The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Connecting with Your Values as an Aspiring Psychologist

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Connecting with Your Values as an Aspiring Psychologist. Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. In today’s episode we will consider our values. Values having become increasingly popular in psychological interventions such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Compassion Focused Therapy. They can also help us to take better care of ourselves. Have a listen to see how I use my values in my work, personal life and for self-care!The Highlights: A Grief Hangover.An ACT values exercise.What values are important for career goals?Living according to your values.A foreword from Dr. Chris Irons.Planning for the next decade!Modelling your values to others.Patience and curiosity a parent.Twisting values.Do a values exercise with me! Links:Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervisionConnect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the upcoming Aspiring Psychologist Book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent• To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 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 review episodes. If you'd like to learn how to record and submit your own audio testimonial to be included in future shows head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and click the blue request info button at the top of the page. Hashtags: #aspiringpsychologist #dclinpsy #psychology #assistantpsychologist #psychologycareers #clinicalpsychology #mentalhealth #selfcare #HerMajesty #Grief #applications #supervision #mourning #QueenElizabeth #BPS #media #griefhangover #values #CFT #compassionfocusedtherapy #Acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy #therapy #parenting #gentalparenting #planning #goalsetting

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. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide.

With this podcast at your side, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast with Dr. Marianne Trent. Without a merry entrance it love me but I'm also on camera today. So if you're not listening on YouTube you could come along and see me talk through what we're going to be talking to you about today but there is no pressure. So if you are in the UK at the moment you will have noticed there's lots of stuff in the media still about grief and you know people talking about a grief hangover and that's something that people have been telling me about kind of personally and professionally you know the effect of the media and the kind of more dour presentation and the songs and the music and the the kind of reflective things that we've been subjected to really as part of living in the UK. And, you know,

that can feel tricky because what we know is that it doesn't always feel safe to be sad. But for me, you know, I very much try to live by my values and my values as a psychologist and I think that you know being able to tap into all of our range of emotions including sadness which is key is very important to me both personally and professionally and so you know I'm always intrigued to know what your values are. Today, we're going to be doing a values exercise for me, based on me, using some acceptance and commitment therapy values cards. So why don't you, you know, see how you get on with this exercise. In fact, if you'd like to come on and do an aspiring psychologist set of values episode, let me know and I'll have you on as a guest. Let me know if you'd be up for that. So what we're going to do is we're firstly going to pick the goal I want to work on. And then I'm going to identify my core core values out of a big set of values. So let's get on with that. So picking from the life domains,

can I show you that so that you can see it on camera? We've got family, parenting, intimate partner, friends and social life, work and career, health, education and learning environment community spirituality personal growth and leisure and I am going to because we're talking about psychology I'm going to talk about work and career in this so there's a massive massive stack of values to work through. And what I've done is I've picked a section of them, a selection of them, and I've whittled down the ones that are most important to me. So in no particular order, we have cooperation. So to be cooperative and collaborative with others. We have contribution.

To contribute, give, help, assist, share or be generous. Creativity. To be creative or innovative at work or at play. We have trust, to be trustworthy, loyal, faithful, sincere and reliable and or be trusting of others. We have friendliness, to be warm, friendly, open, accepting, agreeable and helpful towards others. We have industry, to be industrious, hardworking, committed, proactive or dedicated. We have honesty, to be honest, truthful and sincere with myself and others. Safety, to secure, protect or ensure my own safety or that of others.

Compassion. To act kindly towards myself and or others when in pain. Courage. To be courageous or brave. To persist in the face of fear, uncertainty and threatening circumstances. Connection, to engage fully in whatever I'm doing, to give the activity or the person I'm with my full attention. And last but not least, curiosity, to be curious, open-minded and interested, eager to explore, discover and learn and out of those I picked some top ones so I whittled it down to curiosity connection courage compassion and friendliness but that is too many so oh and trust um that's too many so I'm going to go for compassion connection I'm going to fall

technically only supposed to have three, curiosity and courage. And the rest of them I'm going to say, thank you, you're very important to me, but my core values as a professional are those of curiosity, courage, connection and compassion. Now already I'm thinking, oh no, I'm missing, I miss those other bits, but I think these are, you know, my core values, I think. Okay, so the next part of this activity is living your values. So when I'm living by these values of compassion, connection, courage and curiosity, how do I treat myself? How do I treat others? How do I treat myself how do I treat others how do I treat my body how do I treat my work and education how do I treat my interests or hobbies and how do I treat the world around me okay so

when I treat myself I very much practice being compassionate these days. And that was something that I didn't really have along my journey to being an aspiring psychologist. And so very much in the upcoming Aspiring Psychologist book, I encourage you and the other people within that book, encourage you to be self-compassionate. And I think that is absolutely key and we have a foreword by Dr Chris Irons in the book as well who is you know one of the very leading voices in in self-compassion and compassion focused therapy right now so so we're privileged to have him in the book um i'm very

grateful for him saying yes and i guess that's one of my values as well as courage you know i asked him if he would do it and he said yes you know and i guess i have similar courage with my clients so i have the courage to have difficult conversations I have the curiosity to explore that in a way that doesn't feel intrusive, you know, a way that still feels respectful. So we have that connection, you know. I have this almost palpable, visceral sense of connection with my clients and with people I work with and that's really really important to me so I treat others with compassion I demonstrate my courage to myself and to them and I'm curious about myself as well I'm quite reflective generally so I speak to you today whilst I've been to a funeral.

