The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Personal and professional values as a Muslim psychologist - with Elisha Hussain

Starting point is 00:00:00 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,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. episode. With Dr. Mary Entrant Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast.

Starting point is 00:01:33 Thank you for joining me. This episode is scheduled to be released on Monday the 14th of November 2022. If you are listening to it in that week, then please do bear in mind that the application deadline for the doctorate in clinical psychology for the clearinghouse applications is 1pm on Wednesday the 16th of November. I'm sure that won't have passed you by, but I just wanted to get that on your radar. So today's episode is a guest episode and I am joined by Alicia Hussain and it would be advantageous for you to listen to the episode on values if you haven't done so already. That is episode 42 of the podcast, so if you haven't

Starting point is 00:02:22 listened to that it might be useful for you to do that and then come back here for episode 49 but if you want to plow on regardless please do um so alicia and i met on linkedin and well you will you will find out um how and why we got chatting but it's all about values and we decided it would be useful to have a conversation about Alicia's culture, faith and background and how they align and how she keeps striving for her values as an aspiring psychologist whilst staying true to her other values, both personally and professionally, too. I hope you'll find it super interesting and super useful. I know I did and I will catch you on the other side. Hi, welcome along. It is our first guest episode for a while. I'm delighted to introduce you to Alicia Hussain. Hi Alicia. Hi. Thank you so much for coming on and thank you also for giving me the idea originally for the values based podcast episode. Very welcome. I think when I kind of put out a LinkedIn post, I feel like you're really active

Starting point is 00:03:33 on LinkedIn. And I always kind of like your posts and things like that. So it was really kind of helpful to have that episode to kind of help me with thinking about values. So that was really helpful for me. Good. I love I love LinkedIn I do I can't I can't I can't deny it um but yeah thank you for being um involved and engaged with me on there so um but then after that we thought well actually this is really interesting to think about you specifically and some of your values um and specifically we thought it might be useful um in terms of your career but but also your culture and your background. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think it's always nice to kind of like watch your podcasts and think about people who've kind of already been through that journey.

Starting point is 00:04:16 But I think it would be really nice to kind of share, share my journey. And hopefully when people listen to it, I can either relate to it or maybe kind of think about the differences or like just inspire them around their own journey. So hopefully it can have an impact on people. Absolutely. I think it's so useful when we are working in mental health to be able to have, you know, examples of people that we can kind of hold as case studies. So if people don't know much about, you know, your faith, your culture, or, you know, how it might be, even for someone living in a different part of the country, you know, it's useful for people to have that awareness. So I think it's, yeah, thank you so much for doing this.

Starting point is 00:04:54 But also we realised in our discussion before we got started was that you're our first aspiring psychologist on the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, which feels a bit wrong. So yeah, I'm sorry, it's taken me 10 months to get here. But I know we had Rose, who is a trainee, but you were our first non-trainee aspiring psychologist. So yes, thank you so much for coming on. And if you're listening to this episode, or if you're watching on YouTube as well um and you're thinking oh i might like to come on the podcast i'm an aspiring psychologist please do get in contact with me um and as you as alicia said you can't miss me on socials i'm dr marianne trent

Starting point is 00:05:36 most places so don't be shy do get in contact or just engage with my content we'll get into conversations and marvelous things can happen so al Alicia tell me a little bit about yourself um a little bit personally a little bit professionally if that's okay yeah so um well where do I start so yeah so I suppose um I'm Muslim by background and um I've kind of been pursuing psychology I'd probably say since school um I think kind of outside of psychology I kind of just like to kind of focus on my own well-being I've started to try to be more persistent with going to things like gym and things like that and hopefully something that I can kind of get back into so I have been kind of trying to take some time to look after myself um I think my journey within kind of psychology started probably in school. So I was really lucky to do psychology as a GCSE, which I think when I did it, it wasn't really heard of. So it's this new, exciting thing. And yeah, it really kind of interested me.

Starting point is 00:06:38 But yeah, I think when I kind of started looking into it, I found it really helpful. But I think when I had my own kind of difficulties with mental health health it really opened up my eyes around what I want to pursue in the future and I think having my own experiences of mental health really kind of guided me in into this career pathway and I'm thinking about how I can move on from my experiences and how I can reflect on my experiences to kind of help others um so yeah I suppose when I when I started college I did psychology um as an A level and I was volunteering with Childline at the time so I find it a really helpful experience to be able to kind of have some direct contact with young people and start kind of giving back and using the things that I've

Starting point is 00:07:23 experienced and using my knowledge to kind of help other people um and then kind of giving back and using the things that I've experienced and using my knowledge to kind of help other people and then kind of going on from that I started in university, did my psychology degree and also kind of started building up my experience so I was really lucky to have the experience to volunteer so yeah so when I was uh volunteering um alongside my degree I volunteered in a place called Paws which is a mental health drop-in uh centre for young people um and it was one of the most eye-opening experiences I've had because not only kind of just working with young people and supporting them but just kind of how a service that's so easily accessible can have such an impact on young people's lives.

