The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - My Child Won’t Go to School… What’s Really Going On? (EBSNA Explained)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, my name is Beth and I'm a psychological well-being practitioner from Newcastle. I just wanted to say the biggest thank you to the contributors of the clinical psychologist collective book. I've enjoyed reading this so much and loved having an insight into the range of backgrounds and experiences. People have prior to applying for the doctorate and it's been really interesting seeing the potential barriers to the application as well and how I can try and work around this. I really started to doubt myself and whether I was good enough to apply for the client. clinical psychology doctorate, but this has really given me the confidence boost that I needed to give it a shot. So the biggest thank you ever. I've been thinking a lot about the phrase

Starting point is 00:00:41 school refusal because if I'm honest, it's one of those terms that never quite sits right with me. Because when we say a child is refusing school, it sounds like willful defiance, like something intentional. But in my experience as a clinical psychologist, that's very rarely the case. In this episode, I'm delighted to be rejoined by Dr. Adam McCartney, a qualified educational and child psychologist. Together, we're thinking about what's often called emotional-based school avoidance EBSA or EBSNA. It's a fascinating insight into children, schools and parents. And stay tuned to learn what the most common age is for school refusal. The answer might just surprise you.

Starting point is 00:01:25 Hi, welcome along to psychology and science. Actually, I am Dr. Marianne Trent. I'm delighted to reintroduce you to the wonderful Dr. Adam McCartney, who is a qualified education and child and community psychologist. Hello again, Adam. Hello, it's great to be back with you, Marianne. So nice to have you be back. And we've been speaking about actually,

Starting point is 00:01:52 it'd be really helpful to think about an episode for what's called emotional-based school avoidance, sometimes called EBS. This seems to be something that really is a very emerging and pressing issue for so many schools and children and young people right now. Can you tell us what is EBSA? It's essentially where children feel they are unable to attend schools simply due to the level of stress, anxiety or emotional demand they feel from entering the education environment. I should stress as well, there's also another term. It's very similar, but slightly nuanced different. E.B.S. N.A. And the N.A stands for non-attendance. And the reason that exists is there's, the complexity of this topic is often met with judgment in one direction or the other. And N-A is trying to say that we're not looking at the child as being judged. So I think your viewers will appreciate that there's professionals out there. there who are always trying to remove the judgment factor on young people.

Starting point is 00:03:05 Yeah, and thank you for introducing me to the term EBSNA, because I wasn't aware of that and I will start to refer to it as that in future because I think language matters, but also, you know, this child and young person, they're already having a really hard time, right? And so how we're talking about this issue, both internally as a school, as a parent, as an education provider, but also to the child, that really matters, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Children, especially those in secondary school, are very attuned to feelings of judgment, feelings of shame, regardless of their developmental journey, it's part of growing up. Our teenage years are so heavily ingrained with forming our identities and how we relate to the education

Starting point is 00:03:59 system is a huge part of that identity formation. And in the last 10 to 15 years, it has taken a drastic turn. And we are seeing increasing numbers of EBSNA on EBSA. But we're also seeing generally just students not being fulfilled by education anymore or not seeing the purpose of it in the same way that you or I might have seen in our days. You know, I remember my own. educational journey the idea of not sitting my GCSEs was like it just was unthinkable but now students and young people are much more aware of opportunities particularly online about how to make money that isn't necessarily linked to a sound and quality education so we need to do rethink this issue

Starting point is 00:04:51 about what sort of demands we're placing on the young people today yeah I'm a big fan of Makita Oliver podcast with Lily Annan. I'm taking a while to actually listen to the old episode, so I'm still in the Lily era. And it's actually quite rare that neither one of them say that they've got really a GCSE between them, and they're in their early 40s. But like you said, that isn't super common for someone who's kind of in their 40s, because attendance was so kind of regimented and getting yourself to these exams, like come hell or high water, like you are going. And it isn't, it isn't so, uncommon these days, I agree.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Yeah, you know, previously the two most important skill sets were literacy and numeracy. But now we've got technologically literate skills and children can learn them passively or they can learn them actively, but

Starting point is 00:05:46 they don't always need the education system to do that. How many young people have we seen learn coding on their own? I can't count the number of assessments out on. It's like, well, you can't string a sentence together, but he can code, you know, these types of skills. It's a different world these young people live in. And what's vital for us as not only adults, but professionals working with

