The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How to start a psychology career in your 30's & beyond - DClinPsy - mature student, grief, turning 40

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

One thing I love about being a psychologist is learning from people and learning about myself on our individual paths to becoming a psychologist. In this episode, we speak with Thomas Gourley, a 42-year-old incoming trainee clinical psychologist, who guides us through the waves, currents and riptides of life and explains how he ended up falling in love with the idea of becoming a clinical psychologist and then gave himself permission to pursue it. We speak about navigating key moments in life, and sometimes grieving them too, which shapes us in our journey to becoming a psychologist. Join us as we explore how both supervision and life shape us and help us grow. 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): Summary (01:11): Introduction (02:38): Warm welcome to Thomas(03:39): the colour of forties(06:08): Thomas’ incredible nonconventional journey (08:38): The epiphany second term (09:33): A brief touch of grief (10:48): changing directions of our sail(12:50): Life-changing accountability (14:04): Looking ahead to the next 40 years(15:23): Incredible growth and new beginnings (17:19): colourful leadership test(19:36): Being “green” on a good day(20:34): Values in the “bland”?(23:09): plateaus, bumps and troughs (24:02): exploring different models through therapy(28:50): the doctorate is not the end goal (30:56): growth, developing and rewiring our brains(34:12): burnt orange and allotments (36:14): on being a chronic ruminator (38:38): shaping us through supervision(42:04): there is no need to rush(45:23): the more revs you use, the more petrol you burn.(46:45): Thanks to Thomas(47:33): summary, Q&A dates and closeLinks:📱 To connect with Thomas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-g-a876601b4/ 🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97 💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested✍️ Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervision📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent💬 To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more:

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. On today's episode, we are talking with Thomas, who is an incoming trainee clinical

psychologist. We are talking about so many interesting things, namely being a slightly older applicant and also starting studying later in life as well, following revelations in a personal life that made existential ponderings happen it's a fascinating listen i hope you'll find it so useful and also stay tuned right to the end for thomas's top tips on how to reduce burnout along the way to becoming whatever psychologist you aim to be if you're looking to become a psychologist whatever psychologist you pleasure to be bringing this podcast to you since December 2021. And I have no plans to stop. So if you have any ideas for content you'd love to hear about, please do let me know.

Guest for today's episode did get in contact with me via LinkedIn. And I have to say the first time I didn't see the message, but he responded again in a message to something he'd heard me say in the podcast as a call out for if people had ideas. And that was about the age of you compared to your supervisor and how the dynamics play out and that is absolutely something that's cropping up in today's episode and it's really fascinating stuff it's a really useful listen or watch if you're watching on youtube if you are watching on youtube please do take a moment to like, to subscribe, to put a comment in and to share the content.

If you think I think it's useful and other people might benefit, too. Please do also come along and discuss this episode in my free Facebook group, which is the Aspiring Psychologist Community with Dr. Marianne Trent. If you are listening on Spotify or Apple, please do take a moment to rate and review. It really does mean so much. So with no further ado, let's plow on with this episode and I will catch you on the other side. So I just want to welcome along Thomas, an incoming trainee clinical psychologist to the podcast. Hi, Thomas. Hi, Marianne. clinical psychologist to the podcast. Hi Thomas. Hi Marianne, thank you for having me. Oh well thank you for reaching out and I'm sorry that I did miss your first LinkedIn message but persistence definitely pays off. I am nothing

if not persistent that's for sure. I love that. So we're gonna hear about a variety of different reasons why I think that you make a great podcast guest and why our audience are going to really love what you've got to say. For anybody watching on YouTube, you might well have noticed that Thomas is my age. And we've also coordinated our outfits beautifully. We've gone for the same shade of burned orange um so yeah you are 42 is that right Thomas yes I am yeah fellow 81 baby maybe but um yeah how is 40 how's 42 working um so far it's been pretty great um I think uh my 40s have so far been my best decade um and I think the way it's shaping up it's going to continue to go that way so yeah I think 40s pretty great I'm quite glad to be here in my 40s I know I feel similarly and yet it was

something I was dreading I know it's something I spoke about on the podcast recently but I really thought it was going to all be downhill and quite depressing and I'd feel awful and old and like my life was over yeah I think I think in my 20s I think well I don't even think I even thought about getting to 40 or what that would look like but I think I think it was probably like quite grey like visually in my mind I think it was all in black and white and it was all quite boring and somber um but it isn't it's burnt orange instead I was just thinking 40 is burnt orange color you know so was it lavender and lilac is 70s and 80s but clearly 40s is burnt orange but I think it didn't help me that when I was 39 just before the world ground to a halt with a pandemic my eyes packed up and

