Experiences with supervisors when students have a psychosocial disability in a university context in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Despite there being much research on the needs of students with more visible disabilities, this is not the case with students with invisible disabilities such as psychosocial disabilities – especially in university settings. The unique needs of students with psychosocial disabilities have received less attention with not much research in this area. This was a qualitative study interviewing 15 post graduate students, from two universities, with diagnosed psychological disabilities and who are being supervised by university staff members. Issues around this student-supervisor relationship were explored. Five themes – invisibility and illegitimacy of psychosocial disability, misconceptions, no special treatment, negative attitudes, and the question of boundaries were highlighted from the thematic analysis carried out from the transcribed interviews. Implications of these findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychosocial disability
• mental illness
• university
• postgraduate
• relationships

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Pseudonyms were used to ensure anonymity.