The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - The little known way to become a qualified psychologist - with Anagha Sharma

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. Without a memory and a trend is having the ability to help you learn about new and different ways that you can gain experience

Starting point is 00:01:48 or even gain formal qualifications in psychology. So that is exactly what we are doing in today's episode. And this is a method I'd never heard of before. So with that little bit of intrigue, I will leave you now and you will then be introduced to my guest and I will catch you on the other side. Hope you find this so useful. Hi, welcome along. And I just want to welcome and introduce our guest for today. And we are joined by Aniga Sharma. Hi Anaga. Hi Marianne, it's really lovely to be here today. It's so lovely to have you here and I again accosted you on LinkedIn so you'd connected with me I think after you'd read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book and then you were like yeah I am going to connect with her, she seems all right. And then I spotted recently that you are something

Starting point is 00:02:45 that I'd never heard of. And so I messaged you for more information. You are a trainee, clinical and trainee forensic psychologist at the same time, aren't you? Yes, that's correct. Love it. Could you tell us a little bit more about how that works and how you got into it and what your journey was before you became a trainee? Quite a big question that one. That's a big question. Yeah, sure. So I'm currently a second year trainee forensic and clinical psychologist. And I'm on the University of Birmingham forensic clinical psychology doctorate. So it was kind of one of the first I think the only one in the UK at the moment I might be wrong with that the first combined doctorate where you can train

Starting point is 00:03:30 to become a forensic and a clinical psychologist so it's a four-year course and essentially it combines elements from the clinical psychology doctorate that's run at Birmingham and the forensic psychology doctorate so in a way typically that if you wanted to become dual qualified as both a forensic and clinical psychologist you would have to go and do both doctorates separately kind of one after each other so you do maybe clinical training first then forensic or vice versa but the course was developed in a way that instead of doing two doctorates which then would mean probably about six years at least it kind of cuts and cuts and gets rid of anything that overlaps so I wouldn't have to do the same teaching again when I'm doing the kind of more forensic teaching if I've had it already in the

Starting point is 00:04:13 clinical elements so in that sense the first two years of the course are aligned with the clinical psychology doctorate at the university so I have kind of clinical teaching and then the last two years are with the forensic doctorate so we joined their cohort and have the forensic teaching. Sounds amazing and do you still have to do a thesis as part of that? Yes so that still includes a thesis but you'll just be doing one and I guess you start kind of collecting ideas for that in the first year and And then the second, third and fourth years are kind of where that kind of goes ahead. And then you submit it in your fourth year. So I guess compared to clinical trainees, you have an extra year then to do your thesis and the write up.

Starting point is 00:04:55 Yeah. So it's four years and you come out with both and then you can register with the HCPC and the BPS as both. Yeah, that's right. Oh, love that. time efficiency as well because he wanted to study for six years if you can do it for four really really good really I really admire people who've done both because I think it's it's very long and I think it's a lot of hard work but being able to do it in a shorter route and still have the same benefits I think is really important and I understand understand from our little pre-chat that even within your cohort perhaps some of you are funded and some of you

Starting point is 00:05:30 are self-funded so there's kind of a disparity even within the cohort. Yeah so the course started running in 2013 and they typically take five or six trainees kind of per cohort so I'm self-funded but there are some trainees who are also funded so there isn't like as far as I'm aware there isn't like specific places that are just self-funded or just funded so I guess from my experience of self-funding that means that you'd have to pay the university tuition fee as you would for like an undergraduate um degree and you pay a certain amount per annum I started in 2021 and my fee per year is 13 and a half thousand pounds which is a lot of money you can definitely appreciate that um and I think that fee kind of changes every year which is probably based on inflation I'm not sure exactly what um and I guess with self-funded that means

Starting point is 00:06:24 when you do have your placement you're on an honorary contract so you won't necessarily get a paid placement I know that there are some paid placements out there I'm not sure how easy they are to find um and I guess that that could be difficult but so far my my placements have been more honorary contracts but there are some people on on the course who are funded and I know the university does have links with the Birmingham Solihull NHS Trust and with St Andrews Healthcare, and they're a private healthcare company. I'm not entirely sure how the funding works, but I guess it would be kind of speaking with the course

