The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How to be a Psychologist when you're not in the mood!

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 22: How to be a Psychologist when you’re not in the mood!Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. When we work in mental health and support roles there will sometimes be days where you’d rather be lounging on the sofa! That’s life! This episode is all about that! I hope you find it helpful and appreciate the keeping it real!  The Highlights: 00:29: The final planned compassionate Q&A 9/05/2022 7:30pm 01:38: Reviews& supporting the podcast03:38: Perfectionism and can’t be bothered!04:40: What if you can’t be bothered?05:41: This is us06:43: But I’m not ready for it to end!07:42: Burned out or just human? 08:53: Not as perky as a 5-year-old!12:51: Enjoying it when you start! 13:58: Creating podcast episodes 14:54: I am here for you! 15:54: 5700 downloads and counting! 16:29: Using a reflective journal17:58: What’s the lack of motivation about? 19:00: Is it about a specific client?20:13: This will get worse before it gets better……21:45: Top tips to manage leave and leaving!25:09: Summary and looking after yourself. 26:17: The Compassionate Q&A & CloseLinks: Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her incliding the upcoming aspiring psychologist collective book and the aspiring psychologist membership by checking out her LinkTree. https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrentTo check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0  Like, 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.

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 Durant Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast.

If you are listening on the day that this is released, it will be Monday the 9th of May, then you're in luck. You can listen. Come along live to the final planned compassionate Q&A, which you can grab via all of my socials, all of them. I'm on LinkedIn, which is Dr. Marianne Trent, and the same for Instagram, the same for Twitter. And then I am Good Thinking Psychological Services for both YouTube and for Facebook. If you're on YouTube, it's only fair to come along and subscribe. And whilst you're there, just like a bit of the content and flinging a few little nice comments.

You know, you know, it makes sense. And I don't often remind you of this, but all of the podcast episodes are available to watch on YouTube. If it's just me chatting, because frankly, I don't always want to put my makeup on. And yeah, so if it's an interview, it is usually stuff that you can watch me and the interview guest. But it's been a while since it's just been me. So I thought I'd check in with you, see how you're finding the guest interviews. How are you finding the podcast more generally as well? I would love any feedback that you've got. And if you really feel so inclined, if you've got like a spare couple of moments,

if you go along to the Apple podcast app, find my podcast, the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, and then scroll down right to the bottom, right below the trailer, and then you down right to the bottom, right below the trailer, and then you can rate. And if you've got a few more moments, you can leave me a little review. It would be so gratefully received. And if you really love the podcast, you could consider making a small donation to help cover the costs of making it and producing it and hosting it and transcribing it and all of that good stuff. If you would like to do that, you can head to my Linktree account, which you can

find on all of my socials. The details for the Linktree account are also in the show notes for this episode. So today's episode is all about being, you know, there as a source of support for people. As we do when we're working in psychology, whatever branch of psychology you are in, and maybe you don't even work in psychology currently or maybe you never are going to because I know some people contact me and they're like I'm not ever going to be a psychologist but I do really enjoy listening um to your stuff so whoever you are, whatever you do, thanks for listening. Should just say, if the audio quality of this is not quite as good as usual, it's because, well, it's in keeping with the theme of today. Can't be bothered, okay? So I haven't got my professional mic and things out.

I'm just going rogue with the AirPods. But it's on brand. It's on brand. And my lovely friend Michaela, who specializes in perfectionism and letting it go, I hope that she will absolutely salute this episode, even if the audio is not quite as good as it is when it's usually my solo endeavors you may have noticed at the beginning the audio was a little bit dodgier and then I invested in an expensive mic which didn't work very well I'd like to re-record and then we stumbled across a mic which worked really well but it is quite an involved process and today today, I just thought, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to get all the mic out. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go rogue with my, with my AirPods, and my Zoom account. So please forgive me. But yeah, I digress. So when we're working with clients in whatever capacity you're working with them you are always a human and as humans we don't always want to do our job okay and that is what today is all about you know so this was inspired um by me having a bit of a sad moment. I don't know if you guys have ever watched the most wonderful show.

