The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - The Realities of Clinical Psychology Training (What Trainees Don’t Always Hear)

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

In this episode of The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, we explore the realities of clinical psychology training beyond getting onto the course. I’m joined by final-year trainee clinical psychologist Taniya Welmillage, and together we discuss placements, supervision, competency pressure, imposter syndrome, wellbeing, leadership, and how life continues alongside training. We explore constant moving, team cultures, long commutes, therapy for trainees, and how trainees decide what is non-negotiable for their mental health. This episode is ideal for aspiring psychologists, trainee clinical psychologists, and anyone wanting a realistic, compassionate insight into training.Timestamps:00:00 – Why getting onto training isn’t the whole story01:25 – Constant change, placements, and adjustment fatigue03:16 – Being called “the trainee” vs being seen as a person04:39 – Team cultures, safety, and belonging06:14 – Buildings, resources, and how environments shape experience08:53 – Juggling competencies, learning, and performance pressure10:05 – Authenticity vs ticking boxes on placement11:46 – Relocation, commuting, and the hidden toll of training14:10 – Flexi working, boundaries, and protecting wellbeing15:52 – The importance of trainee friendships and support18:33 – Life milestones during training20:51 – Reducing the “shoulds” and living your life alongside training26:38 – Therapy for trainees: is it useful and accessible?31:07 – Absorbing what’s useful and becoming your own psychologistLinks: 📲 Connect with Taniya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taniya-w-8a010a169/ 🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested🖥️ Check out my brand new short courses for aspiring psychologists and mental health professionals here: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/short-courses✍️ Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now:

Everyone talks about getting onto training, but nobody talks about what happens next. The constant moving, the pressure to perform, supervisors who call you the trainee instead of your name. Buildings that don't work, commutes that break you teams that feel like family, and those that really don't. This episode isn't the glossy version of psychology training, but it is the real one, from a third-year trainee clinical psychologist who is living it right now and from someone who's been through it. as a qualified clinical psychologist. If you want to know what training is really like behind the scenes, then this is the conversation you want to be part of. Hope you find it useful.

And if you do, like and subscribe for more. Hi, welcome along to the podcast. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent, a qualified clinical psychologist. And I'm joined by an end stage trainee clinical psychologist today, Tanya Wellmilla Gay. Hi, Tanya. Hi, Marianne. Thank you for having me. And thank you for being so willing to talk with us. So we first connected on LinkedIn and you were talking about your experiences of starting a placement and it really brought back memories. And I think it's an interesting conversation that we've not yet had on the podcast. Could you talk us through what your experiences have been like? Maybe this time around specifically starting placement, Tanya.

at. Yes, so as you mentioned, I'm a later in trainee, so I'm in my final year. So it's been two years already of chopping and changing and different commutes and different teams. It's been, it's been up and up and down, I would say. Like there's been definitely positive moments where I've learned a lot about, you know, what is important to me about keeping, you know, in my routine and things that I can control, but also can be a bit of a whirlwind changing things. so much. And so that can take some time to adjust. And I guess the nature of placement is that can be up to, you know, six months. And so by the time you've, I guess, gotten used to that routine, how things have been set up, you're kind of out the door again. You've got to start

almost again. And in some universities, Australia, do that six times over three years. So it's quite a lot to just, yeah, shop and change. So I'd say on the whole, kind of a mixed bag of experiences when, yeah, entering into training. Yeah, and I did do six different placements across the three years. And my experiences were different. Sometimes I was the only trainee. Sometimes I felt like there was so many trainees. There wasn't really room to stand out.

And I just kind of blend it in. Sometimes I would come and I'd be invited to kind of, you know, pull my own cases and think about what might meet my requirements for the course or what might help me work with different clients or different presentations, what might be a trainee appropriate case. Other times I was just given like, you know, a stack of 12 files and been like, get on with this. And then, you know, it's the first placement I went to, which is interesting. It's like, review these, check, you don't know any of these people because actually if people have been working locally, that cropped up. And I was like, I'm brand new to the area. I don't

think I know anyone. But even that ability to be, you know, to be seen and to be able to curate was really welcomed, whereas, yeah, you know, just getting those files, you know, slung on your desk for the trainee and to sit in the trainee's room. I very much often preferred to be called Marianne, you know what I mean? And to be seen as a person. What's your experience been like, Tanya? Yeah, I'd say also mix and there. There's so much to say. I think each question, like even just the last two questions, you could spend half an hour just talking about that. But I think teams can be so different, how they approach things can be so different if they call you the trainee or if they call

