After almost 20 years leading the University Health Service's Dissertation Support Group, Carol Morrison is well acquainted with the blocks students face. The dissertation's conflicting demands of originality and conformity require students to be creative and to jump through a hoop--a daunting enough paradox.
But Morrison knows there's more to dissertation angst than the task itself. The emotional fallout that accompanies writing a dissertation, from family conflicts to fear of the future, can be the most serious block.
So her support group offers a dual focus--pragmatic advice on how to get the task done and psychological pointers for making what she calls a student's last rite of passage into adulthood.
Morrison, who received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Berkeley, led her first support group in 1977, two weeks after completing her own rite of passage. She's been pointing the way for others ever since.
The semester-long spring 1997 Dissertation Support Group will meet Tuesdays from 2:15 to 4 p.m. It has a limited number of openings; Morrison deliberately caps the group at eight members.
"There's each person, and there's each person's dissertation," she says. "When eight people are present, it's a crowded room."
Unlike other Tang Center support groups, which run only one semester, students in the Dissertation Support Group have the option of continuing for a second semester, although this practice is under evaluation by the center. Morrison herself supports the continuity.
"A semester is a very short time in the life of a dissertation," she says. "Sometimes it takes people a semester to really familiarize themselves with how they block themselves, and another semester to change."
The groups vary from semester to semester, but they generally draw both women and men, international and U.S. students, and students from a variety of disciplines. Last semester's mix included students from computer science, history, sociology, and English.
While Morrison accepts more than one person from a department--and maintains strict confidentiality--she considers the cross-departmental nature of the group to be one of its strengths.
"Being multidisciplinary forces students to talk about their dissertations in nontechnical terms," she says. "It makes them clarify their thoughts in a way that can be very helpful."
And when students identify similar complaints across fields, Morrison says, "It creates space to talk about some of the emotional and psychological problems."
A Reluctant Rite
If finishing a dissertation is the student's passage to adulthood, that last glimpse of childhood can reveal unfinished business.
A student who has a conflictive relationship with his parents can be reluctant to let them take any credit for his achievement--to the point of sabotaging that achievement by not finishing. Or a student who's fulfilling her family's dreams by becoming the first to finish graduate school may find herself lost and confused, fearful that her very success will set her apart from the family that supports her.
But one of the biggest fears Morrison encounters is simply this: Berkeley is a hard place to leave. Finishing a dissertation is the completion of a journey not everyone wants to see end.
Some students mourn the loss of what has been a supportive and stimulating environment. Some are just reluctant to leave what's familiar.
After all, Morrison says, for some of us, "Being in school has been our job since we were six."
Finishing also raises complicated questions about what to do next.
Students planning a career in academia may dread accepting a job in a place without as many cultural and intellectual amenities as Berkeley--or one not as accepting. Students in relationships may find their partners unwilling to follow them.
International students, having already made a major adjustment in leaving their homes to study in the United States, now face another upheaval upon returning. Take a support group Morrison led in the 1980s that included a number of Iranian women. Their years in Berkeley left them uneasy at returning to a culture with such a different view of women.
"The trouble with a dissertation often has less to do with the content of the dissertation than the fact that finishing doesn't look so good," Morrison says. "It makes the next step possible. And if the next step is scary, it slows things down."
Finished Business
A support group may not have all the answers, but it can help get to the questions. Morrison knows a few tricks after 20 years. She's handy with advice on time management, suggesting that one person take a vacation, for example, or that another stop taking vacations. And like any good psychologist, she interprets what a student is really saying and looks for underlying fear or guilt.
In resolving their unfinished business, do students gain insights that extend beyond their dissertations, that carry over into the "real" world?
Maybe. Or maybe they've just set their problems aside for the time being, Morrison says.
Whichever is the case, she knows of only two students who participated in her support group and didn't go on to finish their dissertations. And one decided he was happier not finishing--an outcome Morrison considers a success.
Another sign of the group's helpfulness is that some members continue meeting on their own after the semester ends. And this can lead to a final benefit: creating a community. While students often make lifelong friends during graduate school, such friendships--which Morrison describes as "deepening but narrowing"--rarely cross fields.
Graduate students (post-qualifying exam) who want to join this semester's Dissertation Support Group should contact Counseling and Psychological Services, 642-9494, and ask for a screening appointment. Remember that space is limited, so apply soon.
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