You got into graduate school! Hooray! Before embarking on a multiyear journey, it’s worth a moment of self-congratulation for this extraordinary achievement. It’s the culmination of everything you have accomplished since, well, kindergarten. It’s also worth recognizing that you did the hard work needed to survey your interests, discover your passions, and determine what field most deserves your talent and energy throughout your professional life. It’s fine if you don’t know what you’ll do with your degree yet – that will come once you have had more experience over the next few years. For now, be excited that you chose psychology – a field that has the potential to understand and improve people’s lives through a focus on literally every thought, feeling, and behavior for literally every minute of every day for every human on the planet. No other discipline can say that, and soon you will be an emerging expert in this most exciting field.

But back to celebration for a moment longer. It is harder to get into graduate school in psychology than most other areas of graduate study, at least in the US. Data are not available for every subdiscipline, but for doctoral programs in clinical psychology, for instance, only 8 percent of applicants get into US programs, and during the pandemic that proportion got a lot smaller as the number of applications nearly doubled. That means that your admission to graduate school may have been harder than getting into med school, law school, or even veterinary school, which means that you have some unusually advanced skills and experience that will most likely be sufficient to ensure you will thrive over the next few years. While admission into these programs is a uniting factor for successful applicants, each student comes in with varying levels of experience, presentations, and publications. You may be tempted to compare yourself to others on these metrics during your first week of classes. Don’t. Each applicant was selected for admission based on their potential to excel in our field, and most of those metrics reflect the generosity of mentors more than students’ potential anyway. Be assured that if you were admitted, you deserve to be in graduate school as much as everyone else. (See Chapter 5 on Imposter Syndrome to help you understand why it’s normal if you sometimes doubt yourself.)

What should you expect during your first year of graduate school and how can you be successful and happy for the next 12 months? That’s what this chapter will touch upon below, with a focus on graduate coursework, some thoughts about your general demeanor and sources of support now that you are on the path to a graduate degree, and some discussion on getting started with research.

1. Graduate Coursework

For many first-year students, graduate coursework may present a confusing paradox. On the one hand, succeeding in courses is kind of in your wheelhouse. It was probably your ability to complete reading assignments, write essays, study for exams, and get good grades that led you to get into a remarkably competitive graduate program. Most programs also contribute to the illusion that coursework is what graduate school is all about; it is common for many first years to take about three courses in each semester of their first year, which leads many people to determine that although this is a lighter courseload than you had as an undergrad, these are graduate courses and thus perhaps more advanced, requiring you to dedicate even more effort on them for your first year. Indeed, these classes can be time-consuming – they will soak up whatever time you allot to them.

Therein lies the paradox, because in actuality, most professors would agree that your coursework actually represents a relatively less important aspect of your graduate training. Of course, it’s not that coursework is unimportant, and you certainly should not ignore your assignments. It’s just not your main focus. That’s for two reasons. First, it is completely expected that you will pass these courses. The graduate school selection process usually is successful in admitting high-achieving, scholastically inclined, and perhaps even perfectionistic (more on this later) students, each of whom has a long history of getting good grades. Assuming you apply a reasonable amount of effort and bring your well-established intellect and thoughtful inquisitiveness into each class, you will do fine. I would not lose sleep over a graduate-level class midterm or final (except perhaps in statistics), because these classes are not expected to yield great variance in students’ performance, and it is widely assumed you will do fine just by being the student you have become in the last 17 years of formal schooling.

But note that there is also a second reason why graduate coursework should not be your main focus: no one will ever see your grades. No internship, postdoctoral fellowship, or eventual job application in academia, practice, or industry will ever ask for your GPA or graduate transcript. (Note: If you apply for a training grant from the National Institutes of Health, they may ask, however.) No one lists a graduate GPA on their CV, and no one will care what grades you got. In fact, some graduate schools don’t even assign formal grades of A, B, C, etc. but rather list Pass vs. High Pass. Now, again – a quick caveat. You should not aim to fail these classes. In fact, most graduate schools will put you on probation if you get a “Low Pass” grade and will expel you for a “Fail.” But under the assumption that this chapter is being read by a student with a long history of academic success, a strong work ethic, and a small dose of perfectionistic tendencies, it is safe to say that you do not need to worry about your grades.

You may be wondering – what is the best orientation to have in graduate coursework, then? It may be worth thinking of your coursework as a context to get exposure to a wide array of theories, findings, approaches, and techniques to expand your thinking in psychology. Probably for that reason, graduate professors are known to offer far more reading assignments each week than any human could possibly complete thoroughly, and each class session is dedicated toward group discussion about these readings to expand your mind and debate the concepts referenced therein. Your understanding of the facts is important, of course, but your ability to engage with the material – question it, apply it, discuss it – is often emphasized more, with graduate training focused on seeing “how you think,” and helping you to become a questioning, informed scholar rather than a regurgitator of facts. It’s good to speak up in graduate school and it’s great to challenge concepts you’ve read about, and point out their limitations. It is NOT great to have your computer opened to surf social media during class, even if you got away with that as an undergrad. Remember, your goal is not to know enough material to get an A; it is to discuss and think about the material in a thoughtful way. Perhaps for those reasons, your assignments will be essays and term papers, and rather than discussing your grades at faculty meetings, your professors will discuss how well you explained and questioned concepts in your written work and during class.

With the exception of your statistics classes in your first year, there is not a lot of studying, per se, in graduate coursework, and truth be told, not all students have completed all readings before all classes (i.e., splitting up readings and trading outlines among classmates is a common practice). But there is a lot of information to digest. In many training programs, graduate training is conceptualized as helping you to progress through three levels, which can be conceptualized as a pyramid perhaps. Those levels are based on the concept that in graduate school your training is meant to help you gain exposure, experience, and expertise. You start at the bottom – the widest level – gaining broad exposure to tons of concepts and ideas (thus, many classes with an abundance of readings). By your second year, you are already taking only two classes a semester (with perhaps zero to one class each semester in your latter years of graduate school), but delving further into your research, teaching, and/or practice where you can apply the information you have been exposed to and gain practical experience. As the pyramid shape implies, you won’t get to experience everything you had exposure to, and there will be some areas of psychology (or some ideas within your area) that were foundational but never lead to applied experiences. That’s ok, and there’s no reason to worry that you are ill-prepared or missing out. Your exposure is supporting your future experiences and will inform your work for decades to come. Similarly, your expertise will represent only a thin sliver of all you were exposed to, or all you experienced. For most students, this expertise comes from your work on your dissertation – the topic of which may be the one area you will feel an expert in when you graduate. This truly is the pinnacle of your graduate school journey and note that it is not based on a class; it is informed by the material you were exposed to in your coursework, and emerged from your experience, but reflects a narrower focus and specific question for which you are one of very few in the world that can claim to be an expert.

In other words, you don’t have to stress out over your coursework as a first-year graduate student, and you are not expected to dedicate excessive energy toward becoming an expert in each class, or on each assignment during your first year. Graduate school is hard enough, and this year should be dedicated toward the enormous adjustment it takes to become a new kind of student. Save some energy to focus on those areas of adjustment below, and trust your well-honed academic skills to be sufficient when it comes to graduate classes.

2. Time Management, Combating Perfectionism, and Getting Support

If you are not hyper-focusing on graduate classes, then what are you doing during your first year of graduate school? Of course, your first year will include a start to your independent (yet, mentored) research career (more on that below), but it may be worth conceptualizing this year as an adjustment year, which includes a focus on skills that are not formally taught, but will be sorely needed for you to succeed in a career in psychology. It has been said that (ok, no it hasn’t, but we are saying it now) that the greatest accomplishment in your first year of graduate school is to develop work habits that will guide you for decades to come.

Graduate school will ask more of you than anyone can achieve. This is not meant to inspire a challenge; this is a fact, and it is one that requires a substantial change in your approach to your graduate career, and perhaps your professional career for years after that. Put simply: you are intentionally being tempted to bite off more than you can chew so you can struggle a bit and learn a new way of chewing. During graduate school, you will learn that you cannot accept every opportunity, you will not do your best on every task, and you will experience critique and rejection. This is a good thing. If you did everything perfectly the day you got there, then you would get the PhD upon admission. You are supposed to fall on your face, get substantial revisions on most of your drafts, and have to redo your work, sometimes from scratch. In graduate school, you should have learning goals, not performance goals. If you strive to be perfect at everything in graduate school, then ironically you have failed in understanding the point of your education. Instead, strive to learn as much as you can in graduate school, and remember that we often learn the most after we stumble.

These challenges will not just come from your formal graduate training. Moving to a new city or state, as is often required, is strenuous on its own. For some, going to graduate school often necessitates leaving behind friends, family, and loved ones. For others, graduate school occurs during the same life stage when we are living truly independently for the first time (i.e., not in a dorm), when we form stable, enduring romantic relationships, or fully realize sexual and gender identities. We are managing a budget to live on (often coming from a small stipend), and beginning to accrue substantial student loan debts. It is the time when we have to keep an apartment, develop a life outside of school that is not created for us by campus life administrators, and develop hobbies that help us find respite. These are the years when parents or grandparents may experience severe illnesses, our siblings may begin to have children, we may be exposed to significant life events, societal stressors, or face new forms of discrimination. It is also a life period when research suggests we may be susceptible to the onset of some types of psychological symptoms. It is a time psychological research refers to as emerging adulthood and all of this is layered on top of a rigorous, demanding, multiyear course of study.

Before we discuss the ways to handle the new work- and lifestyles that graduate school demands, the importance of keeping up with your physical and mental health cannot be overstated. Many graduate students seek psychological treatment to focus on emotional wellness. Your program (or more advanced students) might have recommendations for providers in your area. You will be much better positioned to deal with the demands of graduate school if you make a conscious effort to take care of your body with exercise, regular and healthy meals, and adequate sleep. It sounds simple, but with the potentially consuming nature of your new responsibilities, it’s easier than you might expect to neglect these areas. It will take time to find balance, but you will be better off for it.

You have a lot to adjust to, and one piece of this is the experience of setting your own schedule, determining when and how you best work on graduate school tasks, and developing self-directed initiatives to take on many responsibilities, often without the structure of externally imposed deadlines. It’s important to note that you are the one managing your own work; that is, you likely won’t have a structured list of tasks laid out for you by somebody else. You also are responsible for setting your own agenda and holding yourself to it. That’s a new experience for most people, which means that you are not expected to know how to do it on the first day of graduate school. In a given day during your first month of graduate school, you may have class readings to complete, lab meetings to attend, research ideas you would like to explore, perhaps grading or research responsibilities to finish to earn your stipend, as well as the need to start determining the topic of your master’s thesis, and the daunting notion that there have been about four million articles published in APA’s PsychInfo database, a few hundred of which you will eventually need to read, comprehend, and critique.

That list may make you feel overwhelmed just by reading it, but you can handle it! You may run into trouble, however, if you attempt to do it all at once, if you expect to do it all perfectly, or if you can’t get started. Let’s discuss each of those issues one at a time.

3. Getting Support

Graduate school is not quite like medical or law school, and is very different from a full-time job that one may get in the business world, or at a local commercial establishment. It may be hard to find support because it often takes so long to explain to people what exactly your life is like now. Your fellow graduate student peers may be an outstanding resource for you as you begin.

Graduate school represents a period of unprecedented change and growth for many of us, and having others to commiserate and empathize may be a social necessity. If you have entered your program with other first-year students, this cohort represents a group of individuals who will most likely have similar interests, ambitions, and prior experiences. As discussed earlier, first-year graduate students are thrust into a brand new social environment, often without the comfort of their close friends nearby. Luckily, most others in your class also likely have recently vacant social lives, providing a mutually beneficial opportunity for friendship. These individuals can uniquely relate to the trials and tribulations that may arise during the first year of graduate school. Additionally, growing close with your fellow graduate students may confer unique academic opportunities. Having a small group of individuals to share ideas related to coursework or research is enormously beneficial. Fellow first years also can provide expertise in their specific niches, and thus are valuable resources for fresh perspectives and collaboration across a variety of diverse topics. Indeed, brainstorming creative ways to intertwine your own research interests with those of your peers can lead to exciting projects which may intersect multiple subfields of psychology. But of course, beware – these interactions with your peers are also fertile ground for social comparisons, particularly if your friend asks you if you’re planning on applying for some fancy grant you’ve never heard of, or mentions they are pulling together a symposium for a conference while you’re working on your first poster. Try to turn these moments of intimidation or insecurity into inspiration. Everyone learns and reaches milestones at different rates and it will be all the more sweet when you can motivate and celebrate each other. Anecdotally, it is more common than not that the student you were in awe of as a first year will tell you years later that it was you that seemed intimidating to them.

4. Starting Your Research

You talked about research in your graduate school applications, you discussed it in your interviews, you have tried to explain it to your family and friends a zillion times (“No, it is not just searching for things on Google”) and now you are here, and everyone says you are supposed to get started doing research.