you by your name. I remember in my first place, and they kept calling me the assistant psychologist. And I think that irked me a little bit because I felt like I was, you know, I've gone into training now so I feel like almost like I've worked so hard to get to this place so I kind of want to be acknowledged as being in that position some teams are very boundaries which I struggle with because I like being like so what did you do on the weekend and you know what how are your kids and so like I like having those informal conversations because it feels safer in the team so then you know if you're struggling that you know you can go to your team and there are the teams that that feel like they're almost like many families because I think when you're working so intimately

and with people who are vulnerable and struggling, you do create those bonds with your team. And if you can rely on your team and I found that in a lot of placements, you can do really, really good work because you feel safe enough. So yeah, I'd say quite varied in terms of, yeah, how teams can kind of interact with trainees. Yeah, and it is that team culture, isn't it? It's trying to work out, you know, where you go for lunch,

whether you all eat together, you know, what the deal is. I am always a person first, so I do really like the chance to connect, you know, a bit more informally over lunch. And I remember one of my placements, one of my supervisors or one of the team members, had a litter of labradoodle puppies. And so a lot of the time was sort of spent looking at photos and videos of them. And that was really, really nice. that was like a non-psychology topic that we could kind of all just kind of, you know, spend some time, you know, just connecting and being, being ourselves and being human. And in that placement, I was very kind of newly in love as well.

So I think back very fondly to that time. I can hear my husband now in the kitchen. He's on annual leave this week. And it's like, you know, it's still the same guy that I was on placement three, you know, talking to my team about and who I'd met on like, you know, I think it was a second week of the second year of training. And yeah, I just think like very fondly to that time and to what I learned, you know, from that team about the way of, you know, just about their ways of being. And I think it's often, yes, teams are often so defined by the spaces they work in as well. So that was a not

fit for purpose building that we were in, but you kind of made the most of the rickety stairs and the tiny little kitchen with the tap that did or didn't work, you know what I mean? And then whether you could or couldn't get in the door because it was open or locked that day and whether the lock works. And then my experience of being in other buildings where they were kind of modern buildings, where there was space to come together. And, you know, we're all just trying to make the best of the situation we find ourselves in. But sometimes I think the spaces, they do make a big difference, don't they? Yeah, totally. That made me think of two placements I've had that are so contrastingly different in terms of the environment and then also kind of like what the wider team

thinks of psychology and the funding and things like that. So I was in quite, I guess, well-known renowned, pediatric hospital, and a lot of money, a lot of funding. And so a lot of what's nice, opportunities and spaces and the ability to kind of network and there's conferences and a lot of that going on, which is really lovely. And then compared to my current placement, which is also in another hospital, but in a systemic team where we're all in this box room, there's like six of us in this box room. And we're sharing tables and sharing spaces and having to like kind of do a bit of musical chairs trying to get in and out of the room. So it's, yeah, it is really amazing how Yeah, services or teams and then how teams operate.

And then it makes me think, well, how is systemic family therapy seen in services? Like, is it valued? If it was valued more, would they be in a different space where people could kind of walk around without playing musical chairs? So, yeah, very, I guess, different across placements and funding and opportunities. And I guess as trainees, you're just trying to make the most of what's there, if that's, you know, just trying to have, you know, with a systemics team that is, I get unaware or finds it difficult to kind of support itself. I think in clinical psychology, we have a lot of backing sometimes about how we have service development and outcome measures, and that's a little bit more difficult

in systemic. So I think I've been trying to take that role on in the current placement, just to see, like, what can I do as a trainee with my knowledge about clinical psychology and how can I input it there. So I think we do try to make the best of the situation that we're in as trainees as well. Yeah. Yeah, it is tricky though, isn't it? Because you are very much trying to make sure that the clients have a good service and that you are, I don't know, a useful part of the team and that you're also managing your own learning objectives because I certainly speak from my own experience here that I needed to be able to get a certain amount of kind of clinical cases or, you know, days on placement, sessions even that I'd done, you know,

perhaps ticking off different, you know, methods of working with people. So either one-to-one or group work, systemic, you know, working with kind of wider systems. And so you're kind of trying to think, oh, how can I do this? How can I do that? Whilst also being under, you know, the microscope of your supervisor, maybe even if there's a manager on placement, thinking about whether you might be compared to previous or part, or current trainees, but also meeting the standards expected by your university and any placement