I suddenly needed glasses and I was like oh god this is so depressing this is just what my 40s is going to be there's going to be one ailment after another yeah since leaving university which maybe we'll come on to because I only recently left university um yeah I got in I got into my job and I started to get headaches and migraines so hence hence I also now wear glasses and the yeah the person who did my eye test she did say well it's just a sign of aging I was like oh terrific here it comes it's already here absolutely it comes it's here absolutely I've also got a very similar pair of glasses to you as well so we could be like twins burnt orange black frame glasses yeah so it's burnt orange and kind of roundish glasses as well it's where it's at it's

where all the cool kids hang out I think yeah so yeah you mentioned there that you went to university a little later than probably the average listener um would have done could you guide us through your steps a little bit if that's okay yeah um so definitely older than um the kind of typical um so I never went to university at the at the kind of typical age um partly because I never finished my A-levels so whoops um I tried tried twice um and didn't get to the end either time um so I wasn't qualified to go to university but I also wasn't uh I don't know just personally emotionally developmentally qualified to take that either um so instead I just spent um a decade and a half moving from job to job completely disparate squiggle of a of a path um So I was, yeah, that was maybe 15 years. I guess I had a significant life event in my mid-30s,

the kind of life event that makes you very quickly and clearly reassess what it is that you're doing, why you're doing it. And it kind of distills all of the the nonsense that you tell yourself so that's what happened to me and I very quickly decided that enough was enough of not doing anything without a great deal of purpose or direction and to actually do the thing that secretly was the thing that I always wanted to do and the thing that I would always like to develop as, which is to be some kind of psychologist. So, yeah, so I went part time in my job.

Not having any A-levels was a bit of a barrier, still a barrier to university so I did a an access to higher education course which is a kind of part time part-ish time one year course which is equivalent to two a levels and I did that in psychology sociology and social policy and then from that I got into my undergrad and that was in 2018. So I graduated 2021. So, yeah, not not the typical timeline. Definitely not. But actually, you've encompassed a whole pandemic there as well. So you were you were studying your undergrad during that time. Yeah, it was epiphany term second year, wasn't it? So that's basically half of the degree and half of the experience of being at university was then kind of taken away from us.

I think part of me actually still mourns the death of that third year in terms of the experience of it. I know everyone will have their own version of this but i think for for me and and maybe other people in my cohort um that's that was our experience of having that taken away um which yeah i i still wish it there are things left undone things left unsaidaid that always will be, which is a shame. But like I said, everyone has their own version of that in some way. Absolutely. I wrote some stuff for the media about grief linked to the pandemic that was not to do with death and dying. And there's so many things that so many of us missed out on.

And like you said, that can't be undone. You can't get a do over, a redo on them. And it's okay to be sad and to grieve for something, even though you might not have lost somebody, you know, through death in the pandemic. It's okay to grieve for important life events that didn't get to happen as they would have done otherwise. Yeah, absolutely absolutely I agree um I think there's a lot to be said for the the death of a fantasy a projected death and that plays out in it plays out in my role as well my current role um that I see what people imagine their future and their life is going to be, um,

doesn't happen. And there's a, there's a, there is, yeah, there is a, there is a struggle, um,

in moving from the fantasy to, to reality and, and reconciling that those, those two things are never going to be the same. Um, yeah. So there was a small version of that for me not not comparable but a version my own version yeah absolutely and I feel like I want to ask you a thousand other questions about other things