Starting point is 00:08:08 So I really kind of enjoyed just getting to know people, kind of working with people and kind of getting my head around how things worked and having that opportunity to kind of support people and actually learn more about psychology in the process. So for me, that was really powerful um I had the opportunity to to be employed by the service which was was really amazing to be honest and I loved my time there so um I would just kind of work with people when they kind of dropped into the service around kind of any of their um any of their emotional health and well-being needs and

Starting point is 00:08:43 whatever they wanted to talk about really um so that really put me in a good stead when I was thinking about applying for assistant psychologist posts so I was really lucky to get an assistant psychologist post straight after my role there and that's where I'm working at the moment so I'm currently working within Black Country Healthcare Trust within a service called Action for Children which kind of covers the area of Staffordshire and basically I work with young people again young people and children and I think I've really found it helpful to work with young people and children I think potentially when I when I'm working with young people I kind of reflect on my own experiences of struggling with my mental health when I was a child so I think it was just something that I found really kind of um helpful

Starting point is 00:09:34 for me as well um so yeah I've been working with young people to kind of support them to do kind of um evidence-based interventions and and supporting them with their well-being. And yeah, I've really enjoyed every moment of it. And I think it's just been really helpful to be able to kind of have the experience I've had and kind of give back at the same time. I love that. And actually, absolutely, like you said, there's something very different about putting your theory into practice isn't there for the first time and actually starting to do you know I'm guessing what you've been doing is one-to-one work with people and starting to do that and starting to explore

Starting point is 00:10:17 the comfortability of being in a room with somebody and trying to use that time together to make a difference and that's a really wonderful experience that you were able to get even before you were doing assistant work. It sounds incredible. You were starting to make a difference and get that little buzz that we get from, you know, people saying this is working, this is making a difference. Yeah, definitely. I think it was just kind of helpful to have that first-hand experience,

Starting point is 00:10:42 but also kind of being able to lean into the experience and actually develop alongside because I feel like with um any kind of role where you work with someone's mental health I think you get a lot of imposter syndrome and I think for me that was a big thing especially with my first assistant post where I was thinking I do not belong I've just kind of gotten here by fluke and I think it was really helpful to to learn that actually it's okay to develop as you're working and reflect on your experiences because that's what helps to develop you as a practitioner really yeah absolutely I know that some of our audience will be like well how long did you work in that post then before you got your assistant

Starting point is 00:11:20 post and how long after graduation did you get your assistant post can you give us a little bit of kind of time frame if that's okay yeah of course so um when I was kind of volunteering within PAWS um I was working kind of part-time alongside my undergraduate degree so I think I was working part-time I'd say probably for a year um and then I was lucky enough to kind of be employed by the same service. And I was working with them for two years part time. And I think for me, the main thing that kind of helped me when I was kind of applying for the assistant psychologist role was I had that two years of part time experience, which really equated to one full year of experience. But I think for me, what helped even more was the service I was applying to. I really was able to kind of cater my experience to that service. So having worked with young people and using intervention with young people within PAWS and then applying for an assistant role,

Starting point is 00:12:15 I was really able to kind of reflect on my experiences and how I would be able to kind of manage the differences of working within PAWS and then working within a different service and I think that really helped me definitely but you know I think one of the difficult things about counting you know whole time equivalents is that um you know I said it before in the podcast when I did my honorary post um it equated actually probably to like 10 days which isn't even half a month but because that was spread over probably three or four months the amount of learning and development and you know increasing in my confidence I was able to do within that couple of months was amazing you know and I and you know what we were saying before we began as well was that we really need to be changing and developing and reflecting and in the two-year period you're going to be a very different person

Starting point is 00:13:09 even from the very extent that your brain is going to be more developed you know in terms of if you went to uni at 18 you come out at 21 by the time you're 23 your brain is almost kind of fully done-ish you know in terms of your frontal lobes and everything you're going to change if you haven't changed a great deal within those two years that would be more worrying but of course you were then because you've been talking the talk and walking the walk for two years and doing one-to-one work so even though I hear you on the imposter syndrome I would say that you were most very well qualified and experienced to be able to get that assistant post and I'm not at all surprised that you did get it. Yeah I think I think reflecting back now I do feel like I was ready at that time and I feel like it helped me to apply at the right time and I think using those reflection skills really helped

