The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - The Hidden Cost of Seeking Reassurance - Inner Work

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

What happens when you begin recognising old relational patterns… and start looking back at past relationships differently?In this week’s Inner Work episode, I reflect on grief, hindsight, growth, emotional memory and the complicated feelings that can emerge when we realise we might make very different choices now than we once did.We explore:changing values and prioritiesrelational growth and self-reflectioncompassion for former versions of ourselvesgrief for what could have beenemotional reactions to photos, memories and relationships from the pasthealing old emotional woundshow therapy can help memories feel less emotionally jaggedThis is a reflective, compassionate episode about growth, hindsight and learning to hold both sadness and fondness at the same time.My Inner Work series is a space to pause and think more deeply about yourself. I explore where those roles come from… and whether they’re still serving you now.These videos were previously members only but I have decided to share them with you so thanks for being here.💡 Want to support the channel? Like, comment, and share this video!🫶 To join my podcast membership to get early access to episodes head to: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support or to the Apple Podcasts App: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-aspiring-psychologist-podcast/id1605628278 or to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOwjrIP_jatiqlAivJE2mgQ/join📩 Business & Collaboration Enquiries✉️ Email: [e-mail]🎧 Stay Connected With Me🌍 Aspiring Psychologists Website: www.aspiring-psychologist.co.uk🌍 Good Thinking Psychology Website: www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk💼 LinkedIn: Dr Marianne Trent: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marianne-trent-psychology/ 📘Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodThinkingPsychologicalServices🐦 Twitter/X: @DrMarianneTrent📸 Instagram: @DrMarianneTrent🎵 TikTok: @DrMarianneTrent.📚 My Books on Amazon📖 The Grief Collective → https://amzn.to/4hNHru5📖 The Clinical Psychologist Collective → https://amzn.to/3ErIEJs📖 The Aspiring Psychologist Collective → https://amzn.to/4jSxc9N📖 Talking Heads: Stories of Psychology & Mental Health → https://amzn.to/3EvbKaN📖 An Autistic Anthology: Neuro-Narratives of Mental Health Professionals → https://amzn.to/3WXBpz9⚠️ Disclaimer This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical, psychological, or professional advice. Any actions taken based on this content are at your own risk. © Dr Marianne Trent#psychologypodcastMentioned in this episode:Sponsored by WriteUppI've used WriteUpp in my own clinical practice for more than six years and am delighted to partner with them. WriteUpp brings together appointments, records, notes, invoicing and secure messaging in one UK-built, GDPR-compliant platform. Use code MARIANNE30 for a free 30-day trial and 30% off your first 6 months at this link: https://writeupp.com/?refid=142336Sponsored by WriteUppI've used WriteUpp in my own clinical practice for more than six years and am delighted to partner with them. WriteUpp brings together appointments, records, notes, invoicing and secure messaging in one UK-built, GDPR-compliant platform. Use code MARIANNE30 for a free 30-day trial and 30% off your first 6 months at this link: https://writeupp.com/?refid=142336

I think I'm a pretty good judge of character and I love sharing tips and tricks with people which genuinely help them to run their clinical practices more efficiently. This episode is supported by WriteUp and they're a brand I've been using in my own clinical practice for over six years. I really do genuinely rate them and use the Write Up platform for each and every clinic session I book or conduct. That's why I'm so happy to be working with them. In case you don't know already, Write Up isn't all in one practice. management platform built in the UK for UK clinicians. So that's your diary, your client records, your notes, your invoicing, your secure messaging, all in one place, all GDPR compliant,

all designed around the way we actually practice. Also, news just in, they've recently launched an AI scribe that drafts your session notes for you and a tap to pay app that turns your smartphone into a card reader. Both are the kind of small changes that quietly give you, hours back every week. But don't worry if you don't want to use all of those features, you don't have to either. If you've been meaning to sort your admin out or you're stuck wrestling with a system that wasn't built for you, take a look at writeup.com. That's W-R-I-T-E-U-P-P dot com. And when you use my code, Marianne 30, you can access a free 30-day trial with 30% off for six months for up to six users.

What's not to like. Now on with the show. Hi, welcome along to Inner Work. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent. Thank you so much for being here. The main podcast episode this week is all about extinction learning. And it really got me thinking about kind of reassurance and, you know, how we can sometimes be our own worst enemy. And it often crops up with clients, especially in conditions such as OCD, where someone has got someone else in their life that they've kind of woven into their way of coping so that they are almost undermining themselves on a often multiple times a day basis and seeking that reassurance externally. So this might crop up with OCD so if someone is particularly conscious about

