The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Adult Autism Diagnosis, Long Term Health Conditions and Training as a Psychologist during the pandemic - with Dr Victoria Walker

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. Coming up in today's episode, I am talking to Dr. Victoria Walker, a trainee clinical

Starting point is 00:01:07 psychologist. We are talking about what it's like to have a long-term health condition, as well as go through a diagnostic and assessment process for an autistic spectrum disorder condition. I hope you'll find it so useful. And of course, at the end, Victoria will be offering you her top tips for reducing burnout as an aspiring psychologist. Hope you find it so useful. then let this be your guide with this podcast at your side to be on your way to being qualified it's the aspiring psychologist podcast with dr marianne Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. So we are in the middle of application season for the doctorate in clinical psychology and I hope that your own application form is going well and similarly the

Starting point is 00:02:27 educational psychology route for funded places is also in the application stage as well so if that is your bag I hope that is going well too. Don't forget if you would like to watch any Q&A sessions for the Compassionate Q&A which is where I give you my top tips and guidance for free about how to go about completing your clinical form, then you can watch the replays on my YouTube channel, Dr. Marianne Trent. I will give you the dates to look for so you know what you're looking for. So the first one of those took place on Monday, the 4th of September, 2023. And the second one is Tuesday, the 3rd of October, 2023 at 6 p.m. Depending on when this episode goes out, that might well be around the time when this episode is going out.

Starting point is 00:03:23 So do keep an eye out, look at the calendar when you're listening to this workout, whether that is before or after now, the Tuesday, the 3rd of October, 2023 at 6pm. And then the final one in this series of interview compassionate Q&As is Tuesday, the 7th of November, 2023 at 6pm. And this episode will definitely be out before that. But yeah, the replays are available on my YouTube. It's probably worth saying that I know some people will listen to these episodes years in advance. So the replays are always available. And there is a playlist called free Q&A sessions. And so you can check that out. If you would welcome some more tailored advice and support, do consider coming along to the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which you can join with no minimum commitment for £30 a month. And there will be some information on screen if you are watching that on YouTube or in the show notes, or you can click any of the links in my social channels for more information.

Starting point is 00:04:28 And do bear in mind there is the free Facebook group as well, The Aspiring Psychologist Community with Dr. Marianne Trent. It would be remiss of me not to remind you about how wonderfully nourishing and helpful The Aspiring Psychologist Collective books and The Clinical Psychologist Coll collective book is too. So the content for today's podcast episode is all about long-term health conditions and autistic spectrum disorder. I hope you will find it useful for your own knowledge base but also for kind of when you're working in clinical or health populations where it might well be relevant. I hope you find it so useful and I'll look forward to catching up with you on the other side. Hi, I just want to welcome along our guest for today's episode. I want to be also one of the very first people to introduce her as

Starting point is 00:05:16 Dr Victoria Walker. Hi Victoria, welcome along to the podcast. Hi, thank you so much for having me. You're so welcome. You are very newly doctor because you've just got to the end of your doctoral training as a clinical psychologist, haven't you? Yes, so I finished last week, which is a very strange feeling. So, yeah, seeing Dr. Victoria Walker is going to take some getting used to. But with the caveat that I'm pending HCPC registration at the moment the documents are on the way. Well may they may they hasten themselves to you so that you can start claiming your band seven pay and you know start to walk in the shoes of those qualified psychologists the shoes can feel a little bit big to begin with but

Starting point is 00:06:06 you've absolutely you've absolutely earned them so well done to you congratulations thank you and you um are part of the cohort um across the country who did your um interviews during lockdown aren't you? Yeah so I interviewed for a couple of courses just before the lockdown was all implemented across the country so we had our invites sent out maybe February 2020 to say yep you've got your interviews it's going to be in person at such and such a place I think one had offered a lunch which I was really looking forward to and then yeah in comes March and we went into lockdown and then obviously the courses had to just completely pretty much overnight change how they were doing things. So I can't imagine how stressful that must have been for people who were organising the interviews.