Starting point is 00:06:57 and speaking with kind of line management to sort that out. Yeah. So are you eligible to apply for like student loans funding to help or does it all have to be literally out your own pocket? Yeah so eligible to apply so I've applied for the postgraduate doctoral loan which is held by the government and it kind of works in a similar way as you would for like an undergraduate tuition fee so you apply for the loan. I think the amount that you can get is around 27 000 it might be a bit more than that I think that regularly changes um and I guess you can do whatever you want with that kind of funding that you get and you get it as you would in increments

Starting point is 00:07:34 so at three or four points in the year you get that kind of money um and then you're responsible with doing with kind of whatever you want with that um but it doesn't cover the entire tuition fee that's the only thing okay so are you having to kind of get paid employment to cover your living fees then as well um so I I think some people probably would try and do that I think I'm quite lucky because I've been financially in a position where I could self-fund but I appreciate that's not the case for a lot of people and the fees are really really high and we're not we don't really get the traditional like health like HEE funding that the clinical trainees would get and it's kind of a bit more similar to the forensic in that sense whereas because of forensic trainees tend to self-fund and don't have that

Starting point is 00:08:18 allocated funding from the government or the NHS. Yeah there's definitely a difference isn't there so I remember when I was an assistant psychologist actually it's an Andrews Healthcare and yes the forensic trainees were self-funding whereas the clinical ones weren't and it's just difficult because essentially you're doing a very similar job and I think even some of the teaching that you're doing is pretty similar are you going to the clinical teaching or is it like separate for just you six on your cohort so we join um the other cohort teaching others I think it'd be very small for just the six of us um to have our teaching so in the first two years we join teaching on the

Starting point is 00:08:57 clinical course so we have all basically exclusively clinical teaching and then in the last two years the third and fourth years we join the forensic cohort and we have more of the forensic based teaching then but our placements across the kind of four years can be kind of exclusively clinical so maybe in more kind of clinical NHS mental health settings community or inpatient but they can also be in forensic settings so forensic mental health services and prison or probation services as well. I just think it sounds brilliant like you must I don't know just that depth of knowledge and experience that you're able to be acquiring is really good so when I was an assistant I was in forensic services all of my assistant posts were forensic services and I really liked the yeah that knowledge that I had

Starting point is 00:09:44 to bring to the table and my experience of working in forensic services and and I really liked the yeah that knowledge that I had to bring to the table and my experience of working in forensic services and with you know forensic psychiatrists for example but I was aiming down the clinical route but it's kind of it's just kind of interesting and nice to know that there's there is a path where you could potentially combine both of them without having to do six years yeah and I guess what's really helpful is about this kind of doctorate is you have clinical psychologists who can work really in a range of settings because of their training so they can work in clinical settings but they can also work in forensic settings whereas from my understanding forensic psychologists are kind of more able to work just

Starting point is 00:10:21 in forensic settings but I guess having this doctorate means that I can work in a variety of settings and really draw on kind of the skills from both disciplines so we know that in kind of in forensic settings or for example in prison population there's lots of individuals who are in there who have undiagnosed mental health needs or their mental health needs aren't often recognised or they're not often met in that setting but then we also know in clinical settings or in forensic mental health settings that things like risk assessment is really important on thinking about when an individual is well enough and ready enough to move on if they're in an inpatient setting into the community and think about what that means for not only public protection but any

Starting point is 00:11:00 potential victims of kind of crime so it's really helpful because you get training that's specific across all of those four years where you address both of those elements um because I guess I was kind of keen and either applying to my course or applying to the clinical course and kind of my plan was to keep rotating and rotating until I get into one of them and luckily I got into my course and I guess the only thing about the clinical course that I felt was that I would only really get I wouldn't get much forensic teaching and I guess the only forensic placement I'd have was would be maybe on my third year on more of a specialist placement um but I get that kind of throughout with my course at the moment which I'm really enjoying yeah so your placements

Starting point is 00:11:39 are well my question should be what sort of work are you doing on your placements and I don't you don't want to identify exactly where you are, but could you give us an overview or an example of what a typical placement might be for someone in your cohort? Yeah, so I guess the placements kind of vary. But in terms of the course, we kind of align with the clinical course in that aspect that you need to gain competencies and experiences working across the lifespan so that will include an adult placement an older adult placement a child and young person placement and also kind of in your neurotypical population so for example like a learning disabilities placement but also to get competencies in the forensic side you need to work with offenders and or kind of victims of crime and we know that in a lot of settings or a lot of cases that individuals who are victims of crime sometimes in later life then also go on to offend so I guess with that it kind of depends because I could be on a particular type of