If you are a first-year student who has had this thought, know that you are not alone. Many first-year students have had experience assisting graduate students or faculty with their own work, but many have never been an “independent” or principal investigator on their own. So you may feel ready to “run subjects,” supervise undergrads, or search PsychInfo, but you may not feel like you are clear on the steps needed to start your own research program. This makes the first year of graduate school potentially challenging and anxiety-provoking.

Let’s start at the very beginning. As a first-year student, “doing research” could mean a million (well, ok, actually about a dozen) different things, including reading articles on topics that interest you, learning about available data sets in your advisor’s lab, reading the study protocol from recent studies done by your peers and advisors, reading the human subjects or grant applications that support your lab’s work, watching videos of prior subject “runs,” running some simple descriptive statistics (e.g., means, correlations) on available data sets, watching conference presentations online, or just sitting around and thinking of hypotheses that could be interesting to test. As a first-year graduate student, all of this “counts” as research, and it is probably useful to establish a foundation of knowledge about prior work in the field, extant resources, and a self-assessment of what excited you the most. Particularly essential – ask tons of questions of your peers and mentor about their recent research: what did they study, why, how did they think about prior work in the field, how is their work unique, where do they think the field is going, what were their initial ideas and what pitfalls did they experience, what have they recently discussed in the lab, what other investigators do they follow, and so on, and so on. You find yourself now in an exceptionally rich intellectual environment, surrounded by faculty and students. Use the people around you as resources. In addition to learning from their answers to these questions, you can and should explore collaboration possibilities, ask for help, ask them if they have access to the software you need, bounce ideas off each other, share skills, or just enjoy their friendship and social support. If the first year of graduate school is meant to develop your ability to “think” like a researcher, then these conversations will be enormously helpful to achieve that goal. Don’t worry about bothering people, because enjoying these types of discussions is likely a large part of why they are in academia to begin with.

Based on your lab, and how data are collected, analyzed, and prepared for presentation/publication, you may have an opportunity (or requirement) to begin coming up with your own research questions. See the sections above in this chapter about the best way to get started with this task, without becoming plagued by time management challenges, paralyzing perfectionism, or procrastination. It is helpful to develop a system for keeping track of ideas, whether in a notebook, spreadsheet, or other format. You may also consider saving relevant research articles or identifying and following researchers whose publications interest you. In fact, if you feel comfortable thinking of research ideas early in your first year, or by the beginning of your second year, you may want to even consider applying for a graduate fellowship. This is briefly discussed below. Lastly, the research idea phase can seem daunting, undefined, and limitless; it may be that starting a project (e.g., a fellowship application, publication) even before you have finalized your research focus is necessary in order to move forward. Often research ideas are developed in the writing process, and beginning a project can help when the brainstorming phase begins to feel stagnant.

Once you begin writing, you may notice an interesting quandary: most scientific writing in our field has an authoritative and didactic tone, often using statements that seem to capture an entire field or trend with decades of knowledge behind it (e.g., “For a scientific discipline focusing on the study of behavior, it is ironic that so few investigators have examined the behaviors that best predict scientific productivity”). Yet, first-year students almost never have the experience to encapsulate an entire body of literature with statements such as these, making it hard to write in the manner that academic scholarship may require.

This is one reason why it is so common for even fantastic writers to go through many, many drafts when they begin writing scientific presentations and publications in graduate school. Each draft leads the writer back to the literature to learn more, which helps inform both changes in the content and writing style of the next draft, and so on. Nevertheless, first-year students can rely on two tips to help them accelerate the development of their scientific writing acumen. First, a terrific and recent review paper (especially in a high-impact journal) is worth its weight in gold. If done correctly, a paper that has well summarized the extant literature and listed areas of repetition vs. gaps has given you most of what you need to begin writing in an authoritative voice. Beware of the literature review that is not very high in quality, or in a highly respected outlet. Of course, you also need to do exhaustive searches of the literature yourself. But a great literature review can help you feel more confident that your conclusions are supported by other experts who may have been in the field for longer than you, and you can probably find many terrific papers to read by searching for the papers in this literature review first.

A second tip will send you back to your mentor’s office, and that’s a good thing. Mentors often have thought deeply about the field and the topic you are writing about, so it is great to simply interview them for their perceptions of the “current state of the literature.” Assuming that your mentor will likely be an author on whatever you are writing in your first year, it is acceptable to include their own perspective in your writing, and even to use their words in your writing (i.e., after all, they are an author too). Some labs may offer you an informal chance to hear your mentor’s perspective on the literature as you discuss recent, relevant papers. If not, then asking your mentor to talk about their opinions, their impressions of other scholars’ work, and why they think your research will make an important contribution is a great way to get started. Mentors think of this as a “scaffolding” approach, to borrow a term from the parenting literature in developmental science. The mentor will give you as much structure as you need to help you stand on your own, and will slowly remove that structure or tangible support to keep you working just beyond your current skill level. Data suggest that is the way that you will keep growing, but never feel like you will fall flat on your face. Let’s acknowledge, however, that this approach has two potentially negative consequences: (1) you may rarely feel fully competent while in graduate school; and (2) you may feel frustrated that your mentor is constantly raising the bar of expectations as the years progress. If this seems true for you, it is always ok to ask your mentor if you are progressing well “based on your current level of training,” to help you gain your footing and know that although you are still growing, you are on track.

5. Summary

Getting into graduate school is a huge achievement, and the start to an educational pathway that is quite different from the many years of schooling preceding matriculation. You are not expected to know what you are doing when you arrive, and your first year is likely best spent adjusting to a new university, with new colleagues, peers, mentors, and expectations. The first year of graduate school is a great time to establish habits that you can benefit from for decades to come, including the recognition that our field will ask more of you than any human could ever deliver. So it’s essential that you learn how to pace yourself, set expectations that are reasonable, and find ways to be kind to yourself. You will never be less busy from this point forward, but in this year, you can learn to be someone who will keep work stimulating, find ways to be productive, yet also recognize that life is more than your career in psychology.

If the average applied psychology student is asked confidentially why they are pursuing a career in their field, the most likely answer is “to help people.” Although this answer is such a cliché that it sometimes causes graduate admissions committee members to wrinkle their noses, in fact it is perfectly appropriate. The ultimate purpose of applied psychology is to alleviate human suffering and promote human health and happiness. Unfortunately, good will does not necessarily imply good outcomes. If mere intentionality were enough, there would never have been a reason for psychology in the first place, because human beings have always desired a happy life and shown compassion for others. It is not enough for psychology students to want to help: one must also know how to help.

In most areas of human skill and competence, “know-how” comes in two forms, and psychology is no exception. Sometimes knowledge is acquired by actually doing a task, perhaps with guidance and shaping from others, and with a great deal of trial and error. This approach is especially helpful when the outcomes of action are immediate, clear, and limited to a specific range of events. Motor skills such as walking or shooting a basketball are actions of that kind. The baby trying to learn to walk stands and then falls hundreds of times before the skill of walking is acquired. The basketball goes through the hoop or it does not, providing just the feedback needed – even experienced players will shoot hundreds of times a day to keep this skill sharp. In areas such as these, “practice makes perfect,” or at least adequate.

Sometimes, however, knowledge is best acquired in part through verbal rules. This approach is especially helpful when a task is complex and the outcomes are probabilistic, delayed, subtle, and multifaceted. You could never learn to send a rocket to the moon or to build a skyscraper through direct experience. For rule-based learning to be effective, however, the rules themselves have to be carefully tested and systematized. One of the greatest inventions of human beings the last 2000 years has been the development of the scientific method as a means of generating and testing rules that work. Human “know-how” has advanced most quickly in areas that are most directly touched by science, as a glance around almost any modern living room will confirm.

The problem faced by students of applied psychology is that the desire to be of help immediately pushes in the direction of “learning by doing” even though often the situations applied psychologists face do not produce outcomes that are immediate, clear, or occur within a known range of options. Consider parents who want to know how to raise their children. There are times that poor advice can seem to produce good immediate outcomes at the expense of long-term success. For example, telling children they are doing wonderfully, no matter what, may feel good initially but the children may grow up with a sense of entitlement and a poor understanding of how hard work is needed to succeed. Similarly, a clinician in psychotherapy can do an infinite number of things. The immediate results are a weak guide to the acquisition of real clinical know-how because effects can be delayed, probabilistic, subtle, and multifaceted.

All of this would be admitted by everyone were it not for two things. First, some aspects of the clinical situation are and need to be responsive to directed shaping and trial and error learning. Experience alone may teach clinicians how to behave in the role of a helper, for example. As the role is acquired, the confidence of clinicians will almost always increase, because the clinician “knows what to do.” Some of this kind of learning is truly important, such as learning to relate to another person in a genuine way, but trial and error does not necessarily lead to an increase in the ability to actually produce desired clinical outcomes. That brings us to the second feature of the situation that can mistakenly capture the actions of students in professional psychology. Clients change for many reasons and what practitioners cannot see, without specific attempts to do so, is what would have happened if the practitioner had done something different. Many medical practices (e.g., blood-letting; mud packs) survived for centuries due to the judgmental bias produced by this process. Many problems wax and wane regardless of intervention, and some features of professional interventions are reassuring and helpful almost regardless of the specifics. Thus, with experience, most practitioners feel not only confident, but also competent, because in general it appears that good outcomes are being achieved. It is natural in these circumstances for the practitioner to respond based on their “clinical experience.”

That is a mistake. Over more than half a century in virtually every area in which clinical judgment is pitted against statistical prediction, statistical prediction does a better job (Reference Grove and LloydGrove & Lloyd, 2006). Yet even when faced with clear clinical failures, practitioners are most likely to rely on clinical judgment rather than objective data to determine what to do next (Reference Stewart and ChamblessStewart & Chambless, 2008). This suggests that it can be psychologically difficult to integrate the rules that emerge from research with one actual history of ongoing effort to be of help to others.

Part of the problem is that science can suggest courses of action that are not personally preferred, which takes considerable psychological flexibility to overcome. Consider the use of exposure methods in anxiety disorders, which arguably have stronger scientific support than any other form of psychological intervention for any mental health problem (Reference Abramowitz, Deacon and WhitesideAbramowitz et al., 2019). Despite overwhelming empirical support, few clients receive this treatment, and when they do, often it is not delivered properly (Reference Farrell, Deacon, Kemp, Dixon and SyFarrell et al., 2013). Dissemination research has helped explain this distressing fact. Meta-analyses show that training in exposure increases knowledge about it, but not its use (Reference Trivasse, Webb and WallerTrivasse et al., 2020). Instead, what most determines use of exposure is the psychological posture of clinicians themselves. When practitioners are unwilling to feel their own discomfort over causing discomfort in someone else, even if it will help them, they avoid using exposure methods or detune their delivery (Reference Scherr, Herbert and FormanScherr et al., 2015). Problems of this kind abound in evidence-based care. As another example, drug and alcohol counselors need to learn to sit with their discomfort over “using drugs to treat the use of drugs” to encourage the use of methadone for clients addicted to heroin (Reference Varra, Hayes, Roget and FisherVarra et al., 2008). Rules alone do not ensure use of evidence-based practices: practitioners themselves need to be open to the psychological difficulties of that scientific journey and scientists need to think of practitioners more as people than as mere tools for dissemination (Reference Hayes and HofmannHayes & Hofmann, 2018a).

In one sense, scientist-practitioners are those who have deliberately stepped into the ambiguity that lies between the two kinds of “know-how.” They are willing to live with the conflict between the urgency of helping others and the sometimes slow pace of scientific knowledge. Fortunately, due to the past efforts of others, in most areas of applied psychology this is a road that fits with provider values: this openness to discomfort is for a larger purpose. There is considerable evidence that the use of empirically supported procedures increases positive outcomes (Reference Hayes and HofmannHayes & Hofmann, 2018b). When agencies convert to the use of such methods, client outcomes are better, especially if practitioners are encouraged to fit specific methods to specific client needs (Reference Weisz, Chorpita, Palinkas, Schoenwald, Miranda, Bearman, Daleiden, Ugueto, Ho, Martin, Gray, Alleyne, Langer, Southam-Gerow and GibbonsWeisz et al., 2012). Improvements tend to be longer-lasting (Reference Cukrowicz, Timmons, Sawyer, Caron, Gummelt and JoinerCukrowicz et al., 2011), and staff turnover is reduced (Reference Aarons, Sommerfeld, Hecht, Silovsky and ChaffinAarons et al., 2009).

