Christine Paprocki, and Dr. Steven Behnke, head of the Ethics Office, on the balcony of the APAGS Suite in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Source: APAGS).

From L-R: Dr. Nabil El-Ghoroury, head of APAGS; winners Ms. Angela Haeny and Ms. Christine Paprocki; and Dr. Stephen Behnke, head of the APA Ethics Office. On the balcony of the APAGS Convention Suite in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Source: APAGS).

For an inside track on why you should apply, I spoke recently with Angela and Christine.

Eddy:  Please tell me, how did you arrive at your topics?

Angela:  I have personal interest in being involved in controversial issues and wondered what that might look like as a psychologist in training.

Christine:  My paper dealt with the ethical implications of “values conflicts” in which psychologists or trainees feel that their own beliefs would prevent them from working with a certain type of patient. I wanted to further explore the tricky ethical dilemmas that arise when this occurs within a training context.

Eddy:  What benefits—obvious or not-so-obvious—did you get from being involved in this process?

Christine:  It was a great way to delve into the details of a thorny ethical issue and write a more theoretical piece—as graduate students, we get much more training in research-oriented writing, so this was a wonderful growth experience! Also, I had a fantastic time at the APA convention. I had never been to this conference before, and was really impressed by the breadth and diversity of topics explored—it also didn’t hurt that it was in Honolulu! [Ed. note: We hope D.C. isn’t too shabby an alternative for 2014 attendees.]

Angela:  Writing the ethics paper caused me to become more intimate with the Ethic’s Code and to think more deeply about ethical issues and considerations for psychologists taking a public stance on controversial issues.

Eddy:  What advice would you have for 2014 applicants?

Angela:  Choose a topic that interests you and have fun writing the paper! This is a great opportunity for you to showcase your knowledge on the APA Ethic’s Code and raise an issue that is important to you.

Christine: Definitely apply if you are thinking about it—it is an excellent way to engage more deeply with an important ethical issue affecting our field. As with any writing submission, have plenty of people read it and offer suggestions. Write about something that you feel passionately about and that really sparks your interest.

Consider working on your application over Winter Break!

Applying for APA’s Minority Fellowship Program

The APAGS Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs hosted a conversation hour today to answer students’ questions about applying for APA’s Minority Fellowship Program (MFP). Did you miss this great opportunity to get information on the MFP? Download the MP3 audio file of the conversation which will be available until 1/15/2014. MFP JPG

Overwhelmed, but let’s be honest: I did it to myself

Overwhelmed.

What a small word to describe such a large feeling.

Can that one word truly describe the weight I feel right now? Can that word fully portray my stress, my failed attempts to prioritize, my feeling of being so far buried that maybe it’s not even worth attempting to dig out? Can that word express the fear that one more thing, just one more insignificant little thing, will break me?

No.

Yet, it’s the only word I have to describe and classify these feelings.

A day when there isn't enough caffeine in the world! (Source: "day 300, clutching my morning coffee" by massdistraction, on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

A day when there isn’t enough caffeine in the world! (Source: “day 300, clutching my morning coffee” by massdistraction, on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

The good news? Whatever my most overwhelmed moment was up until this point, I clearly made it through. So have you! You may have felt broken, trampled, and/or lost…but you made it. You survived. And, hopefully it made you stronger, more resilient, more ready to take on those feelings that are way to ominous to be embodied by one tiny word.

For those of you who struggle with feeling overwhelmed, who find themselves giving up when those feelings begin to build, let me share with you how I manage it.

Many people ask me how I do it. How I raise a very young family, work part-time, and work towards my doctorate degree. I usually tell them, I just do. But, that’s not the real answer.

I choose to fight the feeling of being overwhelmed in these ways:

  • I do my best to bar negative feelings from clouding my successes, erasing my hope… Granted, this is not an easy process, but I look at it as choosing to survive rather than worry over my ability to meet every demand.
  • I take my semester one day, one assignment at a time. I start each day with my girls as a new day. When I feel my patience slipping–which it seems to be doing by 8:30 am these days–I hold whichever one is starting to drive me crazy (if they allow me to) for a full minute, reminding myself that not every moment with her is a mini hell.
  • I remind myself–force myself, rather–to believe that there is an end in sight. That I am alive, that things can be so much worse, and that those things that are weighing down on me are actually things I am so very grateful for, that I would be lost without, that I could lose if I do not continue to fight and survive.
  • I take ownership. I am an individual who thrives when overwhelmed, who purposefully adds and adds and adds to my plate until it is at that point. I admit that am overwhelmed because I want so much out of life, and life wants so much out of me. It’s a give and take.

My plan, humble as it may be, is to not only allow life to take what it needs from me, but to give it my all. I have the hope that pushing into it allows me to receive more resilience and strength when it is time for the pendulum to swing back in my direction. And it always swings back.

When were you at your most overwhelmed? How do you manage? Do you see it as an obstacle to overcome or a learning and growing process? Talk about it in the comments.

Read more about raising three kids under three while pursuing a PhD at my blog.