The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - The importance of understanding and working with trauma as an Aspiring Psychologist

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 11Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. Please look after yourself when listening to this episode. It focuses on trauma, and this can rub up against painful stuff for you as a clinician sometimes too. You can choose not to listen if now is not the right time for you.  Trauma is such a key area within psychology and here is my advice and experience on how and why this is such an important area for aspiring psychologists.  The Highlights:   Sensitive Content Warning: 00:29:       Welcome: 02:34The ACE Scale: 04:05    Forensic Populations: 05:20:·       Ace Scale #2: 06:26:Physical manifestations of Trauma: 07:22:  Ease of Acquiring Trauma: 08:22:The privilege of working with trauma: 10:13:Anger, anxiety & sadness 12:31: You’re really annoying Marianne! 14:15:The Feel Better Academy: 15:15:Self-regulation 16:26: Working with trauma: 18:35:Summary: 20:41:Jingle Guy (21:39):Links: To check out the book, Justice on Trial by Chris Daw QC head to: https://amzn.to/3uU9F1n To register for the upcoming free 5-day challenge: www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/aspireTo check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0To check out The Grief collective Book: https://amzn.to/3pmbz5tTo check out The Our Tricky Brain Kit: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/tricky-brainConnect on Socials:LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marianne-trent-psychologyFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodThinkingPsychologicalServices Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmariannetrent/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodThinkingPs1 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drmariannetrent?lang=enYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GoodThinkingPsychologicalServicesLike, Comment, Subscribe & get involved:If you enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe and rate and review episodes. If you'd like to learn how to record and submit your own audio testimonial to be included in future shows head to:https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and click the blue request info button at the top of the page.

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

There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode.

If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. episode. With Dr. Marianne Durant Welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I want to start this episode in a slightly different way because I want to make sure that you are looking after yourselves. Today's episode features trauma and thinking about the way that we can work with people experiencing trauma or who have experienced trauma as aspiring psychologists. And it's okay for you to make the choice not to listen to this episode if you feel that to do so would trigger you. Perhaps you are not in the current headspace, you know, where you have the ability to think about this stuff. And it's not to say that you will always feel that way, but if today you're feeling actually this rubs up against

some of your own stuff or some stuff that feels really painful. Of course, I'm going to be handling it in a compassionate way using my qualified opinions, advice and guidance. But it's OK for you to choose to look after yourself. If this does sit a little bit too closely to home, you can give yourself permission to come back to this at a future time when you feel like you'll be better resourced to be able to engage with the content without it evoking painful stuff for you that might feel overwhelming right now so I wanted to just give you that option and the the full informed disclosure really that this might feel like a trickier episode than some of the past ones that I have done okay I am very much looking forward to talking with you to help you think about this really useful and interesting area, which we have so much value to bring.

So, hi. Yeah, welcome along. Like I said in the little intro, the little caveat, today we are going to be thinking about working with trauma as an aspiring psychologist. And I won't go over everything I've just said in my little disclaimer, but just to say that it will be, you know, it will be useful stuff, but might feel, might feel, you know, gritty and raw and real, because course it is and you might be thinking oh no trauma I've got no interest in working with trauma perhaps you're thinking that you're going into a an area of psychology where trauma doesn't crop up as often and to you I would say in my experience trauma is everywhere and it impacts on all areas of society so actually I think it's

one of the most interesting and relevant topics to cover because it's so unknown about even even within you know mental health services they're not all trauma informed and it can have such a massive impact um on on people and their lives and the you know choices and decisions that they make and the things that they've experienced so i hope you'll find it really useful um and especially if you're going into forensic psychology um it can be incredibly useful so what we know about it's a rudimentary measure called the ACE scale and what we know about about people on the ACE scale is that depending on their score, you know, people are more likely to experience a whole host of physical and mental health difficulties. So for example, people who score four and above on the

ACE scale are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, they're more likely to have things like migraines, IBS, they're more likely to be taking prescribed medication, unsubscribed medication and to be experimenting with drugs too. They're more likely to drink more alcohol units per week than people who score three and below on the scale. They're more likely to, you know, have a whole host of difficulties, including some spinal, disc, neck and back problems, including, I believe, some evidence that some heart conditions are more likely in people who score four and above. And of course, at the grand end of the scale, they're more likely to spend time in Her Majesty's prison. And so that's where the particular relevance comes in for forensic psychology. Because of course, what we're looking at is often a prison population full of traumatized

people. And there's a really interesting book on this by Chris Dorr QC, who's one of my LinkedIn connections. And his book is called Justice on Trial. And I found it a really interesting read to help think about the justice system and how it might need a shake up. So if you wanted to do some reading kind of around this topic, but a non psychology stance, he's a QC. So, you know, yeah, he writes well. I listen to it on Audible because that's where I listen to my, you know, business books and clinical relevant books and stuff around that. And so I found that really interesting. So you might well find that useful, too, if you wanted to think some more about the justice system. And yeah, I liked his ideas on that. So hope you do find it useful if you do give it a go so this ace scale it um covers um it's 10 questions and it covers a number of different life areas so it covers sort of perceived threat in that all of these questions are the first 18 years of life so perceived threat actual physical threat and violence, parental separation, parental ill health through