It's called This Is Us and it's on Amazon. And I first discovered it when I was 36 and I was on sick leave from my job because my dad had just died. And I won't be spoiling anything if you haven't already watched it when I tell you that it's all about siblings who turn 36 in the first episode. And it felt so very appropriate and relevant to my life. And so it's felt like a really personal show for me. And then on Friday, I found out that this is going to be the last series of This Is Us. And I just wasn't ready for that. Because I'm sure originally, they said there was going to be like 10 series. And this is only series six. And so I wasn't ready. and so as I'm watching the episodes I'm feeling myself wanting to cry all the way through them because I'm just not ready to say goodbye to these characters

because it feels so personal to me and my life and yeah this is kind of I guess relevant to psychology as well isn isn't it? Because sometimes, you know, we will have deep connections with our clients and the people we're working with and staff teams that we're working with, and we won't feel ready to say goodbye. And sometimes our clients won't feel ready to say goodbye either. And due to service pressures or due to service limits or due to you know you moving on or them moving on or you know them no longer meeting the criteria for service if they're getting better you may need to say goodbye to each other before you're ready to but this is a whole

separate issue that I might well come back to at the end of this podcast episode. But today's topic is how do we do this psychology or work malarkey when you're not feeling it, you know, because sometimes we want to lay on our sofa and, you know, this is us that's what we want to do sometimes we don't want to be you know getting all up in someone else's business and trying to sort out um tricky things and I guess the important thing to to work out here is if it is you know just an ebb and a flow issue. Sometimes we will feel further apart from, you know, wanting to be at work. And sometimes we will feel very unwell. And that's the difference, you know. So if you feel like you might be burned out, if you feel like you can't, you know, put your own things to one side for long enough to do therapy or intervention or assessment with a client,

then that is maybe a sign that you ought not to be at work at the moment. supervisor whether you could discuss that with your GP even about whether a period of time off work might be might be the best thing for you at this present moment however what I'm talking about is the general malaise of day-to-day life and on the whole even on days that I think, oh, I'd rather stay in bed today. And you might be like, I can't believe this qualified clinical psychologist is saying that. Because I know when I, before I became a qualified psychologist, before I became a trainee, I kind of was thinking, you know, this is the holy grail when I'm a trainee, when I'm qualified, you know, life will be amazing. And I will have a spring in my step every day. And, you know, and all of the traffic lights will be on green when I come to them. And

I'll be so happy. I will just want to skip everywhere, you know, like my five-year-old does, which is adorable. But yeah, I am not quite so perky as my five-year-old quite a lot of the time. Life will get its dents in you, whether you are doing the job you want to do or not. And so how do we go about doing everything we do if you're not really feeling it on any given day? And I will share my little hints and tips with you after this short break. So have a little listen and I will see you on the other side of this. We hope 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. My name is Diakolola Amujam. I am a recent psychology graduate from Ireland. I am also an aspiring clinical psychologist. Dr. Marion's book, The Clinical Psychologist Collective, has been so helpful to me on this journey to becoming a clinical psychologist. As I plan to continue postgraduate studies in the UK, I found it extremely useful that this book provided in-depth information on the UK DeclinSci application process. I enjoyed reading about the experiences of both qualified and training

clinical psychologists. The various narratives were my favorite part of the book as everyone's story was different and it provided amazing insights into the clinical psychology journey. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in psychology and aspires to become a clinical psychologist. 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. okay so when i am well enough to be at work i do honestly find um that once i start a session with a client that any feeling of rather being on the sofa dies away you know it's not an issue anymore I genuinely enjoy my job um I really enjoy creating content for you as well so although although I was feeling

