The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How to use your knowledge to look after your mental health

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

How do you use your own skills as a mental health professional to support and guide your own mental health? Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 40: Reflecting on Your Own Mental Health as an Aspiring Psychologist.Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. Like everyone else, psychologists and aspiring psychologists experience the ebbs and flows of life. During this podcast episode, I am open and vulnerable about some tough times in my life and how I used my skills in psychology to reflect on my own mental health. I mentioned psychological models that I apply, and that you could apply, to regularly check in with yourself. I hope that you find this useful and thank you for being a part of my world. The Highlights: 00:28: A raw and honest episode.01:47: Life with a six-week-old sleep thief!06:06: Reflecting on my own mental health.10:06: Life ebbs and flows.15:00: Self-reflection to be aware of our mental health. 17:29: Self-reflection and supervision.19:18: Looking at our own hierarchy of needs.38:50: CloseLinks:Check out my juicer here: https://amzn.to/3oMULWl Leeds Clearing House: https://chpccp.leeds.ac.uk/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fGet your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervisionConnect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the upcoming Aspiring Psychologist Book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrentTo check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunityLike, Comment, Subscribe & get involved:If you enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe and rate and review episodes. If you'd like to learn how to record and submit your own audio testimonial to be included in future shows head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and click the blue request info button at the top of the page.

Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. episode. Without a merry entrance episode. I hope you find it useful and I hope that you were able to use it and the approaches

within it to reflect perhaps in your own practice or perhaps going through your day-to-day life in a mindful way, perhaps in supervision, perhaps as a reflective journal exercise. But I try to showcase the way that I live my life and how I use my own knowledge, not only for the clients I work with, but also for myself. And that is the topic of today's episode is when you can use your own knowledge to apply to yourself or to help work out what might be going on with you. So yeah, here it goes. I thought we would do this by looking at my life and my behaviour through a few key areas, key times where I wasn't feeling tip-top. Okay, so let's think about the first one that comes to mind, and it is in 2013 and at that point I have got a six weeks old baby, my first child and I had had no sleep for precisely six weeks and about two days, I had only just been able to start driving again

because I'd had an emergency section and you can't start driving again until you've been signed off as safe to do so. That's usually around your six-week check. So I was like home with my baby who I was just on cloud nine with so despite the fact that he was an utter utter sleep thief at worst he woke like 31 times a night he was an absolute terror when it came to night time he also didn't really like nap time very much either um but at all other times he was joyful he was so smiley and gorgeous and I just adored being his mummy I still do it's just oh I just felt like it was just me and him so I'm married I'm still married at the time but it's just like it was just this just unique adoration just like amazing it's just like we'd both landed on like planet perfection apart from and aside from the fact that he did not sleep and I was like

who is this child because I love sleep prior to becoming a mummy it was not unheard of me to have a lie-in on days when I wasn't working and then wake up and then have some breakfast and then have a nap and then sometimes I don't even have an afternoon nap and then I go to sleep and sleep all night long. I loved sleep so to then have this child who really was not finding sleep that natural which I know is really common, I just was not prepared for how exhausting that would be. You know, I don't know if you've ever been that tired, but when I reflect on that time, I think about it, not necessarily so much in the six weeks, first six weeks, although it was difficult to begin with, but it went on until he was 20 months his

sleep chaos um but at times you know if it'd been particularly wild at night there'd been many many wakings perhaps after only 40 day I felt like head fog and I was more likely to eat rubbish because of the unique way that our ghrelin, ghrelin, ghrelin how do you say I have no idea but it's a it's a hormone which is really indicated in our eating and our eating hormones suppressant when we've had enough to eat. But there's also leptin as well, which I believe is quite indicated in appetite. And both of those hormones are affected when we are very tired. So we might find that there's some evidence even that people at buffets, if they've been sleep deprived, will consume more calories than people who've had, you know, seven and a half to eight hours plus sleep per night. So, yeah, this stuff matters. So the time I'm telling you about is when he was just over six weeks old.