Starting point is 00:13:57 me to think actually I do feel ready now because I was considering it for a while but I thought actually I want to get more out of this role before I do that um and it totally resonates with me around how actually even if you're working kind of once every week or like a really kind of sparse amount of time in a different role it really helps because I suppose alongside my current assistant role within Action for Children I'm also doing a role swap um with another um service so um once everynight, I go over to the autism assessment team and kind of support that team around autism assessments. And actually, although it's once a fortnight, you think, well, that's not a lot of experience. But actually just those kind of first couple of times I've done that role swap, I've actually got so much out of it that you really

Starting point is 00:14:46 kind of value that time and it's not kind of the quantity but the quality of what what you're learning and what you're developing that really helps. That sounds brilliant have you sorted that out yourself informally or is that something that was offered to you? Um so I'd never heard of a role swap before um and my supervisor kind of introduced me to the idea of it. So I'm doing it within the same trust that I'm working in. So what we did is we have a kind of assistant psychologist group within the trust. And I kind of approached someone who was in another service that I wanted to kind of get some more experience in. And our supervisors kind of met with us and we kind of drew up a bit of a contract just to formalize things so um you know I'm getting kind of experience in her service and she's getting

Starting point is 00:15:30 experience in mine and we're kind of supporting each other while still being in the same role that we're in so it's kind of having that comfort of being in the same service but still getting more experience which I didn't know existed but it's great I absolutely love that and that's making me a little bit misty-eyed as well because in the aspiring psychologist collective I talk about when I was an aspiring psychologist and I came up with this idea of the assistant psychologist skills exchange which is basically what you're saying you know you hang out with other people and kind of do their job with them but actually you're swapping which is even better because then you kind of have to kind of get on and do it and i think like you said you know when you're

Starting point is 00:16:09 doing something once a fortnight still that's twice a month you can still learn so much um and it just gives you you know it thickens your narrative in that area of work so that it's another tip you know because what we're looking at generally not necessarily the people who are employing you but we feel like when we're aspiring so which is we kind of want to do you want to tick off older adults you want to tick off you know children and young people who want to tick off you know intellectual learning disabilities and um you know autism and you know it gives you another thing that just helps you feel like you've got less Achilles heels you know so we absolutely go to training

Starting point is 00:16:45 with Achilles heels with things that we know we need to learn and shape and develop and everything should be shaped and developed during training but you know for you to feel like you are you've earned your stripes enough to be there I think that's really really useful yeah definitely and I think I'm really lucky that I'm in a post right now. I've been in the post for over a year and my contract keeps getting extended, thankfully. But, yeah, it's nice to not kind of be in that position where I have to leave to get more experience. Because I think sometimes when you're enjoying an AP job and you have that ability to kind of stay there, actually, it's nice to explore those different options without having to leave where you're currently at and I think that's a really nice way to get experience and understand what what you

Starting point is 00:17:30 enjoy doing and and as well as the tick box kind of getting that experience just from finding out what what you enjoy in terms of when you're working as well so that's been nice that is brilliant and actually what you get to do is you get to deepen your relationships with the team you're working in and with your supervisor and managerial staff, too, because it can feel a little bit like treadmill-y, can't it? With, you know, people just coming on to a role and then dropping off. But I having your staff be able to think deeper and, you know, more holistically about the clients and services you're working with. So I would urge you to think about whether you might be able to do. I've forgotten what it's called. Role swap, was it? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:18 Yeah. Yeah. Role swap within your service because it's going to bring value to your service even you know you seeing the way that they set up you know referrals assessments you know talking about team meetings and stuff all of that if you see something that's working well in practice for another service you're more likely to bring that back and that might lead to to rich improvements for your own service too yeah definitely and i think especially at the beginning we've been kind of supporting each other so I'd role swap and um the other girl in the other service would support me in the role so

Starting point is 00:18:51 it's not like you're completely in a new a new place you're kind of being supported and then slowly you can kind of just do the swap completely and I think that can kind of help you feel more supported as well but I do think it's really helpful and I'm glad I got to know about it so hopefully other people can kind of explore that option as well yeah thank you well done to your supervisor hats off to them um I'm very excited about that and I know there'll be lots of little ears listening to this going oh that sounds good um because I was talking just on a on a live yesterday when you get that feeling that you've plateaued and you're like oh oh, no, I'm going to have to start looking for other jobs.

