The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Training abroad as a Psychologist and reducing perfectionism - with Michaela Thomas

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 61: Trainingabroad and reducing perfectionism with Michaela ThomasThank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. There are a variety of different routes to working as a qualified psychologist in the U.K. Some of those include doing your formal training in a different country. Our guest, Michaela Thomas explains her journey as a Clinical Psychologist having grown up and trained in Sweden. Perfectionism is also rife in psychology and Michaela compassionately guides us through how to navigate this. We hope you find it useful. I’d of course love any feedback you might have! The Highlights:00:28: Welcome and reasons people may have doctorates…. Or not! 01:51: How Michaela and Marianne met02:52: What is an actual psychologist?04:25: Michaela’s Swedish training and background 09:13: Moving to the U.K. 13:12: professional registration in the U.K. 14:42: Why was the U.K. an appeal? 16:51: How perfectionism can show up in psychology 21:04: Perfectionism sounds great but it’s flirting with burnout25:36: Things which help perfectionism to ease27:35: The learning curves we find ourselves in 29:54: Reducing the self-pressure 30:58: Perfectionism in relationships 34:25: Continuing your learning on perfectionism with Michaela’s podcast 35:51: Top tip for reducing burnout in psychology 37:38: Connecting with Michaela 39:42: Summary and connecting with Marianne and leaving a testimonial audio testimonialLinks:Connect with Michaela and download her free calm the overwhelm resource: www.Thomasconnection.co.UK/calm Check out her book the lasting connection here: https://amzn.to/3X81g4Jhttps://www.instagram.com/the_thomas_connection/https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-thomas/ Get $40 off a remarkable tablet here: remarkable.com/referral/4LJU-DJD8 Grab your copy of the new book: The Aspiring Psychologist Collective: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97 Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervisionConnect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the upcoming Aspiring Psychologist Book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrentTo check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 Come and discuss this episode in the free Facebook...

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 Trent.

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. You may or may not know that it is possible to be a clinical psychologist but not necessarily have the doctorate title. That might well be because you qualified prior to 1995, where actually in the UK, clinical psychology was a master's taught subject. And so the doctorate wasn't conferred at the end of that qualification. But of course, it might be because you did your training in a different country where the doctorate wasn't granted as part of that training. But what I know is that all of those people are still highly skilled and qualified, and absolutely do brilliant work. So today, we're going to be talking to somebody who is a clinical psychologist, but qualified in

a different country, and then came to the UK and hearing about their journey we're also going to be thinking about perfectionism and whether it's a good thing whether it's a bad thing and what we can do about it to be more compassionate to ourselves hope you find it so useful and I'll look forward to catching up with you on the other side hi just want to welcome along my guest for today, Michaela Thomas. Hi, Michaela. Hi, Marianne. So good to have me as a guest. I'm really looking forward to it. Thank you. Lovely. Thank you. So you and I know each other. We first met on social media, I think, didn't we, in a qualified psychologist network. But yeah, we ended up doing that thing where you slip into each other's

inboxes and then never leave yeah you're the most most reliable reply to my mailing list comes from you so I know especially if I do something slightly more sort of thought-provoking or something in the in the text uh for the subject headline then I know Marianne's gonna take the bite and she's going to reply. I do. I love replying to people's mailing list emails. And that said, if anyone listening to this gets my mailing list email, it's okay to reply. We love it. We love it. I think people think, oh, it's just, it's just, you know, it's a one-sided communication, but it is an email. You are allowed to to reply so you are also a clinical psychologist aren't you Michaela indeed I am actual qualified psychologist love that love that if in case you're not sure what the reference to actual psychologist

is I did an episode with another of our friends and colleagues, Tara, Dr. Tara Quincherillo. And she is a counselling psychologist. But we think about actual psychologists as professional psychologists with a qualification and registration, you know, being a qualified and I suppose in some ways scrutinized psychologists meaning that we adhere to the professional code of conduct and standards um of our profession and i think this is obviously a bugbear of both yours and mine and tara's of how there are charlatans out in the media talking about psychological concepts without being a qualified clinical counseling health whatever psychologist so that's why we are the actual psychologists because we do have those professional standards and boundaries.

