The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How to Master Public Speaking - Psychologist Insights

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode 123: How to master public speaking - psychologist insightsThank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. For those who have received interview offers this year for the DClinPsy, congratulations! You might be feeling nervous around this time and that is okay, perhaps this episode might be helpful to you (and for those who struggle with public speaking!). In this episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, we speak with Assistant Psychologist, Jasmine, as we compare and contrast our experiences of speaking in public, group settings, meetings and the growth, self-care and bravery that comes with it. Join us as we discuss how our experiences shape our work as a psychologist, discuss tips to overcoming fear and anxiety associated with public speaking, and the value of speaking, feedback and self-care. We hope you find it so useful.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(00:39): Introducing Jasmine(01:40): Jasmine’s entry to the psychology world(05:22): Stigma’s around older adult experiences (08:11): The importance of public speaking in psychology roles(09:18): Reflecting on childhood experiences that shape our careers as psychologists (14:16): The importance of where you place your attention(16:39): Being nervous is okay too (especially when it’s new)(18:28): Practicing leadership skills doesn’t mean getting it right first, every time(21:25): Finding long-term sustainable solutions to overcome difficulty (23:31): The importance of space spaces(27:12): It takes bravery to speak about vulnerabilities (29:26): Using our voice is not only just important to psychology(33:58): The value of feedback(36:45): Thinking about the bigger picture and the purpose of public speaking (39:58): Stop, drop (your shoulders) and breathe(43:17): It is important to take care of yourself(46:41): Sometimes, we need to give ourselves permission to grow (48:03): Connect with Jasmine(49:16): Summary and close Links:📱 To connect with Jasmine Iveson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmine-iveson-794381204/?originalSubdomain=uk 🖥️ Check out my brand new short courses for aspiring psychologists and mental health professionals here: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/short-courses🫶 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...

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 today, are you ready to shake off those public speaking jitters and dive into

the fascinating world of communication? I've got a special treat for you today as I'm joined by an assistant psychologist who is just as excited as I am about spilling the beans on mastering public speaking. Get comfy and grab your favorite cuppa as we go through our favorite tips, tricks, and maybe a few uncomfortable memories too. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a nervous newbie, this episode has something for all. So kick back, relax and let's turn those nervous butterflies into beautiful speeches. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. I am so excited for today's episode. I'm joined by Jasmine,

who is an assistant psychologist who originally reached out to me for a little bit of support, I think, but I sprung it on her and asked her whether she might fancy conquering her fears and joining me as a guest as we explore public speaking and how that crops up throughout a psychology career. It is a beautiful episode and one that I think will become a firm favourite. So I would love to know your thoughts. Please do drop a comment, share it if you find it helpful. And yeah, I will catch you on the other side. So hi, Jasmine, welcome along to the podcast. It's so lovely to have you here. Hello, Marianne. Thank you so much for sort of giving me this wonderful experience. I'm feeling very blessed this morning. So thank you.

You're so lovely. That's made my day already. I think you'll be disappointed, be underwhelmed by the end of this episode, but nobody else will be because it's going to be really, really useful because I'm really excited about what we're going to talk about today. So before we go on to talk about our topic, which is public speaking, let's have a little bit of a chat about you and what you're up to currently and your background in psychology. Yeah, of course, Marianne. So I started off by studying psychology at A-level. So I studied it at college. That was my first sort of encounter with psychology. And I was just so, so fascinated by all the theories and sort of understanding human behavior as well, or trying to understand behavior. And I just thought it was so, at these theories and we use them in practice but also we look at individuals and all individual differences as well and sort of how to empower

that person and for me personally I took a particular interest in mental health difficulties so from studying at college and then going through to psychology and of course at undergraduate level I sort of found that sadly there's so much suffering among humans and different stages of life and through all these mental health difficulties sort So acquiring that knowledge and studying, I went on to try and get some experience, some work experience. So I started in residential care with older adults. That was just fascinating to see people, of course, with difficulties like dementia and actually sort of how able some of those older adults were and sort of people going out for a full day and lots of physical exercise and it was just so brilliant to have that

