ABD!!!

I have completed my last Intensive (a week long course of full days in front of my screen with a group of amazing colleagues and one fearless professor!) which puts me at All But Dissertation to complete my Ph.D. hopefully by Spring of 2024. That is less than a year away, so I will be nose to the grindstone with researching and writing my dissertation. I am doing a transcendental phenomenological study of the distress experienced by parents who adopt older children with trauma. In other words, I hope to interview other adoptive parents and listen to their stories, find out what themes and commonalities there are among them, and present the information to the counseling field to bring attention to their pain and need for healing. While it will be an arduous process, I am so excited to officially begin this part of my studies, as helping adoptive parents was my primary motivation for getting into this field! I have found other areas of passion, such as trauma in general and interpersonal neurobiology, but my heart is for other hurting parents.

I have a few weeks left in this semester to produce my proposal that will guide the research and the rest of my dissertation. This will be my goal through the next month and I hope to have a plan fleshed out for how I will work with parents and structure my research. I will also be doing some professional presentations both online and in person, so that will also keep me busy, perfecting PowerPoints and doing some traveling in the fall. It is such a blessing to see my hard work paying off and the end closing in! What a wonderful journey and lovely opportunity this has been and I am excited about the doors that will open to serve others through all that I have learned.