wanting to be fluff free. So their jumper or their jacket might have, they might worry that it's got fluff on it. So yeah, they might have checked themselves and their own top and kind of deemed it to be fluff free. And then of course it's tricky to check your own back. So they might use a mirror and think that it's fluff free, but then, you know, they can't trust themselves. They start to doubt themselves. And, you know, that fear, that good and important reason is maintained. And so in order to bring their whole system down again to feel calmer, they will ask someone to check them. And of course, if you are a partner, of someone who has a condition that's causing them great distress,

then absolutely it makes sense that you think you're helping. When an actual fact, when we begin to unpack and treat an OCD, we're often having to ask people's friends and family to almost come in and be a co-therapist. And whilst we're never wanting to plunge anyone into distress by cutting them off cold turkey. Because this person is consenting to treatment, we are often then saying,

you know, is it okay that your loved one will maybe cap the amount of reassurance that you can seek on any given day? So before we begin, we might ask them to do a baseline looking at how many incidents of reassurance there are. And then over time, we'd want to bring that down. So part of the treatment might be

we have to begin to tolerate, you know, what that's bringing up for us. So if you're watching this and you're like, it's only fluff, you know, it could be anything. It could be, you know, fear of bacteria on your hands. It could be anything. But for that person who might have that fear of fluff, it might be that, you know, they were singled out in the past for being scruffy or not well put together enough. or maybe they had a cat who was at school and it would be all over their black trousers and people would humiliate them.

So there will be a good and important reason why this matters. And sometimes it can be seemingly unrelated. You know, there might not have been a directly transferable trauma that we can make sense of, but that's just, you know, the thing that helped them feel more in control. So it's that idea of reassurance for fear, really,

that we need to be able to reassure ourselves. Now, as humans, we are all going to need a little bit of help in regulating ourselves from time to time. Even myself sometimes, I'm like, oh, I just need a hug, or I just need to go and sit by myself. One of my really favourite things to do is to make myself a hotel chocolate chocolate with real milk.

So I managed to get a little bit of a coogeant, on and I got a box of I think 10 hotel chocolate sachets and ginger hot chocolate. It was delicious. So they gave me one free that got me hooked. But if I'm ever like, oh, I just fancy like a little bit of zen and kind of decompression, then I will make one of those ginger hot chocolates. It just takes like a couple of minutes to heat up the milk, even that ritual of doing that and then whisking in, whisking in that sachet of chocolate, ginger, and it's just a really nice thing. So we shouldn't always soothe ourselves with food. Absolutely we shouldn't, but for me, that really just helps me. In a moment where I might

have, you know, a spare half an hour, I might even be working. So yesterday I had one when I was working at my kitchen island just to just to support me and nourish me. But, you know, the reassurance that we have to be able to apply to ourselves to soothe ourselves. might be different for all of us. So it might be just noticing that I'm having the thought that I need to check myself for fluff. And then we begin to take a breath and to begin with all we're going to do

is just notice that thought and delay that by a couple of breaths. And then once we're comfortably managing to delay that for a little bit of time, then we've got that balance of power shifted. and then we can begin to delay it or have a different response or, you know, choose our course of action. And over time, that actually does extinguish. It actually does mean that we don't need to use that as a strategy all the time in going forward. Now, what I will say about OCD,

similarly to what I was saying with Martin in the episode, is that this doesn't always, you know, know we were discussing it doesn't always stay flat. And one bit that I was going to add in and I forgot to is kind of thinking about that idea of if you're treating a peanut allergy and then you get it to a stage where someone can tolerate peanuts, that actually you still then have to be able to have regular peanuts in order to keep that at bay. So complete avoidance is not always the way.

I would love your thoughts on this. How does reassurance show up for you? How have you learned to reassure and soothe yourself over time? I would love to know. If you've got any ideas for inner work topics you'd like me to explore, please do just let me know. Thank you again for being a member of inner work. And I'll be back along with our next episode very soon.

Take care. I think I'm a pretty good judge of character and I love sharing tips and tricks with people, which genuinely help them to run their clinical practices more efficient. this episode is supported by write-up and they're a brand i've been using in my own clinical practice for over six years i really do genuinely rate them and use the write-up platform for each and every clinic session i book or conduct that's why i'm so happy to be working with them in case you don't know already write-up is an all-in-one practice management platform built in the uk for

uk clinicians so that's your diary your client records your notes your invoices your invoices your secure messaging, all in one place, all GDPR compliant, all designed around the way we actually practice. Also, news just in, they've recently launched an AI scribe that drafts your session notes for you and a tap-to-pay app that turns your smartphone into a card reader. Both are the kind of small changes that quietly give you hours back every week. But don't worry if you don't want to use all of those features, you don't have to either. If you've been meaning to sort your admin out or you're stuck wrestling with a system that wasn't built for you, take a look at writeup.com. That's W-R-I-T-E-U-P-P dot com.

And when you use my code, Marianne 30, you can access a free 30-day trial with 30% off for six months for up to six users. What's not to like? Now on with the show.