Starting point is 00:06:11 them is that we've got to appreciate that their value systems and their priorities are going to be different to what we experienced. It's very difficult then as a parent who's potentially, you know, getting letters saying your child's attendance is below the levels of expectations. and, you know, I think, am I right in saying that parents can be fined for that and can even face prosecution when actually if you, you know, firmly believe that the education system is not a great fit for your child and yet you don't have the capacity to be able to home educate them yourselves, you really must be feeling in a, you know, caught between a rock and a hard place. You really must be. And I think the threshold for schools to start being,

Starting point is 00:06:58 worried about a child's attendance is something like 93% if it drops below that. It used to be as low as 82%, but I think the benchmarks have changed. And what has happened with the punitive side, you know, you just mentioned parents being fined. Different local authorities and different schools take a different approach to that. Some go very much down that route and parents, you know, equally will push back on that through whatever legal channels they have. But what that does is it causes distrust between the families and the schools. And the legal frameworks cannot be punitive. They must be relational.

Starting point is 00:07:42 They must be community based. And because one, those parents will just leave that school and move on somewhere else until they can get that relationship. But being that draconian approach to school just does, it's not. not conducive the long-term investment in young people. They build up negative associations and they just start to resent the system generally and it's avoidable and we've got to work with the children. And, you know, all the cases I've worked with in terms of EBSNA, when the child is on the verge of not attending school, would say they've got still got in the 70% attendance rate, you can

Starting point is 00:08:27 actually salvage that. The second they are at home full time, the work that has to go in is exponentially higher. It's not cost effective at all. And the gains are marginal. You know, it took me, I remember one case, it took me like two years to get them back in the school for one day. And then sadly, they transitioned to secondary school and they were back to where they were. They stopped coming in again. It just shows you the sensitivity of the these cases. Yeah, it does. And I remember it well from CAMS, actually.

Starting point is 00:09:01 At a certain point, in days gone by, there would be an automatic referral to CAMS at a certain level of threshold of attendance. I have to confess, I'm not sure if that still happens because maybe attendance is impacted upon more globally currently, but then having to really work with the child, the young person and the teachers to kind of put in place a bespoke system really to optimally support this, child or young person's attendance. Not easy at all. No, and I feel like I'm the bare bad news at all times in this conversation

Starting point is 00:09:36 because it doesn't look like it's going to get any better in the short term. You know, for those who follow school or education-based news, every day there's another academy saying they're going to have to make redundancies due to budget cuts. And that's the world over the resources available to schools is diminishing. I know that the current government is talking about changing that, and I hope to God they can. But it is diminishing, which means that the teachers are expected to do more holding. The TAs or the teaching assistants are expected to do more pastoral, reactive work.

Starting point is 00:10:15 And everybody essentially is expected to do more with less. And when you've got someone who's got a complex or sensitive emotional need that requires, patients being, holding for, you know, just for long periods of time. And then the adult expected they do that has a high cognitive load, is under pressure from standards and practices, it's got their head teacher asking to do six or seven different roles. It's not really ideal situation, is it? No, it really isn't.

Starting point is 00:10:51 It really isn't. And I was talking to my youngest child over dinner yesterday, and he was saying, oh, it'd be great if I didn't have to go to school, because I could just be here all the time. And I actually said to him, I kind of like the break when you're at school, though. I love being your mum, but I don't like having to constantly think, is he okay? And he has migraines. And so we have to keep him hydrated all the time. And so actually his attendance is not amazing because he gets these migraines.

Starting point is 00:11:22 And I was like, I enjoy not having you there. And actually as I connect to that idea now, if I'm trying to operate a clinic or do my work from home when they're here, I'm just biologically different. I'm a slightly more like less relaxed state and they're on my mind. And it is hard. So I think any parent who has a child who's kind of struggling to get to school has got that mental load. of having their child there when actually they may not really want them there,

Starting point is 00:11:56 but they're allowing them to be there for their own child's well-being, but then it impacts on their ability to get their work or their tasks or just a little bit of quiet time where they can support their own well-being is so important. Yeah, it is so important.

Starting point is 00:12:12 I always say the teachers are the third parent, and they are essentially, not only the offering that respite care that you're talking about, But they are taking that emotional load that a parent is expected to give. And they are meeting that child in a nurturing, boundaryed way so that they can support the social development into a fully functioning adult who is happy. That's the ideal, Illinois. And the important thing we've got to remember as parents is that in the modern day, I forgive you for believing that you're expecting.