Starting point is 00:07:10 And I hadn't heard of Zoom or Teams at that point either. So it was a bit of an anxious wait to find out what on earth was going to happen. But then, yeah, interviewed end of March 2020, which feels world away now um and a very different uh a very different time absolutely and you've gone through all of your training with probably lots of things being remote I guess lots of your clinical placements have been in person but perhaps sometimes aspects of that have been remote as well yeah um it's been a bit of a mixed bag really. So for our first year all the teaching was online. So that was a, I mean I wouldn't know what the experience would be like because I've never been a trainee clinical psychologist before, but I can imagine it's very different to the cohorts that are starting now and all get to meet in person.

Starting point is 00:08:01 So we had to start that online um the placements that we had were mixed some people were in person some people were remote um I was mostly in person for my placements I did want that um I wanted some time out the house um I wanted some time to meet people um but I guess one of the things that came through from Covid is that there was ways that you could work from home if you needed to, if you or if you wanted to. So there has been aspects of my placements that have been at home which I think has brought a different set of skills. I think our cohort has developed in a way that we had to respond to such a changing world, that we have a set of skills that is almost unique to people who started training in 2020, that we had to sort of very quickly move from just being in person to being online, to then sometimes being in person,

Starting point is 00:08:59 sometimes being online, responding quite quickly to change um so yeah quite quite a different experience quite different indeed and you know um given that this was 2020 March 2020 and we've all been navigating online we should have had a better experience today with my mic shouldn't we I should have been able to sort it out by now but yeah for those of you not party to to the frustration that poor Victoria's had trying to put up with me trying to sort out my airpods um yeah it's a bit embarrassing but yeah you know when it's clients it's it's tricky isn't it like trying to to help them get online how to help yourself get online and trying to make sure the sound quality is good enough and the the internet connectivity and all of that jazz it's it's a big deal and it's a lot it's a lot

Starting point is 00:09:49 of change a lot to juggle um somebody messaged me recently on my socials i think it was even in the last week and asked about the doctorate in clinical psychology and said is it is it online only or is it taught in person and i said actually it actually, I don't know of any courses that are doing online only as a provision. And I said, I would have some concerns about it being an online only provision because it feels like there's lots of important things to learn about being in a team when you're actually in a team and about being in a room with service users and families

Starting point is 00:10:23 and people of different ages and also your supervisor. But I guess when I gave that answer, I hadn't really considered the impact on your cohort and probably the cohort after you. Having been through quite a mixed bag of online and in person. What's your thoughts? Could the doctorate be taught as an online only qualification? That's a really good question. And yeah, I've got a few thoughts about it. I would think in theory, yes, as our cohort had all of our teaching online in the first year, we were very much assured that the quality of the teaching would be the same and there was a lot of benefits to having it online. Obviously the world outside was very unsafe at that period of time and speaking of someone with a long-term

Starting point is 00:11:18 health condition, I was very aware of that, I was on the vulnerable list um i still chose to go in person to some of my placements but with a lot of you know ppe and risk assessment in place um however i know for some people that would that would not have been an option at all um so i know there was quite a bit of discussion maybe a year or so ago about um courses maybe having a bit more flexibility about their online provision and as i think once things started to settle down, a lot of courses went back to completely in person and lost a bit of their flexibility in having an online offer, which I think does impact people with health conditions, neurodivergent people, people with caring responsibilities. So I think it can be done.

Starting point is 00:12:07 I think there's something there about flexibility and choice about what works best for people. We do that in our day-to-day jobs. We make adjustments. We speak to employers about things that we might have flexible working arrangements. We might have hybrid working arrangements. So there's a part of me that thinks that maybe the doctorate could also keep some of that flexibility as well and have that as options um for people who may who

Starting point is 00:12:36 may need it so it might just be a case of let's see what the future brings yeah yeah maybe um as I think from Covid we've obviously managed to really up our technical provision and yes there's hiccups sometimes um but we do have those options don't we so you know we're doing this now we're doing this online um one of the placements the most recent placement that I I had, was in an employee psychology service and that was a trust-wide service and provided nearly 100% online. Yes, there was some colleagues that would come in, but because it was a small team in a large trust and a large geographical area, it was offered primarily online to increase access um so i think that the things that we are adopting in our clinical world we can also put in place

