The Emotional Dimensions of Doctoral Writing: A Community Writing Retreat

Following on from the success of the online writing workshops that the WHC team have run over the last academic year, we are hosting an in-person writing retreat.

How do you make progress with doctoral writing when the challenge is not just time or technical skills, but the more emotional aspects such as uncertainty, confidence, or overwhelm play a part? For many PhD researchers, writing difficulties are often not just technical around grammar and structure, but they can be bound up in the emotional dimensions of doctoral study writing. Yet these challenges are frequently experienced in isolation.

This one-day writing retreat is designed to address this problem by creating structured space for doctoral writing, alongside collective reflection and peer support. Developed by the WRDTP’s Wellbeing, Health and Communities (WHC) pathway team, the day highlights writing challenges as a shared feature of doctoral research, rather than an individual problem.

The day will be led by Dr Natalie Hammond from Manchester Metropolitan University, Deputy Director of the Wellbeing, Health and Communities (WHC) pathway. The retreat combines sustained writing time with facilitated small group discussions focused on understanding and addressing the emotive challenges of writing, such naming the emotional barriers to writing, sustaining momentum and managing self criticism. These conversations are intended to normalise struggle, share diverse writing practices, and enable participants to learn from each other.

Outcomes:

By the end of this retreat, participants will be able to:

• Recognise and articulate the emotional and psychological dimensions of doctoral writing, including uncertainty, self criticism and writing resistance, as common features of PhD research rather than individual deficits;
• Develop realistic, sustainable writing practices that support progress across different stages of doctoral study;
• Engage in peer learning and scholarly community building, recognising writing as a relational research practice embedded within research cultures.

Contributors:

Dr Natalie Hammond is a Senior Lecturer in Health and Social Care at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Deputy Director of the WRDTP’s Wellbeing, Health and Communities (WHC) Pathway. Her research interests include: sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender-based violence; issues around gender, health and violence; and the intersections between climate, health, gender and violence.

Important:

• This is an in-person event at Manchester Metropolitan University (lunch and refreshments will be provided).
• This event is open to members of WRDTP partner institutions and other ESRC DTPs.
• Bookings will close at 9.00am on Monday 15th June.
• When booking, we ask that you use your institutional (.ac.uk) email address and complete all fields of the booking form. Thank you for your understanding.

Please note: The WRDTP is committed to sustainability and to reducing the waste from excess catering at events. A key challenge here is non-attendance at events. From October 1st 2025, the WRDTP will be changing the way we manage the non-attendance of PGR students who have booked place/s at WRDTP Training events. Any PGR student who does not inform the WRDTP (via [email protected]) that they will not be able to attend a WRDTP event at least 3 working days before the event takes place will have the cost of their place deducted from their RTSG (if a WRDTP-funded student), or have this charged to their department (if not funded by the WRDTP). This will allow us to better plan for events and to avoid catering waste. Thank you in advance for your cooperation on this matter.

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