experience. I then went on to work in supported living in the community again here I really learned how to sort of empower those people of course being there as a source of support but really sort of having them so actively involved within their care um was so brilliant um I then went on and to work within an inpatient setting um so I did work as a support worker within this role. Again, such valuable experience. And I do still truly, to this day, I use a lot of those skills, a lot of the experience that I acquired through the support worker role, the healthcare assistant. And I do really feel that that's informed a lot of my practice when I sort of transitioned into later roles which just as an overview I did train as a psychological well-being practitioner and my current role now is an assistant psychologist um in an inpatient um service and it is forensic

background as well um so that's just sort of a brief overview um through my earlier years and then how that's led into more recent um job roles oh that's so interesting thank you Jasmine and you know I'm moved by that for a couple of reasons really so it sounds very similar to my journey you know I'm doing relevant experience mainly so I loved what you said about how surprising older adults can be. And actually, last week, I was away with my mum and a lot of her friends for her 75th. And I was so surprised by, you know, especially some of the older members of the group who were 80 and above, you know, they were dancing with me doing line dancing, we were doing curling, you know, they'd been doing archery before I got there um you know cocktail making it was you know really really good and you know even one of my colleagues and friends I spoke to

recently she's never really worked with older adults and she was surprised just how fun it can be when she crossed paths with older adults recently and how much you learn about life um and it's not like it's not all doom and gloom is it working with people at the at the later winter stages of their life absolutely marianne and i think it's brilliant how you mentioned there about those activities and the dancing and sort of the energy and that some of the older adults do have and also that element of wisdom as well and working with people at those sort of later stages of life I learn so so much from those people and I remember leaving the role and people were sort of thankful and they mentioned you know you sort of helped so much and all this

like lovely feedback and I actually said you know no you've helped me to develop not only personally but professionally as well and so yeah absolutely I think there might be some level of unfortunate stigma around that dependency of when people get older but actually I know that's that's not entirely true and not always the case. It really isn't and I guess so much is dependent on health and kind of pain levels as well but I think this would make a fascinating podcast episode in itself but the reason you reached out to me maybe we'll do that in future but the reason you reached out to me, maybe we'll do that in future. But the reason you reached out to me is because of actually public speaking, you know, it's around in our client work. So it's around with kind of having those conversations with clients and their families. It's also around in MTTs. It's around in supervision relationships. It's around in research.

It's a big part of this journey as an aspiring psychologist but also as a trainee and a qualified psychologist isn't it jasmine yeah absolutely um i feel just from my experience and that through sort of training and being at university and studying and learning lots of different topics there was of course some opportunities to speak publicly and I remember sort of those moments where you know the lecturer would mention you have a presentation as part of one of the modules and I remember the feeling too well of the fast heart rate and thinking oh no you know we've got a presentation that is pending but from my experience there perhaps wasn't many times of having to public speak at university and if we did it were often as a group so sometimes it fell

which is perhaps not the most helpful way but it felt very easy to sort of take that back step and if there were sort of members in the group that perhaps um were a little bit more extroverted or sort of enjoyed those situations they might take a little bit more of a lead um and perhaps upon reflection I maybe were one of those people who did take that little bit of a back seat um I would say just um sort of as a personal reflection I am much more of an introverted person and so sort of from those university interactions I would sort of take that back seat and even if I reflect on practice now um sort of as a multidisciplinary team I'm constantly actively listening I know exactly what's going on and if someone was to ask a question I'd feel confident

that I'd be able to answer to the best of my ability but on many occasions I am more of a listener and perhaps not the first person who would contribute and that's something that I've really been aware of from a much younger age. So just yesterday actually Marianne I was just having a little reflection and a little think upon sort of public speaking and that role and I sort of thought back to younger years of sort of being in primary school. And I remember sort of the school reports would say, you know, Jasmine is a quieter member of the class, more reserved, and sort of that encouragement to sort of put your hand up more regularly.

And sometimes I think that perhaps can be seen as a little bit of a negative aspect and something to develop. And absolutely, I know that we want to contribute ideas um but I think there's a lot of strengths as well of being that sort of person from a young age we know that for me I was able to listen um so perhaps it might be different now but I remember sort of when I were younger it was sort of looked as maybe a little bit more negative if you didn't contribute as often. And so it's something sort of I feel that I've definitely developed.

