The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Green Prescribing and Nature benefits for Mental Health – with Dan Loveard

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 69: Green Prescribing and Nature benefits for Mental Health – with Dan Loveard Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. The pandemic created new and different opportunities for us to fill our time and created challenges about being inside with people. As a result, many of us turned to nature and found surprising benefits. How can we encourage ourselves and our clients to engage with nature and what green prescribing and how can it help? I am joined today by my guest, Dan Loveard of Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. I’d love your thoughts about how you get out and about in nature. I hope you find it useful. I’d of course love any feedback you might have! The Highlights: (00:28): Welcome & intro (02:27): Come and review me on Spotify! (03:31): Hi to our guest, Dan Loveard and how we met (04:04): The 5 ways to wellbeing (05:11): Activities to get immersed in nature (07:02): Mindfulness in nature (07:26): Barriers to accessing nature (09:24): Seeing nature can lift your soul (10:45): Do you have flamingos? (12:46): Having our hands in the dirt (13:36): Helping the younger generations experience nature (15:21): Voluntary role and research in nature (17:12): green prescribing to ease distress and aid wellbeing (19:27): Measuring the impacts of the work done with nature (22:28):How lockdown affected us being in nature (24:42): Nature on BBC prime time TV! 28:38): How Dan got into nature (30:58): 3 top tips to get yourself and your clients into nature (34:47): 38% of countries in the world have listened to this podcast – nature outside the west midlands (37:28): Thanks to Dan and contact details (37:42): Summary and close Links: To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0  To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97  Get $40 off a remarkable tablet here: remarkable.com/referral/4LJU-DJD8  Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervision Grab your copy of the new book: The Aspiring Psychologist Collective: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97  Connect 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 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...

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. episode. With Dr. Marianne Trent Welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast.

I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I am a qualified clinical psychologist. We can be pretty good in the mental health industry at trying to polish up the dull side of a penny and finding advantages and certainly one of the advantages I found about the lockdowns was how much more immersed in nature I was able to be so it gave me time to slow everything down and I was going out for more walks and I even started running so being able to see you know and, you know, making way for summer, making way for autumn and then winter as well. And seeing the change in the seasons for me felt like a really nice opportunity. found new ways to welcome kind of nature and wildlife into their daily lives and into their well-being too and into their schedules too. I made contact with somebody who is a nature wildlife specialist because I thought it'd be really nice for us to learn a bit about the

benefits of being out and about in the outdoors. But also thinking about the benefits we can highlight to our clients through something called green prescribing. We are all human. And my guest contacted me after we'd recorded this to say that he had accidentally got spring watch and autumn watch muddled up. So it isn't spring watch that's going to be um potentially discontinued it's autumn watch so when you get to that bit um if you're watching on youtube it will pop up on the screen to explain the mix-up but if you um get to that bit and you're listening on the podcast then yeah we mean the other way around um so it's not spring watch that's potentially stopping it is autumn watch so i hope that clears up any confusion i have also

been notified that you can actually do reviews and ratings on spotify so i know most of you do listen on spotify that is our most popular streaming platform. So if you indeed are listening on Spotify, please do take a moment to rate and review the show. I don't use Spotify. I haven't got Spotify. So I don't know how to talk you through that process. But if you do use Spotify, do have a little look and let me know. Maybe send me some screenshots of how you do it so I can explain it to other people that would be so wonderful so I hope you find today's episode really useful um yeah it's a little bit different today but I think it's really useful to give you a breadth of things that are useful to you as an aspiring psychologist and a mental health professional so you find it useful,

I'll catch up with you on the other side. So welcome to my guest today, Dan Lovard. Hi. Hi, Marion. How are you? I'm really well, thank you. Thanks for asking. How are you? Yes, I'm good, thank you. So I'm on your mailing list for where you work, which is how I heard about you and your work. And I was intrigued to learn a little bit more and to help our audience learn a little bit more about wildlife and being out in nature and how that can be really beneficial for our mental health if we are working in mental health and also for our clients that we work with as well. Yeah, so I'm happy to talk more about what we offer at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. So we have a health and wellbeing team and they deliver a variety of different opportunities for people to be inspired and engage in nature activities. So we run well-being courses, which are in line with the five ways to well-being, which you might be aware of. And they're the nationally recognised approaches, if you like, the NHS came up with.

