Hi everyone, I've been registered on this site for a while and found it really useful, so wanted to ask some advice myself and hope it might be useful to others. Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.

In my third year of a PhD in arts / humanities, I have basically been told that my department won't allow me to submit my thesis as they think it is not ready and that there's a good chance I will fail. I am also suffering from anxiety and haven't performed well at the yearly panel I did this summer, which I have to take in order to progress to the next year and / or submit.

Setting aside the fact I'm pretty angry at my uni for how they've handled this, and that it's only now they're telling me that this is really the only option they're giving me, I wanted to ask for advice in how to present this interruption of study on job applications and CVs?

Also, does anyone have advice on what sort of work it is best to do during an interruption - where can I apply for with an as yet incomplete PhD? Ideally, I would like to do something that boosts my CV academically but am looking both within and outside academia for work.