It has taken a lot of practice and a lot of focus as well to be able to speak confidently within group settings. And perhaps just upon reflection, I was just thinking perhaps some people are different. And I think that's what makes psychology such a wonderful field and that we all have different personality traits. And when it comes together, I think it's wonderful. I really do. Yeah, I think as part of our careers, you know, there can be we are definitely all different sorts of people we definitely are so on my school reports it was always Marianne talks too much whether the quality was worth listening to I think they were I think they were dubious about that but I think we also can pick up trauma along the way as well about the way we speak or what we've got to say or you know when we've said things so I remember when I was an aspiring psychologist I

think I was a trainee I might have been an assistant but my grandfather was of a very Victorian generation and he once said to me I'm really surprised that you do the job you do because listening to your voice is one of the most traumatic experiences of my life and I was like oh um right and he died a few years later but actually the assertive me now would have liked to have asked more what do you mean you know and also it's never okay to say that to somebody is it you know but also you know knowing what I know about his life and what I would imagine was incredibly traumatic he was a paramedic in the second world war so if we can imagine what traumas he must have experienced, for him to say that my voice was one of the most traumatic experiences, that really got to me. I think I was an assistant psychologist because I remember taking it to our personal development group as kind of something to work on when I was a trainee. But it's been

really helpful for me in terms of healing from that trauma that so many of my clients and then so many of the podcast listeners and, you know, the people in the media have said they love my speaking voice. So recently when I was on Radio 2, someone contacted me specifically to say, what a lovely voice you've got. And so sometimes we can give too much credit and power to one erroneous comment. I mean, that said, people may be listening to this thinking, yeah, I don't like your voice I don't like it but I can choose to not pay attention to that and to still do what I want to do regardless of other people's opinions yeah yeah Marianne I think that's such incredible advice in terms of sort of where you place your attention um as difficult as that may be um and that sounds like such a a difficult comment to receive from someone and not kind

sort of in in any way um and just to say as well Marianne I know I sort of sent this over in in in a message um when I first contacted you but um your voice I find so so self-soothing um I really do and sort of when I'm in um like after work in the gym I sort of love listening to the podcasts um so that's yeah just a comment from myself oh thank you that's really kind of you to say it was just a random comment I think we were around the dinner table at my parents house and like you know I don't know whether it was some hearing changes that he'd sort of lost the frequency of my voice or whether I was moaning at my mum and he didn't like that like I didn't have a chance or I was so taken aback that I didn't have a chance to ask for more information

and perhaps this is interesting food for thought if people do get critique about their performance or their voice or their speaking style is to try and just take a moment to catch your breath and to know that this is just an opinion other opinions are available and to try to get some sense of context um because I'm never gonna have that now and I've kind of worked through those wounds but also it's a you are also allowed to be hurt by something somebody says um and that's okay it's not okay that you're hurt it's not okay they've hurt you But your reaction to being hurt is obviously human. Yep, of course, Marina, of course. And I think sort of I know it can be incredibly difficult,

but sort of I know you mentioned about trying to get more context and more feedback. And I think that can be so helpful in terms of development as well. Perhaps not in terms of our voice. That's something that we have and we embrace and that's sort of who we are um but if it's sort of related to work and perhaps something a very difficult meeting I think by receiving that feedback can be yeah a great opportunity for development and and growth too. So when you'd reached out to me kind of I think you were kind of saying this is something I struggle with and I think you might have wanted me to say, here's my top tips. But instead, I said, do you want to come on the podcast and discuss this? And you were like, I really do, but I'm a bit nervous. And that's okay, too. You know, you're allowed to be nervous about things we've not done before, or that we've not done to that extent before and you know we can

learn a lot whilst feeling a little bit hopefully within your window of tolerance but whilst feeling a little bit nervous yeah absolutely Marianne it was such an amazing opportunity but definitely that same feeling of when I was at university and it was the presentation I had that same reaction um but also recognizing um I know you mentioned about the window of tolerance and for me this felt really safe and it felt like something that I could manage and an absolute opportunity to come outside of that comfort zone um and to feel the fear but to complete it in a very safe, to deal with it in a very safe way. So, yeah, definitely a little bit frightening. But I think this is a great way of showing, actually, even if you feel that fear, we can do new things.