But in other ways, this is a road with difficulties. Most patients given psychosocial treatment do not receive evidence-based care (Reference Wolitzky-Taylor, Zimmermann, Arch, De Guzman and LagomasinoWolitzky-Taylor et al., 2015). There are some understandable reasons. Adherence to treatment manuals does not alone guarantee good outcomes (Reference Shadish, Matt, Navarro and PhillipsShadish et al., 2000) and the important work of learning how to use scientifically supported methods in more flexible ways to fit individual needs is still in its infancy (Reference Fisher and BoswellFisher & Boswell, 2016; Reference Hayes, Hofmann and StantonHayes, Hofmann, & Stanton, 2020). It is important to know the specific processes of change that account for the effects of these methods, but that is often not clear (Reference Hayes, Hofmann and CiarrochiHayes, Hofmann, & Ciarrochi, 2020; Reference La Greca, Silverman and LochmanLa Greca et al., 2009). While there is considerable evidence that relationship factors are key to many clinical outcomes (Reference Norcross and WampoldNorcross & Wampold, 2011), there remains limited evidence of the specific variables that alter these factors while maintaining positive outcomes (Reference Creed and KendallCreed & Kendall, 2005; Reference Hayes, Hofmann and CiarrochiHayes, Hofmann, & Ciarrochi, 2020).

What often drives the research of an applied scientist is the possibility of doing a greater amount of good by reaching a larger number of people than could be reached directly. Ultimately the idea that scientifically filtered processes and procedures will help more people more efficiently and effectively is the dream of applied science. Unfortunately, this dream is surprisingly hard to realize. It is difficult to produce research that will be consumed by others and that will make a difference in applied work. For the practitioner, a reliance on scientifically based procedures will not fully remove the tension between clinical experience and scientific forms of knowing, because virtually no technologies exist that are fully curative, and only a fraction of clients will respond fully and adequately based on what is now known.

This chapter is for students who are considering taking “the scientific path” in their applied careers. We will discuss how to be effective within the scientist-practitioner model, whether in the clinic or in the research laboratory. We will briefly examine its history, and then consider how to produce and consume research in a way that makes a difference.

1. History of the Scientist-Practitioner Model

From the early inceptions of applied psychology, science and practice were thought of by many as inseparable. This is exemplified by Lightmer Witmer’s claim that:

This vision began to be formalized in 1947 (Reference Shakow, Hilgard, Kelly, Luckey, Sanford and ShafferShakow et al., 1947) when the American Psychological Association adopted as standard policy the idea that professional psychology graduate students would be trained both as scientists and as practitioners. In August of 1948 a collection of professionals representing the spectrum of behavioral health care providers met in Boulder, Colorado with the intent of defining the content of graduate training in clinical psychology. One important outcome of this two-week long conference was the unanimous recommendation for the adoption of the scientist-practitioner model of training. At the onset of the conference, not all attendees were in agreement on this issue. Some doubted that a true realization of this model was even possible. Nevertheless, there were at least five general reasons for the unanimous decision.

The first reason was the understanding that specialization in one area versus the other tended to produce a narrowness of thinking, thus necessitating the need for training programs that promoted flexibility in thinking and action. It was believed that such flexibility could be established when “persons within the same general field specialize in different aspects, as inevitably happens, cross-fertilization and breadth of approach are likely to characterize such a profession” (Reference RaimyRaimy, 1950, p. 81).

The second reason for the unanimous decision was the belief that training in both practice and research could begin to circumvent the lack of useful scientific information regarding effective practice that was then available. It was hoped that research conducted by those interested in practice would yield information useful in the guidance of applied decisions.

The third reason for the adoption of the scientist-practitioner model was the generally held belief that there would be no problem finding students capable of fulfilling the prescribed training. The final two reasons why the model was ultimately adopted is the cooperative potential for the merger of these two roles. It was believed that a scientist who held at hand many clinical questions would be able to set forth a research agenda adequate for answering these questions, and could expect economic support for research agendas that could be funded by clinical endeavors.

Despite the vision from the Boulder Conference, its earnest implementation was still very much in question. The sentiment was exemplified by Reference RaimyRaimy (1950):

The scientist-practitioner model was revisited in conference form quite frequently in the years that followed. While these conferences tended to reaffirm the belief in the strength of the model, they also revealed an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the model as it was applied in practice. The scientist-practitioner split feared by the original participants in the Boulder Conference gradually became more and more of a reality. In 1961, a report published by the Joint Commission on Mental Health voiced concerns regarding this split. In 1965 a conference was held in Chicago where the participants displayed open disgruntlement about the process of adopting and applying the model (Reference Hoch, Ross and WinderHoch et al., 1966).

The late 1960s and 1970s brought a profound change in the degree of support for the scientist-practitioner model. Professional schools were created, at first within the university setting and then in free-standing form (Reference PetersonPeterson, 1968, Reference Peterson1976). The Vail Conference went far beyond previous conferences in explicitly endorsing the creation of doctor of psychology degrees and downplaying the scientist-practitioner model as the appropriate model for professional training in psychology (Reference KormanKorman, 1976). The federal government, however, began to fund well-controlled and large-scale psychosocial research studies, providing a growing impetus for the creation of a research base relevant to practice.

The 1980s and 1990s saw contradictory trends. The split of the American Psychological Society (now the Association for Psychological Science) from the American Psychological Association, a process largely led by scientist-practitioners, reflected the growing discontent of scientist-practitioners in professional psychology disconnected from science (Reference HayesHayes, 1987). Professional schools, few of which adopted a scientist-practitioner model, proliferated but began to run into economic problems as the managed care revolution undermined the dominance of psychology as a form of independent practice (Reference Hayes, Follette, Dawes and GradyHayes et al., 1995). The federal government began to actively promote evidence-based practice, through a wide variety of funded initiatives in dissemination, diffusion, and research/practice collaboration. Research-based clinical practice guidelines began to appear (Reference Hayes and GreggHayes & Gregg, 2001), and the field of psychology began to launch formal efforts to summarize a maturing clinical research literature, such as the Division 12 initiative in developing a list of empirically supported treatments (Reference Chambless, Sanderson, Shoham, Johnson, Pope, Crits-Christoph, Baker, Johnson, Woody, Sue, Beutler, Williams and McMurryChambless et al., 1996). An outgrowth of APS, the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science (APCS), began with a 1994 conference on ‘‘Psychological Science in the 21st Century.’’ In 1995, the APCS was formally established and began recognizing doctoral and internship programs that advocated science-based clinical training.

In the 2000s, the movement toward “evidence-based practice” began to take hold in psychology (Reference GoodheartGoodheart, 2011), but the definition of “evidence” was considerably broadened to give equal weight to the personal experiences of the clinician and to scientific evidence. The penetration of formal scientific evidence into psychological practice continued to be slow (Reference Stewart and ChamblessStewart & Chambless, 2007), which began to receive national publicity. For example, Newsweek ran a story under the title “Ignoring the Evidence: Why do psychologists reject science?” (Reference BegleyBegley, 2009). Practical concerns also began to be raised about the dominance of the individual psychotherapy model in comparison to web- and phone-based interventions, self-help approaches, and media-based methods (Reference Kazdin and BlaséKazdin & Blasé, 2011). Treatment guidelines (e.g., Reference Hayes, Follette, Dawes and GradyHayes et al., 1995) began to be embraced even by leaders of mainstream psychology (Reference GoodheartGoodheart, 2011). Finally, more science-based organizations took stronger steps to accredit training programs that emphasize a “clinical scientist” model, and to advocate for these values in the public arena. In 2007 the APCS formally launched the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System; in 2011 there were about a dozen doctoral programs accredited by this process; a decade later there are over 60 accredited programs and 12 internships.

The last decade has been what looks like a retrenchment in many ways, but really it is more of a revitalization and reformation of the scientist-practitioner model. A substantial body of evidence about what practices work best is now available, but the systems for disseminating that evidence are faltering. For example, the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices maintained by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the United States Department of Health and Human Services (www.nrepp.samhsa.gov/) has been shut down by the United States government, and the list of evidence-based intervention methods maintained by the Clinical Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association is being updated only irregularly. At the same time, professional training programs that eschew the importance of science to day-to-day professional practice continue to grow.

With the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, the funders of research in mental illness appear to have abandoned hope that research focused on syndromes will ever lead to a deep understanding of mental health problems. In part in response to criticisms of the DSM-5, the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH) established the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) program that aims to classify mental disorders based on processes of change linked to developmental neurobiological changes (Reference Insel, Cuthbert, Garvey, Heinssen, Pine, Quinn, Quinn, Sanislow and WangInsel et al., 2010).

Meanwhile, psychology is turning in a more process-based direction as well (Reference Hayes and HofmannHayes & Hofmann, 2018b), with a greater emphasis on theory-based, dynamic, progressive, contextually bound, modifiable, and multilevel changes or mechanisms that occur in predictable, empirically established sequences oriented toward desirable outcomes (Reference Hofmann and HayesHofmann & Hayes, 2019). If this transition continues, trademarked protocols linked to syndromes will receive less attention in the future as a model of evidence-based therapy, and comprehensive models of evidence-based processes of change, linked to evidence-based intervention kernels that move these processes, and that help a specific client achieve their desired goals, will receive more attention.

The student of applied psychology needs to think through these issues and consider their implications for professional values. Professionals of tomorrow will face considerable pressures to adopt evidence-based practices. We would argue that this can be a good thing, if psychological professionals embrace their role in the future world of scientifically based professional psychology. Doing so requires learning how to do research that will inform practice, how to assimilate the research evidence as it emerges, and how to incorporate empiricism into practice itself. It is to those topics that we now turn.

2. Doing Research That Makes a Difference

The vast majority of psychological research makes little impact. The modal number of citations for published psychological research between 2005 and 2010 was only two (Reference KurillaKurilla, 2017) and most psychology faculty and researchers are little known outside of their immediate circle of students and colleagues. From this situation we can conclude the following: If a psychology student does what usually comes to mind in psychological research based on the typical research models, he or she will make only a limited impact, because that is precisely what others have done who have come to that end. A more unusual approach is needed to do research that makes a difference.

Making a difference in psychological research can be facilitated by clarity about (a) the nature of science, and (b) the information needs of practitioners.

3. The Practical Role of the Scientist-Practitioner

In the practical environment, the scientist-practitioner is an individual who performs three primary roles. First, the scientist-practitioner is a consumer of research, able to identify, acquire, and apply empirically supported treatments and assessments to those in need. This requires well-developed practical skills, but it also requires substantial empirical skills. The purpose of this consumption is to put empirically based procedures into actual practice.

Second, the scientist-practitioner evaluates his or her own program and practices. The modern day scientist-practitioner “must not only be a superb clinician capable of supervising interventions, and intervening directly on difficult cases, but must also be intimately familiar with the process of evaluating the effectiveness of interventions … and must adapt the scientific method to practical settings” (Reference Hayes, Barlow and Nelson-GrayHayes et al., 1999, p. 1). This requires knowledge of time series or “single case” research designs, clinical replications series, effectiveness research approaches, and idiographic analysis of change processes viewed as complex networks, among others. Additive model group research methods, which use existing programs as a kind of baseline and thus raise far fewer ethical issues than group research protocols with no treatment control groups, are also gaining in popularity in applied settings.

Third, the scientist-practitioner reports advances to applied and scientific communities, contributing both to greater understanding of applied problems and to the evolution of effective systems of care. In today’s landscape, a wide variety of contributions are possible from practical sites.

For example, clinical replications series and open effectiveness trials in applied settings are highly valued in the empirical clinical literature (e.g., Reference Persons, Bostrom and BertagbolliPersons et al., 1999; Reference Watkins, Hunter, Hepner, Paddock, de la Cruz, Zhou and GilmoreWatkins et al., 2011). Clinical replication series are large collections of single case experimental designs and empirical case studies using well-defined treatment approaches and intensive measurement. Their purpose is to determine rates of successes and failures, and factors that contribute to these outcomes, in a defined patient group.

These kinds of contributions are essential to the overall goal of developing scientific know-how that will help alleviate human suffering. Clinical replication series provide an excellent example. For clinical research to be useful to practitioners, it must be known what kinds of client are most likely to respond to what kinds of treatments in the real-world setting. Indeed, sometimes methods that succeed in highly controlled efficacy trials fail in effectiveness trials when real-world issues are factored in (e.g., Reference Hallfors, Cho, Sanchez, Khatapoush, Kim and BauerHallfors et al., 2006). This question cannot be adequately answered purely based on data from major research centers because the number and variety of clients needed to address such questions are much too large. Only practitioners have the client flow and practical interest that formal clinical replication series demand.

As processes of change have come to the fore, the role of idiographic research has also been increasingly emphasized (Reference Hayes, Hofmann, Stanton, Carpenter, Sanford, Curtiss and CiarrochiHayes et al., 2019). That is true for several reasons, but a profound one is that behavioral science is realizing what the physical sciences concluded 90 years ago: processes of change based on analysis of collections of individual units will apply to those individual units only if they are “ergodic,” that is, if they are identical and unchanging (Reference Molenaar and CampbellMolenaar & Campbell, 2009). That means that psychology will not be able to understand how change processes work unless they begin with idiographic findings, and only the practice base has adequate access to the numbers of cases needed, one at a time.