Yeah, I love that and I'm so proud to be a professionally qualified psychologist and I know you feel the same as well. Anyway, this is an aside. This is an aside. We're here today to think about a variety of things but because you are not originally from the UK but you do work and practice here now I thought it would be really lovely if you're able to share a little bit with our listeners and our watchers over on YouTube about how you came to be a clinical psychologist and how you came to practicing in the UK and and how the transition has been from one country to another? Sure it's not been an easy ride by any means. I was born in Sweden and I did my

my doctoral training there or sort of the equivalent of your doctoral training I should say this is something that we've talked about before so it triggers my imposter syndrome that I quote-unquote only get a master's for the equivalent training to what you have in the UK so we don't actually award a doctorate and I know historically that wasn't the case in the UK either it's more of a recent development isn't it so although I am a registered and qualified psychologist where I hold professional registration in both countries both Sweden and the UK I can't call myself a doctor so I'm not Dr Michaela Thomas because we then do a longer program where you have the undergrad and the postgrad rolled into one so that's the five-year psychology program whereas when you get into that

you are also expecting to come out the other side of that as a psychologist in training so you don't have to do the sixth final year um where it's basically a supervised post but you are no longer attached to university so you do 12 months not like a placement you are working you're salaried you are a you know one of the staff members but you just have to have um someone supervise you and that supervisor then has to sort of just sign off on your 12 months at the end of it to see that you're you know you're suitably um able to practice independently after that so it's a six-year process but that means that our bottleneck isn't you know in between the undergrad and the postgrad like it is here um is really really difficult to get into that first year and the the benefit of that I suppose is that once you're

in you know you're gonna if you manage the five years you're gonna come out the other end as a psychologist in training and then qualified psychologist after the sixth year whereas the downside is that there's a there's a lot of psychology training to go through if you're not quite sure that that's what you want if you drop out after the first three years you can then account that to be a BSc in psychology so you can kind of take that part qualification away if you then feel like I don't want to do clinical training I want to use psychology as a base for other kind of training for instance I want to go into business management or whatever it might be so it's not a waste quote unquote if you feel like I'm

you know part way through the process this is not for me when you get to the more applied psychology and your placements which are in the final two years or three years it's a blur this was a long time ago I was 19 when I first got in so that process was interesting as well because on my cohort I was the youngest. It was really rare to get in that early because I got into my, on my first attempt. I had people who were like 45 on the course. He was, this was their second career and that's quite common in Sweden

because it's not starting with sort of with an undergrad as such. So yeah, it was a really interesting way of learning and there was lots of practical learning on the job we had an in-house clinic at the university department we then had people from the general public who could come and see the psychologists in training and it was run like as if you're having your own clinic so that was really helpful because it had to manage not just the clinical issues but also managing your time you know as if you were in a workplace with other psychologists you know the

classic room fights who's overrunning their slot and taking someone else's room space classic love it very public sector and I found it really helpful as a way to get a real feel for the profession so when I qualified I worked for about six months in a camp service in Sweden specializing in adolescence with depression anxiety so for a while I've been looking at IAPT in the UK I sort of had this dreamy aspiration that IAPT was going to be everything that I've ever wanted um so I moved to the UK I got into the IAPT program um and then I did seven years in two different London IAPT services uh before I sort of took the plunge to fully work with my private practice that I now run solely online so the Thomas Connection is my

practice um so that's sort of a little bit around how I've got here but there's a bit of a chunk there missing which is how on earth did I get from Sweden to the UK how did I get my qualifications acknowledged and that did take a couple of years for HCPC or HPC as it was called at the time uh to acknowledge that my training was equivalent. So did you have to do that before you got to the UK you couldn't sort of stump like show up and then be like oh I quite fancy working as a qualified psychologist? Well this is this is exactly why I found it so helpful to come in through the IAP program because at that point I was then given the permission to be a trainee again

I was a CBT therapist in training obviously they've hired me recruited me knowing I was then given the permission to be a trainee again. I was a CBT therapist in training. Obviously, they've hired me, recruited me, knowing I was a qualified psychologist, but I couldn't work with that title. I was a trainee CBT therapist. So yes and no. So yeah, I had to do a lot of things before I left. The HCPC have a lot of hoops that you have to work and jump through in terms of showing that the training you've gone through is the equivalent so I had to single-handedly translate about 80 pages of Swedish course curriculum information so you know what every single five-week course even I'd taken included and what the learning objectives were etc and then get that approved from the university again so sending it back to them to say does this

