Helping Students Adapt to Graduate School: Making the Grade

Help graduate students cope with the pressures of school, finances, family, and professors! In order to succeed in school: The college undergraduate just has to be able to find and operate an elevator in the campus high-rise The master's degree student has to climb the side of the building The PhD student doing research with a professor has to jump over the building in a single bound, carrying the professor That bit of grim humor contains a bitter kernel of truth. Helping Students Adapt to Graduate Schoolis the first book that focuses on the unique problems of graduate students and the best ways to counsel and support them. Graduate and professional schools are draining - emotionally, financially, and physically. In addition to coping with the pressures of classes and high performance expectations, many graduate students juggle multiple lives, trying to please their professors, maintain their status as adults, pay for books and classes and rent and food, keep up a place to live, preserve their marriages, raise their children, and deal with their parents, all while they work as teaching assistants, resident advisors, or research assistants. When adults return to school, they may find themselves forced into a childlike status, causing considerable resentment or regression and sometimes reawakening old conflicts. Furthermore, the relationship of professors and graduate students is often complex and emotionally enmeshed, tinged with issues of respect, rivalry, and even romance. Not surprisingly, many graduate students find the conflicts overwhelming at times. With fascinating case studies and lucid explanations, Helping Students Adapt to Graduate Schooloffers a clear look at the special difficulties of graduate students and practical ways the university can help, including: fostering a sense of belonging providing year-round mental health services helping students handle financial pressures and career decisions supporting the unique needs of minority, international, married, and older students understanding the hidden subtext of faculty-student relationships encouraging a balance of family and school Helping Students Adapt to Graduate Schoolis an essential resource for deans, administrators, professors, and counselors working with graduate students. By illuminating the complex interplay between the university environment and the inner psychological life of graduate students, it will help you provide supportive services to the students in your campus community.

Robert L. Arnstein, MD, formerly Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, is now an Emeritus Professor. He continues to serve on the Editorial Board of the Journal of College Student Psychotherapy of which he was a founding member. Varda Backus, MD, a member of Scripps Clinic and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, is a member of the American College of Psychiatrists. Harrison P. Eddy, MD, He was Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the New York Medical College and an attending psychiatrist and teacher in the residency program at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York. Myron B. Liptzin, MD, is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine where he was formerly the Director of Mental Health Services of the Student Health Service. He is a Fellow of the American College Health Association and was also past president of their Section on Mental Health. Malkah Tolpin Notman, MD, a Training and Supervising Analyst, is president of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. Now Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, she was formerly a faculty member of the Boston University School of Medicine, Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and an associate psychiatrist at Wellesley College. Peter Reich, MD, Chief of the Mental Health Service at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Medical Department, is Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at MIT and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School. He is a member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and Society. Elizabeth Aub Reid, MD, was a psychiatrist in the Student Health Service at Harvard University where she was the Director of Training and later, Director of Consultation and Liaison to the university. Lorraine D. Siggins, MD, Psychiatrist-in-Chief at the Yale University Health Service, is also Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. She is Supervising Analyst at the Western New England Institute of Psychoanalysis. Earle Silber, MD, a Supervising and Training Analyst in the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, is a consultant to the Division of Clinical and Behavioral Research of the National Institute of Mental Health and to the National Capital Military Psychiatry Residency Program. Morton Silverman, MD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Associate Dean of Students in the University and Director of the Student Counseling and Resource Service at the University of Chicago. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, the official journal of the American Association of Suicidology. Tom G. Stauffer, MD, is Chief Psychiatrist and Director of Health Services at Sarah Lawrence College and Clinical Associate Professor at Cornell Medical College. He is a Fellow of both the American College Health Association and the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry. Robert E. Wenger, MD, conducts a private psychiatric practice which includes the treatment of university students and is currently Director of an inpatient program at the Charter Fairmount Institute in Philadelphia. He was Associate Director of the Student Health Service and Associate Director of the Counseling and Psychological Services at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.