Starting point is 00:12:37 placement and someone else on my cohort may not be on the same type of placement but we just have to gain competencies and all of that across the four years so my kind of how the structure of the course is is that in your first year you'll have a kind of 10 month long placement in your second year you'll have two kind of placements that are six months third year I think or fourth year it's kind of either one 10 months and then two six months and that could run concurrently so you have maybe two days in one service one day in another service um but it's I guess the course is really tailored to your journey so if you were able to get placement that it might be better to be there for 10 months then you might have a 10 month placement for kind of gaining specialty in that area so it does really

Starting point is 00:13:19 vary um so at the moment I've had a 10-month forensic adult placement when I was in inpatient settings and I've also had I'm currently on a forensic learning disability placement and then I'll go on to have another six-month placement at the end of kind of towards the next half of my second year if that makes sense it does make sense and it sounds yeah like just really yeah just very similar to the clinical it's just that you've got that added element of forensic stuff as well um and was your journey before you applied and was successful in this place was it already kind of quite forensic-y anyway because it has a little bit about what yeah what yeah what you did in terms of undergrad and you know

Starting point is 00:14:05 where you went from there yeah of course so I came to my a-levels I got into an undergrad and I did my degree in psychology um and I had some forensic modules in my third year that I really really enjoyed and I had some health modules that I also really really enjoyed so I was kind of like oh do I apply I wanted I know I wanted to study further and do a master's and I thought oh do I apply for a health psychology based master's or a forensic psychology based master's and I ended up going with a forensic group so I then went and did my master's in forensic psychology and my attention at that time was to then apply for a forensic doctorate. And the master's that I was on was accredited for the stage one of qualification in forensic psychology. And it's kind of different from how it works. But stage two would mean you'd either go on and do a forensic psychology doctorate or you would be a trainee forensic psychology psychologist and get kind of your forensic placements.

Starting point is 00:15:02 And however long that might take, you would have to do a thesis and then you'd be qualified as a forensic psychologist so again quite difficult from quite different from um clinical training and a bit different from my course um after that I think I thought I would get an assistant post quite easily but I didn't because I didn't have a lot of experience I think a lot of people also experienced that so I worked as a trainee peer support worker for a few months I then moved on to a healthcare assistant role because I wanted to get some more forensic experience that was in a secure forensic unit I was there for about eight or nine months and then I got my first assistant psychology post and that was in a forensic service as well and then after that I was kind of at the point when I was deciding, oh, should I go down the forensic route or the clinical route?

Starting point is 00:15:48 Or kind of my course, which is the combined elements. And I thought maybe it'd be really helpful for me to step into more of a clinical post so I could kind of see how I liked it and see kind of what the differences were from my current position at the time. So I then went on to a clinical post where I was working across two services and I kind of found that I liked working in clinical settings but forensic was really where my passion was so after that I decided I would apply for the as I said the forensic clinical doctorate and the clinical doctorate because I could work in kind of either settings with both of those courses. I actually did apply for the forensic doctorate um I didn't get in I was on first reserve um and then I also applied for my course in the same year and I ended up getting on so

Starting point is 00:16:32 I guess compared to other people I don't have a lot of a lot of experience before I got onto training but more of it was forensic based. Is it a similarly competitive course to get on to as you'd find with clinical? How did you experience that? I would say it's kind of different in competitiveness because I would acknowledge it is still competitive and it is kind of hard to get on the course. But it's different in the sense where clinical courses, you have a lot more places. I'm not really sure how many places there are these days and it varies per course but you might have kind of 20 or 30 people per cohort and then you get kind of a really large number of people applying and it kind of narrows down with that but with my course I'm assuming that less people apply but also there's only five or six places so it is competitive but I think it's competitive in a different way if that makes sense. Yeah brilliant and in terms of the timeline obviously for clinical

Starting point is 00:17:26 we tend to expect applications to open around September and to shut kind of mid-November it is now and then applicate interviews will be kind of springtime how does it work in terms of your course sure yeah so the I think every year the application process opens in January and then I can't remember the specific closing date but it's around kind of May June or July and then your interview is kind of within a month or two so it's I guess the timelines are quite difficult quite different from the clinical course where they tend to be earlier in the year and I guess with the application what's different is as well as you'd apply through the University of Birmingham so there isn't like a kind of a clearinghouse portal that you would apply you just go directly through the university. Great and it starts in September does

