You might want to google Patrick Moore, Isaac Newton etc regarding their autodidactic contributions to natural science... also your point is unsound as obviously Mr Doctor managed to get data during his PhD, as already mentioned.

Was reading your other thread and wondered what had happened in the end. Well done for having the perserverance and adaptibility required to transcend your previous condition. Also thanks for sharing your experience. I suppose when you are going through the tough times it is hard to see it ever ending. However you kept going!

After the rain comes the sun.

Hi Kathryn

Well done on getting your PhD and having spent 4 years teaching at your University and also having the qualifications and experience necessary to be an effective secondary teacher.

I am sensing a lot of psychological resistance to your situation.

You have to accept your life as it is right now.

All these comments like "I am an introvert and therefore can't do this and that" and "why should I have to do this and that" are negative and confrontational.

Life is not won through negativity or confrontation.

You have to accept your life as it is, otherwise you cannot overcome it.

Say "I accept my life" and "I accept whatever the universe throws at me".

This is the only way for you to unlock your latent power to overcome your obstacles.

Do this. Don't try to change you or your life. Accept your life. If you are kind to your life then your life will be kind to you.

Once you have done this the answer will come to you. The answer may not come straight away. Accept your life over and over until you have the answer. Then do it again.

No-one else can give you the answer.

Only when you accept the unvierse for what it is can you understand how to integrate it and bend it to your will.

Well done Adam, impressive result.

Anyone use these? Any recommendations?

Getting tired of my books bouncing about all over my desk and knocking my pencils into the bin.

I don't see why you should be in the office all the time especially if you work from home and are producing good work. It sounds like there is a personality clash between you both. She sounds like the slave driver type of supervisor with high expectations, zero pastoral ability and zero people skills. You sound like a person who needs emotional support rather than rational support. The fact you are independent in your research and she is highly structured/micro-managing in her supervision suggests a clash of supervisory style vs learning style.

Do you work a lot from home?

Q. Why Are You Doing A PhD?
A. Because I am: intelligent, imaginative, methodical, confident, curious, argumentative, thorough, controversial, good at teaching myself, an independent thinker, stubborn, dedicated, pro-active, ambitious, prefer to control my own destiny, a good communicator, bored easy by traditional work, original, literate, dynamic, cynical, good at planning, want to be the best, self-motivating, visionary, can accept criticism, willing to learn from others, well organised, and have a thirst for knowledge, good concentration, a desire to make a difference, can admit mistakes, and prefer to control my own destiny.

Maybe you could get up every day at 9 and do 100 words before lunch?

It is totally doable, just start writing the damn thing. Even if what you are writing is garbage and you haven't finished all the data analysis it will all fall into place eventually. Just start writing. An hour a day to start and then it will gain momentum. then you will be finished. Just write.

2 is more like a solution.

The relationship between a supervisor and a student is not always a symmetrical relationship.

This is because the supervisor has more power than the student.

He/she has a monopoly on knowledge/power and resources.

A good supervisor cares about students, fosters relationships of mutual respect, altruistic regard and concern for the student.

A bad supervisor does not. A bad supervisor is selfish and inauthentic. A bad supervisor only cares about personal advancement.

If you have a bad supervisor and want to influence how they treat you, then you have to win power/leverage. You have to find out exactly what they want and give it to them in drips and drabs so that they become more dependent upon you. Then when you know they are hooked, you pull it away from them.

If they start to treat you better in the hope you will give them more of the good stuff - then you have won.

The balance of power has to be shifted in your favour.

One way to do this is to build up a network of support where researchers shift dependence away from the supervisor/student relationship so that the supervisor becomes almost redundant while still giving the supervisor a half decent amount of what he/she wants. Then the supervisor is within your power.

Personal aside: on my Master's course there was a Lecturer taking one of our tutorials. He has lots of power within our University because he wins lots of funding. He is egotistical and arrogant. He is condescending. He asked the class their opinion on something. No one answered out fear of being ridiculed. I gave an extreme and radical answer. He laughed at me and condescended me. I looked at him directly in the eye and said: "your opinion bores me". The class gasped. He blushed.

Then he winked at me and smiled.

Certainly not 1 or 3.

I will start with 3 because this is the most serious mistake (probably ever, that a subordinate can make... in any organisation with a top-down structure of hegemony). I will then move on to 2 which is the second most serious mistake (out of the options you have given us).

3) In any political situation marked by vertical power structures, all subordinates have to respect the chain of command.

This is because in any conflict situation the person with the most power wins.

If a subordinate goes above a line manager's head by reporting him/her to his/her superior this is the equivalent of political suicide. Effectively you have threatened his or her position in the organisation by threatening him with a very powerful weapon (relative to your line managers position in the hierarchy, i.e. their boss). NEVER DO THIS. NEVER EVER. If your line manager believes you have done this he/she will do everything in his/her power to destroy you. If you report your line manager to someone with more power than them they will take this is a direct declaration of war. As your line manage has more power than you, you will be crushed/terminated. End of story.

1) 'Put up and shut up' does not work either, it communicates acceptance of the treatment, feeds his/her feeling of power, makes them want to control you even more, and destroys your self esteem. Your supervisor may not even be aware that they are bullying you. Most of the time they don't care if they are or they are not, they just want results with minimal effort. Being passive is not a good choice because it does not resolve a negative situation. It perpetuates it and therefore increases its potency. Passiveness will destroy you from the inside as you develop more and more the feelings that you are worthless resulting in chronic depression.

I would bet £100 you are an introvert, most likely INTJ. (There is a one in sixteen chance these predicted letters are all correct).

I would be very surprised if the first two letters of my prediction are incorrect.

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