Starting point is 00:13:32 in the training world too okay yeah like treat people as individuals and modern individuals at that that are operating in 2023 you know we've got generally speaking the right technology most people have navigated you know attend anywhere or zoom or teams or something like that and yeah i guess let's make sure that i guess it's some of that that inclusivity argument isn't it around leveling the access to the profession and making sure that people can show up in a way that works for them and I know from speaking with you via LinkedIn in preparation for this that you had some quite big changes yourself during certainly the last year of training did you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Starting point is 00:14:26 Yeah sure, so I came into training with a pre-existing health condition, it's called ulcerative colitis, it's in the Crohn's family, people that don't know, it's a disease of the gut, it's not curable and it can really vary in terms of how it impacts me from just a bit of sort of gastrointestinal discomfort all the way through to hospitalisation. So it can really vary on how on how it impacts things. There's also periods where I'm in remission, but I have not been lucky enough yet to get to a clinical remission. It's just always sort of been at an OK, an okay-ish place or it's gone bad, it's not necessarily been in a really really good place. So I knew that prior to training and had all the discussions required with the course staff and with the line manager to put in place things like reasonable

Starting point is 00:15:20 adjustments on the course and on placements. However, something that threw a bit of a spanner in the works was when I was doing my research project. So in your final year you work towards your large-scale research project which is hopefully something that you're really passionate about, you completely delve into it for two and a half years. And I did mine on exploring suicidality, autistic traits and camouflaging within women with anxiety. And I began to see a bit of myself in it, if I'm honest. It had been inspired by my clinical practice prior to training and during training. As I delved into the research into autism, into autistic women, into camouflaging, I began to see parts of myself that I had recognised but hadn't made those links and that then led me to request an autism assessment which then was confirmed that I am autistic in March this year so when I was right in the throes of writing up my

Starting point is 00:16:35 thesis so that was a really big I wouldn't well bombshell maybe isn't the right word because I'd obviously thought it could be a possibility or I wouldn't have gone for the assessment but it still was something that shook my world quite a bit as I then started to question pretty much everything about how I had even got to this position had I faked my way here lots of really self-deprecating questions started to happen all while I was trying to write a thesis that could determine my future essentially so that was quite challenging but as I say sort of six months after that diagnosis I'm really glad that I did do it and I'm in a much better place with it now. I see it as something that's

Starting point is 00:17:26 actually helped me. It's helped me to call things out. It's helped me to be brutally honest when needed. It's helped me to empathise with service users in places that I've worked where often it was young women who were quite misunderstood that I would work with and we'd develop a good rapport we'd develop a good connection and then once I've started to look into the literature about how people with similar neurotypes do make connections it's then made me see it as a as a strength that has difficulties but there's absolutely strengths within it too. Gosh what a journey you've been on and there's so many questions I want to ask you but just in terms of our listeners own knowledge base how does adult assessment and diagnosis work in a nutshell? Are we talking, you know, a referral from the GP?

Starting point is 00:18:25 What are we talking about exactly here? So I did things maybe a little bit differently. So I had heard all the horror stories about the waiting lists and there was a part of me that just wanted to get this known, get this done before I finished and before I qualified. So I rang a private service through a psychologist who had actually done some teaching on the course. I rang him and we had an initial phone consultation. And what he said to me was that he wouldn't he thought an assessment would be helpful, but that he wasn't prepared

Starting point is 00:19:01 to take my money because as an NHS employee, I was entitled through my line manager to be referred for an assessment so I did that I approached my line manager which was a little bit scary um to approach my my line manager to say oh I think I might be autistic can you refer me for an assessment please um but I did do it and I was referred to the local service through my line manager. That took a few months to get an appointment through. And then once I had that appointment, I basically got told that as someone who's a trainee clinical psychologist, I would know too much about the assessment process. So the standardized tests wouldn't really apply to me. So it was more done through an interview myself and an interview with my sister

Starting point is 00:19:55 and looking through some of the symptoms that are listed in the DSM. So it was more done as an interview process. So quite different, I think, to what a standard assessment would be. It was about four hours in total of having long and difficult conversations to then come to in my final appointment to say yes, we can make that diagnosis based on the information that we have. Okay, thank you for clarifyingifying that so it sounds like that was an occupational health kind of referral rather than necessarily a medical nhs referral from your gp