Starting point is 00:12:50 to do everything. But that's not, it's not realistic. And it's not how it used to be. Child raring was always community-based. You always had people around you. I remember talking to mothers and they always said, the first thing that comes up for a new mother is look after the mother. They don't say look after the father. They do now in terms of pop culture. But they used to be look after the mother because the sanity of the parents automatically supports the sanity of the child. But if you've got a high demand environment and low resources, whether it's in your home or at school, everybody suffers. Everybody then places it within child because it's the loudest voice, so to speak. But everybody's resilience is low. Child, teachers, parents. Essentially, we got to move back

Starting point is 00:13:45 to a community-based way of approaching education, approaching home life, and getting out of the silo and martyrdom type stuff that we've done. I wrote a post about a year ago around education's built on goodwill. It's built on the fact that teachers will take that extra 20 minutes and after school to do some admin, or they will mark their books at home. Really, that needs to be built into the school day.

Starting point is 00:14:14 We look at the, in Finland, the Finnish system. The teacher delivers the main core aspects of the curriculum and then spends the afternoon planning every single day. And they have a team around them who are competent and delivering their plans. And some schools might say they do this, but from what I understand, it's a very robust system over there. Very interesting. Before we continue, it's time for a quick behind the therapy room door moment,

Starting point is 00:14:43 brought to you by write-up, who are the practice management system I use in my own clinical practice. One thing that often comes up in trauma and addiction work is how important it is for people to feel safe enough to tell their story at their own pace. In therapy, the details of someone's experiences can emerge slowly over time, sometimes across many sessions.

Starting point is 00:15:04 But for that work to happen, people actually need to be able to get to their sessions. And when someone is at a vulnerable stage in their recovery, Small things like clear appointment reminders, easy communication and reliable scheduling can make a real difference in helping them stay connected to the work. Write-up is trusted by over 50,000 clinicians. If you'd like to try it yourself, you can access a free trial for up to five users using the link in the description. And the code Marianne 30. Now back to the show.

Starting point is 00:15:34 Can you tell us what the most common age tends to be for children or young people starting to experience more signs of emotional-based school? non-attendance. We naturally think that it would be GCSEs because that is the test time, a lot of stress for a lot of students. But it's actually in Key Stage 3, and that's Year 7 through the year 9. We usually get a grace period in year 7 of students being able to tolerate a new environment, getting a bit used to the transition, and then they make a decision emotionally, whether they like that transition or not.

Starting point is 00:16:12 And usually by the end of year seven, beginning of year eight, we will start to see these rises. Interestingly, the EBSNA also matches trends in exclusion. So we know a key stage three, exclusions rise rapidly, particularly in the last 14 years. And we think that's got to do with the increase in academic demand, but also the moving from primary school to secondary school where behavior systems are much more rigid and expectations are much more in line with academic achievement. That makes so much sense. And actually having my own eldest child be in currently in year eight, you see them join year seven and have a lot of energy and enthusiasm and excitement for,

Starting point is 00:17:00 you know, I've got more than one classroom now and I've got all these teachers to kind of work with. And then I saw it kind of dip off that enthusiasm and then it becomes real life. And I wonder if it's something about not feeling as emotionally held as they did by their previous primary school teachers, which often is just one or two teachers. Yeah, exactly. And we just spoke about viewing your teacher as the third parent. And it is having that relationship with at least one or two teachers at secondary school. You move between classes. You may have five classes in a day. My own school, I think we had up to eight different teachers in a day. And that can be a blessing and a curse those many transitions. The thing is if you don't like your teacher, you only have to suck them up for like 30 or 40 minutes. I'm actually developing some training with a friend and colleague Matt Robson, who went through this in his journey,

Starting point is 00:17:58 whereby it, you know, he didn't have a great educational experience, but it was the relationship with his math teacher. got him through it. And, you know, the story he told me was as he was leaving the classroom after a bad day, the math teacher called him back and said, what are we going to do? How are we going to get you through this? And what that does is one adult seeing the child and saying, I care about you. I'm going to do something for you. I'm going to get alongside you. And that's vital. That is absolutely vital. I remember even doing A levels and I was quite, naturally good at biology. It was my favorite subject. And my mock exams, I got a high B. I was okay with that. My teacher just said, that's not good enough for you. And what he was saying was

