Tag Archives: self care

Keep Calm and Beagle On

My heart belongs to a beagle. And considering his desire for attention/affection, he will be delighted to know he’s the topic of discussion in this post.

My dog’s name is Beckett and my husband, Craig, and I rescued him three years ago this summer. As a graduate student in psychology, Beckett is a vital facet of my self-care. He is sweet, chill, and smart as heck. He loves belly rubs, long walks, and baby carrots. He also loves me unconditionally and serves as my unofficial therapy dog. I’m pretty much obsessed:

I should mention Beckett is spoiled. Spoiled. Rotten. I mean, his bed is nicer than ours. I dare say he’s unabashed by the steady stream of attention, grain-free treats, and seasonal collars. He comes by it honestly.

Being strong-willed/spoiled, Beckett can also be naughty as all get out. I’m serious. Within the last month, he has knocked over trash cans (thanks, dude), escaped from my parents backyard by climbing poultry wire (three times!), marked his territory on a girl’s backpack at the park (#mortified), and ate seven dyed Easter eggs.

“You’re welcome,” said the hound to the Mel.

Currently (and until we are 80+ years old), my husband and I are both students in the counseling psychology doctoral program at WVU. Despite his #beaglemonster ways, Beckett is a constant source of joy for us. That said, and nothing personal to my baby boy, he’s an additional responsibility on top of our academics, research, clinical work, finances, and jobs. In this post, I wanted to provide my perspective on having a dog in graduate school. Frankly, my perspective is one of many but if you’re considering adopting a pet in graduate school, you may find the challenges/benefits below helpful.

Side note, they teach us in psychology to be aware of our biases. Therefore, I will own up front that my opinions about pets will always lean toward the benefits.

Challenges (“Growth Edges,” as we say in psychology) of Pet Ownership:

Time commitment – feeding, quality time/attention, taking them out, cleaning cages, training, etc.
Financial responsibility – vet visits, annual exams, nails, baths, supplies, adoption fees, etc.
Pets, like humans, can sometimes be on “bad behaviors” (as Craig says) and need to lose some privileges (e.g. my dog)
Much more difficult to coordinate care of the animal if you don’t have someone to help you (= me during my first year when Craig and I lived 10 hours apart)
Can’t just pick up and leave, always need to arrange accommodations (which can be pricey)
Minor annoyances – dog takes forever to do his business, dog wants to sniff EVERYTHING, dog refuses to do his business in the rain/sleet/snow, dog fakes an injury when owner makes him go out in the rain/sleet/snow, etc. (not that Beckett would ever commit any of the aforementioned misdemeanors.)
The answer to, “Did I turn off the straightener?” becomes more important
Losing a pet is so hard, I know this from personal experience
Dog may pee on backpacks (ugh)

Benefits of Pet Ownership:

The feeling of unconditional positive regard (see what I did there?) you receive from loving a cuddly (or scaly, fishy, feathery, etc.) being
Promote self-care and wellness
Provide entertainment/laughter
Help you keep a routine
Have someone to binge-watch Unbreakable with Kimmy Schmidt and Workaholics with regardless of the time/day
Can motivate you to stay active if your pet enjoys walks
Companionship/loyalty
Keep your feet warm
Can assuage feelings of loneliness/isolation
Always have someone to talk to even if you’re just talking to yourself
Can promote better time management (though I still feel I’m always running from one thing to the next)
Can cause you to be less “me-focused” in graduate school
Great distraction for long paper writing (cough, dissertation, cough, cough)
Owning an animal can be a solid/go-to topic of conversation (e.g. this post)
Socially acceptable excuse to take/post lots of pictures on social media
Can connect you to a fun/supportive community of fellow helicopter parents (e.g. the dog park)
Potentially rehabilitate an animal (you wouldn’t believe it now, but Beckett was skittish, withdrawn, and anxious when we first got him)
Contribute to positive social change by demonstrating responsible pet ownership
And of course, the opportunity to rescue

Welp, those are some of my thoughts on pet ownership in graduate school. Above all else, if you’re considering adopting a pet, please make it a thoughtful and responsible decision. And to all my fellow animal lovers out there:

Keep calm and love animals on.

-Mel

Editor’s Note: Melissa Foster is a second year doctoral student from Virginia Beach, VA. She is studying counseling psychology at West Virginia University. Check out her lifestyle blog, Method to My Melness.