Starting point is 00:20:31 yeah so it was done with the local autism service but because done through line management it was it was more of a yeah yeah yeah thank you for illuminating that. And then anybody else who might be listening might be like camouflage, masking. What does that mean? Could you guide us through that a little bit? Yeah, of course. So camouflaging has been coined as a way of neurodivergent people taking on traits from neurotypical people, so as in people who aren't autistic, to fit into their world essentially. So when we talk about masking, it might be that at a young age, especially, especially neurodivergent women, they will take on the mannerisms, the facial expressions, the social chatter to get them through because they will observe very very closely the interactions that other people are having, see what goes okay, see what doesn't and start to build around their social circle essentially so they might not feel necessarily connected to this

Starting point is 00:21:47 social circle but because they've assimilated so essentially they have observed enough they've taken on enough of those mannerisms of those social niceties that they fit in they go under the radar they seem like they're doing okay because they smile appropriately they'll give you an all right level of eye contact they might come across as quite articulate i know i sometimes don't but i'm unmasking at the moment um but that's why a lot of um autistic women don't get recognized until later in life because they have developed that that social masking that social camouflage and to get to get through but the problem is is that there's such a high cost to that because that's such a huge cognitive load on somebody to be constantly looking at what other

Starting point is 00:22:40 people are doing questioning yourself am I giving too much eye contact? Oh, I should probably look away now because I've noticed that person X looks away after they've said two sentences. You're doing that all the time and that has such a high cognitive and emotional load. So then what will often happen is once that social situation is over, the social expectation is low, crash, burnout, sitting quietly. For me, I sit and rock, something that I hadn't really recognised as something that was me just trying to regulate after a social situation, that I would just sit in complete silence by myself and just rock and this could be for hours but because that was hidden no one saw that and no one saw that that was a problem but because

Starting point is 00:23:33 I'd then go to school the next day and talk to people and I was reasonably bright I wasn't the brightest but I was reasonably bright so I could slip under the radar. I think for me as well my camouflaging and masking was supported slash promoted through being a performing arts student. I was a shy child, shy introverted however however it was called at the time and it had been spotted it had been spotted by school that I was shy that I preferred to sit by myself and read a book and so my my parents in you know with the best intentions sent me to a stage school um which I loved I really enjoyed it um I essentially learned the script on how to be a person which sounds a bit melodramatic but essentially I did because I got to read so many scripts sing different songs start to learn about situations and how in the

Starting point is 00:24:33 script people would respond if someone was sad this is how someone could respond and then that's how other people would respond to that person's response so when I think about it now it definitely contributed to me developing developing my masking developing my camouflage. Thank you that's really really illuminating and also a point sounds quite distressing did it feel distressing when you're rocking or did it feel soothing? Initially it would feel distressing because I think that was when the emotion was the highest so I would come home from a day at school or it could you know nowadays it would be a day at work a day at uni if there's been a lot of social load and it would feel quite distressing the sort of my body would be in quite a heightened state but as I would start to to rock try and

Starting point is 00:25:26 that would be me regulating that would be me bringing myself back down to then re-engage in activity or re-engage in family family life and social life all of those sorts of things um that were kind of expected to get on with. But yeah, so it didn't feel distressing to rock. It was definitely me trying to regulate myself. But the emotion would usually be quite, quite high when I would start. Great, thank you. And how has this cropped up for you during training or with clinical groups? maybe even since diagnosis how does this play out for you within the clinical work you do? Yeah I guess for me I've got a bit of an eye for neurodivergence which I didn't necessarily know why I had this eye for it or interest in looking for

Starting point is 00:26:26 neurodivergence before getting the diagnosis, I would find myself sort of drawn to people that maybe weren't treated that well in services and start to ask questions and think, well, have we not thought about autism? Have we not about ADHD have we and start to ask those those questions I didn't necessarily have the answer but I just felt a need to ask questions I think as well I've got quite a strong sense of justice and I think that's something that has massively influenced my clinical work I'm I know quite a few psychologists can sometimes step back a little bit from social justice work and they will have absolutely valid reasons for doing so but for me it feels that when I see injustice in the world I feel like I have to

Starting point is 00:27:18 do something about it, I have to learn more, I have to say something, I have to listen to people who know more than me who are saying something. I do feel like I really immerse myself in those worlds. In the neurodivergent world we talk about hyper focus and that's something that has absolutely been a strength for me through my assistant roles, through training, that once I'm on something, I will focus and I will get it done. I've always been praised for being really organised and have been asked before, how are you so organised? What do you do? I've been asked to share my calendars with people as a glowing example of what a calendar should look like and for me that's just second nature. I can't think of a work day where I'm not putting slots in my calendar that are very clear that this is what I'm doing here and this is how long it's going to take. I don't like having a vague open calendar.