I'd been able to get out and about in my car so I'd been to a breastfeeding support group and was just trying to work out why why it was all still kind of quite painful and very quickly he was assessed by a lactation consultant she was like he's got a posterior tongue tie um and yeah there's some people that don't think that's a thing but I could promise you from the state of my body at that time um it's a thing I absolutely am on board with that being a thing and it should not have been hurting me as much as it was um and on that same um of days, it might maybe even have been the same day, he was assessed by the GP for his kind of six week check. And they kind of said,

oh, I think he might have a bit of a squint in his eyes he's not focusing quite right we'd have expected it ordinarily to have corrected by now and so babies are often born that way but usually by about that age it's it's sort of corrected itself and I remember bathing him that night in the bath and just crying really I was thinking oh this like perfect baby now potentially needs some kind of minor surgery to his tongue I might need to have all sorts of appointments to help correct this squint and I just thought oh this is really sad I'm really sad I'm really really sad um and then I was and of course I was really tired I was meeting a friend um who is a fellow clin psych and he's now a mother um but wasn't at the time I was meeting her for lunch

in town um I think probably the following day or soon after that and we just sat there and I just had a good old cry and she was worried about me and my mental health at that time I think she thought I was perhaps you know developing postnatal depression or I wasn't coping very well so she wasn't worried that I was concerned to my baby she was just worried about me as a friend and worried about me because of her knowledge of psychology too. But I was able to use my theory and my reflections to know I wasn't experiencing depression at that stage. So I think an outsider and a GP, if I've been honest with them at that point, they might well have just indicated, you know, suggested that that's postnatal depression, you know, but actually I knew for me that it wasn't because I was still finding joy in him

and in activities. I was still eating, I was still sleeping when I could. I was just reacting to what felt like two quite big hiccups with my baby, you know, with his health. And I just, it just took a little bit of time to adjust for that. And by eight weeks, his tongue procedure had been done and things had settled down a bit. And I was hoping that that might improve his sleep. And of course it didn't. But then he was feeding better. And so my body was more comfortable. And so I just really felt like I really moved into just my flow of being a mummy, even though I was a tired mummy at that stage. And so things got better at that point and more effortless. And there was still so much joy and adoration around, despite the fact that he was an absolute sleep monkey. Now, thankfully, his squint did sort itself out.

So he never needed any treatment for that. It did resolve, which I was really pleased about. But I think I could easily have been pathologized at that stage as being depressed. But I was able to use that to know that I was just reacting to life events. And that is not to disparage anyone who is experiencing postnatal depression at all. This is just my observation of knowing my own self really well and knowing, you know, the markers for depression and feeling that they didn't apply to me it didn't you know it wasn't depression I was experiencing because we must allow and tolerate that our lives will have ebbs and flows that sometimes we will feel better sometimes we will feel worse and it's the good times that highlight the bad

times but it's also going through the bad times which really highlight the great times, isn't it? If you can reflect on some of the happiest times in your life, perhaps it's when you've been in the first flushes of new relationship or you've just moved house or you've got a new job and you just are so delighted. You know, you reflect on how find things and how much joy you're able to find in yourself and in your activities and in the things you do with people and sometimes you just can't keep that smile off your face and that's a really really lovely life stage and you must breathe into that you must lean into it you recognize it. It's okay to mindfully celebrate and reflect upon and kind of draw down upon those really good felt times to be able to draw on and

reflect upon and to help you through times that feel less good. You know, you just know that better times are coming whatever you're experiencing right now. There's always hope. I firmly believe that. So let's break here for a short little snippet where we talk about the Aspiring Psychologist Collective book. And I will be back along very, very shortly to talk with you about some more observations and reflections about my own mental health and my well-being journey psychologist then let this be your guide filled with lessons and experience that will help you get qualified so come and take a look it's right here in this book it's the clinical psychologist collective it's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. The Clinical Psychologist Collective book was a very helpful read and useful to step outside of the prep work for the

Declan Sci application process to really consider if this is something you want to do and reflect on your personal journey. It is a very nice read and kept me company on train journeys. I do think Marianne's guidance through her podcast, compassionate Q&A sessions and this book has played a part in my successful application this year. Thank you. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. Filled with lessons and experience that will help you get qualified. So come and take a look. It's right here in this book. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective.

