P E R S P E C T I V E

Ignition Sequence: On Mentorship

ANDRES MARTIN, M.D., M.P.H.

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain as he is. But if youtreat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will becomewhat he ought to be and could be.

—Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship VIII-4

Mentorship may be best understood by consideringwhat it is not. It is not education, instruction, training,or supervision, nor is it professional or personal tutelage,advice, or guidance. It is not friendship, career counsel-ing, or individual psychotherapy. Rather, mentorshipincorporates elements of each and is more than the meresum of such parts. Mentorship is a potentially vital com-ponent of successful careers, particularly during theirearly phases. At those nascent and impressionable stages,mentorship can provide the crucial thrust to strategicallyredirect an individual’s career, when not to altogetherlaunch it—ignition is at its very core. But mentorshipcan and often is a longer term process that lasts well be-yond its beginnings, yielding different returns overtime. Ignition leads not only to liftoff: it seeks to haveits payload achieve a unique orbit; so unique, in fact,that predicting its exact arc is rarely feasible at the outset.Part of what makes the process so stimulating for all in-volved is the realization that a new and different future isbeing jointly crafted along the way.The term mentorship derives from the Indo-European

root men-, meaning to think: mentorship can be first

understood as a means to clearer thinking. But disem-bodied thought does not constitutementorship; amean-ingful relationship must lie at its core. In keeping withthis view, the word more directly derives from Greekmythology, in which Mentor served as the guardianand teacher to Odysseus’s son Telemachus. As trustedcounselor and surrogate, Mentor helped during Odys-seus’s absence in the upbringing and transitioninto adulthood of his son. Along such mythic lines,old mentors everywhere can be viewed as having under-taken the responsibility (whether acknowledged ornot) of seeing their young charges through a safe devel-opmental transition. The Greek imagery is apt, but itseems to place an unwarranted emphasis on age differ-entials and the predetermined gradient along whichknowledge and wisdom invariably flow, rather thanthe more fluid and often arbitrary lines that distinguishmentorship’s provider from recipient—the teacher fromthe taught.As is the case with other aspects of medical training

(supervision and teaching readily come to mind), men-

torship takes place frequently, but the specifics of the

process are seldom articulated explicitly. Mentorship

is thus open to the vulnerabilities of an apprenticeship

model predicated on the ‘‘see one, do one, teach one’’

philosophy, particularly the notion that a potential can-

didate may constitutionally ‘‘have what it takes’’—or

not. Although it is true that there are individuals

uniquely gifted for mentorship, mentors are more often

made than born. Alternatively stated, mentorship

should not be construed as a random process relying

on innate talent or the fortuitous finding of the right

relationship. To the contrary, it should be conceptual-

ized as an orderly process, as the necessary sequence

underlying a successful launch. This article attempts to

delineate some of those active elements—and insofar

as identifiable, potentially replicable—that may lead

to more enriching mentorship experiences, as well as

Accepted July 26, 2005.Dr. Martin is with the Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, CT.In 2002, the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation (KTGF) and the

John and Patricia Klingenstein Fund established a mentorship program for first-and second-year medical students at the Yale Child Study Center, and in 2003,the International Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Pro-fessions (IACAPAP) established a mentored fellowship program for internationalscholars in these fields. Both programs were named after the late Donald J. Cohen(1940–2001), who served on the advisory board of the KTGF and as president ofIACAPAP (1992–1998). This article is dedicated to his memory.

Correspondence to Dr. Andres Martin, Yale Child Study Center, 230 SouthFrontage Road, New Haven, CT 06520-7900; e-mail: andres.martin@yale.edu.

0890-8567/05/4412–1225�2005 by the American Academy of Child

and Adolescent Psychiatry.

DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000183462.57025.bd

J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 44:12, DECEMBER 2005 1225

to a medical culture increasingly socialized into the val-ues of mentorship as integral to its mission.