4. Looking Ahead

The history of science suggests that, in the long run, society will ultimately embrace scientific knowing over know-how that emerges from trial and error whenever substantial scientific evidence exists. That has happened in architectural and structural design, public health, physical medicine, food safety, and myriad other areas, presumably because scientific know-how is a better guide to effective practices. The same shift is beginning to occur in mental health and substance abuse areas. But while progress has been made in the identification of techniques that are effective with specific problems or in promoting specific goals, it is clear that we still have a long way to go. Today’s students will help decide how fast the transition to an empirically based profession will be.

If the trends seen in other fields are a good guide, ultimately applied psychology will be required to adopt an evidence-based model. In the present day, however, professional trends continue to pull the field in both directions. Some in the practice leadership have argued against embracing the movement toward empirically supported treatments, preferring instead the adoption of new forms of professional training (e.g., pharmacotherapy training).

Meanwhile, changes in the field itself make the scientist-practitioner model more viable than ever. For example, the skills needed to add value to organized behavioral healthcare delivery systems are precisely those emphasized by the scientist-practitioner model. Idiographic analysis of processes of change requires a vast network of evidence-based practitioners. Expansion from mental health to behavioral health and a positive social goal will require careful empirical thinking. The scientist-practitioner model may yet provide the common ground upon which psychology as a discipline can become more relevant to human society.

Students of professional psychology will have a large role in determining how these struggles for identity will ultimately work themselves out. The scientific path is not an easy one for applied psychology students to take, but for the sake of humanity, it seems to be the one worth taking.

1. Introduction

Congratulations for either beginning or continuing your journey as a psychology graduate student! From an outsider’s perspective, attending graduate school can be viewed as a very exciting accomplishment. As such, family and friends likely shower you with supportive comments such as, “You’re so smart!”, “We had no doubt you’d get in!”, “We always knew you’d be successful!” While you may certainly share in this excitement, you may also find yourself thinking: “Wow. I really got accepted into graduate school? This had to be a mistake!”, “I doubt that I’m actually qualified.”, “It’s only a matter of time until everyone realizes I’m not as smart as they think.”

If this internal dialogue sounds familiar it’s likely that you’ve experienced (or are currently experiencing) what is formally known as the impostor syndrome, also referred to as the impostor phenomenon. However, don’t worry, because all is not lost. You are indeed qualified, and you certainly do belong in your graduate program. Furthermore, you are not alone in experiencing impostor syndrome. On the contrary, the impostor syndrome is a common (yet seldom discussed) experience that is particularly salient in graduate school. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of impostor syndrome, factors that may influence the intensity of impostor cognitions, and ways that graduate students can adaptively navigate these unhelpful ways of thinking.

2. What is Impostor Syndrome?

The impostor syndrome represents a maladaptive set of cognitions that impedes individuals’ ability to internalize their own success and take pride in their accomplishments. Specifically, the impostor syndrome refers to internal beliefs of intellectual incompetence among high-achieving individuals that are typically accompanied by difficulties internalizing success and chronic fears of being discovered as a “fraud.” Despite objective evidence of professional and/or academic success, individuals who endorse high levels of impostor syndrome often question how they have obtained a particular position or status (“How did I get into this graduate program?”), believe that they have somehow deceived those around them (“My acceptance into this program was due to some kind of error”), and worry that one day their self-perceived sense of fraudulence will be confirmed by others (“Someone will figure out that I don’t belong”).

While initially coined to capture the experiences expressed by high-achieving women (Reference Clance and ImesClance & Imes, 1978), the impostor syndrome is a nearly ubiquitous experience. In fact, one study estimates that up to 70 percent of people in the United States (Reference Matthews and ClanceMatthews & Clance, 1985) will experience impostor syndrome at some point in their lifetime. To this end, scholars have established the relevance of impostor syndrome among both males and females in a range of different contexts including adolescents (Reference Bernard and NeblettBernard & Neblett, 2018), high school students (Reference Cromwell, Brown, Sanchez-Huceles and AdairCromwell et al., 1990), undergraduate and graduate students (Reference Cowie, Nealis, Sherry, Hewitt and FlettCowie et al., 2018; Reference Stone, Saucer, Bailey, Garba, Hurst, Jackson, Krueger and CokleyStone et al., 2018), faculty and professors (Reference HutchinsHutchins, 2015; Reference Hutchins, Penney and SublettHutchins et al., 2018), and medical professionals (Reference Mattie, Gietzen, Davis and PrataMattie et al., 2008; Reference Villwock, Sobin, Koester and HarrisVillwock et al., 2016). In fact, even high-profile figures who have reached the pinnacle of success in their respective professions such as Maya Angelou, Michelle Obama, Tom Hanks, Ryan Reynolds, and Serena Williams (just to name a few) have spoken about their own experiences of impostor syndrome.

Despite its prevalence, impostor syndrome “represents a private, internal, emotional experience” (Reference LaneLane, 2015, p. 117), which may prevent individuals from acknowledging or speaking about their feelings of intellectual incompetence, especially within highly competitive and evaluative contexts such as graduate school. Thus, while it is almost certain that you will encounter conversations about impostor syndrome with peers (and maybe even professors), don’t be surprised if folks are hesitant to have in-depth conversations about the origins or severity of their impostor-related thoughts and feelings. With that being said, it is important to recognize that there may be variation in impostor experiences. For some, impostor syndrome is fleeting and manifests within acute instances of stress that may not cause any marked issues over time. However, for others, impostor syndrome represents a more chronic set of thoughts and feelings that can make their already difficult graduate school journey all the more stressful.

Chronic experiences of impostor syndrome are stressful and taxing, and erroneous self-perceptions of fraudulence (i.e., impostor syndrome thoughts) have even been linked to increased anxiety and depressive symptoms (Reference Austin, Clark, Ross and TaylorAustin et al., 2009; Reference Bernard, Lige, Willis, Sosoo and NeblettBernard et al., 2017; Reference Cokley, Smith, Bernard, Hurst, Jackson, Stone, Awosogba, Saucer, Bailey and RobertsCokley et al., 2017). Furthermore, individuals who experience impostor syndrome may also set extremely high standards of perfection; typically as a strategy to reduce the chances that they will somehow be “discovered” as a fraud (Reference Clance and ImesClance & Imes, 1978; Reference Clance and O’TooleClance & O’Toole, 1987). While these perfectionistic standards may manage the impressions of others, they may also cause individuals to become overly focused on negative evaluations, mistakes, and instances of falling short of their very high standards (i.e., perfection). For instance, although criticism, feedback, and failure represent normative experiences associated with graduate school (e.g., receiving extensive feedback on a research paper, having findings questioned at a research conference, not winning a competitive fellowship), individuals who experience impostor syndrome may be more likely to internalize and misinterpret a lack of success as confirmatory evidence of their perceived lack of ability. As a result, they may experience increased anxiety about future academic-related evaluations. Thus, it follows that individuals with higher levels of impostor syndrome have also been found to report lower levels of self-esteem and lower levels of general and academic self-concept (Reference Cokley, Awad, Smith, Jackson, Awosogba, Hurst, Stone, Blondeau and RobertsCokley et al., 2015; Reference Schubert and BowkerSchubert & Bowker, 2019). In light of this evidence, it is perhaps not surprising that the literature has connected impostor syndrome to symptoms of mental fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout among students pursuing advanced degrees (Reference Legassie, Zibrowski and GoldszmidtLegassie et al., 2008; Reference Villwock, Sobin, Koester and HarrisVillwock et al., 2016).

3. Distinguishing Impostor Syndrome

The impostor syndrome has many similarities with other constructs relating to self-perceptions of competence, yet it represents a conceptually valid and distinct construct (Reference Cozzarelli and MajorCozzarelli & Major, 1990; Reference Kolligian Jr and SternbergKolligian Jr. & Sternberg, 1991). To avoid confusion, it is important to highlight the defining and differentiating characteristics of impostor syndrome from other conceptually similar constructs before moving forward. For example, impostor syndrome and self-efficacy, or an individual’s beliefs regarding their abilities, appear to be similar in nature. However, at a conceptual level, an individual with low self-efficacy might feel and perform poorly on tasks, whereas an individual experiencing impostor syndrome may feel incompetent in spite of objective evidence of competence, such as a strong performance on an exam (Reference LaneLane, 2015; Reference Leary, Patton, Orlando and Wagoner FunkLeary et al., 2000). Thus, while self-efficacy may accurately map onto an individual’s performance on a particular task, feelings of impostor syndrome are inconsistent and in conflict with their high levels of objective success.

Social anxiety and its associated symptoms also bear strong resemblance to impostor syndrome (Reference Leary, Patton, Orlando and Wagoner FunkLeary et al., 2000). However, social anxiety is marked by significant fears of scrutiny from others, which causes considerable impairment in social, academic, or vocational contexts (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In contrast, individuals endorsing high levels of impostor syndrome are high-achieving and excel (Reference Kumar and JagacinskiKumar & Jagacinski, 2006), despite disparaging internal beliefs of intellectual inferiority (Reference Ross and KrukowskiRoss & Krukowski, 2003). As posited by Reference Chrisman, Pieper, Clance, Holland and Glickauf-HughesChrisman and colleagues (1995), impostor cognitions of intellectual incompetence may undergird desires to be perceived by others in a positive light, and as such serve as the impetus for social anxiety.

Finally, it is also important to distinguish impostor syndrome from stereotype threat – the threat of confirming a negative social stereotype about one’s own group (Reference Steele and AronsonSteele & Aronson, 1995). Although similar, research suggests that stereotype threat operates to impair performance when activated within specific evaluative settings and situations (Reference Spencer, Logel and DaviesSpencer et al., 2016). Conversely, impostor syndrome has been conceptualized to permeate beyond any one particular setting (Reference Chrisman, Pieper, Clance, Holland and Glickauf-HughesChrisman et al., 1995). As noted by Reference McClain, Beasley, Jones, Awosogba, Jackson and CokleyMcClain et al. (2016), “the nature of impostor syndrome as an emergent identity might allow impostor cognitions to be present across contexts and, thus, may affect various domains” (p. 103). Therefore, the impostor syndrome may represent a chronic experience that is unbound to a specific context, thereby distinguishing it from the relatively situationally activated nature of stereotype threat.

4. Impostor Syndrome in Graduate School

The academic context is among the most fertile grounds for impostor syndrome to thrive, especially among graduate students. Why might this be? Pursuing a graduate degree is a major commitment that commonly uproots students, placing them within unfamiliar environments that sometimes are a considerable distance from friends and family. This major life transition can feel isolating, particularly at the onset of graduate school, as students are attempting to learn the ropes of a new academic institution. For some students, this transition may feel like a true “fish out of the water” moment, as they begin to learn the expectations and demands of being in graduate school (“You want me to see patients?!”). This is only compounded by the inevitable social comparisons made with cohort members and other graduate students. Indeed, although there is no “right way” to get into graduate school, it is easy to make assumptions about the intellect and capabilities of fellow cohort members who came straight from their undergraduate degree, who had impressive jobs before coming to graduate school, or who come into graduate school with other advanced degrees, at the expense of our own laurels. These comparisons only continue as students matriculate through their program as individuals begin publishing manuscripts, applying for competitive awards or fellowships, and defending theses and dissertations.

From its onset, pursuing a psychology graduate degree can be a particularly stressful time that is characterized by a constant state of evaluation by course professors (e.g., class performance), mentors (e.g., semester evaluations), research reviewers (peer review process), and even clinical patients, which may feel particularly anxiety-provoking and overwhelming. And although the pursuit of a psychology graduate degree comes with milestones worthy of celebration (e.g., having manuscripts published, presenting at conferences), these high points are infrequent and often overshadowed by the more mundane and stressful realities of pursuing a graduate degree (e.g., rejected manuscripts, competing responsibilities, personal demands) that can lead to the development of impostor syndrome.

5. The Impostor Cycle in Graduate School

Although graduate students may readily identify with impostor syndrome, it may be more challenging to provide a first-person account of the precipitating or sequential events that caused impostor cognitions. To this end, the “impostor cycle” represents one possible sequence of events and behavioral patterns that are typical of impostor syndrome and the manifestation of impostor cognitions (Reference Sakulku and AlexanderSakulku & Alexander, 2011). As depicted in Figure 5.1, the impostor cycle begins with an academic- or graduate school-related task (e.g., an exam; teaching a lecture for the first time) in which one’s performance will be evaluated or observed by others. Graduate students with higher baselines of anxieties stemming from fears of negative evaluation may attempt to alleviate these concerns by over-preparing (e.g., excessive studying; overworking to prepare for a client) or self-handicapping behaviors (e.g., procrastination) followed by frantic last-minute preparation. When the task is completed, individuals may experience a brief, yet temporary, sense of relief, which is often followed by positive feedback on performance or praise on successful completion of the initial task. Rather than interpreting positive feedback and objective success as evidence of their own intellectual ability, individuals experiencing impostor syndrome may minimize their accomplishments and instead attribute their success to over-preparation or luck, dependent upon how they approached the initial task. Previous research notes that individuals who experience impostor syndrome hold fixed beliefs about the mechanics of success, and as a result do not equate over-preparation or hard work as a sign of true intellectual ability (Reference ClanceClance, 1985). Thus, when faced with the next task, fears of negative evaluation or failure may only be heightened as impostor cognitions lead individuals to believe that their previous success was erroneous and outside of their control, therefore reinforcing tendencies to over-prepare.