you've mentioned but what I want to do before we move on is to just say gosh well done like you know you make it sound quite easy that you dropped down to part time and did a whole degree during the whole pandemic whilst working and, you know, running your own life in the background as well. But, you know, there's clearly something that really resonated with you that made you accountable to yourself and gave you permission to take yourself seriously and to do what it was you wanted and I think that's incredible and you know just hats off to you for treating yourself with respect and thinking about what you want the next 40 years to look like rather than just thinking you know it's the sunk cost fallacy isn't it I don't know if you've heard that term before but you think well oh you know I've already had 35 years of this and it's been all right. I'll just carry on as I am. But you were like, no, actually, by the time I get to the next 35, 40 years,

I'd like to think that there's been a different chunk of my life. Yeah, I love that reflection. And that's absolutely the process that happened. As I said, with this kind of significant life event, it happened in a very, very short space of time, just within just a few weeks. And in terms of the sunk cost fallacy, absolutely. things that I left behind was playing music and songwriting which I'd been kind of living a parallel life alongside my kind of day jobs that I didn't really care about or wasn't really developing in almost kind of intentionally because I was trying to become a professional songwriter and I spent a long time doing that and developing it. And it was part of my identity. I was really committed, or I thought I was. I thought I enjoyed it.

I thought it was good for me. And just within a few weeks, all of that, I dropped it all. I dropped the whole thing from who I was and what I was doing. And yeah, so in the sunk cost fallacy, it was this really clear period of time where everything became kind of HD. And it was like, none of this is really worth anything to me or maybe even to anybody else. Not in a wider sense of things. And it's, yeah, what you said about accountability is absolutely one of the first thoughts, one of the foundational thoughts that I had was just really simply at some point I'm going to die and it's going to be sooner than I think.

And I had better have more to show for it than what I have right now. And what I have right now isn't enough. And if today was the last day, I would be really disappointed with myself so yeah really insightful reflection in terms of the accountability and that's that's what it is really and part of that process was actually leaving myself to be accountable only to myself. Yeah absolutely it's powerful stuff thank you for sharing that with us and as you speak I'm remembering my dad who died when he was 71 much sooner than we would have liked but you know his deathbed regrets and they're always quite interesting to think about what what people think about on the deathbed and his was you know I wish I'd worked harder in school but

yours will now not be that because you've had that sort of epiphany moment that you have been able to think about doing things differently you know and you know that's really powerful stuff yeah I mean it's been powerful enough to make me change everything that I was doing, basically, to become completely unrecognisable in the space of five years from what it was. So, yeah, and it continues to be the driver and continues to help, I suppose. Also, like you said about looking ahead for the next 40 years. Yeah, that is something that I think about and think to construct. And maybe I'm building a fantasy that I have to adjust and reconcile with not achieving. But I have those things laid out now. Whereas before I didn't, not really.

It's quite vague. I'm kind of thinking about trauma and recovery. So trauma is my specialty and I'm thinking about it being about seven years, actually, since you started this kind of moment of growth and change. And it's said that in seven years, all of our cells will renew. And so, you know, even the cells on your arm are actually different than they were seven years ago. And that can be a helpful thing for people to grapple with when they've been, for example, assaulted or hurt. It's like actually the body now that you have is now different than the body that was hurt by that person. And that can be really helpful.

But in thinking about recovery, mental health recovery, I think you've done something really incredible and something that's going to be a real gift to people that might hear this podcast episode even in years to come, that they might be in a position now that feels like they're feeling quite stuck, quite trapped. So think what you've done there really beautifully is you've given hope to so many people who might be struggling at the moment, who might be struggling to imagine that their life could ever be different, that they could be working in a career that they enjoy, that they could be working in a career that they enjoy, that they could be looking forward to the next decades of their life, not just scraping by,

that they can potentially enter a realm of pay and rewards that are going to be, you know, offering them and their family financial security, not just now, but in terms of pension as well. And I think, wow, what a gift for people to think how much they could turn their lives around. And, you know, you've done it. I think that's just incredible. Again, hats off to you. Thanks.