translation match your your objectives and so I basically sent about two kilos of paperwork to HCPC and that also included a well-being check that you had to go and see a private doctor to who assessed you whether you were suitable or whatever I was suitable to practice independently you know as a psychologist and the doctor just looked at me like well I could check your hearing and your your sight and your reflexes but I have no idea how to assess that you can actually practice so shall I do that and she took 80 quid um so the bizarre things were also I had to get someone to attest to me being of a good standing in society or something to that extent I can't remember this is a long time ago and I was like 15 years ago

like a moral moral standing yeah something like that and you had to have someone who'd known you for at least 10 years or something like a big chunk and I had to attest to you being of you know a sound mind as opposed to be able to practice in this delicate profession so I had to attest to you being of you know a sound mind as opposed to be able to practice in this delicate profession so I had to find you know what my oldest friend is a lawyer so she had to write and she's making lots of rude jokes as she was writing it but attest to that I was sound to practice so all of these things put together in a portfolio similar to how perhaps people put together a portfolio within IAPT within that training as well to to showcase your knowledge skills and aptitudes attitudes KSA yeah knowledge

skills and attitudes so I had to do one of those as well um so there was a lot of paperwork and I think without the tenacity of I'm doing this I've've been given the post, I'm going to go for it, it wouldn't have worked out, I think. So for anyone who's listening who comes from a foreign country, again, it's very difficult to say what it would be like for you. This is, you know, well over a decade ago that I came to the UK. It was about 12 years ago. But it's helpful to have a dialogue with the HPC as well about what are they looking for. So when I first applied to get my practitioner psychologist,

they passed it back and said, you're missing something, was pretty much. I was like, well, what am I missing? Can you be a bit more clearer? So then I went push. They sort of said, well, we need you to have more practical experience of older adults so none of my placements had been with older adults in Sweden they've all been with adolescent children adolescent and adults so then I was given a couple of clients within IAPT in my

service that I was with documented all that sent it back in and that was enough so just yeah don't take no for an answer ask for why um what's missing how do i add to this what's what's the kind of what complementing information are you looking for and then don't give up have lots of tenacity seek support from friends allow it to take a long time i think it probably took me two years of actually being in the uk before i got my qualification at that point i would already qualified as a cbt therapist for the second time because I was already qualified CBT therapist from Sweden but you know you'd have to know that you want to be here for that to feel worthwhile absolutely it sounds like the HCPC kind of will tell you if you push the right buttons but of course when we first started

training the BPS the british psychological society were our professional body and that's changed it certainly uh just before i qualified i think it changed to the hcpc have the bps or are the bps any use in guiding this process for people that live outside the uk to your knowledge um the honest answer is that when I came to move here in 2010 the overseas route for applying was closed they were just not accepting it so since then I've just never bothered I've never applied for the BPS because it's not seemed to serve my ongoing career and my you know the professional skills I have I might feel differently about it now or in the future but it's just never really felt like anything I needed because I already

had to have HCPC and I had to have BABCP as my governing body for the CBT therapy so I sort of felt what does the BPS add if I'm really honest about it what does it add apart from you know another professional fee to pay so I just haven't because it wasn't a route that was available and open to me in 20. Well, I moved in 2010, but I've been looking at this for years before that. So from about 2007 and it just wasn't an access route for me. So I found a way in, which was through IAPT and then added the other bits as I went along. Great. Thank you and what what was the appeal of the UK for you other than you know having a crystal ball and knowing that you'd meet someone

and have a family and you know live your happily ever after why the UK why was that an appeal to you? Yeah well I'd always liked London I, who doesn't like a major metropolis? But it was also, I mean, I wanted to get a good career. I was obviously recently qualified and I'd seen some people like John Wheatley and Glenn Waller, people who were sort of CBT therapists who were also involved in IAPT. They'd come for workshops to Sweden and I'd been speaking to Glenn Waller about it and what the program looked like. And, you know, what's the difference between sort of going for the CBT therapy route versus the ClinPsych route. And I at the time really loved therapy.

