Inhibition in the Dissertation Writing Process: Barrier, Block, and Impasse

In this paper, I explore the kinds of difficulties arising during the writing process as seen in students embarking on, engaged in the midst of, and at the stage of completion of a dissertation. I am specifically concerned with the dissertation completed as a part of a humanities-based program in contrast to an empirical piece of work based in a scientifically oriented program. Contained in this process can be the experience of a terror of what the dissertation represents, a breakdown in the relationship to the dissertation, the sometimes shattering or at least wounding of an illusion around one's abilities and a loss of the capacity to think about the subject matter of the dissertation, and a violent emergence of a painful object relation. Here, and in characterizing such a process in general terms in relation to inhibition, I differentiate between barriers (largely to do with practical limits, the nonnegotiable inabilities and disabilities), blocks (related to processes of defense against anxiety, where anxiety is evaded or eradicated), and impasses (where both student/author and supervisor are caught in a collusive dynamic, conscious and/or unconscious, that adversely affects progress), emphasizing that these are not distinct aspects of the process, but act as intersecting and overlapping, indeed connected, contributors to the process of struggling with the task.