Starting point is 00:28:18 I like to have things very organised and very ordered even if the work itself isn't ordered as I've worked on inpatient wards for instance where the work isn't ordered it can be quite unpredictable but I use my calendar to organise my time and that's often been something that people have really picked up on I think all of my placement supervisors have put something somewhere in my report about how I'm very organised I'm always very well prepared but that's just something that is second nature to me, I don't have to think about. So if people wanted to learn more about those sort of approaches I think it's like job planning and time blockings, if you find everything feeling a bit squally it's those

Starting point is 00:29:01 kinds of approaches that can help try and give some order to the chaos is that what you mean victoria yeah essentially and it's something that um managers that i've worked with in the past have said that you don't really need too much job planning or support with um managing your diary because i've always just been able to do it um which you know I understand that some people find it really, really difficult. And I try and help where I can. I really try and help, you know, friends, family, for instance, if they're struggling with organising things, I try my best. But I think sometimes that means I just jump in and do it for them. Because it's quite hard to explain what's going on in my brain sometimes.

Starting point is 00:29:41 Yeah, okay, I hear you. And in terms of wanting to help others and wanting to support others is it fair to say this has sort of evoked something within you for wanting to to see people represented in the profession? Absolutely I sort of came into clinical psychology after switching from doing the drama and performing arts route and I switched to clinical psychology as a route a little bit later on after a lot of thought and a few things happening in my life. And then when I got my diagnosis of my health condition, it was about a week into a brand new job where I just started in the NHS and assistant psychologist I was like this is it I'm on the path and then I was hospitalized a week into the role with this mystery illness that I had been sitting on for five weeks thinking it's fine it'll go it'll go I'll be all right don't tell anybody don't make a fuss you're going to ruin this job if you do anything but then it got so serious that I was hospitalized and then I got the diagnosis of ulcerative colitis after a pretty horrendous hospital stay but then I started to worry at that

Starting point is 00:30:51 point well how on earth can I be a clinical psychologist if I'm going to be in and out of hospital for the rest of my life and I was devastated that I just started a brand new job and I was so worried to go back to work after that period of sick I went back way too early after being in hospital because I was just so scared of the consequences of how I was going to be seen was it going to be like oh she's just been here a week and she's already been she's already off um whereas I went back way way way too early I was still in a lot of physical pain really not well at all but I did go back and then very quickly encouraged to go back off again but that I think that was something that that fear just sort of sat within me that is this the profession for me

Starting point is 00:31:38 am I going to be safe here am I going to actually be able to do all the things that I'd set in my mind that I was going to do? We can get very fixed I think on the aspiring route of that well I'm going to do this AP position, I'm going to do it for this long and then I'm going to move on and then I'm going to apply for the doctorate and then this is how it's all going to go and we sort of map it out about how it's going to happen and I was terrified that this plan that I had quite rigidly in my head of what was going to happen wasn't going to happen. Thankfully in that job I was so well supported, occupational health were fantastic, reasonable adjustments were put in at a blink of an eye and my supervisor was honestly the most wonderful supervisor and I really really flourished in that role. I then moved

Starting point is 00:32:24 roles as assistants do. I moved role to get some more experience elsewhere and had a terrible experience. So, yeah, moving into a different a different role where I wasn't supported as well. That then started the cycle all over again of should I just drop this career? Can I do this? There was there was bullying in that role not just for me but for other people it was not it was not a friendly environment and unfortunately we do hear that all too often in the NHS that there are those teams where where bullying does happen so it was not ideal for that to happen I did experience discrimination based on my disability

Starting point is 00:33:06 quite publicly which again made me think how on earth can I do this? What if I get sent on a placement when I get on the course and they don't manage it very well? What can I do? I felt safe telling particular people about my diagnosis for them to be used against me was heartbreaking. So then I moved jobs again and again was really well supported. So it can really, really influence how your experience goes on how well you're supported when you do have a health condition. So I knew from my bad experience that this wasn't okay and I did take things further with it. There was relevant actions completed, but I thought this can't happen again.

