Welcome to Part 2 of my discussion with Dr Darragh McCashin. In Part 1 Darragh discussed his PhD in Digital mental health and his path to being an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at Dublin City University during COVID. In part 2, we start off replaying what he was saying about the mental health challenges faced by PhD and early career researchers in particular and then we get into a focus on the imposter, something that we can probably all relate to. Based on his work and that of his colleagues in the EU ReMO COST Action, ReMo standing for Researcher Mental Health Observatory, Darragh talks about what is imposterism, how it is experienced, the importance of raising awareness and the power of sharing our imposter experiences. He also talks about the importance of taking both top down and bottom up approaches for dealing with imposterism, and shares practical strategies for doing this.

“You see the value in putting oneself out there”

“It's incredibly powerful when somebody beside you a different career stage …spews the same type of impostor stuff”

“It's multi level… it has to be top down meets bottom up”

“You're externalising it. And you're living with rather than…living under the feelings of impostor”

“At an institutional level, there needs to be an acknowledgement matched with resources”

Overview (times approximate):

0:30 Preamble

01:40 How he got into this work in the first place – by putting himself out there

07:29 The themes that come up in discussions about mental health, how mental health issues practically play out and the patterns he sees

12:28 The importance of taking both a top down and bottom-up approach

15:50 How he defines imposter

19:13 Moving to talk about the levels and practical tips for taking action; Being aware of the imposter cycle - ‘It’s always the next thing’ and imposter awareness

21:44 Changing toxic lab environments by connecting, and sharing to disrupt the imposter cycle by increasing awareness

27:50 Externalizing the imposter as a common experience, finding ways to disrupt the patterns – the importance of language framing – living with rather than under the imposter

34:15 More about what can be done to support each other at the group level

37:03 The systemic issues and working at the system/institutional level where there needs to be acknowledgement matched by resources, and the challenges of a duty of care

42:59 Final thoughts wrapping up – signposting ReMO COST Action and their manifesto re multi-level change

44:35 My reflections at the end

47:29 End

Download a full transcript of the conversation here.

Related Links

People/Projects/Webinars:

Darragh’s ReMO Webinar on ‘Understanding the Psychology of Impostor Syndrome in Academia and Beyond’ YouTube link

ReMO COST Action

ReMO Researcher Mental Health and Wellbeing Manifesto

Gábor Kismihók, Brian Cahill, Stéphanie Gauttier, Janet Metcalfe, Stefan T. Mol, Darragh McCashin, Jana Lasser, Murat Güneş, Mathias Schroijen, Martin Grund, Katia Levecque, Susan Guthrie, Katarzyna Wac, Jesper Dahlgaard, Mohamad Nadim Adi, & Christina Kling. (2021). Researcher Mental Health and Well-being Manifesto.

Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5788557

ReMO on twitter

Hugh Kearns https://www.ithinkwell.com.au/hugh-kearns

Papers:

Katia Levecque et al, 2017 Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students. Research Policy, 46:4, 868-879.

Interview with Katia   https://www.science.org/content/article/four-years-after-landmark-study-phd-student-mental-health-what-has-changed

Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey, 2021, Stop telling women they have imposter syndrome, HBR

Kirstin Mulholland, David Nichol & Aidan Gillespie, 2022, ‘It feels like you’re going back to the beginning…’: addressing imposter feelings in early career academics through the creation of communities of practice, J. Of Further and Higher Education, online July 2022.