Part of the grief continues. I'm hoping that's going to be it for us for now, for the next foreseeable. But, you know, I'm always curious about that. I'm curious to hear about others' lives and to learn about other people. I was just doing a live just before I started this podcast and I saw that my postman was back after a very long period of what I was assuming was sickness absence. But I actually went and stopped. Well, he rang the doorbell and my husband was out. But I went to go and answer the door and I stopped the live and then came back to it. I was curious about him because I have a connection with him and I felt compassionate to him. And I'm, you know, courageous as well.

So I was like, oh, you know, how are you? How have you been? And, you know, he tells me a story. And I ended up singing him the song that my children had made up about him um about where he might be it was basically his name which I won't tell you because it's not not appropriate for me to do that um you know and ends in all the verses are different country names where he might be um they're trying to make sense of where the postman had gone and he he very much enjoyed that and he said said he was going to try and add a few more verses before he next saw me about the countries that he could have been in, but wasn't. So yeah, I just try to be curious with everybody really. And I'm curious at work,

treating my interests or hobbies. I don't feel like I've got many at the moment it's mainly writing books and that's kind of taking a lot of time um but I'm going to the theater um tomorrow um and I'm also going the next week which is entirely accidental um scheduling um and you know I guess am I going to be curious about that I'm kind of curious because I'm going to be seeing something I don't really remember wanting to see and yet apparently I did agree to go and see it and that's Mamma Mia I'm not hugely looking forward to it it's also my wedding anniversary that it's on and so I didn't even know I was I didn't remember I was going because I would have thought originally I said no to going out on my wedding anniversary day. So I'm curious about that. How's that going

to be? I think sometimes as my sister-in-law just said to me, if you've got low expectations, then you're easily pleased. And I think that's going to be the case for this musical I'm going to. So that's living by my values. So how would I set goals in the next 24 hours, in the next week, in the next two weeks, month, year and decade? Decade's a big one, isn't it? So I would want to continue to be connected with others. So even though I do lots of passive stuff, I will always do one-to-one client work because it's really important to me to have that sense of connection and to be able to help demonstrate my skills in compassion, curiosity and courage. So in the next decade, I would hope to still be

seeing clients and in holding on to those values that will very much keep me grounded and keep me focused. And I really liked that when I was working in the NHS, some of the people in more senior management had still kept a very small caseload because I guess that sense of connection and sense of doing something in industry was really important to them to be doing their core profession and I absolutely think that I would have been the same as well so I probably would have been um if I if I progressed and progressed I'd have been the chief exec that still had you know a clinic and saw three clients a week because it was really important to me to do that um so yeah I think I'm very much I've got an idea of where my my work is going. Perhaps we'd like to do some more training in compassion focused therapy and to continue with my supervisory relationships as well for connection and curiosity.

So I'm going to whip through these because we haven't got a super amount of time. So I'm not going to do action planning, which is where we look at the actions we take to achieve the goals. We're going to look at encouraging values, and we're going to look at that after this short break, which I hope you enjoy. Enjoy the jingle, won't you? that will help you get qualified. So come and take a look. It's right here in this book. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. clinical psychologist collective book is the book to read for aspiring psychologists

like most aspiring psychologists i've read all the books about becoming a clinical psychologist. While other books break down the entry criteria and speak of the course competitiveness, the Clinical Psychologist Collective reveals the varied journeys and individual differences of those who've gotten onto and completed training. It inspired me to embrace my own journey and make the most of my experiences and identity. If you read one book about becoming a clinical psychologist, this is it. If you buy someone who aspires to be a clinical psychologist a book, this is it. This book will help profession blossom into a more diverse group of mental health practitioners who use their backgrounds to enhance their ability to support those we serve. Let this be your guide Filled with lessons and experience That will help you get qualified