Taking Care of Yourself in Graduate School

MPj04330550000[1] Congratulations – you are accepted into graduate school! Whew! It is such hard work to get into a graduate program that it is sometimes hard to remember to take care of yourself once you get there. There are so many things to be involved in, so many things you have to do and learn. And you want to give your absolute best to everything you do.

It is easy to become so engaged in all of this that you forget to take the time to nurture your whole self –the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. It is important to find a way to balance all these aspects of your life and maintain that balance throughout your graduate school years. You will spend many hours, reading, going to class, doing research, and seeing clients; however, to be truly successful you also have to make sure to keep your life in balance. This may actually be one of the hardest things you have to learn and, as someone who learned much of this the hard way, I offer a few suggestions that were helpful to me. I hope they can be useful to you.

First, keep in mind why it is you are in graduate school. What drew you to psychology? What does it mean to you to become a psychologist? What do you really see yourself doing in the future?

It is important to be really specific about answering these questions because you will need the motivation that comes from that specific vision often during your graduate school career.

If your answer is something non-specific like, “I want to help people”, it may help you to work on a more specific answer. Which people? Adults? Children? People with specific characteristics, issues, experiences? Try to really picture what you will be doing as a psychologist, who you will be working with, and the setting you will work in. When things get tough and you wonder if you made the right choice in pursuing a Ph.D., when you wonder if you should commit five years of your life, when you wonder if it should be these five years, when you wonder if you can really do this – what will sustain you is remembering the reasons you thought becoming a psychologist was important. It is not a bad idea to write these reasons down, represent them with a picture, videotape yourself talking about them, or engage in any other things that will help you remember exactly why becoming a psychologist was important to you.

Second, make sure that you are always doing something that you really love.

If what you love is clinical work, make sure you have something you are doing in that area in the midst of a semester heavy on research or theory. Even if your courses are arranged in such a way that you have a semester lacking in clinical focus, you can watch videos of psychotherapy, shadow a colleague’s case, or read just ten pages a day on clinical techniques. If research is your passion and you feel that all your time is being taken by practica and clinical work, make sure you give yourself the time to read the latest study in your favorite journal, attend a colloquia, or just talk to a colleague about their research. The point is that going a whole semester with no attention to the things that really make you happy can make you forget why you are doing this. Sometimes you get so buried that you cannot even remember the things that make you happy. That is the time to get out your writing, your picture, your videotape or whatever you did to document why this was all important for you to do at this time in your life.

You will always be busy, and if you are doing what you love, that busy-ness should bring you joy. If it is all just about what has to be done, if there is no joy, you need to find a way to reconnect. You might feel that you are so busy that you cannot fit another single thing in your day or your week. But if you think about the time that it takes when you do not want to get out of bed, when you watch a TV show you do not even really care about just so you can avoid doing what you are “supposed” to be doing, or the “just one more” video game you engage in before you get to work on your thesis – you will probably be able to find the time. If you are not sure what it is that you really love, think back to why you started this. In that, you will likely find the seed of what you love to do.

Finally, one of the most important things I have learned is how important it is to have something in my life that allows me to feel a sense of accomplishment.

When I was in graduate school, I was starting a placement at an emergency youth shelter for children and adolescents who had been removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect. My supervisor invited us over to his house for a BBQ. When we were all there, he said he wanted to show us something important and took us to his garage. Inside, was an amazing array of handmade furniture, in every phase of being cut out, built, finished, and polished. He told us that in our work, we very often do not get to see the outcomes. If people are doing well, they do not come in to see us. Often, working with children, they get sent off to placements, return home, or run away and we never know what happened to them. If we are going to survive in this profession, we have to give ourselves something that we can stand back and say, “I did that. It is finished.” For my supervisor, it was building his furniture. I have never forgotten this lesson and it has come back to me in many ways over the years since.

