Hi; this is an awkward question, but, since I started my PhD last year, after completing a MA, my supervisor, who is relatively young, and is supervising for the first time, appears to have tried to keep me from collaborating with other people, especially outside of my department. I am actually quite hard-working, and he knows it, and he seems to value it, but he never EVER supports me to go beyond what he has planned for me. While I appreciate his input - which is normally spot on -and his expertise - I relocated to the US to work with him -, whenever I talk about potential projects (or even commissioned papers!!) with researchers from other institutions or other departments within the university, he switches to bit*h mode, and reminds me about my commitments with the department, and how I'm meant to focus on what I already have. After almost a year of seeing this, day in, day out, I think he's not comfortable with the idea that I might actually publish without him. He always has this slightly condescending tone when we talk about the field, to the point that I get home and I think about all day and all night. Then the day after he's fine again... has this happened to anyone of you? have you ever felt your supervisor was uncomfortable with your success?
Thanks!
H

In case he has a permanent position, I don't really see why he should be jealous. Your success does not really affect him, does it? Maybe he just fears that you let slip your PhD research, which has a negative impact on his group and thus on him. I think it is not strange that your supervisor wants you to focus on the research you are paid for and not for the research of other departments if it exceeds a certain extent.

I think that since your supervisor is supervising for the first time, he's probably just very conscious of keeping everything on track and possibly discouraging you from doing things that will take time away from your own work. It's no bad thing that he's being careful. My supervisor is also a first-time supervisor and is in turn being closely supervised by the head of department, so there is a lot of focus on keeping on track.

My supervisor would feel like this if I tried to publish something with someone else without him. I think it is him wanting to feel valued, rather than being jealous. It's as if I publish something alone, he wouldn't feel needed and therefore I would be getting too big for my boots, because I do still need him. Could it be the same with yours?

Just echoing what everyone else has said really, your supervisor has no reason to be jealous of you. It sounds as though he is trying to keep you focused on your PhD work, before you start thinking of future projects. Also if you are funded, most universities prefer you to spend the majority of your time on your PhD rather than on other work. I would listen to his advice.

Hi Hoxton
I felt the same way when I just started - I'm quite a go-getter, and felt like I was being held back/not encouraged and also wondered whether my supervisor only wanted me to succeed on his terms. I was so eager to go out there and seize all these wonderful opportunities that crossed my path, and his reluctance and disdain etc really got to me.
Three years later I am incredibly grateful for his guidance, because I now realise that your reputation in academia is everything - it's basically all you have. I think he was protecting me from my own enthusiasm for two reasons - firstly, as everyone said - to keep me on track. (I'm due to submit my dissertation in two weeks, and I would never have been able to stay on track to finish in three years if I got side-tracked) Secondly, I realise now that I was a bit ignorant about some issues in my field, and that I would have been haunted by sub-par work for years to come if I collaborated with people at that stage. There is some merit to keeping your nose down and paying your dues for a while at least. And now that I'm almost done, he is definitely more supportive.
Every situation is different, but I thought you might like to hear how a similar situation turned out.
Good luck!

Hi Hoxton. I agree with Ellebelle, chickpea and butterfly. I think your supervisor is just being careful. It is always easy to get engaged with other projects, and for sure some of them may be even more interesting than your PhD. My supervisor is also young. I did a lot of experiments and data gathering in parallel for my PhD topics, some of my topics were abandoned, because things did not work. And I did little of writing. Today I am struggling because of that. I don't know what is your case for sure, please understand. However, my advise would be focus on PhD project or topics one by one (depending if your PhD is a monograph or by publications). We are students, and thus may not realise how much time we need or how to get our thesis done on time, because of we lack experience. Thus, we need supervision. After you finish, you may do as many projects as you wish at one time. If you think you are good enough to work on several projects, good on you. It means, you are able to finish your PhD earlier and get a post-doc and work on things you like earlier.
My opinion is based on my mistakes. Also, because of our supervisors are young I strongly recommend to contact other researchers regarding your PhD project. Good luck!