[Mactastic]

I am curious about my T's dissertation. It's on a topic I am working towards (mindfulness) and I'm interested in what my T had to say about it. For some reason I'm afraid to ask him if I may read it, which leads me to think it's somehow crossing a boundary even though it's for sale to the public.

Is buying a copy a no-no?

[HazelGirl]

I don't think it's crossing a boundary at all. I say bring it up. If he doesn't want to talk about it, he can tell you.

[someone321]

I've read all papers written by my T as I am curious about her "real" point of view... I think that we have a right to read whatever is publicly available but this is just my opinion

[krisakira]

Not crossing any boundary. If the T didn't want anyone to read it, then they wouldn't have written it.

[RTerroni]

I don't think so, and it might actually help you out a bunch.

[healingme4me]

If it's publically available, why not? It's not as if you are delving into their personal life, this is how their professional life began.

[Bipolarchic14]

Bring it up...worse he could say is no.

[Bentay]

Don't think it's a boundary crossing if its in the public domain - umm do u think its inappropriate if u just buy a copy & not tell him ?

I mean, if it was me, I'd feel bad for not discussing it with my T but I'd also be worried about bringing it up incase he thinks I was stalking him or something.

However, having said that, your reasons for wanting to read it seem perfectly reasonable so maybe discuss it.

[Lauliza]

If he writes for manuscripts then you can absolutely read it, and its public so there's no boundary crossed. I think most patients would be interested in their t or doctor's writings - it shows where their true clinical interests lie and I think that's good to know. If they didn't want patients to see it they wouldn't publish. Absolutely nothing wrong and no reason not to bring it up.

My pdoc has lots of published articles and Ive read many. He has a couple of articles on PC pro too. I've never had to purchase anything so its all public. I've never discussed this with him.

[stopdog]

I can't imagine how it is crossing any boundary.
Nor do I think one has to tell the therapist.

[feralkittymom]

Just ask him about it. It's very possible, however, that he might recommend better things to read on the topic. Most dissertations are rather formulaic and pedantic, they're written to meet the expectations of a committee, and most writers wouldn't recommend them to others as general informational reading--nor as their best work. If you ask him, you may find he's taken the best aspects of his dissertation and distilled them into a journal article that will be more interesting reading; this is what most do if their career demands publication.

[AllyIsHopeful]

Nope. You are part of the public too, even though you're also a client. So if he's got a problem with it...tough cookies. Then maybe he should quit selling it!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[feralkittymom]

Hopeful, I doubt he's personally selling it. In the US the official repository for dissertations is U Michigan (through ProQuest), and they can charge reasonable copying fees to the public. Some would be available in electronic format. Usually academics can get them free of charge through their University library loan systems.

There are other d-bases, but uploading of dissertations to them is voluntary, so the collections are incomplete. If Mactastic knows the Univ her T graduated from, that Univ would also have an archived copy, but they may refer to U Michigan any requests to get a copy.

[brillskep]

I know if I ever manage to publish something in the field, I should take responsibility for every word.

A published dissertation is like a part of the therapist's CV in a way. It's a professional view she holds, explained. Yes, I think you should be able to buy it just like any other book that interests you.

[feralkittymom]

Brillskep, my point is just that most dissertations aren't published, though they are archived and can be accessed. The ones that are published as a book are substantially revised to be in a more accessible format than the original, or excepts are revised and published as journal articles which can often be purchased on-line through the publishers, or accessed for free through an academic d-base. I'm not saying it's a boundary crossing at all to want to read one, just that it may not be in as "readable" a format because of the restrictions of the process imposed on the writing.

[BonnieJean]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

Hopeful, I doubt he's personally selling it. In the US the official repository for dissertations is U Michigan (through ProQuest), and they can charge reasonable copying fees to the public. Some would be available in electronic format. Usually academics can get them free of charge through their University library loan systems.
.

I never knew about this. I typed in just my t's last name on ProQuest and the title/school/date/size of her dissertation came up with an option to order. Whoa. That is a lot of info without even buying or reading it.

[AllyIsHopeful]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

Hopeful, I doubt he's personally selling it. In the US the official repository for dissertations is U Michigan (through ProQuest), and they can charge reasonable copying fees to the public. Some would be available in electronic format. Usually academics can get them free of charge through their University library loan systems.

There are other d-bases, but uploading of dissertations to them is voluntary, so the collections are incomplete. If Mactastic knows the Univ her T graduated from, that Univ would also have an archived copy, but they may refer to U Michigan any requests to get a copy.

Oh, didn't know this. Well either way he most likely knows it is possible and still doesn't seem like a boundary crossing/violation. I personally would talk to my therapist about it first just to prevent feeling sneaky.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

Brillskep, my point is just that most dissertations aren't published, though they are archived and can be accessed. The ones that are published as a book are substantially revised to be in a more accessible format than the original, or excepts are revised and published as journal articles which can often be purchased on-line through the publishers, or accessed for free through an academic d-base. I'm not saying it's a boundary crossing at all to want to read one, just that it may not be in as "readable" a format because of the restrictions of the process imposed on the writing.

