Increase your resilience as an independent researcher (2023-I)

Trainer: Drs. P.C.M. Meesters (Paula), PhD-psychologist

Learning objectives

You will learn how to develop a balanced, more stable identity and show behaviour as an autonomous professional/researcher. Self-awareness is an important tool to reach this learning goal. Well-developed self-awareness, flexibility and autonomy will support you in demonstrating to your supervisory team that you are willing to learn and you have knowledge, intrinsic motivation, responsibility and integrity. After this course you are able to show your resilience, self-awareness, assertive behaviour, and skills strengths.

Instructional method

The course provides an equal balance between experience (opportunity to reflect on your personal development), observation and reflection (self-tests and discussion), theoretical background (Beck; Greenberger & Padesky; Young; Ruppert; Deci; ACT) and skills training.  It is required you are willing to share some personal insights, values and experiences.

Programme

The course consists of 3 sessions of two hours each.

• The first session is focused on the model of resilience (psychological flexibility), the developmental model (from dependency to autonomy), and motivation. ACT techniques, like ‘committed action’ and ‘self-as-context’, are used;
• The second session deals with changing perspectives, using CBT and ACT technique like ‘cognitive defusion’;
• The third session is about self-image, understanding life-traps (the schema-coping-modi model), and practicing with the model using your own experiences.

Study load

In addition to the scheduled sessions, you should take into account an extra study load of approximately half an hour in between sessions. To prepare for the sessions you will fill out worksheets (Bull’s eye, Life-trap Questionnaire).

Trainer:

Drs. Paula Meesters, PhD psychologist at Utrecht University

Group size

max. 12

Number of credits

0.2 EC

Course schedule

Cancellation and No-show policy

This course is free for GSLS PhD candidates. However: free of charge does not mean free of responsibility. Once you have signed up for a course, we expect you to attend. For every late cancellation or no-show we have had to disappoint others who would have liked to attend. This is our policy:

• You may cancel free of charge up to 4 weeks before the start of the course. After this date you can only cancel if you have a GSLS PhD candidate to replace you in the course. Send the name and contact information of your replacement to pcc@uu.nl, at least 2 working days before the start of the course;
• We expect that you actively attend the full course, but at least 80%. It is mandatory to attend the first session. If you are absent the first session you cannot follow the remaining of the course;
• Not meeting the above requirements means you will be charged a no-show fee (€ 50). We will send the invoice after the course has ended. We are unable to make any exceptions, unless you have a valid reason (i.e., illness or death in the family 1^st/2^nd degree or partner). Your supervisor has to send an e-mail to pcc@uu.nl indicating the reason.

Unfortunately we don’t offer this course for participants not part of the GSLS. Our courses tend to be fully booked by GSLS PhD candidates.