Starting point is 00:18:52 you're capable of words. And he just telling me, I believe in you. And it's that belief that spurred me on to go and study and really work hard at it. And it was because I liked him. He liked me that then that dopamine, I was telling you about. I was in the optimal level to pursue the learning journey a bit further. I love that and it's the idea that we spoke about before, about emotionally collecting the children and young people that you're working with if you're working in a school and actually that sounds like you were emotionally collected,

Starting point is 00:19:26 you were held in mind, which then made you want to work really hard, not just for yourself, but for that relationship that was really important to you. And that is a really important. important consideration, I think. Absolutely it is. I'm aware that locally there are kind of education, attendance, buses that come and round the children up and drag them back into school. And sometimes as a parent, you might think that's

Starting point is 00:19:51 the only thing you can do is to kind of try and facilitate getting your child on this bus or bundling them yourself into the car and getting them to school. There's a whole lot of distress, I think, for the child and the parent there. Is there anything else that a parent could, can do if they're struggling with a child or young person who's got signs or symptoms of EBSNA. Yeah, I mean, just hearing you talk about these buses, it's so distressing and upset and what's the most vital thing against coming back to community-based relationships? When you are that parent, it is vital that you can form some sort of relationship with the school. Quite often there'll be one person of voice of contact. And it's saying,

Starting point is 00:20:37 usually it's the Senko or a pastoral lead. And they are really useful in terms of helping you understand what's going on inside the school. And that's a vital relationship to have. But if I was a parent in that situation, I would be asking questions about which teacher does my child like? And how can my child use that relationship to enjoy coming into school? And when I work with schools, I often talk about what? what does their pastoral system look like? And in my mind, I'm thinking about secondary schools.

Starting point is 00:21:12 They tend to have their pastoral systems as, you know, there's rooms that they go into and they go and meet the pastoral leading. You'll talk to them. However, I feel like it needs to be more threaded throughout the school environment. I had a long discussion with actually a head teacher the other day, and we both came to the conclusion that the core subject leads need to have pastoral training. That is your English and your maths because you spend the most time with your English and your math teacher. So if you can have some sort of pastoral support coming from them every

Starting point is 00:21:48 single day, that's drip feeding. And we know little and often works better. So again, going back to what parents can do, it's asking, does my child like the math teacher? Does my child like the English teacher? If not, how do we nurture that relationship? And it's those types of conversations that are really vital. They don't feel like you're going to be, you won't get a turnaround overnight, and it's not some sort of discrete intervention like going in and doing some Elsa work,

Starting point is 00:22:17 emotional literacy work. This is much more, it's more nuanced, but it's much more powerful. Okay, so a really good question for a parent then of a prospective primary school student, or a secondary school student, if they're going to an open evening, would be to check out and to ask, what is your pastoral care like? Yeah, that is a really good question.

Starting point is 00:22:47 And have your follow-up questions. Is it just a single team? Is it just a couple of people? Or is there a relational policy throughout the entire school? If the school's really open and honest, they might share that relational policy with you. What would a relational policy look like? because I've never heard of that term before from a school setting.

Starting point is 00:23:07 They're not super common. When I was working in the LA, we had a huge project and it was fabulous. I loved it where we would help schools set up their relational policies. And it's essentially to remove the behaviour policy and reframe everything in the positive light rather than cause and consequences. So for example, one school that I supported with was when a chance, was escalating through the challenging behavior stuff rather than going down the punitive route. It was which adults then need to get alongside that.

Starting point is 00:23:43 So, for example, in the first instance, it might be spending five extra minutes with their English teacher at lunchtime or something like that. Then once it got to a certain threshold, each school will have a different set of needs. So I don't want to be too specific. But once I got to a certain threshold, it was including the Senko. And in this particular school, the Senco, the special needs coordinator, was on the senior leadership team. So that was a huge impact. It meant that they had a bit of clout within the system. And then it was, you know, your yearheads and things like that would get alongside the child.

Starting point is 00:24:17 So it was about when to introduce heavier means of pastoral support and bring in that expertise. Okay. So it almost sounds like the key aspect then for EBSNA, is to think about externalising the problem from the child, so that the child is not the problem, but how can we really strive to help support this child to optimally engage in their education, and for a parent, to not be thinking about it as us versus them with school.