mental health reasons, parental drug use, alcohol use, sexual abuse and a number of other factors but all of these will come out with someone's unique ACE score for their first 18 years of life. And it can be really useful to talk about people's ACE scores with them and to help them to understand, you know, the damaging impact that trauma can have on our our minds and our bodies so sometimes when i go through the evidence that um that you know that people are more likely to have migraines and ibs and you know spinal disc and neck back problems they're like oh it's like you're reading my medical history it's like you've been chatting with my gp I haven't but it feels like I have because they're described you know they're they're living a life of a traumatized person and this is what we know

happens to people who've been through you know prolonged trauma in their in their formative years and of course trauma does have a massive impact on people after the age of 18 as well but what we know is that it has a particular impact in terms of developmental trauma in the way that people form their beliefs about themselves the world and others around them from what they experience in their first 18 years it's really important that we know what a traumatized person looks like and what they'll be experiencing and what they'll be thinking. Because what I have found is that it doesn't actually take a super amount of adverse events to score those four points. So it might be that your parents separated, it might be that one of your parents had alcoholism and the other

one had depression. And then it didn't maybe feel like your family were like other families, you know, that's your four points. And so many people are walking around living their lives not knowing that technically, you know, they might be experiencing some symptoms of developmental trauma. They might be spending their life feeling like, you know, I feel really anxious, I don life feeling like you know I feel really anxious I don't really know why I feel you know really depressed but we've got anything to be depressed about and so when they come into therapy for the first time and we think about developmental trauma it helps them join up the dots and helps make a lot of sense of that please don't think

that scoring a high score or even maximum score on the ACE scale means that you're, you know, a write-off and there's no chance and you're going to end up in prison because absolutely it doesn't. I have worked with people who score, you know, maximum score on the ACE scale and are incredibly pro-social and, you know, really wouldn't want to hurt anybody or say anything bad or do anything bad to them. So please don't think that I'm condemning you to, you know, a life where you're, you know, not a worthwhile person. That's not at all what I'm saying. But, you know, what the evidence tells us is that life is harder for people who have experienced trauma. And what I found was when we work with people who might be kind of feeling like they've got depression and anxiety or you know they don't feel safe but they don't really know why that other people might be quite invalidating of them there's nothing wrong with you you know it's all in your head and actually

when we help people to understand trauma understand what their experiences were you know perhaps if they were all scared of their dad growing up you you know, and if dad was violent growing up or hit mum, this has an impact on people and their lives and it can help them to understand themselves better and it can help them, you know, know that actually there's a reason why they feel like this and can give them, you know, give them an approach and a technique and it can be really validating and really enlightening and help them just recognize, you know, the impact of what they've been through and then to be able to make sense of where they find themselves now and be able to make different choices for themselves and help them to feel safe and calm and soothed and know that they aren't at risk you know imminently anymore and we can help to just turn down that risk alert system that allows them to engage in their life

in a way that they might not have done at all before. It can be a real privilege working with people in this way. Okay, we're going to just take a quick break here and I will be back to talk with you about how we can show up for ourselves and our clients when we're working with trauma. Feel better, get on me. Feel better, get on me. Thank you. approach to help reduce anxiety for those who need help the most. It's an online course you can do in your own time and a free weekly webinar session online. Feel Better Academy. Feel Better Academy. So like I said before, we might find ourselves working with people who are traumatized but don't realize that they have experienced trauma. And that can lead to some interesting and powerful conversations and when we go through that

with people you might find that they connect to a great deal of sadness about what they've been through and what they've missed out on and what we know is there can be a real overlap between anger and anxiety and sadness and so when we're going through this with people we might find that they also feel angry you know they might find that they feel like really aggrieved that this has been something they've been carrying with them so long or that you know that this has had such an impact on them and it shouldn't have done and it wasn't their fault we might need to help them manage that anger and what we know certainly from working with people in forensic populations is that there can be a real overlap between anxiety and anger so we might find that someone is showing lots of anger and aggression but actually underneath that you, the primary emotion, what comes first is anxiety, you know, it's fear,

but it wasn't safe to express that or tap into that. And so what comes out is anger, the secondary emotion. And similarly, when we're feeling really anxious, sometimes it can be really useful to think, actually, I think you're really annoyed, you know, I wonder if you're actually really upset about something that's happened, but it doesn't feel safe to express that so that can always be really useful to to tap into that anger and anxiety link and I really like it when people start to tell me off because it can be a real sign that they're getting better so when they are able to assert themselves and when they're able to talk about the things that annoy them and especially when they tell me that I'm annoying them.