Figure 5.1 Impostor cycle.

(adapted from Reference Sakulku and AlexanderSakulku & Alexander, 2011)

While the impostor cycle represents a general pattern of beliefs and behaviors that may occur throughout graduate school, it is important to acknowledge that this cycle may look different as students matriculate through their program. As an example of these differences, we contrast the experiences of hypothetical first-year and fifth-year students.

6. Correlates of Impostor Syndrome

As mentioned earlier, the graduate school setting is a prime environment for impostor experiences to surface and thrive. Thus, it is important to be aware of where impostor syndrome comes from and what makes it worse. Despite its inception more than 30 years ago, there is little consensus as to where impostor syndrome originates. Several studies have hypothesized various origin points, with some suggesting familial messages (Reference Clance and ImesClance & Imes, 1978), others suggesting self-presentational concerns (Reference Leary, Patton, Orlando and Wagoner FunkLeary et al., 2000), and others suggesting that it may be societal messages and experiences (Reference Bernard and NeblettBernard & Neblett, 2018; Reference Stone, Saucer, Bailey, Garba, Hurst, Jackson, Krueger and CokleyStone et al., 2018). While we may not be able to precisely locate where experiences of impostor syndrome stem from, there is an abundance of research that may shed light onto what makes impostor syndrome worse.

A general consensus in the literature is that impostor syndrome does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, the prevalence, salience, and impact of impostor syndrome within graduate school can be considerably influenced by several individual and contextual factors. To this end, a brief review of these factors is warranted, as some (or many) may resonate with experiences you have had to navigate as you have prepared to begin your graduate degree in psychology, or as you have matriculated through your program. However, as a caveat, the overview presented below represents a brief review of individual and contextual factors related to impostor syndrome and by no means is exhaustive. A more detailed analysis of these factors can be seen in other papers (Reference Bernard and NeblettBernard & Neblett, 2018; Reference Bravata, Watts, Keefer, Madhusudhan, Taylor, Clark, Nelson, Cokley and HaggBravata et al., 2019; Reference Peteet, Brown, Lige and LanawayPeteet et al., 2015a; Reference Sakulku and AlexanderSakulku & Alexander, 2011; Reference Stone, Saucer, Bailey, Garba, Hurst, Jackson, Krueger and CokleyStone et al., 2018).

7. Navigating Impostor Syndrome

If you find yourself resonating with the content of this chapter, you may be thinking “That’s great, but what do we do if we have impostor cognitions? How do we treat it?” With respect to these questions, there is good news and there is okay news. The good news is that conversations about impostor syndrome have ballooned in recent years, with some discussions taking center stage at national conferences (Reference Jaremka, Ackerman, Gawronski, Rule, Sweeny, Tropp, Metz, Molina, Ryan and VickJaremka et al., 2020), making it easier to share experiences and find others who are going through the same thing. The okay news is that only a handful of research has investigated interventions for impostor syndrome. Although limited, this extant research provides valuable insights as to strategies or approaches that can systematically address impostor syndrome.

So, what can be done to alleviate the effects of impostor syndrome? First, if impostor syndrome is disrupting your day-to-day functioning in key areas (school, work, relationships, sleep) then you should consider seeking help from a mental health professional. One great source for help are the university counseling centers, which often support students who experience academic stress, which often includes impostor syndrome. Although impostor syndrome is not formally listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), mental health practitioners are typically aware of impostor syndrome and its associations with anxiety and depression. Indeed, several studies have discussed the utility of cognitive-behavioral interventions that are frequently used by mental health professionals (e.g., cognitive-behavioral therapy) to manage anxious and depressive symptoms, such as uncontrollable worry or decreased motivation, and target distorted or maladaptive cognitions that are related to impostor syndrome (Reference Bernard, Lige, Willis, Sosoo and NeblettBernard et al., 2017, Reference Bernard, Hoggard and Neblett2018). In addition, mental health professionals may know of other resources for managing impostor feelings, such as counseling support groups for graduate students.

Beyond seeking help from a mental health professional, two scientific studies offer more insight as to how to overcome impostor feelings. In the first study, Reference Zanchetta, Junker, Wolf and Traut-MattauschZanchetta and colleagues (2020) sought to assess how well a coaching intervention reduced impostor feelings. The researchers randomly assigned participants to a coaching intervention (treatment) or training intervention (control). Topics in each group included, but were not limited to, creating measurable goals, taking inventory of their abilities, and then completing an activity that helped participants internalize their identified abilities. Although the coaching and training interventions involved nearly identical activities, participants in the coaching intervention received one-on-one coaching to process the activities, whereas individuals in the training condition processed the activities in a small-group format. In all, the coaching intervention was more effective in reducing levels of impostorism. However, what’s really important to note is that each intervention involved learning about and discussing the fear of negative evaluations and the value of not hiding mistakes from others. This is particularly noteworthy given the key role that fears of negative evaluations play in manifestations of impostor syndrome (Reference ClanceClance, 1985; Reference Clance and ImesClance & Imes, 1978). Moreover, the researchers found that acknowledging and discussing fears of evaluation, via the coaching intervention, was the only statistically significant component of the intervention that reduced impostor thoughts and feelings. Thus, above all else, talking about your impostor-related thoughts and feelings to others (e.g., peers, mentors) may be among the more effective ways to reduce the salience of impostor syndrome.

In the second study, researcher Reference CiscoJonathan Cisco (2020) tested the effectiveness of an academic skills training intervention that was specifically designed to reduce impostor feelings in graduate students. This group format intervention aimed to increase students’ comfort with reading and synthesizing academic articles, a common task for graduate students. Four 90-minute interventions were used to (1) introduce and discuss impostor syndrome experiences; (2) normalize the commonness of cultivating scientific literary skills while in graduate school, as opposed to developing those skills prior to graduate school; (3) develop and practice skills for reading academic journals; and (4) develop and practice skills for writing literature reviews. Altogether, the study provided evidence that the academic skills training intervention significantly reduced levels of impostor syndrome for graduate students in the treatment groups relative to students in the control group, and the intervention decreased impostor cognitions across the duration of the intervention (pre-test and post-test levels). Thus, taking steps to discuss and normalize that novel skill acquisition continues well into graduate school may be useful in reducing social comparisons, which may in turn reduce internal perfectionistic pressures that underlie impostor cognitions.

Altogether, the above discussion and available empirical evidence for reducing impostor cognitions can be summarized into four takeaways that may help with managing impostor syndrome. The four takeaways are as follows:

1. 1. Seek professional help if you experience distress that impacts your functioning.

2. 2. Actively resist the temptation to hide your perceived flaws and mistakes.

3. 3. Possibly alone or with a professional, use deep reflection to examine fear of being negatively evaluated.

4. 4. Recognize that skills needed in graduate school are often developed during graduate school (not prior to), and that those skills can improve through support and training.

Beyond the existing empirical evidence, there may be additional strategies one can employ to help prevent or mitigate impostor cognitions and the related stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. To this end, five research-informed strategies are presented next. First, it is important to be able to identify if and when you are experiencing the impostor syndrome. Paying close attention to the vignettes presented in this chapter, reading about other’s experiences of impostor syndrome in books or pop culture writings, or accessing educational resources (e.g., TED Talks, empirical papers, conference workshops) may increase your ability to recognize common signs and situations that are related to the impostor syndrome. These strategies may be useful in helping individuals to identify and label internal thoughts of impostorism that may have otherwise gone unnoticed (e.g., “My research paper probably only received high marks because Dr. Mulki is such a nice person”).

Second, individuals who experience impostor syndrome may feel a need to hide “deficient” or imperfect parts of themselves from others, which aligns with empirical evidence that suggests shame and the impostor syndrome are positively correlated (Reference Cowman and FerrariCowman & Ferrari, 2002). However, hiding one’s suffering and distress may cause an individual to become more isolated and disconnected from crucial social supports that can normalize the impostor experiences and offer positive support. In fact, research suggests that social support is negatively related to impostor syndrome (Reference Bravata, Watts, Keefer, Madhusudhan, Taylor, Clark, Nelson, Cokley and HaggBravata et al., 2019). Therefore, it may be especially important to remain connected to social supports during distressful impostor syndrome experiences. As detailed above, sharing impostor experiences with others can be therapeutic and may actually help to normalize (and even challenge) distorted self-perceptions and beliefs regarding one’s own intellectual ability.

With recent research alluding to the fact that impostor syndrome may diminish in intensity as individuals become more acclimated and experienced with a particular context or task (Reference Rudenga and GravettRudenga & Gravett, 2019), a third strategy is to adopt a growth mindset to manage impostor cognitions. Put forth by psychologist Carol Dweck and colleagues, a growth mindset suggests an individual’s abilities can grow over time, versus remaining fixed and unchangeable (Reference Dweck and YeagerDweck & Yeager, 2019; Reference Yeager and DweckYeager & Dweck, 2012). In other words, your skills and abilities as psychology graduate students, such as scientific writing or analyzing statistical data, are not fixed but instead can be improved over time. In fact, Reference Zanchetta, Junker, Wolf and Traut-MattauschZanchetta and colleagues’ (2020) above impostor syndrome empirical intervention uses Dweck’s mindset framework to conceptualize how a growth mindset could prevent or reduce the impact of impostor cognitions. Specifically, the authors suggest that a fixed mindset can cause individuals to be fearful and avoid constructive feedback that is important for their professional development. Conversely, embracing a growth mindset allows one to recognize that their skills and abilities are malleable, which can be furthered by feedback.

The fourth strategy targets the context of impostor syndrome. As mentioned previously, impostor syndrome does not happen in a vacuum. It is not fully explained by a lone individual characteristic, but instead is likely influenced or exacerbated by the surrounding context. Given that recent research points to a mental health crisis among graduate students, especially for marginalized students (Reference Evans, Bira, Gastelum, Weiss and VanderfordEvans et al., 2018), graduate programs and faculty mentors should continue to create healthier graduate environments. For instance, a systemic approach to preventing or alleviating impostor syndrome distress may be to craft policies that promote self-care and school–life balance. Graduate student associations and committees can also advocate for and put forward possible systemic solutions. At the least, these efforts could require academic programs and graduate schools to widely acknowledge and validate the existence of impostor syndrome in graduate school. Ideally, acknowledgment of this type could give individual graduate students permission to acknowledge their own distress and resultantly seek support.

8. Conclusion

As you prepare or continue to embark on your graduate journey, we hope that this discussion has provided some insight into impostor syndrome, which represents a common experience that will more than likely rear its head on more than one occasion! Despite what this internal dialogue of being an impostor may lead you to believe, questioning your own competence does not reflect an internal fatal flaw, but rather a normative experience that is particularly prevalent within graduate school. Accordingly, it is important to remember that you do belong in graduate school, you are competent, and that many skills are expected to be developed during graduate school, and not prior. As such, we hope this discussion about impostor syndrome adds structure to your current or upcoming graduate school experience and equips you with the knowledge and resources that will help you recognize and challenge thoughts and feelings that question the validity of your own intellectual ability.

Acknowledgments

The preparation of this chapter was partially supported by the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH) Grant T32MH018869 (MPI CK Danielson, D Kilpatrick) and the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (K23MD016168-01; PI: Donte L. Bernard). All views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding agencies or respective institutions. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

In a day and age when racism, xenophobia, and bigotry are at an all-time high, cultural competency, cultural humility, and multicultural growth are of the utmost importance in our field. As a psychologist, it is inevitable that you will work with people who are different from you – not just in race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability status, but in ideology, values, and beliefs. The world we live in is ever evolving, changing, and advancing, as is our understanding of individual differences and intersectional identities. As a professional you must know how to be responsive to those that you work with, be aware of what may be offensive, and be conscious of your own biases as they may manifest. As a graduate student, you have an outstanding opportunity to grow in your understanding and application of multiculturalism and cross-cultural psychology. But be aware that to engage in this process, and to do so successfully, there likely will be moments when you feel uncomfortable, you confront biases or stereotypes you did not realize you had, and you discover “blind spots” revealing your ignorance on topics or issues well outside of your own lived experience. That’s okay. These moments of discomfort, shame, or even embarrassment can be where growth most occurs. So, come prepared with an open mind and an eagerness to learn. Challenge yourself to embrace cultural competency and implement new skills that will enhance your ability to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion. It is not only a great way to ensure that your work as a psychological scientist, teacher, or practitioner is best able to benefit all people in society; it is a social responsibility and an ethical duty to treat all people with respect. This chapter includes a brief description of key terms used to discuss your own personal journey related to cultural humility and offers advice for how you can make necessary strides in your graduate school experience.

