The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Boundaries and seeking support in your psychology career - DClinpsy - Assistant Psychologist - PWP

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: On Becoming Boundaried & Seeking Support - Marianne's Summer Soundbites – 7Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. Welcome to the last of my Marianne’s Summer Sound Bites! This series is slightly shorter, but packed full of important, smaller topics, to help you stay on track over the busy summer period. I hope you find this helpful, no matter where you are in your journey in becoming an aspiring psychologist – whatever this may look like for you! Today’s episode focusses on another 2 vital steps when thinking about being an aspiring qualified psychologist. The importance of boundaries and how to navigate this as well as supervision, plus a lovely analogy to help you think about reducing burnout. Application season is now upon us! In today’s episode, I go over the dates of another series that has been super helpful for those thinking about doctorates and further qualifications, the compassionate Q&A sessions! There are also a few other helpful tools to make the most of your applications and all the resources I have to offer, so listen along! I hope you find it useful in your application as you journey your way through the steps in becoming an aspiring psychologist. I’d love any feedback you might have, and I’d love to know what your offers are and to be connected with you on socials so I can help you to celebrate your wins! The Highlights:(00:00): Introduction(00:55): Where to find all the tools to help you with the doctorate programme(02:01): When are the compassionate Q&As(03:16): What is Flexitime working and what’s great about it?(04:07): The balancing act of being enthusiastic and sticking to finish times (05:59): Reflecting on glass and rubber balls(08:06): Seeking supervision when it suits you(09:52): Why is not taking work home so important?(11:51): Tools to support supervision & closeLinks:🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97 💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested✍️ Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervision📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent💬 To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunityLike, Comment, Subscribe & get involved:If you enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe and rate and...

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,

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 of Marianne's Summer Soundbites, we are looking at two more brilliant strategies to help you to nourish yourself, to nurture yourself, to look after

yourself, treat yourself as number one so you can reduce the chance of burnout and be there for your clients, your families, for everybody else too. Hope you find it so useful. The only way to be qualified is the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast with Dr. Marianne Trent. Hi, welcome along to another episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. This is another of our super useful, super punchy, shorter than usual summer soundbite episodes so that you can keep psychology in your day-to-day life when you might be a little bit busier. So another series which has been really popular in the past is the free Compassionate Q&A series. And they're hosted all by me. And they're all, as I said, absolutely for free across my socials. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. But a great place to

catch up with it is either via YouTube, which is Dr. Marianne Trent, or via my free Facebook group, which is the Aspiring Psychologist Community with Dr. Marianne Trent. Right, let me tell you and talk you through the dates where you can grab these really useful sessions if you are applying for psychology doctorate programs in the autumn. So I know that is the case for declensi and that is the case for educational psychology too. So the first of those sessions is running on Monday the 4th of September 2023 at 6pm. The second is Tuesday the 3rd of October 2023 at 6pm. And the last but certainly not the least is Tuesday the 7th of November 2023 at 6pm. And like I said, runs across all of my social platforms. So put a note in your diary and join me then. But if you're not free that day, you can catch any replays on Dr. Marianne Trent on YouTube. And whilst you're

there, why not like and subscribe, share a bit of useful content and drop me some comments. So let's plow on with the first of my strategies today for how to keep you tip top and therefore to help your clients really benefit and those around you too. So the first is for me, it's setting boundaries and knowing that that's okay to do. And it's really important that you do. Setting boundaries might look different for different people. But certainly when I was an aspiring psychologist psychologist it meant sometimes that I was having to work a little bit later in order to get reports ready for the next day's ward round or the next day's care planning meetings but I was on a system where flexi time was possible as well so

I could still choose to come in at the same time the next day, but I could then log any extra time spent 15 minutes and over doing additional duties. I could then take that back either just straight away the next day, or I could save it up and take it as a bit of a longer chunk to have a bit of a morning off or to finish early one afternoon too. Clearly, you're going to need to discuss that with your line manager and with your supervisor and if that's not the policy in your department then you might just need to be really bounded about your time, about your start and your finish times and make sure that you're not adding too much to your plate to do in any particular day. And sometimes that can feel really tricky when you want to look keen, you want to look enthusiastic, you want to be helpful.