Starting point is 00:19:30 But maybe this is a way around that, you know. So thank you so much. Right. So we're thinking about culture and faith. Could you tell us a little bit for anybody who doesn't know about Islam? Could you tell us a little bit about what it involves and perhaps how you slot it into your life before we then begin to think about values um so yeah as a Muslim I feel like everybody kind of has their own kind of connection with faith and I think I feel like um Islam is is a religion but it's also a way of life so I'd say that actually when when we're thinking about Islam it's kind of we have our kind of core beliefs, which is the kind of faith in God and believe in what God has revealed to us and live in our life according to what God's ordered for us and what God wants us to do. But I think a big part of that is actually it supports your way of life.

Starting point is 00:20:20 So it's not just us thinking that actually it's loads of rules and it's loads of things to abide by, but actually it's things that kind of enrich your life. And I think the main kind of value and belief that I feel like is important within being a Muslim is having that faith and actually understanding that when kind of we struggle with things or when things become hard, these are things that kind of strengthen our beliefs as a Muslim, but also kind of help us to kind of persevere and help us to kind of get, but help us to kind of get through difficult times. So I suppose when we're talking about being a Muslim, I feel like it's, it can mean we can be on different journeys as a Muslim. And I feel like it's all about reconnecting to our faith.

Starting point is 00:21:11 So when we're talking about values, I feel like that's incredibly important as a Muslim, because as Muslim, as Muslims, we kind of have certain values that we kind of live our lives by but also personal values so when we're thinking about kind of what it means to be a muslim um we kind of think about kind of our faith and and what what god wants from us as human beings but also kind of how we can kind of live our life by our values and do those things as well brilliant thank you so much for that so we've spoken about values now would be a good chance to introduce the values that we've gone through and you've selected for today so um we thought it'd be better to do this bit the bit before off camera because otherwise it's like uh what is that bit again what what um so yeah we okay so the first of our values is acceptance to be open to and allowing of things I dislike or don't want in myself others and the world

Starting point is 00:22:06 around me how that sings out to you and how it's important for you um both in terms of your faith culture and your work yeah so I think um acceptance is a value that I feel like I've started to live by I feel like when we're living our life by our values we can kind of um wane in terms of going back and forth in terms of actually being able to live by our values but I feel like acceptance is a core value for me in in terms of faith I feel like when difficult things um when we experience difficult things and hard things happen um as a Muslim I feel like actually we we kind of feel that these experiences are our tests from god and actually that they're to kind of help us to kind of move forward in life

Starting point is 00:22:53 and actually when difficulty kind of falls on us that actually being able to accept what's happened helps you to kind of move on from that um and I feel like it's a big thing with me in terms of my own mental health and and accepting my own experiences um because I feel like there was a time where I might have been kind of challenging how I'd been feeling and wanting to forget things or push them away and I found that the more that I was pushing my experiences away the more that I was struggling with them and actually having that acceptance of things happen for a reason and and actually being able to move on from that has really helped me um but I also feel like it's kind of helped me in my professional career as well so I feel like um there was a time where if I experienced kind of

Starting point is 00:23:43 a rejection that I would take that very personally and I'd kind of really reflect badly on myself and have a lot of feelings of shame and and just feeling like I'm not good enough um and I know I've I've kind of applied for the doctorate course before and and I know that's something that others might have experienced of where you feel where if your application isn't accepted or if you don't get that job or if you don't kind of if things don't pan out the way that we want them to pan out we really take hold that personally and and we get hung up on it um and I feel when we're able to kind of be more accepting of changes and and I think that's something that I found that

Starting point is 00:24:22 when I've been more accepting of changes it's helped me to kind of move on and reflect on things and thinking about actually what's kind of led me to this point or how can I move on from this and I think previously I was very goal-based when I was thinking about my career so I was very like I need to get an assistant job and then I need to get onto the course and it's all time limited and if it doesn't happen I don't know what I'm going to do um but when I started to be more accepting um I found that actually I found more enjoyment in things I found that actually I could enjoy my assistant job a lot more because I was spending time enjoying my experiences rather than thinking about what's next um so that's helped me, I think. Good. Good. Really big pleased to hear that.