Yeah. And these opportunities in psychology will sometimes catch us off guard, as they did with me. So I'm absolutely not perfect and I will evidence this now so when I was in a placement as a trainee clinical psychologist I was at my first ever team meeting and they were reading through the agenda and plans and they suddenly said and our chair for the next meeting will be Marianne and I went you what what what what I've got I've got a chair the next one um which with hindsight with hindsight is not very contained is it and um I was criticized for my reaction to that but I also think there's a learning point there for how staff teams provide novel information to people. You know, if they had said, welcome to everybody who's brand new to this meeting. Actually, we shift the chair of these meetings every time, every week, so that everybody gets a chance to do that and to develop those skills and with that that we're hearing different voices and I know it might feel a bit anxiety provoking but actually we've asked

Marianne to do that next time that would have been very different than just dropping that in there so um please if you are listening to this or maybe you Jasmine yourself you know and you get asked to do something know that that is probably quite a normal thing to do you know especially in MDT meetings you know suddenly you have to kind of feedback on client work or you know CPA reviews or risk plans and management somebody may suddenly turn to you and ask for your opinion or ask for you to run the show. And maybe just people need to be prepared for that because I wasn't. I wasn't. But of course, what we need to do is that we're partly learning to do leadership whilst we're working our way up.

And so at any given opportunity, somebody may ask you to practice your skills in leadership and you know it's okay if you don't get it right first time every time. Yeah absolutely and I'm just thinking back right so I know I mentioned about the support worker role experience and sort of the healthcare worker and I think that gave me so much valuable experience but perhaps I didn't have much practice in public speaking and sort of chairing meetings and it was only really when I did the psychological well-being practitioner course I started to get some experiences of having that responsibility of perhaps speaking in supervisions where there were lots of different people present and sort of attending certain meetings where I've been required to give some

feedback and the huge step for me and Marianne personally was going into the assistant psychologist role so when I started working as an assistant psychologist and there was lots of different meetings and it was all very quick as well and so I know you mentioned sort of CPA meetings and discharge meetings and governance as well the governance meetings with the full multidisciplinary team ward rounds and so a lot of ward rounds where you'd have lots of different professionals, sometimes family members as well. So for me personally it was a huge jump and there was lots of different meetings where I was required to speak and I remember right at the beginning of starting the assistant role and I'd written

a report and I remember it was sort of the week before and I was going to be presenting the week after and I sort of I knew in advance so I thought what I can do is over the weekend I can practice so that is exactly what what I did and I spent hours and over the Saturday the Sunday even and I remember the Monday morning before going into work I practiced and then I went into the meeting to present and this information and my supervisor and she's absolutely wonderful and such a great and source of support and she was in that meeting and I didn't tell anyone how I was feeling how nervous I was feeling I just went into that meeting and I did know that the full report off by heart I knew every single word and it was a very

really long a long report and I went in there and I did speak confidently of course because I practiced for so many hours and I remember leaving that meeting and I got sort of such good feedback from my supervisor and she said you know you spoke so confidently you know there's nothing to be concerned about and I remember sort of sitting down and thinking that's come at very significant cost because I have just spent the full weekend all Monday morning possibly around 15 hours of memorising the whole report and at that point I thought this is not going to be sustainable I am going to need to be honest about how I'm feeling and I sort of thought about how if I was to do that long term I'm going to need to be honest about how I'm feeling and I sort of thought about how if I was to do that long term I'm going to more than likely start to feel absolutely exhausted it is not going

to be helpful for the the company and if I start to feel burnt out and exhausted that is not going to help the service and I also thought it's not going to help the staff and the service users either. We're all one team and this is not going to work. So that was sort of my turning point of saying, actually, like these situations are making me feel a little bit nervous. I'm doing excessive practicing. And for me, Mariana, I am so fortunate to be blessed with brilliant supervision where it's a very safe space for me to feel that I can speak about those sort of issues and that's exactly what I did. So I received a lot of support from my supervisor and we sort of worked through the difficulty together and so we did it in sort of a graded way um and in a safe way too but for it to be a space to speak about how I feel but actually

how how are we going to manage this because we know it's a key aspect of the role it's something that I am going to be required to do um and I remember I think it was a podcast quite early on in the series and I believe it was a lady named Rose Marianne and she spoke about the glass and the rubber balls and for me that was a concept that I found so so helpful and I thought to myself okay so the glass ball is going to be the speaking I'm going to have to speak in these meetings and because it's very important for all the external professionals internal professionals the service user as well which is my main focus is helping that person of course to get better and so that was my glass ball that I knew I can't drop I've got to keep being able to speak and to develop this skill but the rubber

