If my research is addiction related, can I tell the professor I have first hand experience?

Question

I’m an undergraduate doing research in the bioinformatics department, and we are researching drug addiction. We are also attempting to incorporate the psychology cooccurrences (i.e. suicide ideation, anxiety, depression) of addiction. Personally I have not experienced drug addiction, but I am very familiar with two different addictions (one ongoing) and the cooccurrences mentioned above.

A benefit of this has been that my first paper and project was very well received by the professor because I understood the subtleties of the topic. However, this also means I am mentally unhealthy.

I have always considered telling the professor about this, but I don’t know if this would be encouraged/acceptable, and if I would still be allowed to stay in this research area.

Any input is appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

Okay, first off, I do not think you should mention it unless you think it negatively affects your work. But then I think you should absolutely do it.

You do have to be critical about this. I don't know your situation. But if you are currently suffering from an addiction, you might be prone to some of the same psychological defense mechanisms. And this might give you a bias in your work. But it might also be the complete opposite. So... just be critical and honest with yourself. If it negatively affects your work, you should not be doing this kind of research.

Also think about the worst case scenario: What if someone else finds out? Would that be a career destroying situation? If that is a chance, then it is always better to admit it yourself before someone else can. It will help you stay in control of the narrative, and people will not hear about it from rumours.

Your second point was that your personal experiences have actually helped you in some way. That might be true because you do not shrug something off as a minor issue if you personally know that it can be a big problem, etc. However, your personal experience is NOT science. You write in a comment that you "feel like [you are] pulling “facts” out of the air lol (because no citation), where actually the “fact” came from experience and interaction with people similar to me". Don't do that! Your scientific work cannot rely on anecdotes. You either have to cite a reference or you have to apply the scientific method, make people fill out questionnaires, write a study and evaluate its significance, and so on.

If it feels like you are pulling facts out of thin air, then you are not doing good scientific work, no matter how true those facts are. You have to have some kind of measure of the truth of your facts. Personal experience is not a valid one. So if you think about using your personal experience to help you in your research, do so by using it to find areas that still need to be considered, but then consider those areas with the scientific method.

Finally, I want to emphasize that it is not a good idea to self-medicate or to power through an addiction, just in case that is something you're doing. Whatever your situation might be, I hope you deal with it by getting some professional help.

Answer 2

Your suitability as a candidate vis-a-vis the research area is very rarely dependent on a physical or psychological characteristic. For example, you don’t need to have Tourette’s syndrome to do good research into Tourette’s syndrome and some of the best researchers in prostate cancer don’t even have prostates. In fact, many countries have laws against using specific characteristics in selection processes.

I think that having personal insight into a particular object of research can certainly give someone empathy for subjects and this can come across in presentations or writings. However, that your research into addiction has been well-received is less likely to be due to your own experience as it is from the quality of your research — the rigour of your methods, the appropriateness of your analyses, the sensible ness of your inferences, and the weight of your contribution to the field.

I would strongly advise against your plan.

Answer 3

Yes you can. Even may.

The question is should you? What is the motivation? To brag your worldliness? To earn pity?

I advise no. Concentrate on learning the topic academically. Let your personal experience enrich your learning but more as deep background.