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Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR) AIHR

Staying grounded during your PhD

Practical tools to boost your stability

Researching and writing a PhD has it all: it can be rewarding, exciting, difficult, and lonely. A fitting set of skills and insights on how you deal best with yourself when the going gets rough will help you with such a long project. And the going will get rough, that is almost guaranteed: you might get stuck or lost, are frustrated about your difficult supervisor, doubt your abilities, work way too much or procrastinate more than is good for you. Resilience is needed and this workshop will teach you the skills to bounce back.

Things might be even more challenging if you are the first person in your family doing a PhD, if you are combining a paid job with academic work or if there are other issues that make your life challenging.

What you need is resilience: the ability to bounce back when life is getting difficult. People differ in that: some seem to be able to handle just about everything, while others are less stable. The good news is however that you can learn to be more resilient. This workshop teaches you the skills to do just that.

Resilience is needed.

You learn

  • What the 5 pillars of resilience are.
  • What pressure, stress and anxiety do with mind and body, and how you can minimize the negative effects.
  • How to handle feelings such as anger, loneliness, shame or uncertainty.
  • How to discover and use your strengths and resources.
  • How to find and use opportunities during your PhD, even when it’s difficult.

After the workshop you will

  • Have a better understanding of yourself.
  • Know a large number of practical, hands-on and useful tools.
  • Have your personal recipe box, so you know exactly what you can do when things are getting strenuous or difficult.
Course dates & Registration
  • Registration - general information

    This course was offered in the Autumn Semester 2024 and we are not sure yet if it will be offered in the Spring Semester 2025.

    Your local research school will inform you when registration opens. When registration is open, you will find the registrations links in the fold-out. Please register for the waiting list if the course is full. This also signals the demand for the course, thanks.

    Full? Click here for the waiting list

Bounce Back

This course was called Bounce Back in the previous years. The teacher has revised the training for more introspecation and retrospection opportunities which is benefical for changing routines and we changed the title to "Staying grounded during your PhD".

The facts

  • Three sessions of three hours.
  • Online or on campus
  • Small group with 3-8 participants.


Content

  • The 5 pillars of resilience.
  • Stress and self-care.
  • How to deal with
    • people around you such as supervisors or others.
    • difficult emotions such as uncertainty, anger, powerlessness or shame.
  • Self-knowledge: understand how you cope with difficulties.
    • which conscious and unconscious strategies do you use in challenging situations?
    • If they work: how can you strengthen them?
    • If they don’t work: how can you change them?
  • Using possibilities.
    • How can you find power and direction?
    • How do you discover and use opportunities?

 

This workshop combines knowledge transfer with exercises, reflection and practical tools.

Teacher

Alexandra Gerny of Gerny Coaching + Consulting 

Gerny Coaching + Consulting