I'm interested to know if anyone here has published a doctoral dissertation or thought about it. I was approached about doing it by two publishers when I finished mine, but my attitude has been that I would rather be set on fire than ever look at the thing again.
Now, I've received another inquiry about publishing it. Since I'm trying to rebuild my practice after letting it all but disappear, I'm thinking it might be to my advantage to publish it in the interest of establishing credibility. But I would need to do a good bit of editing to make me comfortable doing that.
These are academic publishing houses. My dissertation is not a self-help book in any way, although it does demonstrate a way of blending archetypal and postmodern "therapies" (especially queer theory) through performance. I've also been thinking about writing a self-helper, but the idea makes me cringe.
Any comments would be appreciated.
Replies
Michelle, thanks for the story. I've heard it a bunch of times.
My particular inspiration for my MA was transpersonal psychology. I thought that mindfulness training would be especially useful. But everyone said that it was woo-woo crap. Now, it's hard to find anyone who hasn't incorporated it into their practice.
David, my diss is 9 years old, so I feel like I would need to update the literature review besides editing some stuff out of it. I fell asleep before I even got halfway through the first chapter. Twice.
Hmmmmm well then, lead us, in the now, and
reflect back later... once again... as before.
And don't bore yourself with the rehashing.
Create something new which you sense is useful and hope it goes where you wanna be?
(aka perhaps your credibility can speak for itself without the history)
Hi Cliff,
First of all, congratulations to you on getting it done!
It's been 40 years since I did my dissertation. (ouch!) But, I was able to take parts of it and turn those into three publications in academic journals. That did help me to get professional credibility back in the day.
Perhaps, you could do something like this?
David
I'm not an academic and so can not properly answer your question.
I can say though that I'd probably buy it and read it if published.
an aside, jsyk -
I recall my first ever introduction to the term Depth Psychology. It was in something you wrote probably a decade ago in an Atlanta newspaper. And frankly it struck me as a pretty kooky field. However, wouldn't you know it, life's twist and turns eventually led me to take a closer look at my life and personality, psychology.... until I rediscovered my long-exiled right brain, found Jung and... well, LOL here I am today immersed in dream images and searching for quality writing on such subjects.
I wish you luck in rebuilding your practice.