Starting point is 00:25:10 And, yeah, it's about being able to look sideways as well, isn't it? Not just forwards. And some really important, really important points you've raised there. All right. Thank you. So the second of our values is persistence to continue resolutely with your task or challenge, despite problems, fears and difficulties. Yeah, so I feel like that does relate to a little bit of what I've talked about in terms of acceptance. But I feel like we all kind of go through things in our life where we struggle and I think when I've kind of thought about back to my experiences I feel like there was a time where I might have struggled with persistence where I've tried to persist and and I felt that actually I wasn't able to live my life according to that value but actually how when I was able to persist and when I was able to kind of show persistence how how effective that

Starting point is 00:26:02 was for me so I know when I was struggling with my mental health I I really struggled to kind of move forward and and to to go forward with things and I think when I had that ability to persist it really kind of bettered me as a person not only just how I was feeling but kind of made me more um I feel resilient as a person um and I think it's something that I try to move forward in in my general life when things kind of are difficult I feel like sometimes I can find it difficult and I might want to give up but then I when I do persist I'm grateful that I have um and I think everybody who's listening would have times in their life where where they've felt that

Starting point is 00:26:44 they've kind of experienced something that was really difficult whether have times in their life where where they've felt that they've kind of experienced something that was really difficult whether that be in their personal life or professional um and i think with psychology it is one of those kind of careers where persistence is really important um we know actually it is a competitive kind of place but actually how when we do persist we can see those rewards and I think just persisting in in what we want to do in our career can be really helpful um and kind of moving forward with the steps and even if you do receive news that isn't what what you wanted to hear of being able to kind of move forward from that shows that persistence um so yeah I do feel like we reflect that as

Starting point is 00:27:22 psychologists definitely and is there some crossover with your faith in terms of persistence as well what does your faith teach us about persistence for example yeah so I think it's in Islam there there's a concept called sabr which is basically meaning that when we go through things that are difficult or when we go through trials and tribulations that when we show persistence and we're able to kind of move forward with things that actually we're rewarded for that and we're able to kind of get benefits from that and I think it's very much about we do as much as we can to change the situation and move forward but in cases where we've done our best and we can't

Starting point is 00:28:05 kind of change a situation it's about kind of keeping faith thinking that actually things will get better and showing that kind of ability to move forward when we can and when things aren't when we're not able to move forward actually keeping faith helps us to stay grounded and move forward in our lives thank you for that um as we were talking about persistence before off camera we also thought about the other value of patience so now might be an interesting and useful time to think about the value of patience um which is might be versus persistence or in addition to persistence yeah so i think i was touching on it a little bit towards the end it kind of veered

Starting point is 00:28:46 into patience where actually we think about we always kind of persist and push forward but there are points where sometimes the best thing that we can do is be patient and actually um something like acceptance commitment therapy really sits well with me because I feel like we change what we can change and what is in our control but when we um when we're struggling and actually there isn't anything that we can do it is about kind of accepting that and being patient and kind of thinking about actually there isn't anything that I can do to change the situations how do I move forward from here um and when I was talking about persistence in in relation to being a, I feel that patience is really important because we know when we wait and when we keep faith,

Starting point is 00:29:29 that actually it can be really, really helpful to us as people to understand that sometimes things aren't in our control. But what we can do is be patient and kind of persevere and move forward with things. And I think within psychology, you have to be a bit patient and and i know it's one thing that i learned when i did my first uh deacon application um i didn't realize how patient i'd have to be in terms of finding out when you get if you get accepted if you get an interview it's a long time to to wait but you definitely show that patience to be able to kind of wait through um and and persist and kind of spend that time to to do that absolutely the struggle is real it goes on a long time yeah oh and anybody else who's but you know by the time

Starting point is 00:30:21 this episode goes out i think we will just be on the cusp of submissions um for this year so the waiting game um begins so yeah we will come back to that in future as well thank you Alicia so the next is curiosity to be curious open-minded and interested eager to explore discover and learn yeah so I think um as Muslim, we're always encouraged to be curious. So it's always about kind of seeking knowledge and being curious about what you believe as well. So when we are kind of reconnecting to our faith or connecting to our faith, we want to be able to be curious about what our faith means, what our faith means to us. And we're encouraged to kind of seek knowledge and and develop um so it's not about us just saying actually this is what you

Starting point is 00:31:10 believe and and that's it but we always are encouraged to kind of go further and seek more knowledge and and think about how that relates to us um and I feel like curiosity for me as as a person is really important as well um because I feel like curiosity kind of opens the doors to being open-minded so when we're curious about things we can be more accepting we can kind of be um more tolerant and and things like that so I feel like within um my experience within psychology being curious has really helped me because I feel like I when reflecting back on previous experiences sometimes I could have been quite rigid-minded and thinking actually trying to fit people into a formulation rather than the other way around

Starting point is 00:31:58 and I think when we're curious and when we kind of keep an open mind and we kind of question things we can really consider like a whole situation and things and how to best support someone but also how we can kind of move forward with our own career so when we're kind of curious about what we enjoy what we find helpful it helps us to develop as as a psychologist but also kind of develop what we want to do going forward brilliant thank you so much for that one and next one is contribution to contribute give help assist share or be generous yeah so um i feel like my journey within psychology kind of started on me reflecting on wanting to contribute and share my experience or share the share what I've learned from my