It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. Welcome back along. Thank you for staying tuned in and I hope you found that useful. So let's think about what I'm not saying during this episode. So I'm absolutely not saying that it's not possible to develop mental health difficulties. I'm absolutely not saying that there's anything wrong with you or other people if they do what I am talking about is using our extensive skills and training to try and do a bit of an audit of ourselves really and to look at using those skills in really being really super self-aware and reflective to kind of act as early help for yourself and for me I think about it as almost like daily gardening really for my

mental health you know just having a little bit of an overview of where I'm at. And I think that it can be, you know, really helpful to have this sort of approach in this sort of reflective style and space. And for me, I think it really helps make sure that what I'm experiencing as a state and when I say state I don't mean like oh you know they were in a right state although that's probably where it originates from a state is just you know something we're doing right now um but stops it from tipping over or developing into a trait. So for me, depression is when, you know, certain behaviours and, you know, symptoms and patterns of thinking and interacting start to become more entrenched. And so they're becoming, or they have become,

or it seems like they are traits, like it won't change, that it's static. And for me, it's getting in ahead of that with myself, you know, to really do what I can do to stay on top of that and to practice what I preach I guess and I guess it might be useful for you to use some of these approaches with yourself and to be as open as I am being and to practice if it feels safe being as open as I am being in your supervision sessions, if that feels safe to do so. That said, if you do want to register for my supervision guide, which can help you shape your supervision relationships, then head out to the details in the show notes or head to my website and then it's just forward slash supervision. So, yeah, let's crash on with the rest of the

episode. But just wanted to add that caveat so that you knew that I wasn't being all hatist at all. Absolutely not stacks of compassion for people that are experiencing mental health difficulties and distress. And this is some of the ways that i um i don't like the grammar there i feel like i'm gonna edit that um but i'm not gonna edit it out because i'm not i'm not super perfectionistic so these are some of the ways that i use to just do a bit of weeding you know um just to gently cogitate assess think what's going on you've been a bit crankier than usual lately, Marianne, what do you think that might be about? And I think it's about that gentle curiosity that I would apply with clients as well. Why don't we try and do that for a bit?

And we'll just see whether that helps. And so that's what I would expect from myself. And that's what I would suggest can be useful when you're also working in mental health services and trying to look after yourself as well. So, yeah, let's let's crack on. And yeah, I just wanted to add that because it felt really important. So the second time I'm going to talk to you about is something more recent actually. So it was in the run-up to the summer holidays 2022 and I just had started to recognise that I was a bit grumpier than I ought to be, you know. So my baseline is usually pretty cheery, you know, I'm usually pretty easygoing, I usually smile quite often and, you know, can find the humour in most situations I just was like a bit irritable. And I was like, well, am I being irritable? Or is everyone around me actually really annoying? You know, how do you discern that? Is it me that's the problem? Or are they all really annoying? You know, I've got two kids and a husband. Is it just them?