But sometimes you might need to just remind people of what you've already got on. So you might need to check the priority of what's being asked for you. So when someone gives you a piece of work, you say, can I ask, you know, what, when you might need that back by what, what your, what your deadline is for that. And if they say, oh, today, as soon as possible, then you might say, okay, I've already got this, that we've agreed needs to be done by today. And I'm working on that currently. So could you let me know which has the highest priority, because I need to finish at five today. And then you know, you're leveling with them, that there's only one of you. And that is honestly, okay to do. It might take a little bit of a practice. It might take talking this through in the mirror but that's okay you aren't anybody's slave you

certainly I certainly we certainly don't get paid well enough to work 24 7 around the clock and actually when we try to do that we recognize that we start to feel pretty jaded we start to feel pretty tired and we're no use to ourselves and we're certainly no use to the service. And before you know it, you're looking for new jobs because you're working too hard and it's not working for you and it's likely not working for them. You might find that you're dropping all sorts of balls all over the place. And I know in May last year, when we spoke to Rose Dunstan for the podcast, which was way back in episode 25, she introduced us to the idea of glass and rubber balls with the idea that we

could afford to drop some rubber balls, but we probably couldn't and shouldn't be planning on dropping the glass ones because they're too important. And that's been a really helpful idea to myself, but also to a number of clients I've worked with as well. So if you're listening to this, thank you so much, Rose, and hope that it's all going well with you. So yeah, it might be helpful for you in your work capacity or in your study capacity for that matter. And maybe even in your personal capacity to think about which of your priorities and which of the concerns in your life are rubber balls, those you can afford to place down or to leave unattended or to just, you know, let drop,

and which are glass balls, those which you can't. So yeah, let me know what you think. Do come along to the Aspiring Psychologist community or any of my social media posts and discuss this with me. What are your glass balls? What are your rubber balls, so to speak? Right, let's pause here for a quick break and I'll be back along to talk through our next of our top tips for reducing burnout and keeping you vibrant. It's right here in this book. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh this and everything in your life ticking along nicely. Now we're going to look at the second of our Marianne's Summer Sandbike topics for the day. Next we are looking at the importance of seeking support and supervision. Please at this point don't let your eyes glaze over because it really is important. You know the quality of the relationship between you and your supervisor you and those in your team

maybe even those you're sharing an office with if that's something that you have I know when I was when I was an aspiring psychologist sometimes I didn't even have my own chair heck when I was qualified sometimes I didn't even have my own chair but you know where you are where you're spending your time day to day can be so important in the way that you're able to bring yourself to work the way you're able to bring yourself to your client work and how much good stuff is left over at the end of the day so it can be useful looking at when in the week you're having supervision because course, if you know that you're having it, I don't know, first thing on a Monday morning or first thing on a Tuesday morning, but then you're

going right through the week and you've got lots of tricky things stacking up, then it might not be super useful for you going home on a Friday, all full up to the brim. You know, it might be better if you're able to sit and have that chat with your supervisor about what you're experiencing when you clock off for the week and how much of that you might be taking home. Because, you know, we, I speak collectively as supervisors, past and present, don't want you being so full up that you can't engage with your day to day life. You know, I really would like for you to be able to do your job, do your job well whilst you're there. But then leave it there, you know, leave it in the phone, leave it in the spreadsheet, leave it in your laptop.

Don't bring that home with you because it's going to really affect your window of tolerance. It's going to make it terribly thin, terribly little, not much jam in the sandwich. And yeah, before you know it, you're going to be struggling with lots and lots of things. So making sure that you're contained, and that is something that I got much better at doing as I got, as my career advanced, I found myself being able to kind of think about clients as and when I wanted to, either in a mindful way or because something I was doing or listening to or thinking of reminded me of them, but it felt pleasant to have them there. It wasn't like it was pressing down on me and feeling really heavy or that they were unwelcome in some way. So yeah, it can be really

useful to think about the timing of your supervision. But also something I've really benefited from is the wisdom and the knowledge and the expertise of others in the team who might not even be psychologists. Not to make it sound like psychologists are the be-all and end-all, but of course this is an aspiring psychologist podcast so you've got to give me a little bit of leeway there if you have time in your diary especially at the beginning of a job it can be wonderfully enriching and rewarding to shadow other members of the team or even to ask if you could after you've shadowed a few you know run a session together run an assessment together,

or go and help out at a therapy group. And because you'll learn so much, but also you'll be able to bring and offer your unique skills and talents. And do bear in mind the supervision shaping tool, which is available from my website. And people have said they've been finding really useful. You can download that for yourself by going to the link in the show notes or the post description. But in case you're listening, you don't have a pen. It's www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk forward slash supervision. thank you so much for being part of my world please do subscribe like share comment tell your friends about us share us on your socials thank you so much for being part of my world and i'll be back along with the next episode of the aspiring psychologist podcast from monday at 6 a.m take care Thank you. to be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast with Dr. Marianne Trent. My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological wellbeing 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 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 definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me, you will not put the book down once you start.