So come and take a look It's right here in this book It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective It's the clinical psychologist collective welcome back to you let's think um some more about my personal values as a qualified clinical psychologist. And this might well be a really useful exercise that you could do. And like I said, in the first half, if you might be interested in coming on as a guest on the podcast to explore your values as an aspiring psychologist, then do let me know and let's see what we can sort out so

if you didn't catch the first half my values i've identified are compassion connection courage and curiosity um so those are the ones that i have picked out from a large selection of values. So how will I encourage those values? And who else would I like to encourage these values in? Well, I'd very much like to encourage the values of compassion and courage and curiosity within my children. I think that's really important you know uh i blubbed a river full of tears um when i went to my eldest child's first um merit assembly which i think was in reception year so he would have been four um and he was given his merit and within the merit award they mentioned his kindness you know a number of times and then teachers came up to me afterwards to tell me what a kind little

boy he was and how thoughtful he was to his to his peers in the class and to the staff as well and you know that just really moved me actually you know it's really really wonderful I really really think that kindness is the most wonderful thing but kindness isn't the same as letting people walk all over you you know it isn't it's just that you know how nice it is to be connected with other people and we can show people kindness without being a doormat absolutely um and he's certainly nobody's doormat now that he's nine um but he's still you know very much reported as being a really nice member of the class that gets along with people and is you know a pleasure to teach um let's see what they say about his little brother he's a little bit more of a handful

um but how can i model these values well it's really tricky actually um as a mummy um you know sometimes i i try always to be compassionate but i'm not always super patient you know and maybe that's something for me to reflect upon you know how can I increase my patience to my pre-grief levels so before 2017 I feel like I was more easygoing I had more patience generally but also the children are older now and are less compliant you know when I ask my eldest to go and brush his teeth now I get one sec one sec and then I prompt again a couple of minutes later because we're trying to hustle out the door and I still get one sec and it's like mummy can ask you kind of calmly and quite nicely about three times but after that I'm not going to be quite so calm you know so I absolutely used to be really into gentle parenting but I just found it wasn't really

I still would I guess get on board with the philosophies of gentle parenting but it's all very I found it very easy when I just had one child. And it got trickier when I had two children. And as they both start to grow and want different things, I just found it a bit trickier. So on a great day, I'd still say I'm a gentle parent. I would tend to hope to say that I was compassionate and connected most of the time. But when my youngest is trying to climb me whilst I'm trying to make breakfast literally he climbs me like I'm like a tree and he's a monkey um shins up me in all sorts you know cute to begin with but when you're trying

to butter toast and stuff it's a bit annoying you know get down you know we'll do this later it's nice that you want to climb me. It's nice that you love me. He's trying to climb up to kiss me as well. He's very cute, very cute. But, yeah, I think I would like to think that I don't want the children to think I'm not connected to them or not compassionate towards them because I've got other things to do and i'm

not as patient as i used to be um and i think maybe curiosity is something i could do with a bit more for the kids you know so they often all time tell me things i don't know about roblox or about football and it's not my specialist subject it's not something I'm super super interested in but that's certainly something I perhaps now I've identified my values will try to gently increase you know try to broaden that dialogue a little bit more um how can i initiate or teach or instruct these values well i think i do that really well in my one-to-one work um absolutely modeling that compassion and the connection and exploring the fact that it's safe you know to try courageous things in

our sessions that you may not have done before and to be curious and see whether we can take that outside of the therapeutic space to try that and I absolutely encourage these values in you as aspiring psychologists as well and that's absolutely the case within the aspiring psychologist membership and the clinical psychologisthip and the Clinical Psychologist Collective and the Aspiring Psychologist Collective, which is coming out very soon. You'll be pleased to know we should be on track for the 3rd of October. So yeah, exciting times. There is much to do still, lots of editing to be done, but hopefully by the time you are listening to this podcast episode the majority of it will be finished so yes I may be laying flat in a dark room exhausted um but even then

I am you know being courageous in putting this book out there um being curious what you guys will think to it um connected because this is stuff you want you know stuff that you're interested in you've told me um you know this is something you want to read um so i'm listening to my audience and i'm being compassionate because it's absolutely very tricky to be um the provider of mental health services in a mental health emergency which it feels like we're currently in in the UK as a result of many factors but including the pandemic and the effects of that. So yeah I try to make sure that I am initiating and teaching those well. How can I create situations or environments or relationships where these values thrive so I

guess yeah I can continue to offer sessions to new clients I can continue to offer supervision coaching sessions and one-to-one therapy did I say that already I think I did and I can continue to help my members in the membership to be really curious to be really courageous to connect with myself with others and with the clients they're working for in a compassionate way. How can we reward these values when you see them in others? So absolutely, when I see people reaching out to their network and being connected, that's something really to celebrate. When I see they're doing things courageously, like being sad when they don't usually feel like it's safe to be sad, that takes real courage, but also compassion. We're absolutely checking into and tapping into sadness as being a really important part of human emotion and knowing that's