Am I the problem? And I was like, I don't know. I'm not sure it's me. I don't know. But I thought, well, let's have a look at your life, Marianne. let's think about what might be going on to see if this could be you actually um so i did a little bit of a dissection really and it might be helpful at this stage to have a look at the maslow's hierarchy of needs so at the bottom of that pyramid i often do this with clients not about myself obviously um but with them we look at the physiological needs, which is air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction. Then the next one up, we've got safety needs, which is personal security, employment, resources, health and property, love and belonging, friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection. Next one up is esteem, respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength and freedom. And then right at the top, we've got self-actualization,

the desire to become the most that one can be. And so I was thinking, well, where am I doing really well at the moment? And I'm going to cite that one of the problems was Love Island, people. Ordinarily, my natural bedtime would be about 9.15. But when Love Island's on, it doesn't finish till 10pm. And I can't be catching up on TV every day because I'm very busy. And so I was watching it live with my husband. We're both Love Island fans um big news just in is that Laura Whitmore is not doing it next year who's going to present will it be Ekin

Sue I heard yesterday I think that might be quite good I might be on board with that um but yeah my sleep suffers I get less of it um so to speak, during Love Island and not for the reasons you think, just because it's later. So it pushes back my bedtime routine by an hour, really, you know, almost an hour. And, you know, also in the UK since July, it's been unbearably hot. And in my 20s, and when I was a teenager, I loved hot weather. I was a real sun bunny. I adored it. But now that I am older than mid-20s, I just don't like it it is not for me I am not here for that um anything over 24 and I am like grumpy I like to be a bit chilly in bed and to be all snuggled up and have a duvet I can't wait I can't wait to need a duvet again I cannot wait um I literally I'm kind of hallucinating about how wonderful that's going to be.

And then in the next breath, I'm like, but then we might need heating and the heating is going to be expensive. So, yeah, I'm just looking forward to autumn when we don't need heating. trousers and blankets and pillows and you know that aren't covered in sweat and um you know duvets that are wonderful so I blooming can't wait um so yeah my sleep was being impacted on by that um so yeah I decided to to take that on board once love island was finished let's not go wild i'm not quitting mid-series um but i um decided to get my sleep hygiene back on board so i'm never really a caffeine drinker anyway i have the occasional um cup of green tea i don't eat much chocolate um but yeah i decided to see if I could start going to bed slightly earlier again. And I have done that.

And I looked at my food. So if you've been following me on Instagram, Dr. Marianne Trent, where all the good stuff happens on Insta. I decided to start trying to eat a bit better. So I decided to start trying to eat a bit more fruit and veg. And a couple of years ago, I was doing a 10 a day to eating 80 grams of 10 different fruit and veg for a whole year. I did it for a whole year. And at that point, I thought, I'm never going to change back. Well, this is just going to be me forever now. Like this is just going to be, this is going to be where it's at. You know, I can't see me ever changing, ever having this be any different. But then of course, like anything, things do change. So once I've done the year,

things slipped. And before you know it, I was back down to probably eating a few portions a day but I just thought you know what I'm going to look at what changes I can make right now to really give myself the best chance of meeting my nutritional needs to support my optimal functioning which is what this is about and so I started taking vitamins every day again and because I am I was gonna say an older lady I'm not an older lady but I'm 41 so I've got to be thinking about our bone density started taking some calcium and vitamin D as well alongside that and some fish oils but also started I decided to buy a slow juicer um and if you'd like some more information about my slow juicer you can find that um in the show notes we'll pop that in there for you um but yeah slow juicer and I started doing some juicing and I've been

really really enjoying that um so I've been adding to my stories some other bits and pieces that I've been eating and drinking um but really enjoying it and um yeah I'm not going to go all renegade and say I'm going to do it every day for the rest of my life like I did with the 10 a day um but I certainly am enjoying that and so I'm going to continue that um so that's probably it for the bottom section um you know I am not employed I am self-employed but I was feeling safe um you know I was feeling healthy so I'm in good health um but I decided I would start running again so I'm doing strength training but over the summer I'm only doing once a week not twice because I got I've got kids, man, I've got two of them. And so to be around for them a bit more often,