ball for me was the relentless practicing and the extensive hours that I was spending to memorize information and so that concept really helped me to think actually I'm going to have to sort of abandon and sort of put to one side these rubber rubber balls because it's not working and it's not gonna work long term either and from that moment and marrying after my supervision and I felt like this huge weight had just been lifted and and I thought actually I'm being really honest now about how these situations do make me feel and and I'm very blessed to be a part of a wonderful team and I actually spoke to other professionals and other people outside of psychology and I understand that that might not

feel very safe and contained for other people to do and I understand and that but for me it did feel that I could do that and I spoke to nurses and to management team and to senior health care workers and I was just so astonished at how normal it is to feel and those nerves and that anxiety and even people who had sort of done the role for lots and lots of years and still normalized that experience and so for me I think that's something that I will remember um throughout my my learning and it was a brilliant point of me just acknowledging that this is a little bit of a difficulty and receiving that support has been and it's been amazing it really has well done to you and that takes real bravery actually um to make yourself so vulnerable as to say yeah actually

this has come at great cost and I would like to work on this sounds like you felt incredibly safe in that supervision relationship which is important but well done because sometimes by recognizing our ouchy spots it can help us to just thicken and develop narratives that can be ultimately really useful to ourselves, but also others, you know, others listening to this, others in your teams that then felt validated and normalized by your experiences. It's really, really powerful. It's okay to say, actually, this makes me feel a bit, and then you can work through that. And yeah, so the episode you mentioned was, was on becoming a parent during training and

that wasn't a concept I'd heard of before but it really is powerful yeah absolutely and I sort of love that idea and I think it's such a simple explanation but it really does it really works you can put it sort of into practice um and and for me I sort of understood that if that rubber ball of you know this extensive practicing and if I'm I don't do that of course I want to feel prepared but not to that degree to put that level of pressure on onto myself that frees so much time where I can take good care of myself um and I can perhaps do other things outside of work. And I think I want to be able to help the service user to the best of my ability and also to work in a team and to provide the right support and right help. And I think the only way to do that is, of course, by taking good care of ourselves.

And I remember there was a lecturer and he was amazing and I remember him sort of saying to me um you can't pour from an empty cup and that's really stuck with me that actually that is so true that if that cup is is empty it's going to be incredibly difficult to to support and to help anyone else um so I think that's yeah a really important concept to bear in mind. It really is and I'm just thinking about again when you said that you're practicing for hours and hours and hours and you're almost making it like you know it's in your rote memory it was perfect you didn't even need to glance at it to know what it said and the other extreme of that um I had an experience of doing some um legal training for expert witness work um the other extreme was I'd read a report for 20 minutes and I had to

stand on a lectern and have a judge grill me on it as a role play but in a court situation you know it would be different if I'd written that report myself, of course, because I would know that inside and out. But it's OK to be imperfect. It's OK to just practice hearing the words in your own mouth and coming out. And I do a lot of that with the media, of course, that a journalist will ask me a question and I'm thinking inside, oh, man. But what comes out is a really good question question which just gives me a moment to think you know because you can control it whilst still thinking in the background and yeah these opportunities for speaking for using our voice will come up in a variety of ways so it might come up in the media it might come up in the media, it might come up in your clinical work, it might come up maybe presenting research at a conference. You know, we've got to be able to say

yes to these opportunities. We've got to be able to pitch these opportunities for ourselves as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I remember I just had a little reflection then, Marianne, when you were speaking about sort of maybe going into something and maybe not you know you've read something for 20 minutes or so and maybe not feeling like you're that level of prepared that you you would want to be and um when I'd sort of been really honest about the way that I was feeling and I'd worked with my supervisor and the experience had become very normalized and I did ask and to do some staff training and with one of my supervisors and she really kindly and agreed and so the training was

led by a registered psychologist but of course I was there to sort of join in and sort of present some information and and it was such amazing experience and because she sort of approached it in a very different way so I feel as though through me practicing extensively I'd become almost a little bit robotic and so I feel like I was sort of going into these meetings and I knew what I was going to say and if anything would throw that off course so someone perhaps would ask a question and I weren't quite prepared for that and that would really throw throw me off and I'd be in a little bit of a mess in some ways of how do I respond to this you know this is not what I prepared for and and when I went into that training I remember the psychologist and she would pause regularly and she'd sort of get to a slide and she would say, you know, if everybody could just bear with me for one moment.

