ABSTRACT
Doctoral education increasingly emphasises both independence and supportive supervision, creating contradictory expectations for candidates. This study examines dependence taboos—a sense that seeking help risks undermining legitimacy as a doctoral researcher. Through affective-discursive analysis of interviews with doctoral researchers who participated in a near-peer mentoring programme at an Australian university, we explore how candidates navigate conflicting demands to be both autonomous and supported. Participants described difficulty expressing uncertainty in supervisory relationships, whilst finding such discussions more acceptable with near-peer mentors. The mentoring programme’s focus on writing illuminated how the dependence taboo operates in this crucial area of doctoral work. We suggest that whilst caring supervision may offer interpersonal support, it may not necessarily address tensions surrounding dependency and legitimacy. Near-peer mentoring offered an alternative space where expressions of need did not threaten academic identity, enabling participants to navigate the dependence taboo more effectively than within supervisory relationships alone.