1. Cultural Competency

As a graduate student, you may receive training in “diversity” that will provide you with greater awareness, new knowledge, and develop skills that are a core part of your professional and personal development. All psychologists interact with people: as students, mentees, research participants, or as patients. Thus, deepening your learning toward cultural competence is essential for all graduate students in order to succeed in your career, and to ensure the broadest impact of your work as a psychologist in the world around you. Cultural competence has been defined as the ability to understand and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one’s own (Reference DeAngelisDeAngelis, 2015). This theory has been a key aspect of psychological practice and scholarship for many years; however, implementation of this concept to create equitable and inclusive places has trailed behind. Many psychologists that are involved in social justice work view cultural competence as an important element in combating systemic racism and socioeconomic disparities in health and mental health care. It is the understanding that different cultural beliefs positively impact the quality of care and interventions used in treatment.

Within health service psychology (i.e., clinical, counseling, and school psychology sub-disciplines), training in cultural competence has become an integral part of graduate curricula. Recently, the American Psychological Association (APA) made it a requirement for accredited programs in these areas to specify and implement a plan for integrating diversity into both didactic and experiential training. These requirements are not mandated to graduate training in other areas of psychology; however, more work is needed to ensure that all psychology students receive this type of instruction during graduate school.

The majority of the cultural competence training emphasizes learning the patterns of thoughts and belief systems in other cultures, thereby reminding you to constantly reflect on your own thoughts and actions, and work on adapting theories, concepts, and interventions to meet the expectations of other cultures (Chui & Hung, 2005). In the health service psychology areas, research thus far has shown that 85 percent of graduate students report their graduate school provided multiple courses in diversity and 83 percent report supervised clinical experience with diverse populations. This is a drastic improvement from past decades where graduate students felt ill-equipped in their knowledge of cultural competency.

2. Multiculturalism

Another concept to be aware of is multiculturalism. Multiculturalism promotes the value of diversity as a core principle and insists that all cultural groups should be treated with respect and as equals (Reference Fowers and RichardsonFowers & Richardson, 1996). It highlights humanity, tolerance, human rights, and authenticity. A huge part of multiculturalism is observed in culture and pays particular attention to honoring differences and amplifying diversity. Central to multiculturalism is the promotion of cultural equity within psychology.

Multiculturalism deserves special attention within our field. Reports suggest that only 5 percent of psychologists in the APA identify as Asian and Hispanic, 4 percent identify as Black/African American, and 1 percent identify as biracial/multiracial (Reference FreemanFreeman, 2019). In addition to low representation, for many decades there has been a lack of urgency for a multiculturalist perspective in psychology (see “Even the Rat Was White” by Robert Reference GuthrieGuthrie, 2004). However, this has begun to change. Active learning about multiculturalism is required for healthy and helpful interactions with diverse populations, facilitating broader impacts in research, teaching, and practice. Adopting the principles of multiculturalism also promotes a stable, cohesive environment for both you and the population you’re working with. Imagine how belongingness is enhanced when someone understands your cultural values and does not find them offensive, odd, or unacceptable.

3. Cultural Humility and Multicultural Growth

Although the terms “cultural competence” and “multiculturalism” have been used frequently within psychology, a more recent construct preferred in discussions regarding diversity is “cultural humility.” Cultural humility reflects the process of gaining cultural competence and multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills, but also reflects a recognition that one is forever striving to learn, to address areas of ignorance, and to be consistently open about what one doesn’t know. Cultural humility also reflects the fact that due to countless possible forms of intersectionality (i.e., possessing many different identities simultaneously), it is always necessary to value lived experiences and differences more than to assume a comprehensive understanding of others’ experience. A focus on cultural humility will teach you to embrace the process of reflection and make it a priority during your years of studying and work in psychology. Cultural humility also can be conceptualized as the development and implementation of diversity competence as a psychologist. It is the awareness of the impact of one’s culture and diverse experiences that shapes an individual’s experiences and perspectives. This includes the impact of power, privilege, and oppression (Reference Fisher-Borne, Montana Cain and MartinFisher-Borne et al., 2015) and can be developed when scientists, teachers, and practitioners understand their own culture, privilege, and bias. These dynamics can impact one’s interactions with others (Reference Fisher-Borne, Montana Cain and MartinFisher-Borne et al., 2015). Because we each have a lived experience, we see the world around us based on that worldview.

In certain instances, when biases are created, whether implicit or explicit, it can affect the way we encode, interpret, and respond to stimuli around us. Biases are the attitudes or stereotypes that affect people’s understanding, actions, and decisions. This includes both negative and positive perspectives and thoughts that occur at times without full awareness. Biases can limit the capacity to relate to another person. At times biases also lead to marginalizing or diminishing another person’s experience. Unchecked biases limit our tolerance and acceptance of differences. So while it may initially feel uncomfortable to explore your biases, judgments, and perspectives, it’s critical to the process of gaining cultural humility.

The process of cultural humility teaches us to recognize these biases, reflect upon them, and recognize that we must understand one another’s “truth” without imposing our own biases to undermine, or rewrite, that truth. Indeed, it is in the acknowledgment of one’s own cultural biases, stereotypes, and prejudices where the true work of gaining cultural humility begins.

For some, the process of developing cultural competency, the awareness, knowledge, and skills of multiculturalism, and introspective experience reflecting cultural humility began long before graduate school. For others, the journey is just beginning. Either way, graduate school training should include a goal to make great strides in these areas. Because diversity is ever changing and evolving, so must be your understanding. Research from the US Department of Health and Human Services indicates that progress in these domains improves relationships between people from diverse identities and backgrounds (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2014). Research also suggests that many foreign countries do not see Americans as harnessing cultural sensitivity and acceptance (Reference Murray-García and TervalonMurray-García & Tervalon, 2014), suggesting that there is room for continuous improvement in relationships with people from other cultures characterized by respect, consideration, and open-mindedness.

As you begin your graduate school journey, ask yourself:

1. 1. How were you raised to treat someone of a different race?

2. 2. What comes to mind when you meet someone of a different background than you?

3. 3. What are your identities with regard to each area of diversity (gender identity, gender expression, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual attraction, sexual behavior, sexual identity, social class/socioeconomic status, physical ability, geographic upbringing, neurodiversity) and how might your identities allow you to experience the world differently than someone with different identities?

4. 4. What limitations do you have in understanding others given your own unique experiences?

4. Graduate School is a Growth Opportunity

You will develop a greater appreciation for cultural humility in graduate school, and increase your own cultural competence and multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills as well. But it’s not easy. A few tips are below. Overall, remember that cultural humility is a process, not a destination. During your time in graduate school, take every opportunity to grow in multiculturalism. Be mindful of the attitude and perspective that you have during this time. Be open and accepting of biases that you will discover in the books and theories that you will learn. Explore the inequities inherent in psychology and question why they persist. Challenge the status quo. Are you ready to look inward?

1. 1. Developing cultural humility requires introspection. You will be surprised to learn how much your own ideas, assumptions, and automatic beliefs about what seems true may not be true for everyone. In other words, you will begin to recognize the important role of lived experience in shaping our perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors and creating multiple truths. It is important to recognize that these are all equally valid and important perspectives that can coexist. Thus, what may seem “obvious” or “peculiar” or “confusing” to you may be remarkably ambiguous, profound, or certain to someone else. Your job when discovering these moments of unique points of view is not to determine who is “correct,” but rather to realize that all perspectives are valid, informative, and allow for greater dialogue to occur. In short, your job is to listen and to better understand what you don’t know, and could not have known before.

2. 2. Cultural humility is relevant for everyone, even those who have been historically marginalized. Of course, the process required to develop cultural humility is relevant not only for those with limited experience interacting with others from historically marginalized backgrounds, but also for those who themselves represent diverse identities. This work is relevant to everyone, which means first that all individuals have areas of cultural competence to develop, and second, approaching others who may appear to represent a historically marginalized identity under the assumption that they possess advanced expertise places an unfair burden on people who are engaged in advancing diversity work. Rather, it is essential for everyone to respect that we are all working toward cultural humility and simultaneously experiencing challenges and epiphanies.

3. 3. Determine when you may be most open-minded towards growth. People are most likely to grow when they are not under stress or feeling overwhelmed. So it may be important to recognize your natural tendencies to be defensive or dismissive when challenged. Your attitude can either become a roadblock and hindrance to your growth or it can thrust you into a new level of understanding. Avoiding, ignoring, and blocking out are common forms of resistance, especially if it is different from your worldview. There will be moments where difficult conversations with peers or mentors may be needed, and it is understandable if fears and anxieties arise. Use those moments to further develop ways that you can commit to learning skills that will allow the needs of historically marginalized and minoritized populations to be addressed meaningfully. Take this work with you outside the classroom. Of course, your commitment to cultural competence, multiculturalism, and cultural humility can extend well beyond the classroom or your graduate curriculum. You can think critically about your research and teaching activities. Follow thought leaders on social media who represent novel viewpoints, and attend lectures that allow you to hear about diverse perspectives. There are dozens of fantastic books and podcasts that allow people to move through the journey of cultural humility, and you can establish safe forums for discussion and growth among peers at your department or university.

4. 4. Enlist the support of a mentor. Finding a mentor is also key. The most effective mentors provide discussions and processing time to further help foster the development of cultural intelligence (Reference Murray-García, Harrell, García, Gizzi, Simms-Mackey, Barbarin and SpauldingMurray-Garcia et al., 2014). Mentors can also help benchmark your personal growth, and give you an objective perspective on your progress. Mentors will also help you with perseverance when you are struggling due to inevitable stumbles.

5. 5. Apply your work, everywhere. Outside of your own personal experience and the acquired knowledge you will attain from graduate school, pay attention to the systems that exist within society that further complicate or inhibit diversity and/or inclusion due to systemic racism. Challenging yourself will help you to overcome emotional hurdles, hindrances, and roadblocks that may come later during your work as a psychologist. During this time of learning and understanding, make time for self-reflection. Try to evaluate the impact of your personal power, privilege, or marginalization. Try to go outside of your social circle to expand the diversity of your peer group.

6. 6. Elicit peer support. Psychology graduate school is often regarded as a marathon, not a sprint, and it is important that you establish strong support systems to help you succeed. Creating a positive village that is inclusive of relationships with your peers and cohort is essential. Having others keep you accountable, sharing ideas and resources, enhances your development and training. For people who themselves represent historically marginalized identities, the village may include people who can help provide support when you are burdened and feeling pressured to represent not only your own emerging identity, but also the reputation of the group you may represent. In addition, as a diverse graduate student, you may feel compelled to respond to questions, provide explanations, or confront incorrect assumptions that can lead to exhaustion and frustration; moreover, the pressure to avoid reifying negative stereotypes while doing so is extraordinarily challenging. Peer support will be essential to allow you the space to be yourself and cope with these remarkable challenges.

7. 7. Take action. As you embark on your journey toward cultural humility and recognize the systemic inequities that have existed, and have been passively maintained for centuries in some cases, you may become angry, frustrated, and feel helpless. Turn that into meaningful, tangible, impactful action. These feelings are a good sign that you are becoming an ally, and your allyship is most valuable when you elevate the words of others, use your power to create change, and push for action where others may be less able, perhaps because their power has been taken away through systems that they were born into. As future psychologists you have the capability to be strong and influential agents of change. You can proactively call out systems of racism, power imbalances, and social injustice. As an exemplar of cultural humility, you can create and advocate for psychological science that will reduce structural forces and institutional inequalities (Reference Fisher-Borne, Montana Cain and MartinFisher-Borne et al., 2015). Your very actions, ideas, research, and guidance regarding equitable and inclusive practices can challenge and begin to build a better world for us all (Reference Fisher-Borne, Montana Cain and MartinFisher-Borne et al., 2015).

So what have you learned thus far? Cultural competence, multiculturalism, and cultural humility are more than just terms you will likely learn during your time in graduate school. They are action words that require you to rethink psychology, and perhaps your own life today. As future and current psychologists, the possibility for real change is limitless. Make a conscious decision to intentionally address issues of diversity and inclusion, from the start of your graduate school journey. Explore diversity training within your doctoral psychology program and during your studies. Create platforms for new cultural experiences so that you can be exposed to people with alternative values, beliefs, and ideologies. By approaching psychology with cultural humility you advance multicultural growth, cultural competency, and real change.

