Darragh McCashin on imposter phenomenon and multi-level strategies (Part 2)

Changing Academic Life

English - November 11, 2022 09:30 - 47 minutes - 38 MB - ★★★★ - 7 ratings
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Previous Episode: Darragh McCashin on interdisciplinarity, a new lecturership during COVID, and his imposter (Part 1)

Next Episode: Stuart Reeves on 'what are universities for' and management complexities (Part 1)

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

“You see the value in putting oneself out there”

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

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

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

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

Overview (times approximate):

0:30 Preamble

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

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

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

15:50 How he defines imposter

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

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

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

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

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

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

44:35 My reflections at the end

47:29 End

Download a full transcript of the conversation here.