I haven't really thought about it in that way. I'll leave that for you to say. Things like that don't really sit very comfortably with me, the idea that I might inspire somebody you mentioned that I'd not heard of was a colourful leadership test. We've obviously both burnt orange, but could you tell us a little bit about that for people that might be listening? Oh, so in the service I work in, we have two trainees. we always have two second year trainees so um occasionally i get to kind of dip into um some of their teaching and uh we were talking about it was part of their their leadership um training uh they were looking at um four different personality types and that these personality sites were kind of color-coded um i must preface this by saying i don't i don't know if this is like an evidence-based thing or not um but it was really cool regardless

and um the idea the exercise was that there was a whole bunch of words um put on the screen and you have to um really quickly without trying to think about it too much, write down the words that you think really relate to you, really vibe with you. So you do that really quickly. And then on the next screen, all those words are then colour coded. So then you count up how many greens you have, how many reds you have, how many blues and how many yellows the idea is that um whichever color you have the most of that's your dominant kind of personality type uh so mine was green uh which apparently most of their cohort was so i guess i'm maybe i'm doing something right um in choosing this pathway um so green green was all about kind of so what one of one of the one of the things that it then splits is, so a green person, a green personality, this is so squidgy, isn't it?

So fluffy, but the green personality on a good day, this is what they look like. So they look like they're compassionate, they're kind, they're patient. It's like, okay, that sounds like someone who could do do well as a psychologist and then it says on a bad day this is what they would look like and and one of the I mean this was basically my take-home message that on a bad day I'm bland it actually said bland so I was like okay so I'm gonna I'm gonna go on a podcast and I I really need to make sure that I that people catch me on a good day. Otherwise, this is going to be an awful podcast. I was muted, so you couldn't hear me laughing.

But I love that. I love that. And my kids tell me that of all of their YouTubers that they're a fan of, I am their least favorite. Which is just delightful. Yeah, they say I should be doing videos on Minecraft because they'd be much more popular. Obviously, yeah, of course.

That's what the world needs more of. I think there's a lot of value in the bland as well. I really do. Really? Okay. Not that I'm condoning that you're bland, but what am I like on a bad day so I guess I would question the bad day aspect of it so I'm a whole person you are a whole person and there will be aspects of me some of which will be more sociable some of which will be chattier some of which will be more sociable, some of which will be chattier, some of which need to be

left alone and like to be, you know, like to spend time by myself. And it's me as a holistic person. So if you catch me on a day where I don't want to chat, then if I see you in the supermarket, then I probably will hide because I'm just not in that mood you know um and sometimes if I've done something really really social for days and days on end I just want to spend a day in bed reading my book but that's not necessarily a bad day that's about nourishing and respecting myself um but yeah you, I guess some of the stuff I talk about is bland, is boring, unless that topic really resonates with you. And over 42,000 people resonated with the topics I've discussed so far. So it can't be super bland. And I think

life is not always a roller coaster adventure, is it? You know, you and I have had 42 years of it. Some, you know, every day at bedtime, my children and I do. So I've got a nine year old who will like me to tell you he's almost 10 and a seven year old. And every day at bedtime, I'm by no means a perfect parent if people are thinking oh gosh she's amazing because I'm not um every day at bedtime with both of them we do a what's the favorite part of your day and what's the least favorite part of the day but they also ask me the same question and you know I get loads of lovely things from them about their favourite and their least favourite. And sometimes my most favourite day is replies just like, it was just all right.

There wasn't anything particularly good. There wasn't anything particularly bad. It was just a day. And isn't that just adulting, really? Sometimes it's a bit vanilla. sometimes it is a bit bland yeah yeah definitely yeah definitely um I was also thinking about I mean I mean yeah I mean there's a lot of plateauing that goes on in life isn't there um between the the bumps and and the troughs um but i i actually like when when you said oh maybe it's a good thing i did actually think well maybe in terms of like um the idea of the the blank canvas therapist um being able to you know kind of absorb transference um

there's maybe something in that. Maybe another way of looking at it would be that. So maybe I should be channeling my inner bland during sessions and then I can pick up all this transference. So, yeah, maybe it's my secret power, my blandness, but maybe just not as a podcast guest. I really don't think you are bland but I think what's really brilliant about training and what you might well experience for yourself too