like I'd rather watch This Is Us um once I get started I really enjoy it um and I speak to you on a weekend and I do usually record these midweek but you maybe have to hear in my voice um that I haven't I haven't been fully well this week. So I kind of felt OK. But as one of my clients said, it sounded like I'd been left in the rain outside because my voice was very squeaky and had a bit of a cough and a bit of a sniffly nose. So I wasn't really podcast ready in the week. So it's led to me just having a bit more of a hustle to get this done. But I really am enjoying the consistency of this podcast. you know I created the first eight and they were good to go um uh and you know I probably should have recorded more at that point I did did some along the way but um it's got to the stage now

where um yeah I'm I'm running out of um of already uh created content and I'm having to do this one um the weekend before it's um due out so um you know this is you know just pulling out the bag real world style but um I really you know I thought I could give it could give it a miss for one week and I thought I don't want to I want the consistency of showing up for you week in week out um because I know that many of you, because you've told me, you lovely people, are really enjoying having this podcast as part of your weekly routine. So many of you are listening to it on your commute, as you go to work, perhaps on a Monday. Some of you are running to the sound of my voice. I don't know what your tempo is like. Because I've also been told I'm quite relaxing to listen to.

Maybe you're all about the jingles. I don't know. But yeah, you know, I've become the fabric, not the fabric. That sounds really big headed. I've become some of the fabric of your day to day lives, which is a real honor, you know, a real privilege. And as I record this right now, we are at about 5,700 downloads. And so this is, you you know this is really exciting I'm really honored that so many of us so many of you are really valuing and enjoying the content and it means a great deal to me that you listen to it that you like it and that you tell me that you like it as well. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. But yeah, so thinking about how we deal with this stuff, you know,

so sometimes it can be really interesting and useful, in fact, to have conversations about this sort of stuff in supervision with your supervisor. Thinking about, you know, whether this shows up more for some clients than others. So this is where the practice of, you know, perhaps having a reflective journal can be useful as well. So you cannot um making notes about clients so that i had that so that they are identifiable um but you you know one way of doing that is if you tended to see the same client you know every tuesday morning at 9 15 then you could write you know i notice that you know my you know 12 30 on a friday client or whatever um i often feel like i you know i can't be bothered um and maybe you know maybe that's about the time so maybe you're hungry um you know or maybe it's post lunch slump and you're just like having a really kind of slumpy, you know, maybe you're just digesting

your food. And so all of the brain power you'd usually have has disappeared to your stomach. And so you might just find that you're feeling a bit sluggish. So yeah, it's not always necessarily about the client. Sometimes it's about the time of day. Sometimes it's about the emotional load of everything else on your caseload as well. So maybe you're really enjoying, you know, the therapy work that you're doing, but maybe you're finding the team harder work or you are finding it difficult with your supervisor or you're feeling generally a bit pressured or unsupported. So it's not always about the clients. But if it is, you know, you notice in your reflective to be the same client that you are finding it hard to feel energized by, then it's definitely worth discussing that in supervision. And it might also be worth thinking about what that client brings to the room as well. And a virtual room counts as a room as well.

You know, are they low energy? Are they needing more from you? Are they leaving you feeling drained? Are you finding that you're having to stifle yawns as you're together? And if that's happening, it can often be worth thinking about whether there is a role for you. So I'm not saying there isn't a role, but whether a role is being left open for you. Because if you're feeling redundant, you know, you're making you feel like you want to yawn, then it might be that you're being talked at and any kind of opportunity that you have to try and open up the conversation or have a more functional helpful session is being shut down or can't be responded and it's perhaps feeling a bit more one-sided and so that can feel a little bit less than exciting um you know if you find yourself clock watching then that is not good use of your time and it's not great use of the client's