If you find yourself feeling strangely gratified by sweeping the floor — watching the pile of dirt come together, getting it all into the pan, and then throwing it away — you probably have a need for a sense of accomplishment in your life. Theses and dissertations, preliminary exams, and internship applications are wonderful sources of accomplishment but they are few and far between. We need something more concrete, frequent, and often visible. Our work does not often present us with a pile in an “In basket” that will all get transferred by the end of the day to an “Out basket”. We need to find something that can give us as much pleasure as taking an empty box, filling it with objects, taping it up, writing the contents on the side and piling it in an ever-growing stack. Even though it is annoying to realize that everything you need is in one of those boxes, it is an amazing sense of accomplishment to see the stack of boxes piling up. What can you give yourself that gives you that sense of accomplishment. And when you tell yourself you do not have the time for it, remember that you cannot afford not to. You have to nourish your spirit as much as your mind.

Remember that it is all about balance. Graduate school will build your mind and your skills. Don’t forget about your joy, your passion, your friends and loved ones, your spiritual life. These are the parts of your life that will get you through the long run of graduate study, will guide you in your work, and allow you to give the best of what you have to the work you choose to do.

Editor’s note: This post was written by Beth Boyd, PhD, Professor; University of South Dakota. It originally appeared on the Multicultural Mentoring blog by the Society of Clinical Psychology’s Section on the Clinical Psychology of Ethnic Minorities. (APA Division 12, Section 6). It is reposted here with generous permission. Over time, you will see all eight original posts on gradPSYCH Blog.

Dear me, future psychologist. Yours truly, Dr. Howard Gardner

It’s time for the second installment of Dear me, future psychologist, a gradPSYCH Blog exclusive in which a prominent psychologist writes a letter to his/her 16-year-old self. We hope you enjoy these letters and glean some invaluable wisdom and guidance as you decide whether to enter graduate school in psychology, as you navigate the challenges of graduate school, and as you make decisions about your career and life.

Howard Gardner (source: author’s own).

This letter is from Howard Gardner, PhD. Dr. Gardner is the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, and Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero. He is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be adequately assessed by standard psychometric instruments. During the past two decades, Gardner and colleagues at Project Zero have been involved in the design of performance-based assessments; education for understanding; the use of multiple intelligences to achieve more personalized curriculum, instruction, and pedagogy; and the quality of interdisciplinary efforts in education. For more info, please visit Dr. Gardner’s website.

FROM THE DESK OF HOWARD GARDNER:

Dear Howie,

For your bar mitzvah, cousin Walter gave you book plates decorated with three pictures: a book cover (you love to read); a musical score (you are an avid classical pianist); and a spade (you are a gard(e)ner). Those icons capture you: not athletic, not particularly social (though you have close friends), eager to go to college and to test yourself in a world wider than Scranton, Pennsylvania.

This year, Uncle Fred gave you a psychology textbook. I doubt that you knew about this subject—except for Fred, your family is not oriented toward academics. But as you leafed through the book, a picture caught your eye: the Ishihara test for color blindness. Severely color blind, you have pondered how the world looks to others. But you had not realized that scientists can study color-blindedness and elucidate what you can and cannot see.

I became a research psychologist. Though color blind, myopic, without stereoscopic vision, and prosopagnosic (all intriguing conditions!), I nonetheless elected to study artistic vision. I wrote my doctoral thesis on how individuals recognize the styles of visual artists; I was a founding member of Harvard Project Zero, a research group focused on artistic cognition; and I belong to two artistic boards (the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and New York’s Museum of Modern Art). Clearly the seed planted by Uncle Fred benefited from the gardening suggested by cousin Walter.

“Howie” in his school yearbook (source: author’s own).

By no means do I urge you to become a psychologist. (Even twenty-five years ago, I realized that neuroscience and genetics were equally germane for my scholarly interests). I urge you not to take the line of least resistance for a bright Jewish boy— becoming a doctor or a lawyer. I’d add that you should not unreflectively follow those of your peers who feel that they need either become a management consultant (McKinsey) or an investment banker (Goldman Sachs).

I know that you don’t believe in reincarnation or in an afterlife. You only get one shot on earth, and it could terminate at any time. I have two recommendations that you’ve heard from others. But since they come from someone who shares your DNA, I hope that they have added credibility:

1. Follow your passion, your love, do what you most want to do vocationally and avocationally. Don’t worry about how much money you will make or what others will think. If you embrace your interests and follow them well, you will be fine.

2. Think beyond your own needs and desires; serve the wider community. Following my quarter century of psychological research, I’ve spent the last twenty years trying to understand how individuals become good workers and good citizens and trying to help people your age pursue and embrace these broader forms of service.