supervisor. And it's, it can be a lot to juggle, can't it, Tanya? Yes, totally. It can feel like a lot of pressure. Something that came to mind when you were speaking is this idea of like wanting to be like led and guided by your interests and to stay authentic as like a kind of psychologist that you want to be in your clinical work, but also there's this like big elephant in the room, but you need to take off X, Y, Z competency. So you need to prioritize me first, and then we can think about what you're interested in. So yeah, there's definitely been moments where I've had to say no to something and then pick up, pick up something else, which is more fitting to what I need to kind of tick off, which is unfortunate, but also part of the kind of expectation of training is that we are here

to meet these competencies as well. And I think under the scrutiny of your supervisor, like you said, can be really hard because, yeah, I mean, we don't get to choose our supervisors. We don't get to really choose our placements so much. Like they get randomly allocated to us based on what we need for our competencies. So it's, we're working with people. Maybe sometimes we wouldn't have ordinarily worked with or would have preferred to work with. And so that means, yeah, a lot of pressure and sometimes anxiety.

to get it right. I mean, supervisors, they do ultimately rate you and they pass you on your placement if they think that's appropriate. And so there does feel like there is, yeah, you are constantly kind of being tested. And sometimes that can feel safe, like I was saying before. And it's okay to make mistakes. So it's okay to kind of ask questions. Whereas maybe for some supervisors, it feels like it's quite critical. And I think that can be a little bit harmful sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you make a really good point in that you're not necessarily choosing these placements. You're not choosing the location. And for me, that's tricky. So I was at the Coventry and Warwickshire University courses and they had a very big patch that extended out even to kind of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. And then obviously kind of to Birmingham, like the edges of Birmingham, because obviously there's a Birmingham course as well. Coventry, kind of rural Warwickshire, it was big. And so, you know, potentially you could have been sent anywhere.

But of course, you're not necessarily moving house every placement. You probably are going to be staying within the same location. So I moved, for the course, I moved to Coventry. And I don't think they saw my Post-it note that said, I'm moving to Coventry because they allocated me a base closest to where I used to live, which was like, you know, 40 miles away. So they were trying to be helpful, but actually shot me in the foot. But actually, yes, when it came to placement, I moved for, so I moved for the course,

and then I moved at the start of my second year as well. So just before I met, just before I met the guy that was my husband, my husband. And yeah, I was then using those. And then I moved again. I moved again. I moved. I bought a house. So I moved three times.

And so you're then using those bases to get, to your placements. But I think this is probably more of an issue in London as well, is that you might be then having very long commutes. You might be having to get up really early. You might be finishing late. You might be stuck on a tube, you know. And if an MDT meeting runs over,

or if you've got to fill in a safeguarding referral before you finish, it knocks into your time that you can't necessarily get back. So some teams allow you to, to do flexi working, some do not. And yeah, then how you have your life. So I know when we had a chat on the phone before we met and it's like, how do I make sure I fit in my yoga class?

How do I make sure I'm seeing my friends? Maybe my trainee friends, but maybe non-psychology friends as well. How do I do all of this? What's your experience been like in that area, Tanya? Yeah. So in this placement, I think I've been brave enough to ask about flexi leave, or just sorry, not flexily, flexi working. Because I've identified that physical activity doing yoga classes, going to the gym is important

to me. I think that sets me up really well for the rest of my day. And also makes me feel like I've carved out that time for myself, even if I don't get it in the evening. Because like you said, safeguarding referrals, overrunning MDT meetings. I can't anticipate if that will happen or not. but it might. And so this is me kind of protecting time for myself and that kind of non-negotiable for me. But that is after two years of training. And so I think if I guess trainees feel like

they need that time, I would definitely sort of protect that. But I think along the way I've found different things that work for me. Like I have a niece who's 18 months old. And I think that being with her really rejuvenates me and I think I found that to be really important so even though they live about an hour and a half away even though it takes an hour and a half to get to them I'll still kind of make that time because I know that that helps me that's soothing for me seeing friends as well and you kind of mention maybe non-psychology friends it's funny I think I see psychology friends all the time I think most friends now are psychology friends because they just get it I don't know if you found out when you were training that no one else quite gets it like your fellow training friends.

It doesn't matter how much you describe it. They'll be non-psychology friends. They just really get it without even you having to say anything. They're like, it's okay, I understand. We're in the thick of it now. So, yeah, I'd say still carving out time to see them has been really lovely and family. And for me, actually, I do enjoy travelling. So I think as much as possible with the annual leave that we have, I've tried to go on like short city breaks.

