Today (20th October 2017)  is the official start date of my PhD by research via Northampton University / Regent’s University London. Truth be told, it has been 11 years in the making, having first seriously dreamed of attempting doctoral study in 2006. See the now premature attempts at PhD blogging and evidence of my very long application journey . My first proposal, after my undergraduate degree, was 10,000 glorious words long, and more of a statement on mental health provision in London, than a credible application. After 2 Masters and 5 full proposals on different topics, and living in, 4 different countries and 5 different cities, the winning topic ironically found me.

Having identified that due to the increase in audit culture and regulation in the UK, therapists were prepared to take less risk in clinical practice, I reflected on what other aspects of practice might be impacted. Then the area of ‘silence’ screamed at me, as an area where a therapist might feel under pressure to do something, rather than nothing – was silence in fact deemed as doing nothing and less welcomed in today’s milieu?!

After the topic crystallized I finally followed the single best piece of information, that I had up until now, only paid tertiary attention: find a supervisor first. This is much harder said than done, there are a lot of Muppets out there.

I returned to the door of someone wonderful I met 11 years ago, who I was aware shared an interest in grounded theory, but didn’t even know if their university offered research degrees. The rest is now history. So, the proposal has been accepted – now to start the real graft. The purpose of this blog is really to serve as a broad overview of what I am doing and why.  A detailed and more technical research journal will also be maintained. This blog is to reduce the chance of me mumbling completely to myself, to actualize on paper my thoughts, reflections, considerations, goals, and vulnerabilities, when attempting the impossible. If you are reading this and are not my supervisor or my Da (aka. the old goat), or close friend, then I would be very surprised. (Status is set to: Hidden – Your site is visible to everyone, but we ask search engines to not index your site). If you are it’s meant to be raw; any tipos or grammar bad is my usual un-proofed stylie.

Someone once profoundly said ‘the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step‘, and mine is to quickly refresh my memory on best practice for literature review…I will read a few previously ‘how to guides’ and a new one. Then I will begin the research search strategy, building on my initial efforts contained in the research proposal. With a new online library to explore, there maybe some gold still out there…