And we've put that in a nature context, which has worked really well. And we've received so much positive feedback and stories from them being a part of those courses. So, yeah, I can delve into with the five ways and those five ways are connect, take notice, give back, get active and learn something new. So putting that into a nature context, you know, going for a long walk and running some mindfulness activities, which have all been really impactful ways for people to connect with nature and with the people around them as well. And then other things that we run within the health and wellbeing team are bushcraft activities, so a bit more hands-on practical firelighting activities. So bring out, sort of like you're in a kid in a way, when you might go into the woods

and do a variety of different things. And then also we run volunteering activities, which we do as an organisation, we offer those across the board actually in our organisation. So we have 65 nature reserves and within those volunteers that we have, about 700, they're the lifeblood of our organisation for us to be managing those sites to support wildlife. So we run volunteering activities for people that experience poor ill health that may have been signposted by their GPs, along with other social prescribers as well. And then they can get out onto our nature reserves with one of our project officers and get stuck in and use nature in a sort of green prescribing way, if you like. Brilliant. And that's really powerful and i

think it's like you said it's the mindfulness aspect of it um but also and it's something people can feel a bit apprehensive about doing things that are new but it sounds like that doesn't need to be the case when you're when you're going to these wildlife centers because there will be people who are really thrilled to talk to you and guide you through what you might be looking at or what you might like to look for? Yes definitely so we do completely recognise that there are some barriers with people accessing nature whether that be a fear of safety and being out on their own in a woodland for example can be daunting for some people. And maybe they don't feel that nature's for them and it's not relevant to their lives.

But as an organisation, we're really keen to instil a level of nature into people's lives because we know how important and powerful it is to nurture people's mental health. So, yeah, we are as welcoming as we can be and we do go out into the community quite a lot through our outreach work to inspire and connect the more disengaged audiences in society within Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull. Yeah and you know what I'm I've been to your um to your center with my specifically with my young children when they're a little bit younger and what i really like is you've got a cafe there

as well and there's a tv where at the time you could see like i think it was kestrels on the roof of a local building with their little their little chicks was it kestrels i'm not sure so So they're peregrines. Peregrine falcons. They're in the same family of birds of prey. But yeah, we have a webcam, which is in, it's a partnership project with Warwick District Council. And yeah, we have a successful pair of nesting peregrines in the town hall in Leamington. So we also have access to the webcam feed and yes we play that along with them some of the smaller bird box birds like blue tits and great tits and things and that we have on our

reserves and that's such an intimate way to connect with nature isn't it seeing the whole breeding cycle of them raising their chicks to them fledging it's yeah really fantastic isn't it it really was and it was fascinating stuff and to sit there with my little boy and have our lunch and watch these baby chicks eating their lunch like it was really really nice so that yeah and I guess if and I think you also had bird tables set up outside the windows to the cafe as well so even if you're not feeling like confident or if you're not that good kind of mobility wise about getting out and about there's ways for you to engage with nature and see stuff that you might not see in your own house or from your own balcony

by going to these centres that might just really kind of lift your soul so I really liked that about the centre actually. Yeah it's a inviting space um and we're trying to make it as inclusive as possible um within our means um and uh yeah like you said the cafe is a great space for people that may not be as mobile but we do have some mobility scooters but not loads so you know some people will have to sometimes wait um so that we can get um that level of access onto the nature reserve at brandon marsh which is our headquarters um but yes if you just want a cup of tea and to look out of the window we always have the bird feeders full and yeah it attracts so much wildlife not just the birds actually we've had monk jack deer fox foxes. Yeah, a real mix of wildlife.