I think that kind of shift in perspective and shift in routine again, but in a way that feels more in control. And just being by the sea or, you know, going on a hike, I think these are all kind of things that are meaningful to me. And I think you do get that from changing so much in placement. So if there is anything kind of positive to gain from that, I think it is figuring out what you. you think is non-negotiable for your kind of own well-being. Yeah, absolutely. There's a whole episode coming out. I think it will have come out just before this episode,

probably in a couple of episodes before this one, where we're looking at travel in psychology, both kind of before training and kind of after training as well and how that can kind of help people. Maybe it's not a kind of a choice between travel and psychology, like that you could do both. So that might be one to check out if people find that an interesting idea.

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that I'm most thankful for, not most thankful, but very thankful for about being a psychologist is the people I've met along the way who are now my very dear friends. And yeah, it's surprising. Some of them have been, you know, supervisors or have been on my team.

Some of them have been fellow trainees or just people I've met along the way. And being able to, you know, have those people at the end of our phone for support, but also, I don't know, compassion and validation is incredible. It's one of my favorite things about the career. And also, you know, I have got non-psychology friends. And they obviously think, you know, that you're amazing because all of your friends should think you're great, right?

But there's nothing quite as validating as getting, you know, well done. When you, when you announced that you were going to be a trainee, I think the validations from the people that actually know what that involves, because there's certain people in your life that always thought you would do it and that you'd get it and you, you know, you'll just carry on trying and then you'll get it, you know, because you're all really good, you're brilliant. And of course, that's lovely. We all need people like that in our life. But actually the people that really have that informed idea of what this really is when they say, well done and you really deserve this. For me, that means a little bit more. Yeah, definitely. And I think

you do celebrate those wins with your trainees, I think, like, because we have to do assignments alongside placement. And we've also got to, I guess, submit a really heavy thesis. So there are moments where, I guess, you are there for each other and you're kind of celebrating. And, I mean, I hosted a get-together over the weekend. And half the room were pretty much all psychologists. But I really, yeah, I really love that because I feel like we are all kind of connecting. And I know maybe when we finish, we'll all kind of go off in kind of different trajectories, but we'll have really bonded through these last, I guess, three years.

So yeah. And going to people's weddings and people having babies. So like people are going through like their own life transitions during the course. and I think it's really nice to see that a friend went on Mat leave and she posted in our trainee group chat like her baby daughter and like everyone is celebrating them and super happy and a lot of people have gotten married on the course and we'll be getting married once the course is finished so yeah it's nice that we've created those bonds yeah like life happens whilst you're being a trainee and you know people will often say oh I want to get on before I'm 27 so that I qualify before I'm 30 and, you know, I want to think about getting qualified before I have children or I want to get married before the course. And I'd say, yeah, it does constrain your time because you have to have deadlines to, you know, to submit your different academic work. You will need to think about how many days you have on placement. But it is entirely possible to get married, to move house, to buy a

property to have children on the course. You've got to live your life. You've got to put yourself first and know that this is a fixed term contract and it can be extended to be able to, you know, if you've been unwell or if you have extenuating circumstances or if you have maternity or paternity leave, you can, yeah, this is your life. You get to do it in a way that kind of, yeah, authentic to you, try to reduce the shoulds, I think. Yeah, yeah, totally. I agree. And I think I've heard that a lot whilst on the course. I say Royal Holloway, so my university are quite good at that. I think they are very open and understanding and they kind of acknowledge that people do have their own lives and things do happen maybe unexpectedly. And so, yeah, I think they are

quite good at kind of hearing you as, you know, as person, seeing you as a person. So I think that's been quite a helpful as a part of the training process to have a good, like, staff team, good course that are quite supportive and help you in that way. And I'm a course representative for my co-co- and I've been the course representative for the last three years. So I take the feedback to and from the course and the kind of trainees. And it's really interesting. being in those rooms with the course staff and the directors and stuff and but then also hearing from the trainees and i think raw hollaway they do a good job of taking on that that feedback and it does it sounds like it is important to them they want to honor that and yeah that sounds like a really

good example of practicing leadership as well and that can be something that feels harder to carve out as a trainee, but I think it's really important because when you qualify, you might find that you are the leader. And suddenly you're like, oh, I feel woefully and equipped, you know, you might, you might be, you know, one of the most senior people. You might be the most senior psychologist on your team. You might have an assistant, you might have a trainee, you might not, it might just be you and yeah like any opportunity to practice leadership and to try to reduce that imposter syndrome a little bit I think is time well spent yeah yeah for sure and I think we learned a lot of skills in training and I think to be able to kind of demonstrate some of them like leadership