Starting point is 00:32:45 experiences with people so being able to kind of support other people with their own mental health and I think for for many of the um aspiring psychologists or psychologists that would be similar in in wanting to help people and and make a contribution and and I do feel like it's a it's um a profession which is really rewarding which is which is amazing um and I feel like that kind of extends in into kind of faith and and me as a Muslim because I feel like as as a Muslim we're kind of encouraged to to contribute so we're encouraged to kind of give charity help others and and support people um so actually when when I'm working as an assistant psychologist I feel like I'm living my life as uh as per my values not only as a person and as as like um as a psychologist but

Starting point is 00:33:31 also kind of as a Muslim and being able to give back to people which is really rewarding for me it must feel like double bubble like I often say I've got the best job in the world but if you're also like singing from your hymn sheet for your for your faith as well as well as your own personal and professional kind of passions it must just feel so I don't know uplifting energizing all of those good terms yeah definitely I feel like when you work in a in a profession where you're also able to reconnect to your values but also to your faith it does feel like that it feels like a double reward um because I feel like when I'm supporting other people to live life by their values it also

Starting point is 00:34:11 helps me to reflect on my values and and what's important to me um and then it's almost like a kind of that thing where you practice where you preach and I think sometimes as as psychologists we can sometimes give the best advice and not take that advice ourselves and I think sometimes as a psychologist we can sometimes give the best advice and not take that advice ourselves and I feel like that's something that's been really important to me is is being able to relate the things that I use in practice to my own life as well um yeah which I feel like has made me a better psychologist as well as a better person I think absolutely there's a recent episode I did about you know using our own skills to kind of navigate our own mental health and once we start to do that it's not it's not

Starting point is 00:34:50 rocket science is it you know when the stuff we're saying is brilliant when we actually use it we do feel better you know of course we should be doing it and we should make time for it so yeah I totally agree and the last of our identified values is compassion to be acting kindly towards ourselves and or others when in pain um yeah so I feel like um I I've always been quite compassionate towards other people and I feel like um kind of choosing psychology as a career kind of helped me to live my life according to being compassionate I feel like one of the things that I've always struggled with is is using that compassion towards myself and I feel like that's a very hard thing to do um but when we are able to do it and we're able to build those skills it makes things so much better and it makes you be able to reflect on things so much better so

Starting point is 00:35:41 I feel like when when I am able to be more self-compassionate um i do feel like i get more reward out of things because actually i feel like sometimes we can be quite hard on ourselves um and we live life according to our values in terms of showing compassion to other people um but sometimes don't apply those same values to ourselves um and i think that can be really really important um so yeah I think that has helped incredibly I think it really can and I know I keep saying about all the stuff that happens off camera and people are like why can we listen to the off camera sounds great one of the least downloaded episodes of this podcast series is the one on kind of self-compassion and actually

Starting point is 00:36:24 that's the the one that's going to be the difference that makes a difference so everybody download that one as well because you're so right it's so important um just before we finish because i'm aware of the time um i picked up a couple of values that i thought might be useful for us to kind of talk to as one point really really based on my observations of having worked in a central birmingham service with people um who um who follow islam and um and i guess you know going to friday prayers and for the male members of the staff i don't know if it's open to women yet i'm not sure perhaps culturally naive of me to admit that but at the time when i was there it was it was males only for friday

Starting point is 00:37:00 prayers and stopping and having prayer rooms and things like that. And also for people not watching on YouTube, you're a hijab wearer. And so, you know, I'm aware that, you know, there's different thoughts and feelings and expectations of people accessing services about, I guess, a number of factors that not always that are not always nice you know to be to be blunt about that and I guess I was thinking about assertiveness respect flexibility and freedom you know so to other people to have freedom of choice and actions but also being respectful and your perhaps assertiveness to be able to stop and say actually I do need to stop now because I need to do this or I can't do that because that's outside of what I what I'm what I believe or what I feel comfortable with um but also whether there's any room for flexibility around some of this

Starting point is 00:37:55 is it okay to have a brief conversation about some of that Leisha? Yeah that sounds like a good conversation um I feel like one of the things to kind of point out is I definitely feel like there are rules with all religions and all kind of cultures, I feel like as well. So I feel like we all kind of have points of assertiveness and things that we kind of morally want to want to do or believe. And I feel like that's kind of exists in all of us. And I think when we're thinking about religion, I feel like it's really important to think, yeah, there's definitely things that we should do and things that we shouldn't do in terms of what we believe as Muslims. And I feel like when we're thinking about assertiveness, I suppose the reason that we do it is because of our devotion to what we've been told by God and what's been instructed by us by God and I think when we're thinking about assertiveness as well I think it's it's helpful to think about things in terms of we have that kind of trust and and belief that the things that have been kind of um that have been decreed to us and the things that we are told to do help us to live a better life