I was doing strength training in the middle of the week, whereas I'd usually do it twice a week. And I decided, well, I can start running again. So I can start running before I start work, or if I'm not working, can do it at the weekends before I get showered and things so I started running again and I'm not a marathon runner I'm not very good at it if I'm honest um it's not really about that for me it's not about the speed it's not about the distance I only run for about 15 minutes it's about moving my body and knowing that my mental health responds really well to having been run like a dog like getting out getting some fresh air having that time to think oh look there's blackberries going on that bush um or there's a dog poop that missed that avoid avoid avoid um or just saying hi to

people in the street you know and you know catching you know flowers coming out for the first time and watching the way the breeze moves the trees and noticing how parched all of the grasses and stuff at the moment so getting out and about um is really useful for me i respond well to that but depending on your own unique physiology and your physical health you may not be able to do that but still moving your body is really useful for our mental health I almost said yental health then mental health so yeah could you look to do that as well love and belonging so yeah I felt I made my husband in a pretty good place we've been together almost 13 years and married almost 10 um so it's not a first flash of love and we have got two children but yeah I felt like we were good enough um um where we're at um we

like each other we still make each other laugh um we like spending time together we do tend to protect um at least an hour um to together each evening when we're both in we're usually both in um to spend time together um before we had kids we'd do like cool stuff like play rummy um have a glass of wine maybe sometimes um and play downfall you won't beat me at downfall. Don't think you can because you won't. Very rarely does anyone beat me at downfall. But, yeah, we'd spend time doing stuff other than watching TV,

but largely these days we do watch TV. But we spend time together usually on a Saturday and we'll have an earlier tea together, just me and him, once the kids are in bed. And then we spend time together then as well. So, yeah, I felt like that was good. Saturday and we'll have an earlier tea together just me and him once the kids are in bed and then we spend time together then as well so we yeah I felt like that was good but I recognize that even though I've got loads of friends that most of them are not on my immediate doorstep but I'm very very fortunate that one of my one of my um has got a best friend and it just so turns out

that me and his mum get on really really well and so I decided that um yeah we'll start spending some more time together as well it doesn't just need to be when the kids are um you know together and so we've been planning more time together we're off out together um for dinner for the first time this um this coming friday actually um as i record this um and yeah we just i went around to see her the other day on her birthday we just you know laughed our heads off like it's just really nice um to be able to have a friend right on my doorstep so yeah i've got friends i trained with that are living locally to me um but when I say locally to me, it's still about half an hour away and half an hour away may as well be, you know, three hours

away because I still wasn't seeing them. But I did make a trip to go and see two of my friends who live about half an hour away and really, really enjoyed connecting with them and yeah right at the start of the summer I went away and connected with three of my undergrad friends and we went and stayed away in a beautiful little cottage with a hot tub it was really nice so just really looking at where I could thicken the narrative around my friendships to make sure that I was checking off that area of the Maslow's hierarchy and yeah continuing to plan in activities that are enjoyable and things to look forward to so yeah that's the love and belonging section and the sense of connection and all of that and then really enjoyed our little family holiday as well

when we went down to East Wittering spending time together and also having a bit more sleep as well, which topped up those needs. And yeah, just a more relaxed pace of life. So you will know that I like to get things done. You know, there's always busy plates spinning in my life, be they personal or professional or both. It's just nice to take my foot off the gas for a bit and just lean into being on holiday self-esteem I feel like I respect myself feeling all right yeah feeling okay with what I'm doing and self-actualization you know I absolutely even when I was feeling a bit wobbly and a bit moany and you know I still wanted to do well it wasn't like I was feeling a bit wobbly and a bit moany and um you know I still wanted to do well it wasn't like I was saying I can't do that I mustn't do that I just was a bit concerned

about my general levels irritability um and I can report I'm recording this at the end of August I'm feeling really good again um so maybe maybe was me, or maybe the children not being at school and not having to hustle them out the door is meaning they're less annoying. They are causing me to be less irritated. You know, we are spending time together. And so they've got my attention. I'm always quite careful that at the end of every day at bedtime that we have a little review of the day and um you know we'll say what's our favorite part of the day what's our least favorite part of the day my eldest tries to chuck in what is my funniest part of the day and i'm like baby boy life's not that funny when you're 41. Like, it's very rare that I'll laugh my head off uncontrollably.