Graduate training in psychology is both an exciting and a challenging time for all students. However, there are both historical and contemporary elements that can make training in graduate programs in psychology particularly unique for students of color. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the realities but also the possibilities for graduate trainees of color in psychology. This chapter defines students/trainees of color using the US Bureau of the Census definition of color: African/American/Black, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian-American/Pacific Islander and Hispanic/Latino(a)/x. We also utilize the term Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) when referring to these trainees of color.

Who Are We?

Positionality concerns the description of one’s social location, privilege, and areas of marginalization. We feel that it is imperative to outline who the writers of this chapter are, as it informs why we decided to agree to pen this critical chapter. Notably, we are three current and former graduate trainees of color. We have all been trained at a bevy of Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), which we note have provided both immense challenge and opportunity for us as Black psychologists. One of us (S. Jones) also now has the distinct privilege of training graduate students, both White and BIPOC, which has provided a full circle experience.

Who is the Intended Audience of This Chapter?

If there were only one demographic that were to read this chapter, it is our hope that BIPOC graduate trainees will find the contents herein useful. From that perspective, this chapter could be viewed as a FUBU (For Us By Us) offering, an homage to the 1990s Black-owned clothing line, or Solange’s (2016) R&B track of the same name from her award-winning album A Seat at the Table. However, we also believe that the experiences highlighted in this chapter and navigated by many BIPOC graduate trainees may serve as fruitful multicultural understanding for non-BIPOC graduate students in psychology who count themselves as allies or accomplices of BIPOC trainees of color. According to Reference AyvazianAyvazian (1995), allyship is “intentional, overt, consistent activity that challenges prevailing patterns of oppression, makes privileges that are so often invisible visible, and facilitates the empowerment of persons targeted by oppression” (p. 6). Being an accomplice (or co-conspirator) has been described as a developmental step forward in allyship, one that has been described as connoting more risk-taking on the part of the accomplice (Reference Suyemoto, Hochman, Donovan and RoemerSuyemoto et al., 2021). Simply put, we would implore White graduate trainees to not shy away from this content, as it could aid you in having some context for understanding and supporting your fellow cohort-, class-, or lab-mate.Footnote ¹ Whether accomplice, ally, or BIPOC trainee, it is our hope that this chapter will be edifying.

Chapter Outline

In the sections that follow, we take up three principal aims. The first aim is “explaining the terrain.” In the immediate following section, we will provide a coarse overview of the most recent data on the representation and experiences of graduate trainees of color in psychology programs, with an emphasis on U.S.-based data. The second part of this section centers on briefly defining key challenges that have been identified as impacting the quality of life of graduate trainees of color. In addition to presenting these definitions, we also, where possible, provide examples of the manifestation of these challenges. Our second aim is devoted to “equipping the toolkit.” In this section, we focus on navigating the terrain of graduate school using culturally relevant relationally centered strategies, as a means of making sense of and maximizing one’s time in graduate school. We see our third aim as “embracing the thriving.” In this section, we consider how to embrace “small wins,” eschew feelings of impostor, and proverbially live your “best life” while in graduate training.

1. Explaining the Terrain

We chose to begin this section with this quote from Black psychologist Howard Stevenson (Reference Stevenson and JonesStevenson & Jones, 2015). Stevenson’s words were initially applied to the realities of parents of Black children in predominately White schools, but we find them equally apt here. You have applied to, interviewed at, and been accepted to the program of your dreams. You excitedly find a place to live in your new city and show up to your graduate student orientation full of excitement and promise. We remember this excitement. Moreover, unfortunately, we each remember a moment when the place to which we had arrived began to look and feel a bit different than we had imagined. While this moment looked different for each of us, and will also look different for you, it is nevertheless important to “explain the terrain”: some of the potential realities for BIPOC trainees. Notably, many of these realities are not specific to graduate training in psychology per se, although they are nonetheless relevant. In the subsections that follow we outline the numerical (by the numbers) and narrative (beyond the numbers) experiences of graduate trainees of color in psychology programs.

2. Equipping the (Relational) Toolkit

The combination of the factors we have discussed (i.e., tokenism, racism, microaggressions, impostor syndrome) have the potential to individually and synergistically leave BIPOC trainees feeling a long way from the proverbial day at the beach. At times, in fact, these stressors may resemble the desert experience we highlighted in the previous section, with even occasional wins feeling like a mirage. That said, we find it critical to note that graduate school does not inherently have to be an arid journey. In fact, even if some graduate programs may be more desert than beach for BIPOC trainees, we believe in the ability to find the oasis: a fertile, lush, hydrating place, even in the midst of the desert. In this section, our goal is to identify tangible tools that you can use to navigate the terrain of graduate school, creating a veritable culturally informed relational toolkit. In particular, we focus on the importance of relationships, which we feel is generally congruent with the communalistic cultural orientation of many BIPOC trainees.

2.1 Relationship Building 101: How Can I Get Myself Through Graduate School?

As BIPOC graduate students and early career faculty, we have learned firsthand that relationship building and maintenance is the key to our success and happiness in graduate school. We realize that there are many ways to approach relationships in graduate school, and we include a few that have worked for us along our journeys to the PhD.

First, determine your non-negotiables. Dr. Hailey tweeted, “Passing along some good advice: When entering grad school, a friend told me to write down the non-negotiable things that sustained my well-being and joy. She said no matter how difficult and hard things get, never negotiate on your list. That list kept me going all six years” (Reference HaileyHailey, 2021). Importantly, she added that this list can be crafted at any point in your journey as a psychologist (i.e., applying to graduate school, during graduate school, post-doctoral fellowship, or in your early or mid-career) and should be frequently assessed, reflected upon, and amended (Reference HaileyHailey, 2021). This advice can be applied to all parts of your life, even outside of school. For example, our therapist colleagues and I (A. Parks) often utilize values exploration and identification activities in our sessions with our own clients, who may be struggling with boundary setting or experiencing distress in their interpersonal relationships or with choosing a career path. There are several ways to approach creating this list. Figure 7.1 outlines one activity that my colleagues and I have found to be successful in our own priority setting in graduate school.

Figure 7.1 Activity for assessing priorities and values.

Figure 7.1 depicts an ice-cream cone. There are three pieces highlighted: the cone, the ice cream, and the cherry. The cone represents your non-negotiables; these are values, activities, categories, or items that you believe to be essential to your success as a person and a graduate student. The ice cream cone represents your negotiables; these are important to your success and happiness, but you are willing to compromise the frequency or intensity in which they exist in your life. Lastly, the cherry (or your favorite topping) represents the activities, items, or categories that you consider to be a treat. They are not required for your daily success and happiness, but when present, they add a little more joy or pleasure to your life. Importantly, these non-negotiables may look very different from what your colleagues or your institution may deem essential. The work in academia does not stop; however, that does not mean you should not take time to slow down or even go at your own pace. Our “embracing the thriving” section will further describe the importance of authenticity and how, through trial and error, to quiet the outside noise and learn to distinguish your own values from the values of others.

Keeping our ice cream cones in mind, relationships are a non-negotiable that will be vital to your success in graduate school as a BIPOC student. As people of color, traditionally, our communities sustain us. Communalism, familismo, and filial piety are similar yet unique values of BIPOC communities that reflect a shared collectivistic nature, harmony, and appreciation of interconnectedness among people (Reference Boykin, Jagers, Ellison and AlburyBoykin et al., 1997; Reference Kim, Atkinson and UmemotoKim et al., 2001; Reference Rivera, Guarnaccia, Mulvaney-Day, Lin, Torres and AlegríaRivera et al., 2008). Extant research has demonstrated that academia and many institutions were not designed for BIPOC students and currently perpetuate oppressive practices and inequities for students (and faculty, staff) of color. Many of us will serve as activists and advocates during our graduate school journey and try to dismantle a number of those oppressive practices and systems. However, we must first focus our energy and time on our humanity. There may be nothing more human than our ability to feel, empathize, and relate with others. Given this, we describe how to nurture your relationships, including the one with self, and to find your people, your family, your community, or your tribe while in graduate school.

3. Embrace the Thriving

In our first two sections, we have made the case for understanding what the landscape may be for BIPOC graduate trainees in psychology and have provided some tools for such a journey, centered on the critical role of meaningful self- and other-relationships. However, despite our extended desert/beach metaphor, and the realities that graduate school can be an exhausting experience for BIPOC students, we reject that graduate school for BIPOC students should merely be a time of surviving (mere existence). Rather, we proclaim and affirm that your experience can be a time of thriving (growth and flourishing). This is the focus of our final section.

4. Conclusion

As we close out this chapter, we wish to draw attention back to the post-colon portion of our title. This supplication is a play on the words of Brene Brown. In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Reference BrownBrown (2010) distinguishes “fitting in” versus “belonging” in the following light: whereas fitting in is described as “becoming who you need to be to be accepted,” belonging simply requires us to “be who we are.” This is our hope for every BIPOC trainee at every program in the country. As you understand the terrain that is your school and unit, take up core strategies for traversing, and embrace a spirit of thriving rather than simply surviving, we trust that it will lead you to a feeling that you belong at your program as your authentic self, without needing to conform, transform, or assimilate. Indeed, whether the sand between your toes is beach or desert, you belong at your graduate school program.

Nevertheless, in the immortal words of Levar Burton on Reading Rainbow “don’t just take [our] word for it.” We invite you to read the following list of affirmations provided by trainees of color (Table 7.1).

Why are we writing a chapter in the Portable Mentor for sexual and gender minority (SGM) graduate students in psychology? Recent data from Gallup indicates that the number of individuals openly identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) in the US is rising and that the largest increases are happening among individuals between the ages of 18 and 36 (Reference NewportNewport, 2018). As our community becomes increasingly visible – particularly among young adults – the field of psychology needs to talk more directly about how to provide mentorship for sexual and gender minority trainees to meet their unique needs. We intentionally use the term “sexual and gender minority” as a broad umbrella term to be inclusive of the wide range of identities and lived experiences of individuals within the LGBTQ community.

Why is the fact that you are a member of the SGM community relevant to your graduate experience? There are many universal graduate student experiences (e.g., professional skill development, research milestones) that you will face alongside your cisgender and heterosexual peers. However, as an SGM graduate student, you will need to navigate unique circumstances related to your identity. Due to both the successes and challenges we have had, we recognize how important it is for SGM graduate students in psychology to have access to identity-specific mentorship. Given that it can be hard to find an SGM-identifying mentor in your field – which can be further complicated if your SGM identities are invisible – we hope this chapter will serve as a supplemental mentor to guide you through personal and professional issues unique to SGM students.

Although this chapter is first and foremost written for the benefit of SGM students, we hope it can be helpful for allies at any level of training in psychology to learn more about the unique considerations for SGM students. For example, the information here may be beneficial for peer allies seeking guidance on how to support SGM colleagues, or for faculty mentors to learn how to effectively mentor SGM students.

We have structured this chapter chronologically to follow your trajectory through the early stages of a career in psychology, as we know that professional considerations related to an SGM identity will evolve as you advance through your training. Specifically, we will discuss common concerns and opportunities experienced by SGM students before, during, and after graduate school.

This chapter is informed by our experiences as queer, cisgender women who navigated personal and professional issues in graduate school related to our identities and research interests in SGM populations. We recognize that we cannot speak for the lived experiences of all individuals within the SGM community; thus, this chapter is not intended to be a comprehensive guide for all SGM graduate students. There are several other published resources available for SGM graduate students in psychology, which we hope you will explore in addition to this chapter (see Table 8.1), including a resource from the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS; “Proud and Prepared”) that highlights voices and experiences from a range of SGM students. Ultimately, we hope that this chapter can support you as you seek out personalized mentorship and as you navigate your own professional development as an SGM psychologist.

1. Before Graduate School: The Application and Interview Process

So, you have decided to pursue a graduate degree in psychology – great! The process of applying to and interviewing with potential graduate programs carries both opportunities and challenges related to your identity as an SGM individual. We will provide recommendations specific to SGM applicants that may help you through the process of identifying and narrowing your list of prospective mentors and programs. Similarly, this section will guide you through unique considerations relevant to the application and interview process that will help you to succeed as a prospective SGM graduate student.

2. During Graduate School: Navigating Life as an SGM Graduate Student

You’ve made it! You successfully entered a graduate program in your chosen area of psychology, hopefully with a research mentor that provides a good fit for your interests and needs. Ideally, you enrolled in a graduate program that provides an inclusive environment for SGM students, although you may still recognize areas for potential improvement. So, now what? In this section, we discuss considerations for SGM students as you navigate your day-to-day life in graduate school.

For some SGM students, especially if you moved to a new city and are developing new social circles, starting graduate school in psychology may offer a wonderful opportunity to introduce yourself as you wish. Particularly for transgender and non-binary students, whether you have been using your affirmed name and pronouns for a long time or you are at the beginning stages of transitioning, starting graduate school affords you the opportunity to present yourself however you wish to be recognized in professional spheres.