I love that. My little boy told me that I had to ask you, he's six and a half, I had to ask you about certain wildlife, whether you have it or you don't have it. And I was like, I think some of these he definitely won't have. A flamingo. Okay, so that's a definite no, but it would be great. Okay, yes. He asked about foxes and you've said yes to foxes yeah badgers yes um most likely we do um i'm not aware of any badger sets so that's

the um network of underground tunnels where they live and i'm not aware of any that are active but i wouldn't be surprised if badgers use our nature reserve, even if they don't live there, if that makes sense. OK. And I know moles are not always people's friends, especially like farmers. Do you have moles and do you like them if you do? Well, I love all wildlife. And I know that's a biased thing to say. I know people aren't like a fan of certain things because, you know, creepy crawlies and all know that's a biased thing to say um i know people aren't like a fan of certain things because um you know creepy callies and all of that but i like to try and break that stigma because if um you know um if we can change i suppose the narrative on certain um wildlife being

scary or maybe a bit gross um i think that can especially with the younger generation um i think that will be a good way to i suppose break down that barrier of nature not always being for me i suppose as well but um in answer to your question about the moles i like moles um they have a part of um what will, what I mean is that they're a part of our ecosystem. They have their place. In terms of them being on a nature reserve, I think they would be. But I don't see any molehills on our reserves that often. So, again, I don't know if they use it that much.

But, I mean, they use them in my garden a lot because there's loads of molecules. Thank you. Thank you for entertaining my six-and-a-half-year-old. He'll be delighted to know those answers. You're welcome. And, yeah, as you were talking, I was thinking, well, when I grew up, I was outside so much. I constantly had my hands in the dirt or was playing with insects.

I don't know if you're supposed to play with them. You know, putting them in jars and having a look at them and then putting them back, of course. And like, you know, slugs. I still don't like slugs very much. They are quite ugly creatures. But, you know, moving snails and looking at caterpillars and, you know, butterflies.

And I just, I don't think how young people are getting out as often as that and certainly not getting their hands muddy. They're more disgusted by that, I think in my experience certainly of parenting how's that playing out for you as you try and educate young people about the benefits of being outside well particularly with the younger generation and like you were saying I think I can definitely see and at the trust we can see that there is this I suppose culture if you like and mindset about being outdoors in the mud is like a bad thing.

And our education team are fantastic at, I suppose, breaking that stigma a little bit and that mindset by working with schools and families to really get stuck in. We have a mud kitchen at Brandon Marsh like a little education area and also we have a den building woods which is a great way for the younger generation in particular but I'm very happy to do it myself is things like den building so that's a great way of nature play isn't it just going outdoors and being creative out in nature which I think is a really important thing. Sounds like you've got an absolutely great job Dan. I was just saying that I do love my job yes I've done elements of all

the things that I've mentioned to you you. I have done some work with families before. I've delivered some of the wellbeing projects as well and doing the courses and the volunteering. Yeah, so my role and my conservation career so far has been very diverse, which I really love. Brilliant. It shines out of you. It's's lovely to see and I know before you were an action for nature officer you were doing the kind of health and well-being role so there might potentially be scope for people that are interested in nature to still do things that is you know kind of clinically relevant as well potentially you're still using outcome measures for some of your

interventions you're kind of rubbing up alongside people who are doing you know perhaps PhDs or research and it's a good chance to work with you know a wide variety of people. Yeah definitely so we welcome people that are in research posts to approach us with their project idea for gaining their research and also to shadow us as well to get a greater perspective of what we do as an organisation. We've worked with a variety of different PhD students in the past. So, you know, we do welcome that interest. We might not be always able to facilitate and support them, but it's worth reaching out just in case. So in terms of the current work that we're offering in the health and wellbeing team, so we're still running those five ways to wellbeing courses