And I felt that the way in via IAPT felt more like I was able to use the skills that I had and wanted. And I really loved the initiative of improving access to psychological therapy we are you know we have we were doing primary care psychology in Sweden as well as well and it was sort of starting to develop but I liked what David Clark had been doing with IAPT now having worked in it a slightly different story but that will be another podcast episode I'm sure but I just I just felt the passion for that and wanting to be part of that system and I had been having long distance with someone for three years who at that point was based in London so I felt that you know if I get the right job I can move to London and we can you know make

a go of this relationship I didn't want to just move somewhere and not have something that was furthering my you know my purpose and what I trained for as well. So when that came up, I thought, well, everything is aligned. Now, my work in psychology has obviously lasted another 12 years, but that relationship did not. And I met who is now my husband not long after that in 2012. I met him in 2012. So, yeah, so that's lasted a decade and so has my psychology interest but not the relationship I moved to the UK for I don't think I realized

I don't think I realized about the other relationship I love I love knowing that it sounds romantic though and you know you had that in mind and you had like that perseveration and commitment and drive. And that's so important in psychology. And even hearing you, as you're talking about all the hoops that you needed to jump through, transcribing and translating and all of that for your work, that takes a great deal of drive and determination and commitment as well and so is it any wonder that in the profession of psychology we've got quite a few perfectionistic traits you know because even people that have qualified in the UK you know the level of the academic rigor and the clinical rigor and what we've got to balance alongside our lives and all

of that and demonstrating and talking about our competencies we do have quite a few perfectionistic candidates and personnel within um within psychology don't we Michaela absolutely I think I was once told on a schema therapy training that to the most common schemas that we see showing up for psychologists is self-sacrifice and perfectionism and there's a reason why i built my entire practice to be specialized in in perfectionism because i've struggled with this in the past myself and i would say that i'm a recovering perfectionist i don't let it ruin my life anymore I don't let it sort of zap joy out of my life I don't let it impact the connection I have with others anymore because I've found ways

of working with myself self you know with self-compassion and behavioral change so I think it's so rife in psychologists I mean I do coaching and therapy also for psychologists, especially, and people come my way quite a lot with these kind of very hard on themselves, very, you know, maybe low sense of confidence and self-belief. And this idea that almost like a sense of shame about wanting to have something for themselves as well as serving others especially as private business owners we can obviously see that you know I do need to charge I do need to make money off the work I do and when I work with other private psychology owners people who are in private practice they are entrepreneurs and they really struggle to kind of identify with this idea that I'm an entrepreneur I'm a business owner because we just want to serve. And that perfectionism of selflessly self-sacrificing might mean that they have real lack of boundaries. They might work, you know, three, four evening clinics or having 30 clients

across the week. And we see this also in public health health where perfectionism is something that makes people take you know i'm looking for the right word here excessive notes and spending an hour to update the clinical notes for for a patient and they might over prepare for supervision so that they spend two hours preparing for supervision and then feeling like i don't have enough time so we see a lot of the similar behaviors that you might see in OCD because perfectionism can be a part driving part of OCD and some people with OCD you know fall prey to kind of this idea that if I don't do it something bad will happen and we can have that in perfectionism as well so it's really helpful to maybe identify that perfectionism is like an umbrella term that can host lots of things underneath it. So perfectionism as itself is not a clinical diagnosis from the DSM-5 or anything

like that, but it's very commonly associated with anxiety and depression. And we as psychologists or aspiring psychologists in training are not immune to mental health problems like anxiety and depression so being aware of these patterns of perfectionism before they lead to stress burnout low self-esteem anxiety depression is really really important because there is no such thing as perfect and your training your career your application process none of it can be perfect it's almost ironic though isn't it because if you didn't know what perfectionism was sounds great like oh perfectionism oh and it sounds like you'd be really happy doesn't it yeah because the opposite is true

but the opposite is true and actually like you said they're quite often very highly stressed and quite miserable they're not they're not thriving, are they? They're, you know, tinkering, tinkering, is that a word? Fal're dancing on the deadline of of everything and it can be very difficult because that can lead to patterns of procrastination as well that when you are working so hard that you don't have a sustainable pace you're kind of going into boom or bust um you know actually i'm doing everything and then i'm so exhausted i can't be bothered to do anything or i might even feel low and flat so in the the up phase, when you're working on really hard or maybe completing your application or applying for jobs, you might not feel like, okay, I've got this sort of energy,

but it can be a really adrenaline and cortisol-fueled energy that makes you just kind of like burn all the cylinders. And then as a response to that, because your body eventually says no, you can then enter into a bit of a slump where you then kind of come into the bust and that's where we you know with repeated cycles like that can even find things like chronic pain you know your body has just literally depleted all its resources so you've run through all the cortisol that you have and that can make it really difficult to get motivated to take action and procrastination can be something that follows that sort of pattern