Starting point is 00:18:14 it is it academic year? Yeah so it starts in September and it's it'll be kind of September of the year you start till the September I guess four years after I guess the timelines could vary in that sense because if there were periods where for example if people are from maternity leave or they've got extended sickness then it's like kind of the minimum amount you would complete the courses in four years but if there are reasons that you might need to extend things then that is also possible the course are very supportive oh that's really good to know and actually this is ideal timing with this podcast going out in january as well because people might be like

Starting point is 00:18:48 oh there's another little string to my bow and if people are waiting for clinical but they are in a position where they could self-fund or whether their current employer might consider self-funding them it kind of prompts a little conversation doesn't it to kind of yeah to not not even a backup plan but have a different plan you know something that I certainly wasn't aware of but this could have potentially been a quite a good route for me given my forensic background and I might quite like doing qualifying in both but it future proves you as well doesn't it so when I was um qualifying I was like well I could apply for forensic and you know I ended up going down into clinical places but you don't always necessarily want to work in forensic services

Starting point is 00:19:32 and you don't always necessarily want to work in clinical services but when I became a mummy for me I felt like I wasn't so keen on going back to forensic and I know some people feel the same as well and when I was working with trainee forensic psychologists some of them were saying at the time you know I find it really difficult to work with people who've hurt animals for example and others would be saying well I find it really difficult to work with people who've hurt children you know there's there's different like hard limits isn't there but being yeah just being qualified across both areas is really nice future-proofing because you

Starting point is 00:20:05 don't know how your life might change or how you know society and culture might change as well yeah and I agree completely because I guess that's why I was really attracted to the course because I thought you know when I qualify if I want to work in a particular clinical setting and a few years later I might want something different than I have that flexibility to change and I've always said like I really enjoy working in forensic settings now but I'm not sure I would always want to work in a forensic setting and there are other areas within forensics and other areas within clinical psychology that I find really interesting like clinical kind of health services so having that kind of option there I think is something really important for me and I think that's why people might be attracted to the course as well definitely flexibility and choice like yeah all the way um something

Starting point is 00:20:51 has been really interesting to talk about with um some of the podcast guests recently is thinking about you know how faith and culture shows up for them and how that um fits with what they're doing in the psychology world. Would it be OK if you feel comfortable to talk about it, to talk a little bit about your faith and your culture and how that impacts on you and your psychology journey? Yeah, sure. So I am from kind of an Asian Indian background and I follow a religious faith as well.

Starting point is 00:21:19 And I think kind of being in a field as a brown Asian woman, there's not always a lot of people who look like me um there might be a lot of service users that are from kind of minority backgrounds but actually there's not a lot of professionals that look like me and work with the same people that we do so I think having representation in the field is really really important um and it was only recently in somewhere I worked that I actually was able to work with people from a similar background of me and I just found it really really nice to have that view there and I guess something that the course are really kind of seeing as important as well is with race and culture and actually in my course we have race workshops so we have them I think three or

Starting point is 00:22:03 four times a year and we get together with our cohort and some members of the course team and we talk about things like race and culture and what we bring to our training how we can help others to explore their race and culture and the impact that it has on them in their lives so I think that's something that's really important to think about um and yeah and just know because I think that's maybe not something that a lot of people know about the course that they are really driven about that and I guess the course is based in Birmingham and Birmingham is a really diverse area so thinking about working with the communities we serve and having that representation and developing kind of professionals and trainees who are

Starting point is 00:22:40 minded in that sense and they have an appreciation for the impact it can have on people and their background is really important. Yeah I worked in Birmingham for four years after I qualified and it's it's a real privilege to work with so many different cultures and backgrounds but it's also a real skill so in my in my working week I would often be working probably with maybe even as many as one in four um cases were using an interpreter um either because the child or the young person didn't speak English or their parents didn't and we needed to be able to kind of make sure everyone was understanding what we were doing and it's it's a real skill actually learning to work with different cultures and to trying to respect different cultures and values and um I used to try and make it my mission that I would learn at least how to say hello and goodbye and how are you and to people in their own language and I'd like have it all written down

Starting point is 00:23:40 in my diary on the right page and I'd have to flip to it and then like remind myself but it seemed to fall out of my head as soon as I stopped working with a client but yeah it's important to yeah to do our best to work with people um to involve them with the service but I think it is also a very unique skill that you build when you're working in really diverse areas yeah and I think that's really important because I guess developing services that are culturally competent is really helping to serve the people that we work with and if we think about in a lot of cases that we know that help-seeking behaviors are less likely to be displayed by people of minority backgrounds or people who have immigrated here