You know, I wish that happened more often. I do find myself quite amusing. But yeah, life's not as, you know, spontaneously gleeful as it is when you're nine or when you when you're six so often i'll say no we're not doing we're not do not do it not doing the funny one today um so we do the best part which is probably a bit miserable you're like marianne that's so grumpy um so yeah maybe i just need to find more opportunities to laugh in every given day um but the kids are always a bit disappointed if my favorite part of the day is not with them it's something different but i think that is role

modeling appropriate that they are not the kings of this world and that there can be joy found outside of being their mother um good job i don't rely on them solely for my joy they eat a lot of it eat my joy um which if you're not a parent yourself you might be like how could she speak about her children like that but um you know they're they're like pac-man you know they gobble up your free time they gobble up your money um you know they get me a drink oh no darling let's try again ask me again please can i have drink please and i was like well i suppose so what did your last slave die of um you know but if i let them make it themselves it'd be squash everywhere but so, I'm happy to be the drinks machine.

But I want someone to speak to me politely. I don't want to be spoken to like a slave because I ain't nobody's slave. So, yeah, I'm sharing this level of vulnerability with you to invite you to reflect on your own Maslow's hierarchy, to invite you to reflect on whether you could be pathologizing yourself and what control you might be able to have to make changes in your life. So, you you know it's no surprise that people with the best mental health are generally getting good sleep they are connected to people they are feeling like they've got a sense of achievement that they're seeing people that they like regularly either in person or remotely they're feeling connected to something they feel like they are achieving they are eating good food

you know um and so anytime that I feel like I'm slipping away from that it's useful just to take a little bit of a look um and to make sure that where possible I can make tweaks and make changes to get myself yeah on a more even keel you know because I am 41 I did wonder whether I could be perimenopausal as well and um this isn't really something I'd considered much before um you know Davina has been talking a lot about that over the last couple of years and she's got a book coming out that I'm quite looking forward to reading as well um it looks pretty as well I saw her with a copy of it on her Instagram recently um you know so is that around for me I don't know I think my mum went through the menopause she'll be mortified been telling you this a bit later than 41 I think she's probably

late 40s um so yeah I don't think that's the case you know am I just a bit grumpy is that but I feel I don't know I feel energized when it comes to my work you know I'm not annoyed with you guys no um and so is it just that my kids were going through a bit of a grumpy demanding phase were they worn out was I worn out from the end of the school year have we all responded really nicely to this protracted family time and that said um i have been able to record this podcast this afternoon um well i was going to record it anyway but instead of ignoring my children my mother-in-law texted me and said oh do they want to come over to this afternoon i said yes yes they do i'm bringing them now see you soon um so yeah i've been able to record um two podcast episodes with them not in the house hooray um i wonder whether i'll be able

to get any editing done before they call they get home probably not probably not um but yes um i can't remember why i told you that uh no can't remember but could you use these techniques to look at helping you be your optimal self you know what tweaks could you make um let me know won't you um come along and discuss it with me on the Aspiring Psychologist community, in the Aspiring Psychologist community Facebook group. I'd love to know what you think of this episode, anything that it's evoked or provoked for you. Let's continue this conversation. And yeah, thank you for being kind with me as i

bear my soul um and yeah looking forward to catching up with you for what will be episode 41 very soon you said 40 how cool is that have you listened to all 40 so far are you like you know a regular let me know um come and connect on socials i love celebrating with you i'm dr marianne trent most places but you can check out my link tree um all the details in the show notes um all right take care be kind to yourselves thanks for being part of my world bye if you're looking to become a psychologist then let this be your guide with this podcast at your side you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast.

With Dr. Marianne Trent. My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one. And this kind of filled me 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.