3. Leaving Graduate School: Early Career Considerations

We wrote this chapter as we were completing our predoctoral internship in clinical psychology and began our postdoctoral fellowships, so we want to acknowledge that our lived experience of early career considerations for SGM trainees is just beginning! Nevertheless, we hope to leave you with a few thoughts regarding the transition from graduate school into your early career in psychology.

4. Closing Thoughts

Reading this chapter was a great place to start, and you are likely well on your way to developing a successful career as an SGM psychologist. There are many paths to success, and only you know what will be right for your career. Your perspective as an SGM psychologist will likely change over time, both due to your developmental stage and broader societal processes. For instance, we witnessed substantial socio-political changes regarding SGM communities in our time in graduate school (e.g., federal recognition of marriage equality). Your professional development as an SGM psychologist will be a dynamic process that will benefit from revisiting the topics in this chapter throughout your early career stages and beyond.

Many graduate programs are sincerely invested in fostering diversity and increasing the number of students from under-represented backgrounds who will contribute to our discipline. But increasing representation is only one step needed to address inequities, disparities, and injustices. Helping all students thrive and have an equal opportunity to achieve their educational goals requires the creation of “safe spaces” in which demographic differences are understood, appreciated, and considered in larger educational systems.

A frequently overlooked identity characteristic that can significantly impact the graduate school experience is being a first-generation (first-gen) college student. First-gen status can present unique challenges that not only affect students’ performance and graduate training experiences, but also their identity development and relationships with loved ones. As such, first-gen status is an important aspect of students’ identity that warrants consideration and tailored support. In this chapter, we (a) define first-gen status; (b) note the common strengths of first-gen students; (c) elaborate on challenges first-gen students may face; and (d) share examples of how first-gen status may intersect with other aspects of one’s multicultural identity. Following this discussion, we provide specific recommendations for first-gen psychology graduate students navigating academia.

We would like to acknowledge up front that the discussion that follows is not intended to equate the experiences of first-gen status with the litany of challenges faced by students belonging to minority groups (e.g., students of racial/ethnic minority, international, or LGBTQ status). Rather, we are noting that first-gen students have unique experiences, compared to continuing-generation students, and these experiences may be particularly relevant and impactful for minority students.

1. A Note About the Authors

All authors were once first-gen, doctoral graduate students in clinical psychology programs, with graduation dates ranging from 1993 to 2019. Currently, the authors are of different professional statuses, ranging from postdoctoral fellow to tenured faculty. In this chapter, we present shared themes that characterized our, and others’, collective experiences as first-gen graduate students. Throughout, we provide personal anecdotes to illustrate how being of first-gen status impacted our personal and professional lives as graduate students.

2. Tips for Dealing with Financial Challenges

• Be proactive in seeking funding opportunities. In many programs, grad school costs can often be deferred or mitigated through TA-/RA-ships and other fellowships. You may also explore national and federal funding mechanisms. For instance, female-identified students can qualify for very low interest loans (www.peointernational.org/about-peo-educational-loan-fund-elf) and/or apply for a $15,000 dissertation award (www.peointernational.org/scholar) through the Philanthropic Education Organization. In addition, the American Psychological Association, National Institutes of Health, and numerous other organizations provide funding opportunities to support students at all levels of training.

• Apply for travel awards to buffer travel costs for conference attendance. These awards may exist at your home institution and through the organization hosting the conference; for some conferences, students can receive registration and travel subsidies for volunteering. If you are unable to obtain (or are ineligible for) external travel awards, ask your mentor if any laboratory or departmental funds could pay for conference expenses. Determine if there are ways for larger expenses (air/hotel/registration) to be paid directly by your department’s grant manager or the entity funding a travel award, so that you do not have to pay out-of-pocket and wait for reimbursement.

• If you are unable to travel home to see family for the holidays, explore alternative ways to make holidays away from home feel less lonely. You might organize program holiday events, suggest community holiday events in the area, or simply talk to other students about the difficulties of being away from family during these times. Many college campuses coordinate (e.g., through their International Student Affairs Office) social events for students, including for those unable to travel for the holidays.

3. Tips for Increasing Professional Familiarity and Engagement

• Set professional growth goals and ask for support you need in achieving these goals. Student success programs on campus and elsewhere (e.g., writing center, study tip training workshops) can provide low-pressure opportunities to practice your writing and research skills (e.g., journal clubs). Discuss different options for support with your mentor, and be specific in telling them how they could be most helpful (e.g., “it would be helpful if you could walk me through the process of creating a narrative outline for the introduction section of a paper”). It can be particularly helpful to seek support as you apply for various awards or positions (e.g., internship), as having opportunities to receive feedback on application materials and engage in mock interviews can increase the likelihood of a successful outcome.

• Seek out opportunities to expand your professional awareness and knowledge. Attend conferences and professional meetings when possible, and ask others how to make the most of your time at these events. If you are hoping to learn more about writing empirical manuscripts, ask your mentor if you could assist them in reviewing manuscripts for journals that relate to your interests.

• Ask your mentor to connect you with important others in the field. For example, at an annual conference, your mentor could reach out to a colleague to introduce you as a potential future intern or postdoc. Mentors could also support you in asking a “big name” in the field to serve on your thesis committee.

4. Tips for Managing Challenging Issues of Identity

• Seek support (e.g., from the program, mentors, local therapists, your family) to balance competing personal and professional demands. Admit when competing demands are difficult to manage and ask for help when needed. There may be options, solutions, or ways of thinking about a situation differently that you have not yet considered!

• Acknowledge the impostor syndrome (e.g., unobtainable standards, unsustainable work habits, internalizations of self-doubt), and work to develop healthy work habits that will help daunting milestones (e.g., defending theses, writing dissertations) become more manageable. Establish reasonable timelines and expectations for research tasks (e.g., writing, analyses). Challenge disparaging cognitions (e.g., “I’m not qualified to help”) that may arise when you begin to see patients in a clinical capacity. Set appropriate expectations that normalize the difficulty and nuance of being a clinician to buffer feelings of self-doubt when faced with challenging sessions, slow treatment progress, and/or other unforeseen circumstances (e.g., conducting a first risk assessment). Other students are likely struggling with imposter syndrome as well; talk with them to support, and learn from, one another.

• Consider and disclose competing personal and professional values when considering career trajectory and goals. First-gen students’ overarching values may be unique to their families of origin (e.g., more collectivistic than individualistic, more in need of a balance between their family’s needs and their own), which may influence the type and geographic location of positions they pursue. Identify other mentors who may help with various aspects of your intersecting identities while building your personal academic community.

• You may consider introducing your mentor to your family if the opportunity presents itself. This could help to increase family emotional support, demystify the graduate school process for the family, and help you integrate these two facets of your life.

• If you are a first-gen student of color, you may benefit from attending national conferences designed to promote the development of underrepresented groups in psychological science (e.g., Black Graduate Conference in Psychology) and become a member of affinity groups associated with national organizations (e.g., Latinx Caucus of the Society of Research on Child Development).

5. Closing Notes

At long last, the field of psychology has begun to seriously consider a multicultural framework, recognizing the biases that exist in our professional gateways, traditions, and even in the content of our scientific and clinical work. Far more work must be done to acknowledge potential barriers to professional advancement of racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities. In recent years, our field also has recognized blind spots with regard to religious and political diversity within our psychology community. We believe these remain high-priority areas for attention as our field increasingly values diversity and commits significant resources to the future of our discipline. As reflected in this chapter, first-gen status is an identity characteristic that often intersects with more visible, and commonly discussed, forms of diversity. By acknowledging first-gen status as an important factor contributing to the graduate student experience, we can improve upon our collective efforts to support the increasingly diverse cohorts of students entering graduate programs in psychology.

1. Developing and Practicing Ethics

We bring our personal ethics to graduate school and start to create our professional ethics. We face important questions: Are ethics central to who we are and what we do? Do our professional ethics depart from the values that we lived by before graduate school? How do we respond when the choice we view as most ethical means risking or sacrificing a golden opportunity, money, a valued relationship, our job, or reputation? What do we do when ethical decision-making leads us into overwhelming complexity, gray areas, and conflicting values? How do we do no harm when clients’ traditional cultural values conflict with the profession’s ethical values?

Graduate school often presents us with intriguing situations involving the ethics of research and publication, faculty–student interactions, psychological assessment and intervention, and other aspects of what we do as psychologists. Consider the following scenarios.

• As a research assistant for one of the department’s most respected and influential professors, you compute the inferential statistics on a large data set. The findings are not statistically significant and fail to support the professor’s new theory. The professor then throws out the data from 20 percent of the participants. When you rerun the stats, the test results become significant and support the theory. You receive your first authorship credit (congratulations!) when the results are published in a prestigious scientific journal and you’re listed as coauthor. The article makes no mention of the initial tests or excluded participants.

• For the past 10 months, you have been working with an undocumented artist who immigrated to the United States two years ago. Your client was the primary caregiver for their mother, an 80-year-old woman who suffered from dementia and recently passed away. Prior to your next scheduled session, your client sends you an email thanking you for helping them cope with their mother’s illness. They shared that your support has been invaluable and you have become their family in this country where they feel so lonely. On their next appointment the client brings you a gift, a stunning painting they created specifically for you and your office. Because local galleries and art houses display and sell this person’s art, you know that this gift is worth thousands of dollars. You also know that in the person’s culture, gifts have deep meaning and that rejecting a gift is a deep insult. You consider the power dynamic and feel torn between the client’s cultural way of expressing gratitude while being mindful of not exploiting the relationship by accepting a lucrative gift. You also reflect on ways in which accepting a gift of such value might affect the therapy.

• Your dissertation is on how young children think about their own creativity. The contract and form for informed consent – which you sign along with your supervisor and a representative of the university prior to the parents signing – assures each parent that in exchange for their consent, you, the supervisor, and the university attest that (a) your contact with the child will be limited to a single hour session, and (b) the session will be absolutely confidential and that the names and any other personally identifying information will never be shared with anyone else. In each session, the child makes up a story during the first half-hour, then you ask questions about how they thought up the theme, characters, plot, and details. One girl, whose father is a famous attorney who has won multimillion dollar judgments in both defamation suits and contract law cases, makes up a story about how a little girl is terrified of her father, an attorney, because he comes into her room almost every night and has sex with her. He has told her that if she ever tells anyone their secret, he will kill her dog and that no one would believe her anyway. When you ask her how she thought up the story about the little girl, your research participant says, “Well, she’s almost exactly like me in a lot of ways.” When you ask her what she means, she says she is afraid to talk anymore and remains silent until the hour is up.

• You and your best friend are talking about how much you’re both looking forward to graduating next spring. Your friend confides: “I had no idea how I’d ever get my dissertation done but luckily I had enough money to hire a consultant to design the study and analyze the data. And I was so relieved to find a good professional author who could write it up for me.”

What do you consider the most ethical response to each situation? If the scenarios involve conflicting values, responsibilities, or loyalties, how do you sort through the conflicts and decide what to do? What are the costs, risks, and possible outcomes of the various approaches you can imagine to each situation? How we work our way through such complex situations not only reflects but also actively shapes our professional ethics and character.

Developing ethics is, for most, a career-long process. Ethical development that stops at graduate school can be a little like the professor relying on the same yellowing lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, and stale jokes decade after decade, never bothering to update, rethink, or renew. The rest of this chapter is organized into two parts. The first discusses seven steps that seem key to developing professional ethics, including:

• Start with what we actually do.

• Stay awake, distrust quick answers, and keep questioning.

• Know the ethics codes – their similarities and differences – but don’t let them replace critical thinking, professional judgment, and taking personal responsibility.

• Know the legal standards, but don’t let them replace critical thinking, professional judgment, and taking personal responsibility.

• Prevent needless mistakes by actively and proactively addressing our weaknesses, limitations, and blind spots, which we all, beginner and seasoned psychologist alike, have and fall prey to from time to time.

• When looking for ethical missteps, start with ourselves. Question what seems beyond questioning.

The second part looks at 16 of the most common ethical fallacies that help us justify unethical behavior.

2. Developing Professional Ethics

Taking the following steps can help develop professional ethics that are informed, useful, and practical. Some of the material in this section is adapted from Reference Pope, Barlow and NathanPope (2010) and Reference Pope, Vasquez, Chavez-Dueñas and AdamesPope et al., (2021).

3. Conclusion

Developing and practicing ethics requires an active, mindful approach that continues from graduate school throughout our careers. The psychologist who remains unaware of the constantly evolving ethical and legal standards, fails to engage in critical self-examination, and stops actively seeking to do better is like – in light of the possible consequences of ethical missteps – the driver who dozes at the wheel. A human endeavor that focuses on humans in all their infinite variety, psychology never runs short of ethical challenges that are complex, filled with gray areas and conflicting values, and lacking clear, easy, or definitive answers. Meeting these challenges is an inescapable responsibility that confronts each of us.