is that you're likely to do a variety of different approaches during training so in my first year I was really into psychodynamic and that sort of I'd started to pave the way for psychodynamic placement for placement six but my latter interests were much more probably humanistic and I've ended up doing CFT so if I'd been introduced to CFT for anyone listening it's not sure what that is that's compassion focused therapy earlier in the process I might well have done something different but what I really like about training is you get a chance to try on different hats. So I did solution focused. I did systemic. I did psychodynamic. And you get to see, oh, well, what happens when I when I run therapy sessions in this way?

And then you get to think about which bits you like, which bits you want to keep, and which bits you want to leave there and never use again. And so, you know, I would empower you to try and really get, I mean, some of it's not within your control, but to try and get as wide a variety of exposure to different therapeutic orientations on placements as you can and that might even be when you're on placement seeking out maybe someone that's not your supervisor to shadow some sessions with and to maybe have some ad hoc supervision sessions with to get a different understanding of what is likely to be a very similar population within your service because I've learned so much from people in that way. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that, especially considering trainees are trainees.

They are being developed from one side to the other. And when they qualify, they're at the beginning of their career as a clinical psychologist um it's not the the doctorate isn't isn't the end goal it's it's um the preface of the beginning um and if you want to put it like that so the idea of being trained in as broad a way as possible is something that really appeals to me it really appeals appeals to me about the course that I'm joining. It's one of the reasons why I applied for it is that they offer training in four different models. I'm not quite sure how I feel about CBT plus one on a lot of the courses, given that trainees are not even qualified yet and why you would narrow it down at such an early stage in people's careers

um not notwithstanding the fact that you can you can then qualify and you have a whole career in which to explore different things but um personally i think the course is maybe the perfect time um to explore those things and i'm i've been really lucky in the service that I work in that I've been able to experience and use adapted versions of different models, which has been, yeah, has been terrifically privileged and fortunate that I've had that kind of AP role. So, for example, for one client, we used CBT for the formulation stage, but then used CFT for the kind of intervention stage. So we kind of, not strictly, but adapted versions of both things, but we kind of just brought in elements from CFT. And I really like that sort of integration of different ideas and different models.

Maybe that's how I'd like to develop, but we'll see. Again, in that seven-year cycle, I'll probably be completely different to how I am now. So, but yeah, I'm looking forward to exploring that that broad range um and especially given that you know when we think about the therapeutic alliance being the biggest predictor of a positive outcome doesn't exactly render the model or the choice it doesn't render the choice um irrelevant but it it does mean that you know exploring different models means that you can catch one that really sort of resonates with you

and you feel just is a kind of path of least resistance i can use this i know it it feels right it feels good i'm good at it um and that gives you maybe more of an opportunity to develop that therapeutic alliance and more opportunity to have positive outcomes maybe I don't know absolutely absolutely and I've become and this isn't it yeah I think let's let's go back to your earlier point you're you're worthy of praise and you're allowed to say good things about yourself and you're allowed others to say good things about you so I'm going to say something good about myself now to model that um I'm a much better clinical psychologist now than I was when I qualified as we are expected to be you know really it's kind of thinking about the first couple of years as being preceptorship and then

really you're fully qualified a couple of years later you know it's certainly it felt like the case for me I've become better and better as years have gone on but I would say that I'm now truly an integrative psychologist and what I really love about this stage of my career is that yeah every client has a different intervention because it's bespoke for them and if something stops working or if something resonates with them in a session I will literally go right okay and there might even be a uh um as I think about that I touch my mouth i do that i do do that um and i'll look off to the right and then i'll dig into my therapeutic toolbox it's like rummaging in an old doctor's bag and i will find something that is going to be transformative for them um that's just the best

job in the world i love it being able Being able to pull across, sometimes it will be an idea from psychodynamic. Sometime it will be an idea from systemic. Sometimes it will be something completely random that I've made up for them that will resonate because it's got, um, you know, like an analogy. So I've used, um, recently i've used the idea of i don't know if you're a gardener thomas that's yet hit your world but um climbing plants will send out little shoots and i've used that to help somebody understand ocd and to help externalize that um to kind of think about it desperately looking for support and reassurance and you know it's not going to blow over in the wind but actually it's a bit of a