at different areas in the county. And we are running volunteering opportunities and wellbeing walks as well through our project called The Environment and Me, which is shortened to TEAM, which I think is really nice. Really sort of, yes, it's a great project that's started in Coventry and now they've expanded across Warwickshire as well, where they're delivering a variety of different opportunities in different areas for people that are experiencing mental ill health. But you don't have to be diagnosed with depression or anxiety, for example, to access those opportunities. Some people do feel like, oh, they need to have that label, if you like, or diagnosis when that isn't the case. We welcome and are open to a variety of different people from all sorts of backgrounds coming to those opportunities

where some opportunities may be more suitable than others um and if you just typed in on google warwickshire wildlife trust um health and well-being there will be the current opportunities that we have um that may be relevant and that you can come to. Brilliant. So would volunteering roles be up there as well, or is that a case of contacting your local wildlife trust to explore what might be an option? So with the volunteering at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, again, you can easily find that on our website. So if you just type in Watch Royal Trust Volunteering onto Google, there'll be a page which outlines the process you need to go through to be enrolled as a volunteer and then maybe have a taster session

with the relevant reserves officer that is covering that area. So we have a North, South south east and west reserves officer so it just depends on maybe the geography of where that person is so if they're Leamington based and they want to really be around that area then our Vontage coordinator Wendy can align your interests and availability with the right opportunities basically so it just makes it an easy process um brilliant and one thing i wanted to touch on because i know you did mention it before um but i haven't mentioned it yet is the sort of interventions and the measuring of um the work that we do so with some of our projects within the health and well-being team

in particular we do track people's state of well-being and mood through the Warwick Edinburgh mental well-being scale so that's a great way to measure the impact that our opportunities have on people's lives so I think a really important aspect is the anecdotal evidence so the stories that you capture just out on the reserve when you're walking with that person just saying how this has been a lifeline for them because I was running those opportunities that I referenced before in Covid so it was a tricky time for people with social isolation and loneliness and those opportunities were a great gateway for them to access nature and support their mental health and meet new people

as well and I know some people that have actually started leading walks with the people that were on the same course on the same nature reserve i was running those sessions so i think that's just such a positive outcome to our offer um but yes um alongside that i was tracking people's um state of well-being from the start and then there was a midpoint question there that we we put in and it gave to the people and then there was an end one so and we would be able to track things like their mood and general sort of thoughts and feelings as well. That's great it's always good to have evidence the importance to organisations and government bodies like the NHS, for example, where we're trying and we are working with them on a local level to create this green prescribing approach. And there is a big thing around social prescribing, which really does have its place and it's so important. And we are integrated within that system where we've built up contacts with certain social

prescribers that are attached to GPs. So they will refer some of their clients where appropriate to our services. But also, we do feel like there's a need to actually have the green prescribing approach because we just know how so important the um being outdoors in nature isn't is like um you know it's for people's mental health um so uh yeah that's a slow process but we're really keen on it being something that's integrated within the health system. Yeah, brilliant. And you touched on lockdowns there. And I know for some people, that's a time where they really started to get more into their gardening or, you know, observing what was going on outside the window. Have you seen many, you know, more of an uptake since lockdown or people being

more interested in the outside world yeah definitely so um i think particularly when i was running the well-being courses and the volunteering there was a lot of interest because i think covid allowed people for a variety of reasons to slow down and maybe reassess their their lifestyle and how they led their lives so I think a lot of people have engaged with nature more positively and have maintained that as well um whereas i know some people probably wouldn't have done so it was maybe they'll put in that situation well you know you can't do anything else apart from go for a walk for an hour outside your house um which i still think was obviously really important for them at the time but

life takes over and maybe they weren't able to maintain that once things relax a little bit more but I do know a lot of people and also you know that's sort of through my work where I've been able to have these discussions where they've spoken about how it's just changed their lives and for the you know for the foreseeable and for the better yeah and do you think um Spring Watch and Autumn Watch shows with Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan, does that help people understand more? And are you getting people coming in saying,