Starting point is 00:33:51 This shouldn't happen again. Because one of the big things that I had experienced in that role was as an assistant, I had very little protection. My clinical work was very protected, but my emotional protection, I didn't have any standing as a band four assistant psychologist. I felt very exposed and very, very vulnerable. So that made me get onto, I guess, a social justice sort of movement that I had in my head. When I get onto training, this won't happen again. again quite a big idea but it has to go from

Starting point is 00:34:25 somewhere doesn't it so when I started training that's when I wanted to start to influence things to make things different to start being more open about my health condition and hopefully help others to do that as well so then that's when the ball started rolling with the work that I ended up doing. Thank you for guiding us through that and I'm so sorry to hear what you experienced but I think you so nicely encapsulated there that sometimes people will be well aligned and well you know well placed to support us well and to support us optimally and sometimes through no fault of our own people won't be but it's not always that the answer for why that's problematic lays within ourselves sometimes it's just systemic and actually we can we can just respond to that by by taking ourselves and moving ourselves elsewhere and knowing that it's not us that's the problem.

Starting point is 00:35:28 It's an organization or it's a cultural setup in an organization. So I would really urge our listeners to feel like if they feel like they are a square peg in a round hole or a round peg in a square hole, to think about actually maybe, you know not pathologizing yourself is the problem maybe it's maybe it's a service maybe it's the culture um and you know you might well find that you're really really happy elsewhere absolutely um the the jobs that I've had where it has gone well I've been encouraged to flourish and use my strengths and when things have been more difficult take the time to rest because then I'll be even better once I've had that rest to try and prevent that burnout to try and prevent the fatigue that comes with my

Starting point is 00:36:19 condition it's it's they're easy things to do and I think sometimes in the in some of the cultures that that we experience in in the NHS and in other roles that we forget that that some of the things that people need are quite straightforward but they can make such a huge difference to people and absolutely when things go go wrong we will we will blame ourselves we'll say there's something that I did it's to do with me I can't do this but you absolutely can um when you're in the right place and when you're well supported you can do you can do it um that's not to say there's not challenges along the way that absolutely have been um but in the roles I have had they've absolutely formed how I got onto the doctorate how I've got through training and how I've managed to pop out at the end um relatively unscathed.

Starting point is 00:37:12 Thank you I think people are going to find it so um refreshing to hear you speak and so interesting and useful as well in terms of learning points just in case people aren't familiar with what ulcerative colitis is could you tell us a little bit about what that is do we know what causes it or is it autoimmune um just guide us through a little bit of that if that's okay yeah sure um so it's it is an autoimmune condition it's um a lifelong non-curable condition where the something has in the immune system decided to attack itself and where it forms that attack is in the large intestine that differs from Crohn's disease which usually more people have heard of which can impact anywhere from the esophagus all the way to the small intestine. So ulcerative colitis is localized to the large intestine.

Starting point is 00:38:07 So what ends up happening is that as it's attacking itself, the lining of the intestine starts to ulcerate. That's where the ulcerative bit comes from. So you get ulcers, you get sores and you get abrasions essentially along along the intestine so the things that are in the gut to try and protect us um that they're not working as well there's not necessarily a known cause for it um there's there's a i think with most autoimmune conditions they say it's a mix of a sort of a genetic and an environmental trigger. However, when I was researching autism for myself, I found a really, really large link between ulcerative colitis and other gastrointestinal disorders and autism. So there's a part of me that has a little bit of a soapbox to stand on that maybe we should be screening for autism in the physical health sphere a little bit

Starting point is 00:39:05 more as there is such a huge link between experiencing autoimmune conditions and neurodivergence? I've heard that as well and I think it's something around so what I've heard is that stress and trauma affects all of our muscles and our body and our systems and our structures and our gut has what's called smooth muscles in it striate muscles um and the way that um the way that stress and trauma um and trying to kind of manage our own internal systems work is that that will affect our striate muscles and one of the ways we can to kind of make sure that we're relaxing ourselves is to not clench our fists like this to sit and sort of relax and take a breath and that encourages all of our striate muscles to relax which is part of our gut and so I've definitely heard that link before because the theory is that people on the