And I just want to explain this in the most helpful way. And afterwards, we had a little chat about that. And she sort of mentioned that it's absolutely OK to do that. You don't have to go into any training or meeting with all of the answers. And if you need a little bit of time to think and absolutely do that and just be really honest with the people and that that's what you're doing so that they're aware. And I think it just really helped to connect to the people on the training that actually like we are human, too. You know, we're not we're not robots like we are human too you know we're not we're not robots and we're human and we're all connecting and together um so I think that

was for me it was yeah really valuable to learn actually it's okay to not always get it right and and to pause occasionally too. It really is and I don't know if you're watching The Apprentice at the moment but like you can sometimes see those like real clanger moments where they're asked a question or they're having to do like their pitches on stage and they just like freeze and clam up. It's probably highly edited. So there's probably like 10 seconds of their presentation. And so we've got to kind of know that actually the kind of lens that we might think others are using for us, unless we happen to be on The Apprentice, is probably not the real lens that everybody else is seeing our behaviour through. Yeah, absolutely. And I've been ever so careful with this one, Marianne, because I know that sometimes seeking reassurance can feed into being a little bit of a safety behaviour. But for me, I have found that if I do, for example, if I do give staff training, I do find it extremely important for myself to gain some feedback and of course if people feel that they're comfortable to do that and that's been an incredible chance to learn from different people's perspectives of how they have actually found the training and often that is it does sort of contradict with the way

that I viewed how the training had gone and other people have this different view. And it's the same in sort of other meetings, if it feels safe to do so. I will sort of ask for some feedback of if, you know, if the concept was clear, if people did understand, if perhaps there was anything that I could have done differently. So I really do see it as almost like a journey for consistent learning and just taking those opportunities to gain feedback to see that situation I guess from a slightly different angle which I know sometimes can be a less critical

angle as well. Definitely I loved being part of teams where they where we would do 360 degree feedback so you're asking for people above you you, to the side of you to be by others and you can obviously use that as part of your appraisal if you're in a if you're in an employment where you have appraisals but yeah we mustn't be afraid to ask for feedback and I've worked in a service where they used to do feedback Wednesdays so every Wednesday everybody using the service would be given questionnaires about their experience. And so we're kind of getting a good slice of feedback about ourselves and what we do well individually, what we do well as a service and what perhaps needs a little bit

of, you know, further work and development. This is episode one, two, three, and I can't quite believe that we've really got to this stage of the podcast without discussing what is such a key component of what we do in psychology. So I think one of my first episodes was doing a presentation. But actually, that public speaking does run throughout everything in psychology doesn't it it really does marian it does and as you mentioned sort of day to day it's there as as well um and we know that i i've sort of found my own ways marian that perhaps wouldn't work for other people they've worked for me sort of throughout i've learned ways that actually you can do this and it's going to make it that little bit easier and I always remember the purpose of perhaps why I'm doing that public speaking. So if it is a staff training, I always remember actually by speaking in this setting,

if I am to help a couple of people there to reduce the risk of them becoming burnt out or if they're going to take some knowledge away that makes them feel more equipped for them to do this role then that in my opinion would be worth that little bit of unsettle at the beginning of that training in order to help those people and it's the same for meetings like the discharge, the CPA meetings. I always remember the purpose of why I'm speaking in that environment. So I sort of create that distance between myself and the fear and I look at the bigger picture. And I think, well, actually, you know, I'm here to give the feedback of the service user who has done incredibly well, has made significant progress. And I hope then is able to go forward to live

that fulfilling life so I feel like there's I always try and look at that bigger purpose and behind that fear and also behind the reason why we do the sort of work that we're doing in terms of speaking um and of course as well Maria and I've found sort of ways to feel a little bit calmer, of course, before public speaking. And I am a huge fan of sort of trying out skills if we're teaching them to service users for them to use them in order to feel a little bit better. I'm a huge fan of being able to try them yourself as well to see if it works for you. And some particular skills have worked for me before going into public speaking and of course one is the breathing exercise I find that incredibly helpful and before speaking and I remember sort of listening to a TED talk I believe