of overworking burnout procrastination and then you add a bit of self-criticism into that like what's wrong with me why am I so lazy lazy is a very very common word I hear what's wrong with me I'm not able to adult like other adults and that self-criticism then leads you into maybe just kicking yourself up the bum and thinking i'm gonna do it now but it's all motivated and fueled by criticism fear of failure um almost like a punitive um passionate unkindness is one of my clients um terms that she used once it's almost like that you everything you do is then fueled by fear of not being good enough or fear of failing and then that's very different to being fueled by a sense of joy vitality meaning like this feels really purposeful to me and I feel uplifted and

light-hearted when I do these things if you felt that way I wouldn't say that your perfectionism is causing any problems for you so we kind of think about the difference between functional or dysfunctional perfectionism or it's working out for you so striving for excellence where you might not feel a sense of pride when you hit your ambitious goal you might feel a sense of joy at the things you've achieved that's very different you kind of think I'm highly skilled or I'm confident about what I do and I take great pleasure from it that's very different to striving for perfection which is associated with actually less likely to meet your goals or you meet them last minute and you meet them at the cost of your well-being so that's a really helpful distinction for anyone listening

who has been thinking the perfectionism sure is a great thing because life would be perfect if I perfected everything and the reality is that it doesn't tend to be and I see that in a few different ways partly because we don't then take action to start you have so much second guessing and doubt um overthinking it trying to perfect everything so then don't start so someone listening might be like well I need to send three applications out and i just haven't sent any because they're not good enough right so if you don't take action you're not going to get any result you miss a hundred percent of the shots that you don't take um to quote wayne gretzky um yes i quoted a an ice hockey player on a psychology podcast

so if you don't get started don't take action you won't get to a result so that's one thing i see the inertia and procrastination don't start or do start but it's not good enough and i'm not brilliant at it straight away so then people give up and they don't have that tenacity because it's not instantly rewarding and it's like imperfections want to be really brilliant at what they do immediately um or they get impatient or lastly they do finish it they get to that stretchy goal but they take no joy from it and can't savor their success they just look literally for the next mountain to climb even though they've just finished and they're exhausted so it doesn't sound that perfect does it um it really doesn't no and actually even when we get on to what feels like the Holy Grail and the clinical psychology doctorate, sometimes depending on which course you pick, sometimes that can fuel perfectionism as well.

So happily, I ended up on a course that doesn't give you grades for your assignments. So it was pass or fail with the pass rate being 40 percent. And so for my assignments, if I pass or fail with the pass rate being 40 percent and so um for my assignments if I passed I was happy and there was no like what did you get you know what did I get where am I did I come bottom because everybody was just pass or fail and actually I found that really really useful in just aiming to to do enough you know so I wanted to do you know I wanted to do well it wasn't like I was purposely thinking right I'm aiming for 40 percent um but you never got your percentages I just was aiming to cover the areas I thought would be reasonable as the best of I could best ability that I had but of course when we are training we're managing a caseload we're managing you know peer relations on the cohort we're

managing our real life which might be I moved for training so I had my real life where I was living my real life with my home friends where I grew up at one stage I was dating at one stage I was dating seriously you know different people different strokes different folks plus the academic work plus the relationship with my clinical my academic supervisor at uni and then the staff that were teaching us and relationships with the people facilitating that it's a lot a lot and so for me just that one thing I think helped me keep everything all those plates spinning you know and balls in the air because I didn't have to you know try not to be last you know in my academic work and not be not being graded on a curve like that either that's it's not so

performative but it's more about building the identity and the skill set of a scientist practitioner of a clinical psychologist we had the same in my training it was only pass or fail given and I then struggled when I moved to the UK and was doing the academic training that's part of IAPT so obviously it was a year PGGIP with Royal Holloway and then suddenly there was like distinctions and all sorts of things i've never had this before it was a real learning curve for me and knowing that i people in the uk are learning how to do application processes and interviews so much earlier than we do you're evaluated for much earlier you've come to understand this from like 11 year pluses and

gcses and all sorts so i didn't have that experience so I didn't know how to academically write in a way to tick the boxes to get the higher marks and that was really really hard and it's something that sort of I'm going to say it out loud because that's what happens with shame it makes us want to hide so I'm going to say it that I only got only got a pass in my PGDEP there and has anyone ever asked to see it since no am i a good psychologist yes i've taught psychology at both uel and ucl i've run my own private practice obviously i've been working as a senior psychologist in in the nhs for seven years i ran a um a staff well-being clinic where i headed up the cT service at Guyson St Thomas hospital