it's a bit of a lie you know OCD it's a whole another episode but that has been really helpful and so I'm just excited for where you're going and for this growth explosion you're going to have and you your brain is going to basically rewire itself which is also really exciting you know we think about that happening in key areas of you know adolescence a childhood growing adolescence and but when we also start a new job we'll suddenly often notice I can't sleep very well I'm fizzed up with ideas my brain is trying to process everything but it really is an exciting period of change and growth I'm I'm really excited for you to experience that and I hope that you find it to be a really positive experience

um yeah same and does it does yeah I had a lot of thoughts when you when you're talking through all of that um I mean I suppose I'm quite committed to the idea of the continuous development the idea that I'll be a complete finished clinician at any stage isn't really isn't really in my thoughts so yeah in terms of like keeping my brain ticking over from here from here on in is is really comforting it's i really like it i've plateaued a lot in my working life um so the idea that there there may be no more plateaus is quite nice. And yeah, I'm definitely up for that. That's also part of the appeal of going into clinical psychology.

And I suppose going into a science where we're kind of all at the same time, we're at the absolute limit of our understanding, but we're also already behind where we're going of all at the same time we're at the absolute limit of our understanding but we're also already behind where we're going to be and that really appeals to me I'm quite comfortable I feel quite comfortable being in that position and I suppose in my own development I'm quite comfortable knowing where I am but knowing also where I might be. When you're talking about developing after qualification, having the experience to integrate different models, I'm really looking forward to being able to do that. And I've seen it, of course, in more experienced colleagues. And, you know, I do occasionally fanboy a little bit over them.

But I also know that if I just keep going just keep working hard I get a bit of luck and I'll get there as well eventually um so but I'm I'm quite comfortable and happy about like where I am now versus where I was and then quite excited about where I am now versus where I might be. Good. And yes, I also do like gardening as well. I have an allotment. Good to know. Oh, how lovely. Another 40s vibe, I think, is burnt orange on an allotment.

What's your most successful produce this year? Oh, gosh. Well, this year's been weird because July hasn't happened, basically. All the rain has been in the wrong place. The sun has been in the wrong place. The cold weather was in the wrong place. So goodness knows what it's like to be a plant. The radishes haven't fared well I believe this year not been

enough water at key times. At the moment I think so my partner grows flowers so we have lots of flowers they're all looking good so I think maybe beetroot looks okay. um good yeah good good good veg update thank you um i i do think there is value in the plateau though and we can't keep relentlessly striving all the time um because it's exhausting and sometimes we do need to go to supervision and go, can't be bothered. I can't seem to make any shifts. I can't seem to make any changes. You know, I'm managing my work, but it is what it is. You know, I don't know. And I think you've got to be able to have that. But even in supervision sessions, sometimes I will learn so much because we should ideally always have a supervisor who's more experienced than ourselves to be able to help contain us to be able to help shape us and to help

us grow and to help us think about being able to overcome things from a different perspective than the one that we're currently feeling a bit trapped in so that our clients can can benefit from you know the safety the security the growth of you know of the supervision relationship as well and I guess I'd welcome your thoughts on that um yeah so most of what I say about five minutes after I say it I reflect and think oh it's probably not that's not that's not quite right is it that's not quite true um so that's yeah i'm a chronic ruminator a chronic reflector um so when i said that about no more plateaus i did i did think well yeah there will be and there's value in the plateau with consolidation of what you know um yeah you can't consolidate if you're constantly learning um so that i guess there has to be that that kind of period where it all kind of settles

and you become confident in what you've learned and what you know. So, yeah, sure. Yeah, if we're constantly feeling like there's stuff to learn, then we're going to constantly begin to believe that we don't know anything and we're not enough so sometimes there has to be that feeling of mastery oh yeah I get this and this is what I say I've said before on the podcast is that in a cohort sometimes you will be so blown away by the experiences that people in your cohort are talking about and the the level of comfortability that they're able to