You know, I tell them at the beginning of therapy, by the time we finish working together, you will tell me how annoying I am. And that's okay. And they're like, no, no, no. No, you're not annoying. There's nothing wrong with you. You know, I absolutely trust everything you say.

You know, and I'd never say you're annoying. And then by the end of our work, you're like, oh, Marianne, you're so annoying. And they're like, yeah, I know, I know. And if you're annoying. And then by the end of our work, you're like, oh, Marianne, you're so annoying. And yeah, I know. I know. And if I do something that's not OK, you know, they're going to have to tell me that. Whereas to begin with, they might be very acquiescent and willing, you know, to let me say what I like, which is where we need to be really careful with our, you know, our power differentials as well to make sure that you know we are being respectful when people are perhaps in a state where they're not able to stick up for themselves and advocate for themselves but with your excellent work you know I really hope that will come

and if this stuff is rubbing up against your own wounds then you might find it helpful to check out my Feel Better Academy, which is a place where you can learn to soothe and stabilize yourself and learn to understand why trauma has impacted on you in the way it has and help you, you know, learn skills to feel better and to show up for yourself. If you're an aspiring psychologist but you haven't experienced trauma yourself then the Feel Better Academy is also a really useful way of learning those skills so that you can then use them to help other people because stabilisation work can be so key and so useful and it's an area that aspiring psychologists are often really well placed to be able to step in

and help it might be that you are able to help think about running a stabilization group perhaps or doing some sort of stabilization resources for clients to free up space and capacity for for the qualified psychologists who might be doing you know trauma processing work perhaps so yeah just see how that shakes down in your service. So what we know is we're all just going through our days with the best resources we've got at any given time. And by upskilling ourselves with new resources, we are creating more flexibility for ourselves

and more opportunities to be able to engage more fully with our life and one of the most helpful things we can do at any time of the day really is to check in with ourself and just take a breath so we'll do that together take a breath in through your nose hold it for a moment breathe out through your mouth when you're ready, take a breath in through your nose, hold it for a moment, breathe out through your mouth when you're ready okay and we can do really good things just with that it can help us to re-engage our thinking brain but my children will will start to breathe when I prompt them and sometimes when I don't to help them to you know

re-engage their wise thinking brains when they might be feeling overwhelmed um uh yeah and sometimes when mummy goes cross they're like mummy i think you need to take a breath so yeah i hope you find i hope you find that useful too and what you will notice is when you help regulate clients that they will come to you in sessions and be like do you realize how many people out there in the world are completely unregulated they are like all over the shop and you'll notice that they start to try to regulate those people so someone I was working with was sharing an office with someone who wasn't managing very well and um you know my client stepped in and said,

I think we just need to take a moment just to drop your shoulders and just take some breaths, OK? And then was able to think with the person afterwards about how that felt different. And so, yeah, I love it when people start to teach techniques, you know, outside of the therapy that they know has worked for them um because it's it's a way of getting our psychology message to to be flung far and wide you know so that it's not just the people we're working with um you know i don't think they're all setting themselves up as renegade therapists but they are observing where people would also benefit from the sterling work that they've had so yeah that's when I really like it when people start coming back in and saying

oh we did some of that breathing or I did that breathing with my child and they really liked it it really worked you're like yeah well done you so the way that I work with people with trauma is to do stabilization stuff to to use compassion focused therapy, to use the Our Tricky Brain Kit. And then of course, to think about whether we might process any of those traumas with something like EMDR. But actually, sometimes it's enough that people are able to regulate themselves and stabilize themselves and then they don't necessarily need to process the traumas or they don't want to because it kind of keeps things more manageable for them so we don't always need to force clients not that we'd force them to do

anything of course but we don't need to you know processing trauma is not always the holy grail you know absolutely we can be client-led and it might be that clients come to you for a chapter of therapy you know they come to you for the stabilization and then once they're used to tolerating their distress and tolerating the ideas and they're not judging themselves for their for their thoughts and they're not feeling as you know full of shame or guilt then then they might be ready to start thinking about processing. But, you know, actually what we're looking for is to alleviate distress. And so if the client is freer from distress, then they might never want to or need to process those traumas. It might be that they've had enough or had as much as they need, certainly for for now so whatever branch of aspiring psychologist you are

i hope you found this useful um as ever if you are watching on youtube please do like this video leave me a little comment pop um sun with some glasses on as an emoji so that i know that you've listened right to the end that would mean a great deal to me. And do subscribe and click that notification bell to be notified when I drop new content into YouTube. And if you are listening on another podcast platform, then yeah, please do subscribe because then I will drop into your into your library every Monday at 6 a.m. what is not to like about that thank you again for being part of my world and listening right to the end enjoy this jingle because I know that I will take care and have a lovely day. Without a merry entrance My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological wellbeing practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book.

I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one. And this kind of filled me with confidence that, no, I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay but trust me you will not put the book down once you start.