oh, I saw this on there, you know, I really wanted to see it like up close or close to me? Yeah, definitely. I think those documentaries and those shows, they have a real place on mainstream TV. And I really hope they don't go, because I heard recently about Springwatch being taken down, which is really upsetting. We've got one more Springwatch and then they may not bring it back, which is a real shame. Oh no, that is a shame, I hadn't heard that. which was a real shame because those sort of shows yeah like um i think it is sam i think it was

mainly a budget decision um from the bbc but i don't know the whole ins and outs i don't want to be controversial on here um but essentially um those shows are they provide so much inspiration for people and um i think with um spring watch autumn watch and winter watch they're really good at um changing that narrative particularly at the end for people to take action as well for nature because um you know i'm sure a lot of us know that there is an environmental crisis and an ecological crisis. And what we want to do with how we work with communities as an organisation is encouraging people to take action for wildlife on a local level. level, so whether that be doing some more wildlife friendly gardening or changing the way you commute to work or a variety of different things that are fitting and tailored to their lives and suitable for them. So those shows are a great way in a line with how we want to engage with communities, which is taking action as well.

So it's providing that inspiration, but then also leading to a call to action as well. It's also really useful to think about how the message about what you do and what you know populates out to you know to wider organizations as well so i know especially in coventry which is where i'm from some of the roundabouts in coventry have been put down to wildflower planting rather than constantly mowing them it's probably saves the probably saves the money that's probably what their main um main goal is but it's so lovely to see and it must be better for the wildlife surely oh it is yeah so I think they started doing that when the city of culture came to Coventry and so the council may have had some funding to start that process um but i think it it's um something that should be changed um for um the sort of the should be integrated into their management for the long term

and because it's so inviting to have that burst of color when you um arrive into coventry it's great for pollinators and like you said on a financial perspective they don't have to know it as much so I think it's a win-win situation really. Absolutely and how are the bees? Have you got bees on Brandon? Yeah, so we have a lot of wildflowers on our nature reserve, all nature reserves, like all of our reserves do have, you know, a variety of different wildflowers which support pollinators, not just bees, moths, butterflies, wasps, amongst others. So, yeah, we definitely try to manage our reserves to be as sympathetic as possible to a diversity of wildlife,

not just for a specific species. species um we feel on the whole because there is such a nature decline on you know across the board really that our approach should be to then manage our reserves in a way which is best for as much wildlife as possible yeah thank you absolutely agree how did you get into wildlife and you know start to think about making it your career Dan? So it sounds a bit cliche but I um you know from a young age I've always loved nature and being outdoors and my dad bought my first pair of binoculars because I'm really into bird watching and you know I remember going out to a country park and making bird boxes and bat boxes and taking them back home and I think that just sort of sparked an interest from a very young age throughout my life until

where I am now and whereas sometimes there's always a bit of a gap and it sort of falls, you know, once you're in your teens and then you may get it back. But for me, I've always sort of been interested in nature and the outdoors. So I studied a conservation degree at Bangor University and loved it there. I don't know if you've been to that area of North Wales but it's just the perfect spot for doing a conservation degree

and then yeah from that point I did some sort of short-term seasonal contracts as like a graduate level in a very unusual role. So I was actually protecting rare seabirds on beaches in North Wales, Suffolk and Norfolk. Random, but a really important job because they were threatened for a variety of different reasons. And then I broadened out my sort of way of working in the conservation sector. So one part of the role that I really enjoyed when I was doing the seabird stuff was engaging with the public. So I thought community engagement role would be really fitting for me so then I went to Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and got maternity cover and they haven't been able to get rid of me since you're not going anywhere I love that if you could offer our listeners kind of three top tips, either for themselves or for the clients they're supporting,