Given your many talents and your supportive family, I have full confidence that you’ll make us proud of what you accomplish and how you accomplish it.

Howard

Editor’s Note: Dear Me, Future Psychologist is inspired by the Dear Me book series by Joseph Galliano. Special thanks to David A. Meyerson, Ph.D. for curating these.

Dear me, future psychologist. Yours truly, Dr. Robert Sternberg

If I knew then what I know now… If I could do it again… If I could go back in time…

We’ve all had these thoughts: What we’d do differently if given the opportunity. Would we have spent our time the same way? Would we have entered/ended that relationship? Would we have studied psychology? Would we have gone to graduate school?

If you could send a letter to your 16-year-old self, what would you say? What advice would you give yourself to prepare for the future? To my fellow nerds out there: Yes, we’re talking about parallel universes and warping the space-time continuum.

Dear me, future psychologist is a new feature exclusively on our blog. We will periodically publish a letter written by a prominent psychologist to his/her 16-year-old self. We hope you enjoy these letters and glean some invaluable wisdom and guidance as you decide whether to enter graduate school in psychology, as you navigate the challenges of graduate school, and as you make decisions about your career and life.

Our first letter is from Robert J. Sternberg, PhD. Dr. Sternberg received his PhD from Stanford University in 1975 and spent most of his career as a Professor at Yale University. More recently, he served as a Dean at Tufts University, Provost at Oklahoma State University, and President at the University of Wyoming. He also is a Past President of the American Psychological Association. He is currently Professor of Human Development at Cornell University. He is best known for his research on intelligence, creativity, wisdom, thinking styles, leadership, ethics, love, and hate. He is the founder of the triarchic theory of intelligence and the triangular theory of love, as well as co-creator of the investment theory of creativity. For more info, please visit Dr. Sternberg’s Wikipedia page.

FROM THE DESK OF ROBERT STERNBERG:

Dear Me at 16,

I am not sure whether you will receive this letter, at least in a timely fashion, but I thought I would give it a try anyway. Here are three pieces of advice I hope you will find useful, ideally, sooner rather than later.

1. You will underestimate the importance of family and friends. You soon will come to believe that, through your work, you can achieve immortality, and that the shot at immortality is the meaning of your life. Wrong. First, very few psychologists achieve immortality through their work—perhaps Freud, James, Skinner, Piaget, and a few more. But most psychologists are forgotten quickly starting with the day they announce their plans to retire. You will watch many of your famous Yale colleagues retire and see that what is left to them is not their work, which is quickly forgotten, or even their friends from work, most of whom are busy advancing their careers. Rather, what remains is their family and true friends, if they have any. You will discover that your meaning in life is making the world a better place, and that the main way you will do that is through your family, especially your five beautiful children and their children and onward through the generations.

2. You will overestimate people’s willingness to change. You will enter a field, intelligence research, in which many people believe that traits are relatively fixed. You will argue, correctly, that people are far more modifiable than many intelligence theorists give them credit for. But what you will not realize until much later is that the main problem is not people’s inability to change, but rather, their unwillingness to do so. People, including you, will make all kinds of excuses to stay just as they are. They cling to their weaknesses, often inventing stories to justify doing so, and for them, their stories are their reality. Institutions are the same way: Mediocre ones desperately cling to their mediocrity, often inventing stories about their unappreciated excellence, and excellent ones cling to what they have done before in the hope that what once made them great will continue to do so, despite the rapid pace of change in the world. Creativity often is appreciated in word, but not in deed. The problem for psychologists is not so much increasing people’s ability to change as increasing their willingness and courage to do so.

3. Intelligence is not the invaluable commodity you think it is. You, like most of our society, believe in the great importance of intelligence, although at least you realize it is much broader than just IQ. But what most is lacking in the world is not intelligence, but rather, creativity, common sense, wisdom, and high ethical standards. So please, do your work on intelligence, but remember that what the world needs most are motivated, creative, wise, and ethical people, not just smart ones.

Hoping you get this letter soon,

Me at 64

Editor’s Note: Dear Me, Future Psychologist is inspired by the Dear Me book series by Joseph Galliano. Special thanks to David A. Meyerson, Ph.D. for curating these.