Starting point is 00:24:51 That actually, we're all part of a team. It sort of reminds me a little bit of if parents separate and then becomes a step-parent, how can we just support everybody, everybody to love and support and care for this, for this child without starting any wars, without pitting people against each other. How can we just help this child to thrive and not feel like we're like on opposite sides and not having the child feel like they're at the centre of the problem and maybe being open to their ideas as well? And I love the idea of thinking about

Starting point is 00:25:23 which staff member do you actually have that rapport with that we could then use, as part of the intervention to help you to thrive. Is that right? Have I understood all that right? Absolutely. And I would say it does need to be the same staff member each time because that leads to burnout. You need to move that pastoral support around the team.

Starting point is 00:25:45 And you're absolutely right. It is avoiding that sort of us versus them mentality. One, once your child clocks on that you are in that zone, they're going to know that they can get out the door. They need to be, they need to know that. that you view education positively, and that it is an essential thing to have in one's life. If a child doesn't believe that you have that,

Starting point is 00:26:09 then you're on an uphill battle. And the second thing is, you've got to keep in mind the emotions you're feeling about the frustration. Your child's probably also feeling just as intense, if not more intense. And like you said, moving away from that within child, blame, so to speak,

Starting point is 00:26:29 and moving towards that relationship mentality of who do I need to speak with, who is in a good place to lighten the load. And that is your role as a parent. It is not about being the warrior for your child. In my experience, it often doesn't lead to good outcomes. You might get an EHCP or you might get an education provision outside of the school. But ultimately, if your original goal was to have a mainstream, dream, healthy journey, that doesn't work.

Starting point is 00:27:03 Its relationships are always the best key. They are. And as you were talking, I was just thinking, well, how do I, how do I do this as a parent? People might be like, well, Marianne's a qualified clinical psychologist. She's a mother of two. She's got one in primary, one in secondary. I bet she's like really attached and really attuned.

Starting point is 00:27:23 And I bet she's like doing some gold standard parenting. And I was like, yeah, that's not really the. case, but what I do do, so I am able to be in a position where most of the time I will pick my youngest child up from school and take him there. So we've got that time where we can kind of check in about the day before it happens and the day at the end. And I really do try to make that a time where, you know, I'm not on my phone, where I'm just with him and we can kind of chat that through. But also, I know that's a luxury that many working parents don't have at all, so I'm aware of that. But also, I, I,

Starting point is 00:27:59 still find it really important to every day get around the dining table and eat together. We do not allow anyone to be eating in their rooms by themselves in our house. It's just not something we do. Not for dinner anyway. My husband can occasionally be found in bed eating bowls of chili on a Saturday lunchtime. And I'm like, that is gross. Like stop it. Horrible.

Starting point is 00:28:22 But as a rule, certainly the kids don't tend to eat in their rooms because it's really important for us that we sit together and we talk about any issues that have come up. So, you know, the school had started something that might seemingly on the surface look like quite a small thing yesterday. They've got a new bell, and it sounds very different. It's electronic. But they also picked the same day

Starting point is 00:28:44 to do a lockdown process using that same bell. So then every time the bell went off for the rest of the day, the kids thought in primary, they were going down into lockdown because they haven't heard it enough. But being able to talk with my son about that on the way home and then also talk through it over dinner really helped me to tune in to any distress that he was having, not trying to fix it in the moment, just having that conversation and that to and fro, but also

Starting point is 00:29:18 modelling a bit about my day as well. And that hopefully, I hope they're developing that understanding that we can always have conversation. And really, in terms of attuned time, you know, I'm not saying that each child gets loads of time one to one with me every day, they don't. But I try to ring fence at least five minutes, which I'm aware makes me look kind of terrible. But that's the minimum that I can do.

Starting point is 00:29:50 Sometimes that's the only thing I do. But in that five minutes. that as an headside, I cannot be. But in that five minutes, you probably, I know you haven't realized that when you're speaking here, but what you have done is you validated your son's emotions. You haven't solved it. But just by saying what you're feeling is valid, but I'm going to let you sit with it. And then he kind of goes, okay, so this is okay to feel like this. And then, okay, it will pass. It's like that great phrase, this two shall pass. And sitting with emotions, We talk about a lot in our industry, but sitting with emotions are very important, sitting with the uncomfortableness and learning that it's not going to end your world.

Starting point is 00:30:35 It's something that you can't manage. A big chunk of that is sitting with those emotions with someone who can contain you. And I'm not talking about that containing as and I'm going to make you feel better by saying all the right words. I'm going to sit here with you because I like you. That's what you did with your son. It worked. by the signs of it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:56 I don't like their behaviour all the time, I have to say, but I always love them and I think that's important as well, isn't it? That even if we're cross with them, we still love the child, but I'm not a big fan of that behaviour right now. But yeah, I do do that, I think. I'm sure you do.