it was on YouTube and I remember someone sort of described the voice as being an instrument and a tool and when you can communicate information that can be incredibly powerful and so I have found personally by sort of slowing down the breath that helps me to think a lot clearer and be able to present in a much better way and a much more helpful way and I use other skills as well like the visual imagery and just different skills that help me to feel safe and calm and soothed before perhaps going into an environment where it might feel a little bit more threatening as everybody's looking at you and they're waiting for you to speak and it sort of feels like that big moment and I just try and calm everything down and of course before and going into those environments and so I am yeah the biggest fan of trying out those skills because I know

we're teaching them to people so of course can be really helpful if we can use them day to day as well it really is it really is and I've I've been in the middle of presentations and I've taught people, let's just practice. Let's just drop our shoulders. Let's take a breath. But also using that for myself. So when I was going down to London to film the Channel 5 series, I was sitting in the reception area and it's just a really cool really cool kind of vibrant London space and I was sort of feeling not worthy like oh and starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed and I just sort of had to take a moment to have a breath drop my shoulders you know do a little bit of kind of mindful breathing notice notice my feet on the floor, and to just say to myself, right, Marianne, everything you've done, very much like you were saying about your progression throughout your career, those roles come with you and stay with you. Everything you've done in your point, in your career, in your life, up to this point, has been brought with you. You know, know all the people that you value they're still

part of you they're here everybody including yourself wants this to go really well you're going to need to give yourself permission to recognize the fact that they've chosen you for this gig they think that you're good enough so you're going to need to give yourself permission to be good enough and literally after that the rest of the day went smoothly. I just had to get out of my own head and just allow myself to do that job. Yeah, yeah. I love how you explain that as well, Maria, sort of to get out outside of your own head when it feels very trapped and feels very overwhelming. And I know sometimes that's when the thoughts very trapped and feels very overwhelming and I know sometimes that's when the thoughts can pop into the mind of you know you can't do this and and

for me at those moments it felt very much like you just wanted to run for the door and because it feels you know in in that fret zone and we know actually by running for the door that's not going to help long term it might feel a little, you know, on that day when you've left, but quickly afterwards, I imagine it would feel a lot, lot worse. Yeah, like I was the opposite of what I wanted. You know, I wanted to do this TV gig. So running out the door would have been the opposite of that goal for myself and of, you know, completing the project. And so, yeah, we need to kind of think

about obviously teaching training consulting presentation it's a key part of our role in psychology um and I guess you know the bit we perhaps haven't looked at is if somebody's really really struggling with this and the kind of sensible, you know, talking to your supervisor, trying to kind of do role plays, it's not working because it is such a key component. It's maybe the kind of thinking about where in psychology you might feel more at ease, might be kinder to yourself so if you know you know doing one-to-one stuff or doing group work is just so far outside your comfort zones it may be kinder to do work that doesn't involve that for you yeah yeah most definitely um and I know we're in sort of really early on and when I'd started the assistant

role and I sort of opened up about the way in how I'd been feeling and my supervisor was brilliant, she sort of sat down and said let's give this a go, let's see how we get on and then if that doesn't quite, it's not helpful for you, we'll look at other options and I think that is such an important point that of course I know we speak about sort of the window of tolerance and we know that if that's sort of we're really struggling and it's it's really short and we're becoming unwell and we're not feeling good then of course at that point we want to look at those alternatives and perhaps not to keep putting ourselves into these situations and for us to become completely and burnt out so of course taking really good care

of ourselves and um I know sort of there was the discussion as well um with my supervisor around um it's absolutely okay if it if it would feel as though you need more extra support and then that's absolutely okay to gain that sort of outside of the service as well and and for me sort of at that point it didn't feel as though I needed it then but I've still got it in my mind that it is always an option that people can request for that help and it's it is available and and yeah of course I know I mentioned before but I really do think it's it's important to take really good care of ourselves in in these at times very difficult roles it really is but also i think just before we wrap up to think about sometimes the feedback you get may be not in your best