My life as a grad student with a chronic illness

APAGS recently spoke with Stacey Feuer, a fourth-year clinical psychology doctoral student, about her experiences of living for the past 17 years with Gaucher disease, an often invisible chronic, genetic illness characterized by its numerous effects on the body’s organs and systems.

Stacey Feuer.

APAGS: Stacey, please tell us a little about yourself.

SF: I am currently at NOVA Southeastern University in South Florida and my focus is on health psychology, specifically the psychological impact of people living with chronic medical illnesses. Next month, I will be working with people living with HIV/AIDS during a service trip to Swaziland in Africa. I am excited to present a paper at the annual APA convention in August with Dr. Barry Nierenberg and fellow student Sarah Cooper on an integrative model we are developing to evaluate and treat medical patients. I am also involved in other research projects — one involving cognitive contributors to pain, and another on applying positive psychology to individuals living with spinal cord injury. My future plans are to continue working with people living with chronic medical illnesses as both a therapist and advocate.

APAGS: What are some of the challenges of having Gaucher as a grad student?

SF: It has been challenging in many ways. Many people, including faculty members, have difficulty understanding how this illness has impacted me because even at my sickest points I have looked perfectly healthy from the outside. As with any chronic illness that has exacerbations and remissions, it is sometimes difficult to make short- and long-term commitments with friends when your health may change from one day to the next. I have been very fortunate, however, to have some wonderful people in my life.

Even at my sickest points I looked perfectly healthy from the outside.

Returning to school as a full-time student has only been possible because of certain accommodations. This has been essential to keeping up with all of my required coursework and commitments by helping to reserve my energy and pain levels as much as possible. Since my treatments take approximately half a day at a doctor’s office, it has been necessary for me to not schedule other commitments on those days. I have learned to tell others that I am simply unavailable.

APAGS: Have any positives come from this experience?

SF: The biggest positive has been the opportunity to use my experiences to help others in similar circumstances. Isolation is one of the biggest contributing factors to depression and anxiety in people living with chronic illnesses. It is very rewarding to be able to have a positive impact on the lives of individuals who are living with ongoing negative circumstances.

It is very rewarding to have a positive impact on individuals living with ongoing negative circumstances.

APAGS: How has Gaucher shaped your decision to study psychology?

SF: Being diagnosed with Gaucher 17 years ago has had a huge impact on my decision to pursue my doctorate in clinical psychology. In my twenties, there were several years in which I was very sick, requiring several surgeries and being essentially bed-bound. During this time, I was never able to find a therapist who understood chronic medical illness. I eventually went back to school for my master’s degree in leadership development and healthcare; however, I realized that I wanted to have a more personal impact in the lives of people. This realization encouraged me to pursue my doctorate in clinical psychology and to concentrate on health psychology.

APAGS: How did Gaucher inform your decision to find the right graduate program for you?

SF: I chose NOVA because it met two basic criteria (besides academic ones) — the warm weather and proximity to a Gaucher specialist. Due to the Gaucher, I have significant bone damage. These bone issues are the primary source of my chronic pain and are exacerbated by cold, damp weather. In addition, I knew there was a Gaucher specialist 30 minutes from Nova. Most doctors are unfamiliar with rare diseases and this can make communicating with them about your needs very difficult. Knowing that I would be able to have regular access to someone very familiar with Gaucher was key.

APAGS: Thank you, Stacey. Finally, is there something you want to pass on to fellow graduate students who may have similar health challenges?

SF: I have met many students in my program who are also balancing a demanding doctoral program with chronic medical problems. We have been able to support each other most importantly by reducing that sense of isolation and validating each other’s experiences. We also swap “war stories” and share tips on how to get through the program (like discussing which professors are most likely to work with you), and remind each other to take care of ourselves.

We support each other by reducing that sense of isolation and validating each other’s experiences. We swap “war stories” and remind each other to take care of ourselves.

Recently, I decided to take an extra year to complete my coursework due to my health and general burnout. I learned that several others have made this same decision for similar reasons. There can be so much pressure to complete these programs in their prescribed timelines which often do not work for someone with ongoing health issues. I would strongly encourage other graduate students with similar health challenges to seek out peers, faculty and staff with whom they can talk about their challenges and who will help them complete their education in a way that best fits their situation. Having that support is so important and can make all the difference.