in a kind of safe kind of controlled environment before heading off into the world and kind of being in situations where you are the most senior person in the team is really helpful just to kind of get a sense of it. In our university, we do an annual conference. And so that's an opportunity for trainings to kind of get involved in leadership or you can kind of ask in placement if you can supervise an assistant under the supervision of your supervisor. Or something I'm trying to do in my current service is do a reflective practice for trainees or I can, me in another third year trainee facility. take that. So I think these are all really helpful skills to kind of cultivate during the training rather than, you know, you're just been thrown into it and it's very, yeah, anxiety provoking. So yeah, it's a good opportunity whilst training. Absolutely. And I'm aware that

your cohort was, is significantly larger than mine. So when I qualified, when I trained, there was 15 of us that started and then by the time we finished there was one person that joined us from the year above because she'd had a baby. So there was 16 of us when we finished and it meant that we could hang out together and often did. So during lunch times and break times we'd all smooched together on this lovely big sofa area and yeah got to actually I feel like I had a relationship with all of all of my fellow cohort. obviously some of my relationships were closer than others, but sometimes we did all go out together as well, probably less as time went on. And I know that as being part of a bigger cohort,

I think you said that you're into the 40s, that is a very different, a very different beast entirely, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, definitely. So yeah, we are about 56 at the moment. So there's, yeah, quite a lot of us. And it's nice because I feel like our cohort do get on and we do kind of get stuck into lectures and we can all kind of have conversations of group discussions. It's been, yeah, I guess with more people, you have kind of more voices, more kind of more conversations, which can be kind of a bit of a mixed bag. But then naturally, I guess groups do form and you find people who are more kind of aligned with you. And that means that maybe those friendships can flourish a little bit more. But also we have spaces that we spoke before about this, about how

universities can kind of facilitate things like reflective practice, where these are maybe in smaller groups, where it feels a bit more safer to be a bit more funnel board share, kind of how you're really doing around juggling everything, the placement, research, academic assignments. And so that is really nice where we can kind of in a more kind of intimate way, discuss how we're doing with people so it's nice that the university can facilitate that but yeah it's quite it's quite a lot and can be quite daunting you know you're in front of 50 60 people and i think we're at a place where we feel around each other to voice how we feel or like say answers and lectures and give our opinions but yeah it's it's taken some time obviously to get to that point in such a large group so

i think by our year our final year now it's been a bit more easier to be in those bigger groups I think. Yeah, that is quite a lot of different dynamics to take into account, you know, 56 people. That is a lot. And even the ability to be able to get to know someone and hold in mind what their strengths are, what their story is, what their background is, you know, to be able to feel like you know that person and can, you know, just interact with them as you would. And, you know, another close colleague, like 56 people, that is a lot.

And, you know, interpersonally, there will be differences there. Of course there are. And, you know, some courses, I know counselling psychology say that it's mandatory to have therapy. And on my course, we had personal development groups that ran for the first 18 months. But there was no one-to-one therapy as a mandatory component. I did undertake that in my final year and I found it really, really helpful. But I think for our own insight and our own reflection, our own ability to know what therapy is like and to have all of those, oh, what does my therapist think of me? And, you know, oh, I'll save that for therapy. It is really helpful, I think, to have therapy. Is that, is that in courses today, are they strongly suggesting that? Is it available at reduced rates? Other clinicians that may be offered that free locally. How has, how's that been for you? Yeah, it's a really good point. I think, like you said, there are courses where it's mandatory and sort of that's offered and you have to kind of, evidence that as well. So there were a whole process around receiving that kind of support. I think it's been difficult. I think like having therapy alongside my training would have been

something that I would have really benefited from. And I think there's, there's more to it. I guess that you have to kind of check its affordability and like you said, if there's in kind of low cost options for trainings, which I've seen around. But I think I remember in my first year, I contacted a few private psychologists and I think I was placed on a wait list but I think I probably could have been more proactive to kind of check on that wait list but I hadn't been contacted and it's been two years now so it's thinking about like if it is a priority for you kind of making sure that as much as the other things we said were non-negotiable like seeing family and you know and being active and catching up with friends is therapy kind of non-negotiable for you do you

feel like that is an important part of, you know, how you maintain your wellbeing as a trainee. And for some, it could be. And I think for me, I think I would have liked to prioritize that a bit more. But yeah, it is a minefield. When you're juggling everything, you're like, well, should I have also, you know, should I also have therapy? That's kind of another thing to consider. I think when you're under that pressure sometimes of the course, that can slip quite easily and kind of you're focusing on more things which are a priority to you at that time. But yeah, I think it would have been quite, yeah, beneficial to have. Because you just, you just. never know what kind of unconscious processes are kind of going on when you're meeting with someone.