about ways to include wildlife more in their day-to-day lives, what might they be? Oh, good question. Put you on the spot. Yeah, you have, but I'll try my best to answer. So I think one thing would be to go for a walk somewhere and consciously make an effort to appreciate your surroundings so have like a mindful walk and I think a lot of us just go from A to B and you know with our busy lives and you know we're all thinking

you know I need to put this on my shopping list or I need to do this later when actually we slow down and just connect with nature on a deeper level I think that would be a really good way with practice you know it's not just something you can do at click of a finger because I think we we do have busy minds and it's not an easy process sometimes for people but with practice I think you can do a mindful walk and it'd be a part of your daily life and it doesn't have to be So I would say that was my first one. Another one would be to learn something new about wildlife that you an app on your phone to find out more about the bird song that you're listening to and you don't know what it is. So discovering a little bit more about what's around you as well. And then you can share that with a family member or a friend.

And you're passing on that knowledge, which I think is a really positive thing as well and can lift people's mood. And then another one, I think, would be to maybe go on to our website of warwickshire wildlife trust um i'm not going to try and plug too much but um we have um a a new way of working with communities and like i sort of mentioned earlier um which is team wilder and we're wanting more people to take action for wildlife like I was mentioning so if you go onto that part of our website so Team Wilder Watch Wildlife Trust just type that into Google

and you'll find out more about what we're doing as an organisation and we have a map which people have been from the public have been plotting their actions for wildlife so you can maybe get some inspiration about what people are doing and maybe nearby where you live so it'd be interesting to see if you live in Coventry for example there may be some people that have plotted something in from what they've done in their gardens um so some positive actions that may inspire you to also do the same or if you're already doing something that'd be fantastic to hear from you about what you're doing and then

you can contribute and then we can capture that and um you know those actions and those stories stories um which is a yeah a great um way for us to know what people are doing and for nature it really is thank you for your tips i know i put you on the spot there but you did very well people are listening probably um nationally and sometimes even internationally um we've so far i realized yesterday covered some like 38 of the world have listened to an episode of the podcast, which is pretty incredible. Is Team Wilder just a localised approach or does it go more broadly outside in the UK? Do you know? So it goes across the UK, actually. So I don't know if the listeners are aware of the wildlife trusts and how they work but it's actually a network of individual wildlife trusts so there's a Warwickshire wildlife

trust there's an Essex wildlife trust Norfolk wildlife trust etc etc so primarily county-based and we work together as a movement as well so we are separate entities and we do have our own aims and aspirations but they are very similar to other wildlife trusts but we as a collective we have a lot more power to create the changes that we want to for nature and people. So the Team Wilder approach is a part of that collective. So if there was someone that was listening in Essex, for example, there are teams in that organisation that are at the moment um you know taking this approach to um team wilder and having more people take action for wildlife um yeah so in answer to your question um yes so um people can find out more in their local area as well brilliant thank you thank you so much for your passion for wildlife and helping us learn a bit more about why it's useful and how it can be really part of somebody's day to day life,'re really wanting more people to be inspired and connect to nature.

And as I keep saying, let's take action. But I think it's just so important that we're doing our own bit for the environment because those small actions can amount to a large and positive and significant impact great i will obviously make sure i put all of your um wildlife trust website address details in the show notes so people can absolutely access that speedily if they want to but thank you so much for your time today dan you're welcome thank you very much thank you so much to our guest dan lovard um really lovely speaking with him and really thoughtful guy that's got um you know really nice outlook on the world so i hope you found that really useful and that you will find it useful for thinking about how you can interact with nature and wildlife and how you

can also help showcase and highlight the benefits of that to your clients too. I'd love any feedback you might have on this episode or any others. Do come and join us in the Aspiring Psychologist Community free Facebook group. If I don't see you there, I will be along in your ears from 6am on Monday for our next podcast episode. Thank you. The Aspiring Psychologist Collective With this podcast that you're sad You'll be on your way to being qualified It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast With Dr. Marianne Trent My name's Yana 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 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.