Starting point is 00:40:05 autistic spectrum would find situations more anxiety provoking and like you said would be doing more that masking so they might be highly distressed or trying to blend into a situation and someone else might not know what's going on but it's that it's that duck and the legs analogy isn't it you know it looks very serene, you know, your job plan, your meticulous calendar, but actually, there's a great deal of work going on in the background that people wouldn't be aware of. And that has an impact on the body as well as the mind. 100% Yeah. And I guess for me thinking about the body and mind links that I hadn't really known that much about before getting into into psychology it makes so much sense now though doesn't it when we experience anxiety we get a bad tummy and for me it's a little bit different because it's it's an autistic anxiety so there's

Starting point is 00:40:57 differences there in that it's it's not necessarily a pathologized anxiety it's that I'm trying to fit in a world that's not built for me but that still creates an anxiety response in the body and so when I get a poorly anxiety tummy unfortunately with ulcerative colitis that's quite it's quite different it's a bit different so there is sometimes a coexistence of ulcerative colitis and IBS for example so I may get quite similar IBS symptoms but alongside that when you have the ulcerative colitis symptoms although it is localized to the large intestine you can get ulcers on your eyes on your mouth and one of the most distressing things for me is when I get ulcers on my eyes because there's no hiding them people can see when I've got one of the ulcers

Starting point is 00:41:44 on my eyes they're really uncomfortable one eye will get really really red and inflamed and it just makes me feel so self-conscious I feel like I can't look people in the face or in the eyes so I'm already thinking about eye contact as an autistic person but when I've got this swelling on my eye I'm thinking about it even more because I'm going they can tell I've got really swollen eye what they're going to think about me whereas in reality they're probably not thinking about it at all or they might notice it and be like oh I look sore and then not think about it ever again whereas I will think about it all day so the those are more visible symptoms even though it's technically a non-visible illness there will be some visible symptoms sometimes there's also things like

Starting point is 00:42:22 fatigue joint pain that I can really struggle with which are the more non-visible symptoms and can be a bit more difficult to explain but again there's such there's such links isn't there I guess with neurodivergence that there will be fatiguing effects from masking from camouflaging so it all intertwines and gets gets very messy um but you know it's it's something that isn't neither of them are curable neither would I want them to be it's just something that I have to manage. Thank you again and I hadn't realized about the the eyes and that the you know the sores can um can crop up in other parts of the body. So thank you for sharing that with us. But it sounds really painful and very uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. But

Starting point is 00:43:12 many people would really struggle to work at all with this condition, especially during a flare up. So, you know, real hats off to you for not only working, but working at an incredibly high level. And you're about to start a qualified role as well. Yeah so thank you I sometimes can't believe it myself and it's it's very strange as sometimes that when I speak to people and when I've hosted workshops when I've hosted webinars and things like that and talk about disability and the things that I've been through I get like that and talk about disability and the things that I've been through I get some really lovely comments and some really lovely feedback but oh my goodness the imposter syndrome comes in when that happens of that oh my gosh you're an

Starting point is 00:43:54 inspiration and that you've done so well and all of that and yeah I'm so pleased and I'm so privileged and I feel so honoured to have done the things that I've done at the same time it's not been it's not been easy and it's not been something that I necessarily feel inspirational for doing I just feel like I've managed to make a set of pretty rubbish circumstances and try and use my values and try and use who I am as a person to forge a career that I hope that as I'm more vocal about these things that we can change some of the things that keep that gatekeep the career um so yeah when I go into my next post I'll be working with older people in an inpatient service inpatients couldn't keep me away I just enjoy

Starting point is 00:44:45 working in in that environment it's very challenging but again there is aspects of structure within it so you'll have your morning meetings at the same time every day there's routines on the ward that are kept too so some of the environment might be challenging but I've enjoyed inpatient working every time I've been in an inpatient service because I do feel more contained, even though there's sometimes chaos, but even more so than I would in necessarily a community setting, which may feel a little bit strange from an autistic person to say that they like being in a bit of chaos. But it works for me well congratulations on your new role and thank you for guiding us through the steps involved in kind of having a long-term health condition yourself kind of juggling all of