For you, what can personally be triggered. And so maybe having a space to talk through that, because you know, you only have so much time in supervision to really touch on those things. And maybe you're just kind of scratching the surface. So, yeah, would have been quite beneficial. Absolutely. I think this has been such an interesting and helpful conversation about the sort of realities of what it's like to be a trainee psychologist. Is there anything we haven't covered? that you think we should before we finish, Tanya? Yeah, so I think as much as training has been tricky and challenging and there's a lot to juggle at times,

we do as trainees have the opportunity to be in services that we wouldn't, you know, usually be in. I'm in a systemic team now and in a team of all family therapists. So I don't think I would have gotten that opportunity in a qualified position, but it's taught me so much. And so it's really, even with, we're chopping and changing so much, it's giving us insight into some of the things that we would like to consider doing when we qualify or our interests or just knowing what it's like to be

a supervisor or how you'd like to be supervised, how you wouldn't like to be supervised. So it's all of those little things that kind of come together to inform, you know, the kind of psychologist you'd like to be or the team that you'd like to work in. So I think it, in some ways, to positively reframe that, I think, can be a really helpful experience. to be in different places. Absolutely. And I shared with you a little screenshot that I'd taken in a train station the other day

and I'll make sure that this is on screen for anyone on YouTube. But I think it's Bruce Lee. There's a picture of Bruce Lee. And it says, absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.

And that really resonated with me for thinking about being an aspiring side, and visiting different placements because, yeah, like you might really love aspects of what you, of what they do on your placement in your team. There might be bits that you're like, hell no, as soon as I leave, I'm never doing this again. But there are other bits that you will leave behind that they will be like, oh, actually, you know, they'll still talk about you after you've gone, hopefully in a really good way. And you will have kind of, you know, hopefully enhance that culture and you know your name will live on in the clinical notes and

people will be like oh yeah I remember when Tanya was here and I think that's a really nice a nice thing and I hope that you have had people that have stayed in your phone when you've moved placement and that you you know you'll stay part of each other's lives even if it's just in WhatsApp you know I think that's fine but yeah like this is this is your life yeah don't don't get to live it and don't forget to be authentically you because, yeah, we can't mask our way through, you know, three whole years of our life and then you get to the other end and you're qualified and you're working out who you are. And I guess just to trail our next episode,

we're going to be recording again another episode on what are the realities of nearing the end of training, are there even any jobs around for this newly developed qualified identity? So thank you so much for your time in this episode, Tanu. It's been really, really reflective. It's been kind of really nice to reconnect some of these ideas and think about some for the first time as well. I really have welcomed your viewpoint and helping us have this conversation that we haven't really had so far on the podcast. So thank you. Thank you, Marianne. Yeah, it's been really lovely to chat with you today. And I think we've, yeah, pulled on some really helpful topics. And it's, yeah, even just your advice, it's been really

helpful to think about just in this next year as I'm coming towards qualifying. Perfect. Thank you. And yeah, do look out for our next episode, which is coming, I think next week, actually. So thank you again, Tanya. Thank you so much to Tanya for her time. Has this, you know, made you feel like you've got more of an idea of what it's like. Does it make you feel validated if you're already on training or indeed have been through training? Is it making you rethink what your options were? I hope not, but I hope that it's opening up your eyes to have full informed consent, right? Because, you know, it is three years of your life. It isn't a small chunk of time. And, you know, your work-life balance really does matter. I'd love to know what this has evoked.

for you. Please do drop in the comments either on YouTube or drop a question or a comment on Spotify. You can rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and if this has wet your appetite for learning more about the realities of being a psychologist, then please do check out the aspiring psychologist collective book and the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I was recently reminded that in the Clinical Psychologist Collective, there are actually over 600 years. of cumulative experience from people that are either qualified psychs or trainee psychs. That is a lot of wisdom. If you love these kinds of conversations, then I think you're really, really like the aspiring psychologist membership too. You can

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