Starting point is 00:24:22 or not necessarily born in this country um so i think working with that is really important and thinking about what we can do to help the people out there actually access the services and get the help that they need and thinking about what we can do as professionals to make them feel a bit more comfortable and if there's anything that we can put in place to make that more more likely to happen i think that's something that we should really be thinking about all the time I definitely agree I definitely agree um and another question that I often ask people on the podcast is what your top tips or the way that you help yourself to not burn out um on your way to becoming qualified so could you give us a little bit of a flavor about how you kind of sort your work-life balance out so that you're thriving not just surviving yeah of course and I

Starting point is 00:25:12 think a lot of that is really important I think one thing that's really important with that is firstly boundaries and I was listening to another episode of your podcast earlier and that was mentioned and I thought yeah boundaries is really important so for me what I like to do is I try my best and I'm not always good at this and I think that's a very big learning curve for me is to kind of work within your work hours and not go over your working hours and make sure you're actually taking care of yourself in that way and I guess the way that the course is structured is that we have three days of placement, one university teaching day, which is face to face and also one study day. And I try my best to stay within those boundaries. So I'm only going to do my placement work on placement days. I'm going to do my other uni assignments or my thesis stuff on my study day.

Starting point is 00:25:57 And then I'm going to focus just on university teaching and socialising with people in the class on kind of my university days and I guess one thing that I try to stick by the best as I can is not doing any work on the weekends that's kind of uni related or work related I say that I try my best um and especially like around now and it's like the more festive time where I want to be taking time off kind of placement and spending more time with friends and family that's I think that's my saving grace and the only time I try and do work on the weekends for example I've got an assignment coming up or something really important that I need to get finished by a particular deadline but I find if even if that means spending more time you know Monday to Friday doing a particular piece of work

Starting point is 00:26:38 at least I have my weekend so I can rest and recover spend time with my loved ones go out and do things that are important to me I like exercising I have some fish that I take care of my pets so like lots of things like that and that kind of helps to take a break because you know people always say you have to go on have to get on training have to get on training but actually when you get onto training you I kind of had the impression like I knew training would be difficult and I think there are times where I found it a bit more difficult or I've had more of a steeper learning curve. And other times where I felt, OK, it's not, I guess what I've learned, it's not intense 100% of the time. There are bits of the course where actually I might need to knuckle down and do a bit more work.

Starting point is 00:27:19 And I have less of a social life on the weekend. And there are other times where I'm feeling a bit more relaxed and I'm on top of things. So I guess boundaries. And I think time management was a real one because there were times where I'm like oh you know I've got work coming up but I'm gonna have a break and then I'm gonna have an extended break and then I'm not gonna do any work which is bad so I think for me learning how to manage that to not be someone who's working 24 7 but taking some time out to relax is how things like you can stop things like burnout and just being honest with yourself and realizing when you do need a break and I think also being honest to the course team so we have kind of monthly meetings with someone from the

Starting point is 00:27:55 course team and it's kind of a check-in on how things are going with the course how are things going academically but also how are things going with placement and then the last kind of most important question is how are you and actually that's your space to be really honest with yourself and with the course and let them know if there's anything that you're finding difficult or struggling with and they are really accommodating and they are very supportive so they're always kind of looking out for your best interests and I think that's one of the really big perks of the course is having that support from the course team. Good. Yeah, it does make all the difference when you're seen as a human. But, yeah, people find it strange when I say I really enjoyed my training and my cohort have reminded me that I didn't always enjoy it. You know, there was one particular experience which was quite challenging personally and professionally.

Starting point is 00:28:41 And it led to me being quite upset, you know, for probably a couple of weeks couple of weeks and they're like well don't forget that because that was still part of your experience but on the whole genuine genuinely and generally I really enjoyed it like I felt like excited I felt proud I felt like I was able to achieve and like I was doing good work and learning good stuff and having good relationships with my cohort and the people in my team so I did enjoy it and I felt like like you said it was tricky at times um and certainly it's not much fun when someone says oh do you want to come to the pub um and you go no because I've got an assignment to do um you know yeah it doesn't you know work doesn't always finish and end at like 5 p, you know, your clinical placement might do.

