NO LONGER WILL I SUFFER IN SILENCE：＂ THE USE OF AUTO ETHNOGRAPHY AS A QUALITATIVE METHOD TO ST

NO LONGER WILL I SUFFER IN SILENCE:" THE USE OF AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHY AS A QUALITATIVE METHOD TO STUDY DOCTORAL STUDENTS AND MENTAL HEALTH Kara Patton University of Louisiana Lafayette, United States of America (Presented at the International Conference on Social and Education Sciences (IConSES)) which took place on October 21-24, 2021, Chicago, USA, https://www.2021.iconses.net/ organized by International Society for Technology, Education and Science ((ISTES)-http://www.istes.org) Mental Health (MH) in Higher Education (HE), more specifically among those seeking terminal degrees, is critical, as recent research documents, doctoral students are six times more likely to experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders than the general population (Barry, Woods, Warnecke, Stirling, & Martin, 2018). A recent National Science Foundation (NSF) Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant used to evaluate graduate students during COVID-19 revealed 67% of doctoral students scored low on well-being factors out of 3500 respondents (Olgivie et al., 2021). Reasons for increased anxiety vary as much as the diversity of the graduate student body itself. Some dominant stressors include pressure to publish, difficult relationships with advisors, financial insecurity, competitive job markets, work-life balance, lack of transparency about the university graduate student culture and experience (Mackie ad Bates, 2019). As we look ahead to the development and implementation of policies and programs to support graduate student well-being, it is imperative to understand the diverse lived experiences of doctoral students who experience mental health issues while pursuing an advanced terminal degree. Autoethnography as a qualitative research method can contribute to our understanding of the mental health issues doctoral students experience. This style of autobiographical writing and qualitative research explores and reveals an individual's unique life experiences in relation to social and cultural institutions (Custer, 2014). Autoethnography is about a way of being in the world, living consciously, and seeking a "story that is hopeful, where authors ultimately write themselves as survivors of a story they are living (Jones, 2013, p. 10)."