interest it may be that somebody said something you know as a trauma from their own past or because they don't like you um it's okay because you probably don't like them very much either um you know and just to not let you know I guess not throw the baby out with the bath water and to not let one bad one bad egg ruin you know the whole baking um so just to yeah to know that it's okay if you're if you're finding it really challenging and actually if it's overwhelming you're making you ill that's not okay you know it's not okay it's thinking about acting upon that but also knowing that if you can do that within your window of tolerance as you've so beautifully demonstrated today that really great

things can happen for you um and that you're able to write on your CV you know to be able to help you and others in future. Yeah yeah absolutely and I'm just thinking Marianne sort of right at the beginning just for if there's anyone who's who's listening and sort of can relate in any way to this sort of fear and anxiety of speaking if I was to go back and two years back I would have found it incredibly difficult to speak in a ward round for example that would elicit lots of anxiety for me if I reflect now through exposure and doing it in a safe and contained way I'm sort of sat here on a podcast with you Marianne which so when I compare the two in in the space of two years I feel that it is definitely doable for people

and it might feel a little bit difficult and but it is definitely something and that people are able to do and I think that should show it in some ways it It really does. You've demonstrated that beautifully. And we can just give ourselves permission to grow, give ourselves the requisite things to help ourselves to thrive, like plenty of sleep, like trying to nourish ourselves well, like trying to get some great work-life balance. You'd mentioned that you're really into yoga just before we hit record and just trying to know that psychology is not your only life you know it's not it's not the most important thing in your life it should be it should be holistic so it really matters to me I'm absolutely very proud to be a psychologist but there's got to be other strings to my bow as well yeah of course marianne and i know you mentioned there about the yoga and

absolutely i try to do it sort of every morning before starting the day and for me even if it's five ten minutes it doesn't have to be very long um just spending that time aside and to do yoga to do meditation and i guess the meditation rather than doing just to be. And I find that sort of a wonderful way to start the day. And it sort of makes me feel a lot more content and comfortable throughout the day as well. So I know that might not be for everyone, but I found that to be really, really helpful, particularly if I'm speaking and doing training, staff training and those sort of things. Brilliant. I honestly I've loved speaking with you, Jasmine. It's been an absolute pleasure.

And I know so many people will find this useful. I can see this as being a real long-term favourite of the podcast. I will look at the stats and I will keep posted. But it runs through so much of what we do. So thank you for pitching it to me as an idea, of what we do so thank you for pitching it to me as an idea even though you didn't realize you were pitching it to me as an idea I think you probably part of you might have preferred me to just go lovely I'll talk about that thank you um but I thought you had the idea it's so much more interesting to have your take on it and

this would not have been the same with just me talking on it so thank you for reaching out to me if anybody else wants to connect or follow you um you're jasmine iveson on linkedin aren't you that's right marianne that's correct yeah and and marianne thank you so much for for giving me this opportunity to speak and I do believe even if one person can relate in some ways and for me that's significant so big thank you. Absolutely you're so welcome it's been a real privilege. Thank you Marianne, thank you so much. Thank you. Oh thank you so much again to our wonderful guest for today's episode both for her thoughtfulness her sensitiveness her attunement to the process but also for reaching out to me and suggesting this topic and I'm so pleased she said yes because it's a beautiful episode I realized that I mentioned

CPA and then we discussed it a few more times since then. In case you're not familiar with what that is, that means care program approach. I think it's always really important to cover the acronyms and I'm sorry that I let that one slip through. I hope that your journey as an aspiring psychologist, or maybe for that matter a qualified psychologist, is going really well. Please do bear in mind the compassionate Q&As which you can access live do look out for the most up-to-date dates but also on youtube there are the playlists of previous q a's which support you through application and interview stages for psychology i would welcome any reviews for this podcast please do consider leaving me a testimonial or even if you wanted to

be a voice as a testimonial for the podcast or for the books and to feature on this podcast yourself, please do check out the details in the show notes for how you can do that. It's a really simple process. Please do come along and join my free facebook group the aspiring psychologist community with dr marianne trent there's also the aspiring psychologist membership which gets wonderful reviews thank you so much for being part of my world if you've got ideas for future podcast topics please don't be shy come and connect with me i am dr marianne trent everywhere and that is spelled dr dr marianne trent m-a-r-i-a double n-e thank you so much i'll look forward to bringing you the next episode which will always be available first on youtube usually on a saturday but all of the mp3s are available from 6 a.m

on mondays. Take care. My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner. I read the Clinical Psych 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'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.