safe for us to do. Okay, so the final one we're going to do in this exercise is twisting values. And that's the idea that our minds can easily twist our values into rigid or unhelpful rules. So can we notice any of these classic twists? I should do this, I have to do that, I must do the other, this is the right thing to do, that is the wrong thing to do, if I don't do this I'm bad and if I manage to do that I good. Remember, there are no good or bad, right or wrong, should or must in a value. And I think that's, yeah, for make sure that I am not over cramming my diary there's only certain um certain slots I have in my diary each week for one-to-one and once they're full they're full and I've always worked that way since um since being in my first qualified role as well which was a choice and partnership approach so a kappa service and so there was job plans so

everything was very predictable and that really set me up well for being boundaried with my time and being compassionate to myself and being clear about what was coming and what was next and so I really really like that way of working and that's the way that I continue to do that and I might well record a podcast episode on job planning and how's the way that I continue to do that and I might well record a podcast episode on job planning and how I use that because I absolutely still do that now but I you know also sometimes the compassionate thing to do is to say no to things so if you get invited to things and you don't want to do them um case in point you know there must have been a good reason why I said yes to the musical um maybe that's still to become clear um you know

also I went to see Les Miserables with my sister-in-law recently and we'd originally booked it in 20 it might have been in 2018 and it was supposed to be taking ahead taking place in 2020 um and of course it got cancelled and postponed and postponed and postponed. But I didn't even like the film when I watched it. It's just that she really, really loved the musical and really wanted to see it and nobody else fancied it with her.

So it was really expensive, but because it was important to her and I didn't want her not to be able to see it, I agreed to go. And we, you know, we had a lovely time and in the end we went for dinner as well beforehand. We a really nice evening so I'm really pleased we did that and it was I was pleasantly surprised I really enjoyed it it was really really great performance so sometimes we can so long as it's not harmful to us we can do things that we're not super thrilled

with and it might lead to a great outcome for us too and of course that's important with connection you know so I respect my sister-in-law I love her if you're listening which you're not because you're not a psychologist but maybe I'll make you listen to this one um you know we can be connected and we can respect others um you know and I can I can be courageous into going to things see things I don't think I'm going to enjoy. My father-in-law really loves Mamma Mia. And so maybe part of my reason for being courageous was to see him really enjoying himself. So that might well be part of my reason for saying yes to something that I wasn't actually that thrilled for. Now I think about it um so yeah I'm I guess with compassion being one of the values there's less

likely to be the shoulds and the have-tos and the rights and the wrongs and I'm bad if I don't and I'm should and I must and I you know if I don't then I'm an awful human um but also with that natural reflex reflexivity and reflection that we get with curiosity, I try not to be too harsh on myself. One of my friends has got about three or four full-time jobs, and I'm always trying to encourage her to, you know, maybe to do a little less, which is ironic for a lady who does as much as I do as well. But how have you found that?

So there is more to the exercise, but I'm conscious of the time. But how have you found that? Did any of my values map onto yours or are there some missing for you? Why don't you jot down your thoughts and why don't you come on over to the Aspiring Psychologist community on Facebook. Join us there and let's discuss this episode and what it might have evoked for you. During the Declan Sci application season, the membership is open with no need to wait on the waiting list. So if you do want to join us please do so and it'd be a pleasure to have you there we have got um our mindfulness course which is running

in um september october and november it's an eight week program and if you dive in now you can absolutely come and watch the first one on replay. Then you can come along to all other seven sessions live. And it's just going to be so wonderful. People in the membership are really looking forward to it. And we can help make this your most compassionate, mindful application season yet. Please do like and subscribe both on the YouTube channel and on your favorite podcast outlet of choice. I am going to get myself a nice cup of tea. I don't often allow myself to drink green tea with lemon anymore.

Clipper is my favorite because caffeine doesn't always love me. But I'm feeling that after a day of sadness and reflection, that what I'm going to do next is before going to get the children, I'm going to make myself a nice. So, you know, sometimes we can take small moments of self-care. Self-care is not always face packs and manicures. Just rather than squeeze an extra, you know, 30, 40 minutes into my day, like I've done with doing this podcast, just to allow ourselves just a little bit of decompression time to tell ourselves that we really are very special we're doing a good job we deserve to be looked after so how might there be some flex in your day to look after yourself hope as ever this has been useful for you you'll be very pleased to know that with the birth of the new book, The Aspiring Psychologist Collective,

that there might well be another jingle in the pipeline, which is always very exciting. I haven't even heard it yet. So, yeah, very much looking forward to sharing that with you too. But until then, look forward to this one. Enjoy this one, and I'll see you very soon. You can catch our next episode from 6am on Monday thank you so much for being part of my world this is episode 42 and if

you've been here all throughout thank you so much it means the absolute world take care guys bye if you're looking to become a psychologist then let this be your guide with this podcast at your side you'll be on your way to being qualified it's the aspiring psychologist with dr marianne 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 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 be okay but trust me you will not put the book down once you start.