Starting point is 00:31:15 I'm sure you do. Thank you so much for your time today, Adam. I would love to know from our audience what questions they've got. You know, we could potentially come back together and discuss planning more episodes as well. So if anyone has got any burning questions about what it's like to work as an ed psych,

Starting point is 00:31:34 any problems that you're coming up against with your child or working in a school or how we figure this stuff out as parents or my opinion as a clinpsych, let us know in the comments. We'd love it if you tagged us on social media too. You can tag us in your stories, you can tag us in your posts.

Starting point is 00:31:52 Marianne Trent everywhere on socials. And Dr. Adam McCartney is on YouTube, on LinkedIn and on Instagram. There's also his brilliant podcast with his colleague and friend, Dr. Mike, which is called Between Two Sykes. Adam, thank you again so much for your time. I thought it was really important that we get together to think about putting an episode out before exams, before SATs, before GCSEs and A-Levels. So thank you so much for making time for us. Thank you for having me again.

Starting point is 00:32:24 Thank you so much to my guest for today. And if you are liking the sound of Ed Syke, please do check out between two Sykes podcast. We really would love to know what you think to this episode. And if you've enjoyed this one and you haven't already caught the other one I did with Adam, where we looked at vignettes for what an educational psychologist actually does, I think you'll find that one fascinating too. I know I did.

Starting point is 00:32:48 And so many aspects of that have stayed with me. It was in fact my reflections after that episode that invited me to contact Adam and discuss chatting about EBSNA. You've got any ideas for future episodes, whether they're linked to education or another form of psychology and the way that we live our lives, I would love to hear from you. Please do feel free to pitch me your ideas for episodes via my social media where I am Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. If you like the idea of being a little bit of a fly on the wall into the inner thoughts,

Starting point is 00:33:20 and workings of what it's like to be a qualified psychologist going about the world with all of the jobs and responsibilities that I do have. And you'd like to be able to access exclusive podcast episodes, which are called Inner Work. You absolutely can and it would be lovely to have you there. Inner Work is available on YouTube, on Captivate and Apple. And you can also get a three-day free trial on Apple if you want to check it out before you join too. If you're an aspiring psychologist, you might well find it helpful to dive into the aspiring psychologist membership, which you can join from just £30 a month with no minimum term. We have all sorts of experts there spanning areas of research, clinical practice, professional issues,

Starting point is 00:34:06 interview prep, application form, help, all of the good stuff you could possibly need in your psychology career. It often is more of a flavour for clinical psychology. But if you've got any questions about whether it might be a good, fit for you for your particular stage of your career or the journey that you're striving for, please do just slip into my DMs and we can chat that through. Always remember that the Clinical Psychologist Collective and the Aspiring Psychologist Collective are wonderful reads and get good reviews if you are working in the psychology career too. And maybe you're listening to this as a qualified psychologist, in which case I urge you

Starting point is 00:34:44 to come along and check out the next date for the psychology socials that I run with my friend and colleague, Dr. Claire Plumley. There's usually a link on my social media via Linktree, or we also have our own social account on Instagram called SciColoscials. And the updated details of the next available social are always up there. They're really good fun, they're in Kings Cross in London,

Starting point is 00:35:11 and we have the most fun at them. It's a really nice chance to be with fellow HCPC psychologists, and the food is always pretty off the charts good too. You've got any questions about anything I do? I would love to hear from you. I'm Jo and I work as an assistant practitioner in a CAM service in Lancashire. I bought and read Marianne's book, The Clinical Psychologist Collective, to accompany me while completing the clinical psychology training application.

Starting point is 00:35:44 It proved to be really good company. I found it sparked ideas of how to build experience and skills, but more than that, it offered the chance to get lost in people's stories. It provided a timely reminder not to get so caught up in an end goal and to value and enjoy each job we fulfil along the way, because the work we do now is important and matters to those we sit alongside, as well as ourselves. It also gave the reassurance that there are eclectic roots into clinical psychology, which is important for me as someone who's had a meandering journey and not a typical route to the profession. I wholeheartedly recommend the book for both personal and professional

Starting point is 00:36:24 reasons. Be prepared to put evening tasks on hold for a while though, because once you've started reading, it's tough to put it down.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - My Child Won’t Go to School… What’s Really Going On? (EBSNA Explained)

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