Is that true for all fields? I ask because in Sweden, whether a dissertation is published before the viva or not varies a lot between different disciplines, and sometimes between closely related fields as well. At my department, most people published their dissertations but I went with an unpublished one, meaning to publish a revised version after my viva (though I ended up never doing so, but that's another story - it is still available through the university library system.) And some dissertations especially in the natural sciences consist of four or five articles that have been or are in the process of being individually published.

But all dissertations here are freely available to the public, whether they are published or not. The same is usually true in Germany and other countries with similar academic traditions, but I know that in the US it can be very difficult to get hold of a diss.

[feralkittymom]

Mast, it's generally true across disciplines here. The exception might be certain grant funded research in the sciences, in which co-authors might spin off separate articles to publish as the bigger study continues. I've never heard of anyone in other fields publishing a diss before it's official acceptance and the conferring of the degree. And not so often after that. I suspect those whose directors are big names, and who are willing to make contact with a proper publisher might help. I suspect much of it may be a lack of marketing interest by publishers more than any prohibition though.

That's great that they're freely available to the public! I think that's how it should be, and in some cases it can be, but only if you can jump through a bunch of hoops. Like my Univ is a publicly funded Univ, so as a taxpayer of the state, I have library borrowing privileges. But I don't have interlibrary loan privileges. So in theory, I should have free access to any diss archived at my Univ, but I'd have to be a bit persistent to actually get it in my hands--and I'd have to read it on site--they can't be borrowed.

ETA: I should add that there's "publishing" and "publishing." I'm talking about independent publishing by a publisher, usually a University Press.

There's also "vanity press" publishing, which ProQuest and others provide as a service. But that kind of publishing is simply self-paid promotion, not peer reviewed publication, so carries no weight academically. Someone may choose to self-publish in that way if their career is outside academics, but I'm not sure what the incentive would be.

Is there much vanity press publishing in Sweden?

[Mactastic]

So I ended up buying an electronic version that will allow me to access the link for something like 72 hours. I skimmed the whole things tonight and I might go back and re-read some parts of it.

It's just what I expected - highly technical, full of jargon/data and not very much fun to read I will think about telling him this week. I do not like to keep any 'secrets' from my therapist, it makes me uncomfortable.

[UnderRugSwept]

I looked up my ex-Ts dissertation and I can't even understand the title...not really. Way over my head!!

There is some vanity publishing, I think, but just as you say that doesn't count when academic credentials are concerned, and I don't think very many people choose that route. Everybody can get their doctoral dissertation published by their university press, before the defense, it's part of the package so to speak... and many people choose to do so. It gives them a publication in their CV, and for people who mainly want the degree so they can get a better teaching post, and who mean to teach rather than do a lot of research, it is the simplest way. However, if they do they can't revise the dissertation after the public defense, and so some people choose to take a printed but not formally published version (a stencil copy, it is called) and do their viva on that. Weird thing is, the stencil copy also gets an ISBN and it looks exactly like the published dissertations from the university press, at least at my uni. I don't actually know how that works.

You have to have some kind of connection to the university as a student or researcher to get a university library card, but anybody can, in theory, get any dissertation through interlibrary loans from public libraries.

Originally Posted by Mactastic

So I ended up buying an electronic version that will allow me to access the link for something like 72 hours. I skimmed the whole things tonight and I might go back and re-read some parts of it.

It's just what I expected - highly technical, full of jargon/data and not very much fun to read I will think about telling him this week. I do not like to keep any 'secrets' from my therapist, it makes me uncomfortable.

Sounds like a good plan I have read some articles on psychotherapy by my T, but not his dissertation - his doctorate is a MD in psychiatry so I am certain I wouldn't understand much of it at all!

[Salmon77]

Also, if your T went to a state-funded university, the dissertation must be made available to the public. Usually this means there's a copy of it in the university library that you can look at on the premises; if you're a student or member of the library (the public can buy memberships to my U library) you can check it out or possibly read it online.

Since this is your T's professional work and you're interested in it for interests related to your own therapy, I don't see why it would be a problem. The fact that you're nervous about it sends up a little flare for me, though. I'd mention your interest to him. Discussing it might help you more than reading it anyway; academic writing can be a difficult slog, full of field-specific jargon.

Edit--oops, sorry, didn't read to the end of the thread...

[Perna]

I found and was going to buy my T's but I couldn't understand the title all together, only half of it at a time and then I'd lose the whole sense of it I knew what the "subject" was but then I reasoned that there wasn't that much of her in it, it was a paper she'd written for school; think of what you have written and whether you are in there as much as you could be on a piece of fiction? I told her about almost buying it though and we talked about it and she laughed and told me about when she had to write it (back in the early 1970s) and how it was one of "the" hot topics and she didn't really have a choice on what to write, etc.

I would talk to her, tell her you noticed her dissertation was about what you're studying, ask her would it help you to read it, etc.? Think about it, if you want to know about her, talking to her is going to tell you more than just reading a scholarly paper? That being said, I use to routinely buy my college professor's dissertations, find a quote to put in one of my papers and then argue with it/say it was "wrong" and why. Always got good grades and a compliment on doing that, as in "nice touch using my dissertation".