IGNITION SEQUENCE: AN ACTIVE, SPECIFIC,

AND ENGAGED PROCESS

Mentorship is an active undertaking, and one thatcan as easily start with the traditional arrangement ofa senior mentor seeking out and finding a junior part-ner, as with a reverse scenario. In fact, roles may haveshifted in this direction since Mentor’s days, because itis now routine for students to seek out a clinic, a labo-ratory, or the advice of a respected faculty member, thenenter into a working mentorship as an unexpected sidebenefit. As a structured example of this approach, and intacit acknowledgment of the need for active mentorshipas crucial for independent scientific thought, the Na-tional Institutes of Health have provided funding sup-port for Mentored Career Development Awards indiverse medical specialties, including child and adoles-cent psychiatry. Other organized examples include insti-tutions periodically setting up or endorsing opportunitieswherein mentored relationships may be explored andhopefully struck (resident and medical student awardsconferred by the American Academy of Child andAdolescent Psychiatry are a case in point).Most sustained mentored relationships are forged in

less structured (and usually unfunded) ways. Empiricalresearch (Ragins and Cotton, 1999) has shown that in-formal mentoring relationships (those developed on thebasis of mutual identification) lead to greater benefitsfor proteges than do formal arrangements (those basedon assignments by a program coordinator guided byapplication forms). The implications are clear: Mentor-shipmay be eased through recruitment by assertivemen-tors or the organization or sanction of outside sources,but ultimately much of the process relies on the activeparticipation of the protege. The onus of making men-torship work does not exclusively (perhaps not even pri-marily) lie on a mentor’s shoulders. Such relationshipsare more often made than found, and the ability to seekout a mentor, just as to sustain and benefit from theensuing exchanges, is one of the critical qualities ofthe successful mentee; as pithily stated by Schrubbe(2004), ‘‘once the student is ready, the teacher will ap-pear.’’ (It should be noted that in parallel with a litera-ture that has focused almost exclusively on mentors,‘‘mentor’’ as a verb did not appear in Webster’s until

1983, whereas ‘‘mentee,’’ used in current parlance asa common substitute for protege, ‘‘has yet to achieveWebsterian legitimacy’’ [Hazzard, 1999]).

MISSION LAUNCH: GETTING STARTED

Mentorship is a labor of love, its success as likely todepend on the labor as on the love parts of the equation.Taken seriously, mentorship is a time- and labor-intensiveundertaking. Once an initial connection and workingbond have been established, much of the process relieson its specifics. Duration and frequency, place and for-mat can be infinitely varied; in fact, the Internet hasmade physical meetings less critical. Indeed, it is lessphysical proximity than meaningful intellectual, per-sonal, and emotional connections that count most.

Like ignition, mentorship cannot take place in a vac-uum, and it is usually around a specific piece of workthat combustion first occurs. The work itself can rangefrom the inchoate (a mere idea) through various stagesof gelling (the draft of a grant proposal) to the complete(a published paper). Moreover, ‘‘work’’ implies not sim-ply finished products, or research or scholarly ones atthat: clinical and teaching skills are just as amenableto the process.Whatever the idea, project, or specific ques-tion at hand, legitimate engagement is at the very core ofmentorship: Critiquing amentee’s work in a challengingyet caring fashion is a fundamental way of taking his orher individuality seriously. Bland comments, howeverflattering, are ultimately not helpful and risk beingharmful insofar as they can confer an unwarranted senseof competence. Openly critical, negative, or even hostileremarks can obviously do much harm, although theymay be more readily recognized as destructive and thusmore easily dismissed than unwarranted praise.

As guardian or overseer of the mentee’s developmen-tal transition, a mentor is implicitly charged with a pro-found trust. With such power comes much responsibility.First, a mentor must serve as a role model, as an individ-ual worthy of respect and emulation. However,

being a role model is serendipitous: there is no training program, ap-pointment panel or certificate. That you have been a role model fora young colleague can come as a surprise, either flattering or alarming,depending on your conscience. To paraphrase John Lennon, being a rolemodel is what happens when you are busy doing other things. Mentor-ship differs from role modeling in that the mentor is actively engagedin an explicit two-way relationship with the junior colleague—a rela-tionship that evolves over time and can be terminated by either party.(Paice et al., 2002, p. 709)

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Second, a mentor should work closely with his or hercharge at identifying the paths best (or worst) suited forthat individual. Providing guidance along the manu-script submission or employment application mazes(and their inevitable disappointments) and suggestingdirections worthy of future time and energy investmentor divestment all are concrete steps to pursue. Third,effective mentors should be comfortable with theirown ignorance and allow their charges to see themstruggle with uncertainty as they seek to find answers(Dunnington, 1996).Finally, facilitating the path identified for the mentee

is central to the mentor’s job description. Facilitationincludes not only supporting appropriate funding,suggesting program opportunities, or facilitating criti-cal introductions and meetings but also creating a mu-tual environment of positive and high, yet realistic,expectations.The general advice to give to a mentor is rather dif-

ferent from that directed to a reviewer of a book or grantproposal. Whereas there the focus should lie on thecontent or the science alone and never be addressedad hominem, in mentorship, the focus must by necessityalso reside on the individual’s development: Let theoriesand projects come, go, evolve, or be dismissed if theymust, but let the student not be dismissed or lost inthe process. Mentorship requires focus and care hover-ing in balance over two separate domains: that of theother’s work and that of the other.