Starting point is 00:39:02 and and actually when we're thinking about um being a muslim and we think about kind of giving charity and that's something that's ordained on us and and fasting to kind of um consider um people who are less fortunate and all those kind of things it helps you to reflect on on yourself as a person but helps you to live a life according to your values and helps you to kind of live as a better person and I suppose we have that belief that God knows better than us and I suppose sometimes our kind of desires or the things that we want to do might kind of go against our values and and it's thinking about how we can live our life according to our values and and even if we do things that we're not supposed

Starting point is 00:39:45 to do or doing things that kind of take us away from our values I think a big thing within Islam is being able to notice that and then seeking forgiveness for it but then kind of going back to living our life by our values so I feel like sometimes when we're thinking about things, it's about how actually, we know that we all kind of at points in our lives, go move away from our values. But the important part is, is kind of noticing that and coming back because we know nobody's perfect. And it's hard when we kind of hold ourselves to perfection. But when we understand that actually, as humans, we aren't perfect perfect and we can't do things all the time, then we're more likely to kind of reflect on on ourselves and then being able to live our life by our values more. And I feel like that's where kind of forgiveness kind of comes in, but also freedom as well.

Starting point is 00:40:40 We believe that everybody has the freedom to choice. Everybody has the freedom to believe so everybody has a freedom to believe what they want to believe and there's no kind of um force or there's no kind of compulsion within religion so you are kind of held accountable for what you do but if if you don't if you don't believe in islam or if you don't kind of believe in those things you have a freedom to do that but i suppose that's that's then your kind of responsibility, but it doesn't mean that you don't have the freedom to kind of choose.

Starting point is 00:41:14 And yeah, I think that then ties into respect. And I think a big thing that we're taught is respecting people despite their differences. So no matter what your kind of religion or culture, that actually we should treat people with respect respecting people despite their differences. So no matter what your kind of religion or culture, that actually we should treat people with respect and kindness. And that's something that I suppose when you kind of look at the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him, he kind of showed that within his life work. And I think we kind of take our role models, how we should be living as Muslims

Starting point is 00:41:41 and what our values should be from from the prophet and that's how we kind of aim to live our lives um so yeah I feel like that might have touched upon uh the different parts but I think from my reflections as a Muslim that's what what I would believe um but yeah brilliant thank you and thank you for also mentioning fasting because that's a very big and important part um of your faith and something that you know I've supported clients through as well and I always from my perspective it I feel like I would dread that time of the year but actually all of the clients I've worked with love it you know they find it really energizing they find it a really nice time to come together

Starting point is 00:42:21 with their families in their community um and they really feel that it's a privilege and they really enjoy it and benefit from it yeah definitely and and i think when you when you think about fasting everyone's thinking oh you can't eat and drink for a really long time and and that's true and i think when we think about ramadan it's more than in than just fasting so i suppose when we're in Ramadan, it's a time of reflection and reconnecting to faith. And I feel like that's a time where we kind of remove distractions. So we try our best to refocus. And I think the reason that we enjoy it so much is because it gives us that chance to live our life by our values and reconnect. And I think sometimes life takes over

Starting point is 00:43:01 and sometimes we move away from our values. that having that time sometimes helps us to realize kind of why our values are important to us but then also being able to kind of um reconnect and thinking about reflection as well because I think it's a big period of time where we reflect on ourselves and where we want to be but also reflecting on those who are less fortunate to us and and helping those as well so kind of like um giving charity and things like that is something that's a big part of our religion to help other people lovely thank you so much and before we finish when we're working in services you know we have the right to um receive dignity respect and no hostility from people but when I've worked in services that hasn't always been the case and so it's just for us to to pay lip service to the fact that if you're not feeling like people are respecting you regardless of your culture regardless of your

Starting point is 00:43:56 background or perhaps in spite of your culture and background that you don't need to tolerate any kind of substandard treatment from service users. And certainly within the NHS, there's a zero tolerance process for accepting that. And that is a criminal offence to rule people out and single people out because of their culture and their faith. And I hope that's not cropped up for you. But I know that in modern modern Britain certainly that's not always the case for for all Muslims. Yeah I think when when I'm reflecting on my own experiences I feel like it has been the case sometimes and I think sometimes it's very hard to identify I think because I feel like when we're thinking about diversity and inclusion, I feel like we are now kind of more diverse in the psychology profession and within the UK. But I suppose when we're thinking about discrimination and things like that,