time as well you know and people often um will start therapy with me and they're like oh I know this is going to get worse before it gets better. But my take on that is that with appropriate warming up to each other and absolutely with the appropriate stabilisation, there might well be some tricky realisations along the way, but I would really hope, certainly now that I've been qualified for 11 years almost, I would really hope that my clients are now comfortably staying within their window of tolerance by the time we get to anything tricky. sometimes I find that I'm having to undo or redo stuff that's been done not quite so um skillfully in the past that has left clients feeling um vulnerable scared um you know out of control and as a result a bit terrified actually um so yeah when when clients are coming to you you know almost ready to be hurt I think that that's our um our lead to do stabilization work and to really make sure

that the client can handle thinking about these difficult things by the time you actually get around to them. One of my top tips for just making sure that you are managing things okay is if it's in keeping with your requirements at your individual work, check in supervisor check with the management if i am taking annual leave then i will usually try to leave the first day of annual leave clear in my diary so that i can battle through the email backlog so that i can fight any fires that might have um you know broken out in my absence um and so that I can probably finish reports I need to do um and paperwork like that like and paperwork and bits and so that I can finish any paperwork and bits and pieces and just make sure that I am as available as possible to clients rather than fretting about what might be at the bottom

of my inbox because when I've worked in mental health services you know you go off for a week and you hope everything will be okay but you know you don't know what emails you might have had and so yeah my little kindness to myself has been to plan that time in. And similarly, on occasions where I have left jobs and where I have left clinical placements on training, I have tried to give myself two solid weeks of non-client contact at the end of any contract because these reports do take time you know sorting through all the stuff to shut down your role and to leave things safe and write care plans and discharge letters and you know have goodbye lunches with your team and things like that takes time um and so yes you you know that is potentially two more weeks worth of where you could be seeing clients but this stuff matters

you do need to have all the stuff I just mentioned in place you know it makes you don't want to be writing that from home you know when you're not being paid to do it um you want to be able to use your you know your compassionate well-rested self um in that important communication with your clients i love writing therapeutic letters. I really, you know, I really enjoy that. And I often do that with a client as well in one of our final sessions. But if I haven't done that, or if I need to have a more formal closing report, then that needs to be written. And that does take time. So please do give yourself time as you wind down from holidays and as you wind down from work roles altogether. Before you move on to a new and exciting work role, it can be tricky to stay with your head in the game when you've got your sights set on a new or different role but

um yeah whatever's going on for you right now um you know sending you my good wishes and my compassionate vibes as ever um thank you for listening to today um i have no idea how long this episode is currently and I know I started off talking about something at the beginning and I said like oh that's kind of not related I maybe come back to it but it might be that I need to I didn't write it down it might be that I need to do a new podcast episode on that um so um I hope you this helpful. If you've got any feedback for me, please, please do let me know. All reviews and testimonials are so gratefully received. Yeah, and if you are on my LinkedIn, Dr. Marianne Trent LinkedIn, you can actually write me a testimonial on there as well. And the way that you do that is you go to my profile page and then you scroll down, down, down, down, past the skills.

And then you will see where some other people have written recommendations and you just create your own. And then I'll be able to approve that and add that to my profile and everybody will have a great day that's what I'm saying okay thank you so much for being part of my world if you are listening at any point other than the 9th of May then you should be able to watch all of the compassionate Q&As on replay by going to the playlist on my YouTube which is Good Thinking Psychological Services. But yeah, whatever your feelings, stay kind to yourself and know that you're only having these thoughts

because you're human. So if some days you can't really be bothered, you know, that is just because the way that our brains are put together. But if you find that those days are becoming more and more common, then it's a good idea to chat that through but with your supervisor it might even be useful to get some therapy yourself just think about what that might be about because we want you to not to burn out in this career we want you to feel like generally speaking it's really something

that you are impassioned about and honestly that is the way I feel about most of my days so yeah I want you to want you to feel the same but yeah thank you so much for listening and I will look forward to speaking to you again soon don't forget that new episodes drop 6am every Monday UK time. And if you subscribe, it will come straight to you. Take care. Have a good day. Bye. side to be on your way to being qualified it's the aspiring psychologist podcast with Dr Marianne Trent my name is 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 with 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 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.