ATTAINING ORBIT: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

‘‘Other’’ is a deliberate word choice here, highlight-ing the importance of self-revelation and mutual exchangetoward a fruitful partnership. Mentee and mentor shouldlearn about equal amounts from each other: for the for-mer to learn about the latter’s trajectory may prove crit-ical and provide a natural template to emulate. Moreimportant, perhaps, it can reveal the evolving natureof personal and professional growth. Cast into an Erik-sonian framework, the developmental task of the men-tor may be seen as one of generativity versus stagnation,in a deliberate and future-oriented way, of electing toharness the potential of another over one’s personalgoals.The potential to be harnessed here is not that of a ran-

dom another—it is that of this and of no other individ-ual. This leads back to the overriding charge to know the

person, not only the work. Similar to the way in whichan editor can both push and support a writer (by givingchallenging assignments in the first place, by helpingshed unnecessary passages in the second), a mentorshould push as much as support a mentee. Pushingmay be easier; higher hurdles are never hard to find,and helping people go where their strengths and pas-sions take them is always a joyful endeavor. This is notthe case when shedding unnecessary passages or when ad-vising against a given project, career choice, or life direc-tion. This may be what makes mentorship so differentfrom cheerleading (integral as cheerleading may be togoodmentorship). At timesmentoring is no fun, and harddecisions may become necessary. The only way in whichany such advice may be incorporated usefully is within thecontext of a real, trusting, and caring relationship.Just as a mentee may have to learn to give up some

aspect of a project (or some cherished part of an internalego ideal), a mentor must be well grounded enough todismiss the notion of equifinality, which implies thatsome universal yardstick exists through which to eval-uate the success of different mentees (‘‘scientific inde-pendence’’ in the form of grant funding being perhapsthe most commonly acknowledged). Mentorship is ahighly customized process—its responsible conduct liesin knowing that the end of a given road cannot be thesame for the mentee; helping each to become his or herindividual best is the ultimate goal. Nevertheless, it isunderstandable how mentorship can become an invita-tion to live vicariously—to conflate a mentee’s goals andaspirations with one’s own.

UNTETHERED WEIGHTLESSNESS: IDEALIZATION,

ROLE TRANSITION, INTERNALIZATION

Idealization is arguably the common denominatorunderlyingmentorship. Amentee, after all, elects amen-tor (or a clinic or laboratory) that is viewed with somedegree of admiration. The mentee may infuse the men-tor with qualities of greatness, even if not all of them arestrictly speaking based on fact. No matter—the powerof idealization has long been respected outside the hallsof psychiatry, with the Hippocratic Oath having puta pedestal of parental height for the mentor: ‘‘I honoras my father the man who teaches me the art.’’ The at-tributes of an idealized parent can be easily infused ontoa mentor, especially during long-term partnerships(Duffy, in press).

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Mentors in turn do not take on just anyone as theirmentee; if anything, they elect those who remind themof themselves on some level, perhaps a younger, brighter,more aggressive, or promising model of who they oncewere. Thus, the mentor similarly indulges in idealiza-tion, for at its core, mentorship provides a means throughwhich to identify, coax, and ultimately ignite the oftendormant potential of another. A mentor can see whatis best in a mentee and help propel it forth, often seeingthis potential well before the mentee can, sometimeseven as the latter’s self-doubts continue.Identification of one’s traits in the other is as integral

to mentorship as is idealization. Mentorship is morethan a mutual admiration club, however; mentorshipis a complex process of growth in which directionalitycan develop from the categorical (mentor to mentee)into a longer phase of diffuse and subtle role reversal(who is it that is mentoring whom?) In those fortunateinstances in which mentorship is sustained over longperiods of time, the role reversal may literally concret-ize, with the erstwhile mentee having to take over someof the mentor’s needs and obligations, professional aswell as personal (Cohen, 1986). Parental analogies res-onate here: Just as a child may have to one day burya parent, mentored relationships can lead to the verylast moments—and beyond, as one of the mentee’snewfound tasks may be to carry forth the mentor’s leg-acy and teachings. The welcome responsibility of trans-mission may arise almost at the inception of therelationship, but the finality of death (or of retirementor transfer to a distant location) can make it all the morepressing and precious.