Starting point is 00:44:55 I feel like within the UK, it can be quite subtle. Microaggressions. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think sometimes it's very hard to kind of pinpoint and address when they are microaggressions. But I feel like they can be just as harmful as things that are kind of more straightforward and obvious. But I think when when we are thinking about our differences in cultures, I do feel like when we're thinking about service users, it can sometimes really, really help when we're working with service users to

Starting point is 00:45:25 think about what what you know our social graces and and thinking about the services of social graces and thinking about kind of the impact of culture religion and and loads of different kind of um diversities um but i suppose when we're working with clients we can kind of come come across that where we do kind of experience those microaggressions and i think it's it's important to reflect on that and i think in my own experiences i've done my best as i can as a practitioner but then kind of reflecting back in supervision and thinking actually that's not something that i i should have to tolerate so so where do we go from from here and i think supervision is a great place i think to be able to to identify um how that affects us because i think sometimes within

Starting point is 00:46:12 sessions we can think about kind of the impact on the services but when you're kind of being on the receiving end of microaggressions and and potential discrimination that's going to affect affect you as a person and i think that's where we can kind of identify how things can change or how you can be supported with that um which I think is really important as well um but yeah sorry I've completely forgot what the original question was that's all right you did really well I was just trying to google the name um because when you mentioned social graces I was trying to remember his name but it's John Burnham and his work around social graces and if anyone knows John um I have invited him on the podcast and i haven't heard

Starting point is 00:46:48 back but i'd love to have him on the podcast so um i have had the fortune of being taught by him a couple of times and i'd love to have him on so if you are working in a service with john burnham give him a prod and invite him on the podcast and get him to get in contact with me alicia thank you so much for today it's been such um a richly enjoyable rewarding um podcast episode i've really really enjoyed it it's been lovely getting to know more about you um and your culture and your faith and your work as well um if i could give out deeply inside places you know I'd give you one um because I think you sound so ready for training you really sound very thoughtful and um competent and professional and you know I feel like our young people are in safe hands with you thank you for so much for having me I think I feel really special for being able to kind of come on and share my experiences

Starting point is 00:47:43 um but yeah if you were giving out Declan uh places I'd I'd take one so yeah well wishing you all the best with the upcoming season you know I don't know if you've got your application in already or whether you're about to to to get that ticked off and sent off um you don't have to queue at the post office like I did now it's more of an electronic process um but yeah wishing you the best of luck with this and yeah um do stay in my world please stay interact with my stuff on LinkedIn because I always love our little chats so thank you so much for joining me and for being our first aspiring psychologist on the aspiring psychologist podcast which took me almost 10 months thank you so much it was a pleasure to be able to be on here. Thank you so

Starting point is 00:48:26 much for listening. I hope you found that as, you know, invigorating and interesting and inspiring as I did. I feel excited for Alicia's future. If you have really liked the idea of aspiring psychologists being on the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. And you think you've got an interesting story to tell and you'd like to talk to me about it and talk to our listeners about it. Then please do slip into my DMs on my socials. You can find me, Dr. Marianne Trent, most places. Please do come and connect. I do really enjoy helping you celebrate your wins. So please do connect with me and if you would

Starting point is 00:49:07 welcome even more support and encouragement do think about coming along to the aspiring psychologist membership where you can join us for 30 pounds a month and we think about ways of advancing you professionally and personally we've got all sorts of good stuff in there including monthly cbt formulation and skills as well as other guest sessions from other specialist people each month too looking at research psychodynamic approaches systemic cat approaches and loads more as well as your weekly chance to catch up with me ask me any questions you like and of course our monthly group zooms as well with me so yeah there's absolutely loads going on it's a lovely place to be so do please give it some consideration if you think it might be a good fit for you for more information check out the show

Starting point is 00:49:56 notes or you can check out any of the links in my bios on my socials in the meantime do come and join us in the aspiringpiring Psychologist Community free group on Facebook. And we can talk about this episode and how perhaps your intersectionality crops up for you in psychology. So yeah, thank you again for being part of my world. And yeah, I'll look forward to catching up with you in our next episode, which will be available from 6am on Monday. Take care of you. tips and lessons to learn from so many things that you can try the aspiring psychologist if you're looking to become a psychologist

Starting point is 00:51:08 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

Starting point is 00:51:53 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 of 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.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Personal and professional values as a Muslim psychologist - with Elisha Hussain

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