Starting point is 00:29:28 We've rented placement in your case. But then you've got an assignment that, you know, that's due in next week. And so it is another added layer of demand. But it's well worth it. You know, I wouldn't be speaking to you now had I not done what I'd done and got to the end. So, yeah, but you should kind of you should be enjoy should be enjoyable at least at parts along your journey I think yeah and I agree and I go through those similar waves of kind of the imposter syndrome when you first start and I think the imposter syndrome comes out every time I start a new placement like oh what am I doing do I know my stuff and actually then I kind of relax and take back.

Starting point is 00:30:08 And I think about all the teaching that I've had at university and all the things I've learned on placement, all of the things that I'm bringing from me myself as a person, from my background, my culture, my experiences, my pre-qualification experiences, which has been the most important and valuable and thinking about what I bring and what I learn and putting those all together. And actually, really, I think, oh, you know, I'm okay. I know what I'm and what I learn and putting those all together and actually really I think oh no you know I'm okay I know what I'm doing there might be some times where I don't know but there are people around me who can support me whether that's people on the course like my my cohort who really really really really get along with or it could be people on the course team or it could be kind of friends and family and just knowing actually I'm okay and yes it's a process it's four years it might be a

Starting point is 00:30:46 long time longer than kind of clinical training but actually it's really worth it in the end and it's really rewarding to kind of be in a job where you can help people and I think that's kind of another key motivator for me definitely it's the biggest privilege people people I think you either you are a healthy type of person or you're not um but I just honestly, I think I've got the best job in the world. You might have the second best job in the world once you're qualified in dual modalities. But I just love it. I love what I do. And it's I just I consider it a real privilege. Aniga, have I not asked you something that you think I should have done? I don't think so. I think we're good.

Starting point is 00:31:24 Good. We've covered most things most things but honestly it's been the biggest privilege to have you on here and to to learn more about this pretty unique scheme to become dual qualified so thank you so much for accepting my invitation to talk about it and you've done an incredible job and I know people will find it really interesting thank you so much for having me and I hope um someone out there listening to this might have an insight into a course that they might have not heard of and I hope it helps someone and if people get on to training as a result of hearing about it we want to know about it don't we we want you know contact me let me know and I can get in contact with you and let you know because you know that's I love it when people say oh I didn't realize that I could do something else

Starting point is 00:32:08 instead of an assistant post and actually because of reading your book or hearing your podcast I've now I've got this job that I wouldn't even thought to search for so it's really nice when we get to actually impact in a really positive way on people's lives from what we're doing so yeah if this is useful for you along the line then yeah we love your feedback we love to we love to know so thank you so much and wishing you all of the best with the rest of your training and with your with your doctoral thesis as well thank you so much wow how amazing was that Aniga has blown, actually. It's really good to know that there's this dual modality way of of qualifying. And it might be that there's other courses that are also offering this across the country as well.

Starting point is 00:32:59 Or it might just be that it's still Birmingham that are the only people doing it. But how incredible to think that that exists. So thank you so much to Aniga. And like we said, if you find this interesting or if it leads you down a different path than the one that you'd imagined, let us know. Let me know how that pans out for you. Do come along and share your thoughts about this episode and any other episode in the Aspiring Psychologist community on Facebook. Come along. It will say brackets free group. And if you'd like some more bespoke support, advice, guidance, please do consider joining the Aspiring Psychologist membership. And recently, someone in the membership had said that they'd joined because they weren't feeling that supported or understood by their supervisor at the time. And actually, it really helped them to feel like they were able to gain more relevant skills and

Starting point is 00:34:02 experience. And that has been something that had been invaluable for them. So maybe you are in a particular job situation where you're not feeling perhaps able to learn CBT or different specialist approaches, such as cognitive analytic therapy or, you're just not feeling able to do much reflective practice where you are working or with the staff team around you. And that's something that we really excel at in the membership as well. So if you think that might be useful, please do come along and consider joining us because it's a really nice supportive community. Thank you so much for listening. Please do take a moment to drop a review or even just a rating on Apple Podcasts because it helps us to prove that what we're doing is useful and so helps us reach a wider audience.

Starting point is 00:35:01 Thank you so much for your time and as ever for being part of my world. Take care. So many tips and lessons to learn from So many things that you can try The Aspiring Psychologist Collective The Aspiring Psychologist Collective My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me 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 definitely recommend

Starting point is 00:37:00 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 - The little known way to become a qualified psychologist - with Anagha Sharma

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