demonstrate for a particular topic and you'll be like oh god I don't know anything about that and that makes you feel quite squirmy in your tummy it makes you feel not enough but actually at other times there will be stuff that you have such a rich understanding of and such a sense of mastery in comparison to perhaps what others in the cohort will have and that's what makes clinical psychology really special because you've all got to the start line but with very different skills experiences and abilities and I think that's very very special. Yeah absolutely I completely subscribe to the idea that everybody knows something you don't and that is why no one ever achieves anything completely by themselves in a vacuum i don't

think any human has ever achieved something without any input from someone else every supervisor i've ever had every client i've ever had comes with me and teachers and stuff comes with me throughout my career and it's not just me and my determination there's a whole host of luck as well that's happened along the way that's got me to being the professional and the person that I am yeah the two supervisors I've had live rent-free in my head definitely um and I've been I've been really lucky to have two very different supervisors at two very different points in their career so my my first super so I've been I've been an AP for just just under two years um so roughly speaking the first year was with a supervisor of 40 years experience um seen it all done it all um was very um i thought

just brilliant wonderful person um and quite psychodynamic psychodynamically minded so supervision was very open free form no, no agenda, no structure. And we would often talk about growing flowers as well. And then my new supervisor was newly qualified on a preceptorship. So part of their training towards band eight was to have a supervisee. And I was that supervisee and I was that I was that supervisee so it was their first experience of being a clinical psychologist their first supervisor their first role as a supervisor and whereas my first supervisor was approaching retirement my new supervisor just qualified and although I don't know how old they are, they are definitely a lot younger than me, maybe 10-ish years younger than me, maybe a little bit

more. And that's something that we talked about early on in terms of how I felt about that, which for the record was absolutely fine. My age doesn't i'm not like uh i don't feel any kind of ego about my age or anything like that i deferred to their role their qualification their level of experience and um expertise um but also we talked about how they felt about having a significantly younger supervisor, supervisee, and even potentially the idea that they may never have in the rest of their career a supervisee who is 10 or more years older than them. And I guess the older that they get, the less likely that will be, you know, when they're 50, it's even more unlikely that their supervisee will be in their 60s.

So, yeah, we discussed that. And that's, I mean, it hasn't created any barriers, I don't think. But it's, I think, partly has, maybe we could talk about age as power in terms of the social graces, because there have been occasions, I think, where there's been a two-way relationship in terms of learning

and maybe even driving particular things, whereby I've kind of felt as a team, we're not doing this and we should be, and I've been the one to kind of lead it. But then again, my current supervisor is a believer in kind of collective leadership. So it's also there's also been that space for me to do that. It's not just simply because I'm old and I'm like, well, I know better because that just isn't the case. Yeah, I think you absolutely can get assertive and great leaders from a young age,

but it's something that I've developed as I've aged and my confidence for being able to just observe, stop, think and suggest and intervene. And, you know, I'm very much less likely to put up with any kind of social injustice or, you know, inequality in the team, or if I think that something's not happening that should be happening, I'm very much more likely to advocate for that now. And I think it's just my age and my experience that has allowed that to happen. But of course, like I said, there are younger people who've got there much quicker than I have.'m just conscious um for those of you don't know I am still a practicing clinician so I've got I do see a clinical caseload I'm just conscious of time because I've got a clinical session very shortly but before we finish I'd really love to know what your top tips are for reducing burnout um in in this career of ours Tom?

Oh um so I I think that partly because of my age and knowing that time passes quite quickly so there's no need to rush it's going to happen that kind of helps me not have my foot too hard on the pedal to begin with um and again I think through Asian experience that's that's a skill that I've learned uh to kind of not throw throw all of myself in into something so that's not to say that i don't throw myself into this career but i'm maybe you know it's maybe like eight out of ten my foot is eight out of ten on the pedal that's a really bad way of putting it but if you get my meaning um because this isn't sustainable so i guess in reality what that means is uh well just referring back to what you said earlier there are days when i just can't be bothered i love my job i love my

colleagues i love the clients that i work for um in fact it's maybe the first you know is the first time i've loved my job and that and in spite that, there are still days when I just cannot be bothered. And there are clients that I've struggled to really engage with and engage with the work. So when that happens, it's fine. Just sink into it and let it pass and just give yourself a break. And also when it's time to go home, I go home. And at the weekend, I don't think about my job and I don't think about it at night.

