When the expected happens: Facing a major life event in graduate school.

Abstract

This article is a qualitative review of the first author's personal experience with navigating a medical illness while in her doctoral program in clinical psychology, and its unanticipated impact on her sense of self and her ability to function as usual in her academic, research, and clinical endeavors. The authors identify key themes including the widely held myth that young adults are invulnerable. The first author reflects on her identity as a Black woman and the unexpected medical racism she experienced in key interactions with medical providers. These experiences of racism infused a sociopolitical dimension to a personal experience. As context, the authors emphasize that advanced graduate study is stressful, and that graduate students in doctoral psychology training programs experience a wide range of psychological and life stressors including exposure to major life events such as illness, loss, and trauma. The authors highlight the critical importance of intentionally, proactively, and actively supporting graduate students via program and institutional practices as they navigate the challenging world of health service psychology doctoral training. Graduate programs are encouraged to consider a range of recommendations. Public Significance StatementInsufficient public attention has been paid to the major life events that graduate students may experience over the course of their doctoral training. This article discusses a graduate student's experience with a major illness, highlights themes as they relate to her identity, and encourages awareness of graduate student vulnerability. The authors emphasize the importance of health service psychology training programs developing, and ensuring that students are aware of, policies and procedures designed to support them during challenging times.

Addressing intersectional identities and experiences in professional psychology trainees with disabilities: A call for action.

“…Empirical study of the experiences of disabled trainees has allowed faculty and programs to identify common barriers faced by disabled trainees in their doctoral programs and thus develop strategies to help ameliorate those barriers, such as increasing faculty and supervisor knowledge of reasonable accommodations and the process of requesting and securing accommodations (Lund, Wilbur, et al, 2020; Wilbur et al, 2019). Only through understanding the experiences of multiply marginalized trainees with disabilities can programs and faculty understand the experiences, barriers, and needs of these trainees (Sosoo & Wise, 2021), and research provides a way to share these experiences and knowledge across programs and settings.…”

“…In terms of other potential data sources, qualitative research could be very helpful in understanding the nuanced and complex identities, experiences, and needs of multiply marginalized trainees with disabilities. Qualitative research is an important tool understanding the experiences of people with historically marginalized and silenced populations (Saldaña, 2015) and helps bring attention and awareness to intersectional experiences that might have otherwise been ignored or overlooked (Lightfoot & Williams, 2009; Sosoo & Wise, 2021). In addition, qualitative studies do not require a large sample (Saldaña, 2015), thus rendering them ideal for studying smaller populations where statistical power may be a barrier to quantitative analyses.…”

Valuing the insider-professional perspective of disability: A call for rehabilitation psychologists to support disabled psychologists and trainees across the profession.

“…As a result, disabled psychologists and trainees might be asked to choose whether they would like to speak from a disability perspective or a professional perspective (Lund, Hughes, et al, 2021) because the duality of someone holding both disabled (i.e., insider) and professional (i.e., presumed outsider) perspectives might be uncomfortable for others who with a less developed sense of disability allyship (Forber-Pratt et al, 2019). This might be especially true for disabled trainees who also hold other marginalized identities (Lund et al, 2022; Miles et al, 2017; Sosoo & Wise, 2021) and who might be asked, inappropriately, to hold or express one identity at a time rather than being allowed to acknowledge and discuss how the intersection of various identities influences their experiences and perspectives (Lund et al, 2022).…”

“…These include the founding of a Division 22 Disability Identity Committee that is focused on the experiences of psychologists and trainees with disabilities, publication of some of the seminal works on disabled psychologists and psychology trainees (e.g., Andrews et al, 2013, 2019; Lund et al, 2014; Taube & Olkin, 2011), and regular conference presentations devoted to disability as diversity and disabled psychologists and trainees. Rehabilitation psychologist, because of their interest in disability, might also be more likely to be aware of some key works on disabled psychologists and trainees published in other outlets, such as Training and Education in Professional Psychology (e.g., Lund et al, 2016; Lund, Andrews, et al, 2020; Lund, Wilbur, & Kuemmel, 2020; Lund et al, 2021; Pearlstein & Soyster, 2019; Pearlstein et al, 2021; Sosoo & Wise, 2021; Wilbur et al, 2019), Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (e.g., Daughtry et al, 2009; Hauser et al, 2000), Teaching of Psychology (e.g., Lund, 2021a), and American Psychologist (e.g., Dunn & Andrews, 2015). When engaging in cross-specialty dialogue (e.g., grand rounds, nonrehabilitation-specific conference presentations, masters and doctoral graduate teaching and supervision, listserv and social media discussions), rehabilitation psychologists can share the key findings and principles of these studies and articles with others in a way that is approachable and digestible but also informative.…”

Graduate student workload: Pandemic challenges and recommendations for accommodations

“…Stress is linked to physical health concerns (Abate et al, 2020; Kane, 2009) and may be a potential reason graduate students experience disproportionate rates of physical health concerns. Sosoo and Wise (2021) describe the first‐hand experience of graduate students experiencing physical health complications during their education, including various systemic inequalities.…”