7. Taking Time Off | Jess Marshall

TW: Sexual assault, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In this episode of Voices of Academia, Emily chats with recently-minted Dr. (!!) Jessica Marshall, who touches on taking time off her Ph.D. and the support she received from personal relationships, therapy, and publicly available systems after she experienced sexual assault. Jess opened up previously, in episode 6, about the friendship, partner, family, and identity losses she experienced during her Ph.D.

Key topics/resources:

Australia – low-income concession card – medicare rebates on psychologist

Employee Assistance Program


Sexual assault resources – Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal (VOCAT), Sexual Offences and Child abuses Investigation Teams (SOCIT)


Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy for PTSD

Avoiding Re-traumatisation

The process of taking intermission from a PhD

Mental Health First Aid course

Barriers to therapy

What personal/professional supports did well/badly

Mindful self-care

Osher Günsberg – book and podcast. ‘Back after the break’ really helped Jess when she felt lost.

Jess founded a science party business during her Ph.D., switching to developing merch during Melbourne’s epic COVID lockdown -  My Mini Scientist

Jess doesn’t have Twitter but you can follow her on Instagram

The full transcript of the podcast is available here

For mental health support, please contact your GP or use the appropriate support for your country at https://checkpointorg.com/global/

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You can find out more about Voices of Academia & other personal stories at @academicvoices or our website.

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Recorded 23/10/2020.

Sound: Mindset by Ketsa is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, available through Free Music Archive.