Starting point is 00:45:34 that and then also your steps in recognizing autistic traits in yourself and then going through diagnosis and assessment um you know such a big episode but a really really interesting and useful one if people want to learn more about you and your work and what you're hoping to help people achieve where's the best place for them to do that yes there's a couple of places. I'm on Twitter or X. What do we call it now? X. So Twitter slash X. I'm there at Victoria Emma underscore W. doctor in front of it once the HCPC registration comes through but Victoria Walker is just fine and I also have a Facebook group called Pre-Qual Clinical Psychologists with Disabilities and or Health Conditions that's where I started the idea for having a mentoring scheme you can contact me at the moment through the some of the mentoring schemes that are within that facebook group and also the ones that i advertise on my twitter slash x um but i will be taking a little bit of a step back from some of those things as i go into qualified life but i can absolutely signpost you to the right

Starting point is 00:46:57 place thank you and i feel like i should explain that I insisted on giving you your doctor title, because as I understand it, you are able to use doctor from the moment that you pass your viva. But it's that you're not able to call yourself a clinical psychologist until you get your HCPC registration. So if anyone's done anything wrong there, it is me. But that is absolutely what I was doing at this stage so thank you and if you've got any what's your top tip shall we say for reducing burnout in aspiring psychologists Victoria I think to stay in tune with your values and express them and I know values is a bit of a buzzword um knowing your why so I think that's what values come down to it's why you're doing what you're doing and I think that's the thing that can identify whether the thing that you're doing is in the direction that you want it to be if something is niggling at your values is challenging your values you're more likely to burn out so that's a sign so if

Starting point is 00:48:02 you're if something in in in your experience or in what you're doing at the moment is feels wrong in the gut let's go to the gut again it's a very powerful place to be if something doesn't quite feel right in your gut it suggests that it's niggling at one of your values it's niggling at your why you're here that means it's something to change whether that's through supervision whether that's through talking to a, whether that's through supervision, whether that's through talking to a manager, whether that's through making a move, whether that's through some form of discrimination that's happening, there's something that's not right. So I would always check in with the values, check in with your why you're here, because then that's often the sign, that's the gateway as to what might be causing that burnout. Really wonderful advice. Thank you. And thank you

Starting point is 00:48:48 for the time that you've given us so generously today. And thank you for getting in contact with me to pitch this episode to me via LinkedIn. It's, yeah, I love, I love it when people do that, because, you know, having a bottom up um process can be so so useful into hearing what other people think will be useful and what other people will absolutely find useful indeed um yeah just want to say thank you again and wishing you very well with this next stage of your career but let me know if I can do anything that might be useful for you in future. Oh thank you yeah it's been lovely to talk to you today I could probably talk for hours about all of this stuff so yeah if anyone did want to contact me please go ahead

Starting point is 00:49:36 and I'll chew your ear for hours and hours about all of this stuff so yeah thank you so much. I will make sure I put all your contact details in the show notes as well. And if you're watching on YouTube, they will be on the screen and will have been when we were when we were doing all the Twitter X. I don't know either. The web address is still Twitter, but I don't know. I like the blue bird. What can I say? Yeah. Yeah. It's not as nice now. No, no. But yes, thank you very much. And yeah, wishing you all the best with the next stage of your career. Thank you so much. Oh, how absolutely lovely was Dr. Victoria.

Starting point is 00:50:15 And I love calling her Dr. Victoria. I hope that you found what we had to talk about today useful. And like I said, if you have got any ideas for bottom up or even top down you know you you might be you might be above where I'm at in my career but if you've got any ideas for future podcast episodes or things or resources you'd find helpful do please get in contact with me you can either do that via LinkedIn, Dr. Marianne Trent, or by contacting me via any of my socials or the details in my show notes. Yeah, do please, if you're finding this podcast helpful, do please leave me a rating and a review, which you can do via Spotify or

Starting point is 00:50:59 Apple or both. That would be marvellous. And if you find this content useful and any of the other content helpful please do consider buying me a little cup of herbal tea which you can do by clicking on the link in my socials be kind to yourself i'll catch up with you very soon our next episode of the podcast is available from 6 a.m on monday thank you for being part of my world. I'll speak to you very soon. Take care. Thank you. My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist it just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no

Starting point is 00:52:33 perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me of confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself so if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will will be okay but trust me you will not put the book down once you start

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Adult Autism Diagnosis, Long Term Health Conditions and Training as a Psychologist during the pandemic - with Dr Victoria Walker

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