PhD- submission and onward

Thank goodness it is over and submitted (on 6th July 2020). The last bit was a bit tedious and unnecessarily prolonged by the university. Anyhow one needs a breather and I hope to get mine. Yesterday I also sent the hard copy to the university. I took less than four years to wind up the thing from the beginning to the end. It could have been faster had there been some support from my supervisor or any other facilitation from any quarter. But no point ruing over it now- I am done with it and it is already printed and over, I mean gone to three examiners and then a viva is going to happen.

I have started work on the book project as well as supporting people who need to exit psychiatry on their path to recovery. In the final outcome the work has become quite powerful and my supervisor, who never engaged with me all these years, is so happy and proud that she wanted to give me a prize even before the declaration of the result. I agree the work is quite powerful and I am at last proud of it too. I have listed around 321 references, three diagrams (flow charts) and about six publications as part of my thesis. Looks like a decent amount of work. But the references are not just confined to the bibliography because there are two appendices that have their own references as well! So the number would be at least another ten about 321.

Got to start working on a few other journal articles in addition to the book and the counseling work which is already on-going and then of course documenting the counseling outcomes as well, which was long delayed due to the PhD work. Hopefully I will get to it in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile just taking a break from hard core work and watching the construction of my new room upstairs and how life is slowly changing here for me.

The new room coming up for me upstairs, a room full of windows. The ceiling will be torn down and a new one constructed, loads of changes underway

In this picture there are two humans and four dogs. All the dogs and one human, the gentleman here have passed away. My four dogs passed away in the course of my PhD and this gentleman who I only met once, before the start of the PhD

I dedicated my PhD thesis to my dogs, all four of who passed away in the course of the time it took me to finish my work. It has been a heartbreaking journey in so many ways. On my research gate profile I have written a little about my PhD work and it can be read here. I will be talking more and more about it in the weeks/months ahead anyways.

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