ENDING THE MISSION: LANDING GEAR

There are as many ways to end mentorship as thereare to begin it. What begins as an academic partnershipmay gradually evolve into a friendship based on mutualrespect and appreciation (Schrubbe, 2004). Not all suc-cessful partnerships end at the grave, are lifelong, or evennecessarily lengthy. A careful landing may be the appro-priate end point for an effective launch. Sometimes‘‘great chapters’’ in the book of one’s life are sufficient.Brief mentorship that is potent can have enduring ef-fects or lead to critical turning points. Formally arrangedmentorship arrangements typically last between 6monthsand 1 year (Kram, 1985); informal ones between 3and 6 years (Murray, 1991). More than duration,

internalization can be seen as providing a useful metricfor the success of the experience: Those individuals capa-ble of invoking and making use of the other (whetherspontaneously or through active effort) have been effec-tively mentored. A natural corollary is that in the pro-cess, they themselves have become mentors to othersand the cycle and its transmission of values have effec-tively moved forth.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM:

MENTORSHIP WOES

Upon first signing up to the task, mentors should re-member that no matter how talented, their charges maybe quite vulnerable early on. They would do well to re-call how vulnerable they themselves once were, and rec-ognize, with more awe than fear, that their influencecan be enormous, but not de facto for the better.The ultimate goal of mentorship, as of a rocket’s igni-tion sequence, is to facilitate successful liftoff. In bothinstances, stakes and anticipation are high and can easilyslip into bad outcomes. There are the catastrophic butrare ones—the explosion on the launch pad or, in thecase of mentorship, the exploitation (professional or in-timate) under the guise of care or the plagiarism of orig-inal ideas. More common, however, are other forms ofmalfunction: the ignition that fizzles, the mentorshipthat fades, the anticlimactic and passive ending thathappens, in the words of T.S. Eliot, ‘‘Not with a bangbut with a whimper.’’

Not all relationships work, and a mentee may have totry on several mentors to find a proper fit. Some instan-ces of mentorship ignite but never lift off, yet others out-live their utility and are best finished actively. (The 1970Nobel laureate Julius Axelrod expressed this sentimentabout his mentor, Bernard Brodie: ‘‘the best thing thathappened [to me] was working with Brodie, the secondbest was leaving him.’’) There remain those instancesthat can and do work but dissolve prematurely throughneglect, and it is here that a mentor may need to be mostactive. Just like making the relationship work in the firstplace may be primarily a mentee’s task, ensuring thatit not fade may fall more directly on a mentor’s plate:the promptly returned call, the carefully reviewedmanuscript, the attention to unintended slights or nar-cissistic injuries are some of the ways to deliver on thisresponsibility. In the tacit pact between mentor andmentee, failure by the former to follow through can

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be tantamount to rejection by a parent and just as pain-ful; failure by the latter may be not only hurtful, but,even worse, dissuade an individual from offeringhim- or herself as a mentor to others in the future.Mixed-gender mentoring relationships pose a particularset of challenges—and opportunities—that highlightthe high stakes involved in the overall process:

Therefore, persons in positions of leadership at academic health cen-ters, visionaries for whom achievement of gender equality at all facultylevels is a top priority to assure institutional preeminence. must investheavily now to support effective mentors for the women who can be ex-pected to comprise at least half of their faculty in the future. ½M�en inpositions to be effective mentors to aspiring younger women faculty mustaccept their share of the responsibility as mentors and avoid shyingaway from this role because of fears of being either ineffective or subjectto suspicion or claims of sexual harassment. (Hazzard, 1999, p. 1467)

Mentorship is not for the faint of heart and can havepainful and difficult phases. Let these not dissuade usfrom rising to meet its challenges.The initiative, assertiveness, and talent of a younger

generation are rare commodities that we can ill afford to

waste. Mentorship provides a unique framework to en-sure that we do not.

Disclosure: The author has no financial relationships to disclose.

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