I guess I have a good work-life balance. I suppose that's a really simple way of putting it. But on the Monday morning, I haven't thought about what we talked about on Friday and supervision just hasn't crossed my mind. Sometimes it does, it's not black and white but generally speaking i i managed to to just leave it inside my shut laptop on a friday good um but i don't know how that's developed really maybe just i think yeah containment it says as you grow you just get better at doing

that I think and it's really important to develop and cultivate as a skill and to know that you don't not care about your clients because you're not thinking about them but you deserve to have your life and the two are separate and I was thinking I love the analogy about the pedal to the metal you know when you are driving with or even if you're walking past somebody that is doing 10 out of 10 pedal to the metal, it's distressing. It's inconvenient. You know, it makes you go, oh, it's exhausting. And so whilst you might think you need to be relentless all the time, it's really not nice in a team if someone is doing that you know and I've absolutely been relentless at points in my career that have probably been quite hard to be around because I'm like this service needs a shorter wait list and I'm going to show you that we're doing it

we're doing it we're doing it because these clients deserve a better service and I'm sure that was difficult for my colleagues at times because I was like productivity to me it's accountability 50 face-to-face you know i can do it we can all do it let's get it done let's get these clients have a better experience but if you do that all the time you're not going to be very well liked and you're going to burn out and you know ultimately you're not going to be any use to the service or the clients that you so badly want to support yeah absolutely i suppose to complete the analogy you, the more revs you use, the more petrol you burn. Oh, you certainly do. And on that note, Tom, I'm really sorry, I'm going to have to go.

But it's been the biggest pleasure speaking with you and wishing you so well for these next three years and beyond. And if you want to come back on the podcast at any stage, give me a shout. And, you know, I'm here for you if you need any containment or advice the podcast at any stage give me a shout and you know i'm here for you if you need any containment or advice um feel free to slip into my dms thanks um thanks for having me marianne it's been um a privilege to come on and and just just chat randomly and um thank you to uh everyone who's listened i hope it wasn't bland. It was not bland. It was vibrant and burnt orange. And may your beetroots flourish. Yes, exactly. What a great note to finish on. Thank you so much. Josh, what an absolute pleasure to speak with Thomas. And I really

wish him all the best with these next coming months and years. You'll be pleased to know I did make my client session on time. But yeah, I really am a practicing clinician. I hold a clinical caseload, as well as running all of these bits and pieces for you guys in the aspiring psychologist community. And if you would like to come closer into my world, do check out the details for the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which you can find in the show notes or in the description or in the bio link of any of my social channels. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. Come and find me. Come and follow me. Come and connect with me.

And let me know what content it is that you would really value. And I will look forward to offering that to you. come and connect with me and let me know what content it is that you would really value and I will look forward to offering that to you don't forget we've got compassionate Q&A dates coming up for the application season the first of those is on Monday the 4th of September 2023 at 6 p.m the second of those is Tuesday the 3rd of October 2023 at 6 p. The third is Tuesday the 7th of November 2023 at 6pm. They're all available for free streamed via my social channels and will be available on replay as well. The best place to catch the replay is on Dr Marianne Trent YouTube. Come and follow me there, come and subscribe and you can also check out my previous playlist there too. Anyway, thank you so much for listening to this episode or watching it,

depending on what you are doing. And I will look forward to providing more great content for you when we next get together, which will be from 6am on Monday for the next episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. Thank you so much for being part of my world and do be kind to yourself. Take care. If you're looking to become a psychologist Then let this be your guide With this podcast at your side You'll be on your way to being qualified It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast With Dr. Marianne Trent Without the memory entrance My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological wellbeing practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book.

I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist it just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me 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.