you know headhunted to do exactly that did anyone go oh but you only had a pass yeah no I'm sorry no if you'd only put more effort into those um those scientific uh articles that you're reviewing so you could have had a distinction that we would have picked you it doesn't work like that so I really want to take some of that external pressure away from you, that the evaluation that is happening through academia stops to have that same relevance when you're in academia. But then being aware of it does. But then sometimes it doesn't. Because if people got a 2-2 undergrad or 2-2 at at masters sometimes they are penalized for that or they're asked to do additional things or they're told it just doesn't count you know it's not good enough

so certainly for assistant psych roles what i meant is my the sort of late later on because this was obviously the pg dip i did on top of my you know msc the equivalent of your declined psych so yeah absolutely when you when you're looking to go into that bottleneck of the application process of wanting to get onto the doctoral training absolutely that does count on that one i just meant what you do after that so that's why it's so helpful that like for instance your doctoral training did only had passed and failed because beyond that point when you come out and you are a budding psychologist there are so many other ways of evaluating your skill set through you know really good supervision and having you know uh reviews of of your work so yeah so yeah just to to reiterate that obviously it doesn't it's not like it doesn't matter what grades you

get as you go through your undergrad and assistant psych posts and things I just meant more I wish for people to put less pressure on themselves to nail every single thing perfectly because when you then start to work clinically in the real world at that point it doesn't matter it really doesn't um and i like your um thinking about other ways we can learn about not being perfectionistic as well and what i'm referring to is michaela is the author of a wonderful book which i've got here if you're on youtube with a lovely gold swirly pattern there which i really like the lasting connection by michaela thomas and that is a compassionate therapy guide for thinking about relationships isn't it Michaela talk us through briefly your book baby because I know we're not talking about relationships here but I think this is a lovely book and it's yeah it would be remiss

of me not to allow yourself to not to allow you to to mention that um when you're on my podcast that's very kind and compassionate of you, Marianne, knowing how hard it is to do book promotion. So The Lasting Connection, I still wrote with people who are high-striving and perfectionistic in mind. There's a whole chapter on connection, not perfection, because when we're really hard on ourselves and we don't give ourselves enough grace or self-compassion

for mistakes we make, etc., it will have an impact on our relationships. So the book is based on the three different methods or models I use in my couples work, which is, as you mentioned, compassion-focused therapy, but also acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT, as well as behavioral couples therapy, which is sort of like a cbt version for for couples so i blended these three together and i couldn't find anyone who'd written a book like that on that subject so i decided maybe i should so that's where the book baby was uh where it was coming from and i i feel like it's sort of there's a lot of things out there around communication training and how to

improve your decision making obviously the work of people like John Gottman and Julia Gottman so there's a lot of that out there already that I've cited in the book but I wanted to add to it is also how we can soften and soothe very sort of high triggering situations that we ultimately have when we live so close to someone in proximity with someone every day is that idea of how do I bring down that threat how do I de-escalate and soothe that through compassion so you have everything from mindfulness practices to breath work to uh compassionate letter writing in the book to you know finding a way to talk to your inner critical voice in a different way so developing your compassionate self and and also how you are compassionate towards others so I saw a lot about how we are

with the other partner how you are towards them but I didn't see enough about how you are towards yourself so that's why I wrote the book on that subject on how to develop compassion for yourself and your partner well done and it's a really great read and actually i recommend it to clients who don't have relationships as well because it really i think helps people think about what a good relationship will look like and how it actually is supposed to enrich your life not deplete it and so you can still be your own person it's important that you are um and well done, because it's a really lovely book. And I know that Dr. Julie Smith and Deliciously Ella are big fans

of it as well. So well done to you. And another one of your babies is another thing that I like to listen to. And it is your Pause Purpose Play podcast. could you tell us a little bit about that as well yeah of course and you know incidentally someone really amazing has done an episode on grief on it uh dr marianne trent if you want to check out that episode then search for marianne trent and grief and pause purpose play and you can listen to your fantastic host as well um it's a podcast that is it's a psychology podcast, and it's aimed at high striving women who put a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect, who might have really stretchy, ambitious goals, but as a result, they then find themselves being overstretched or

drowning in their ambition, maybe then either overworking, feeling, you know, burnt out, or don't take action and hold themselves back with self-doubt fear and procrastination so basically the things we've talked about today that's the what I cover on the podcast and it's a mix of guest interviews where I talk about sort of everything related to perfectionism and then how we improve our well-being as recovering perfectionists and solo episodes with me where I sort of do 10-15 minutes sort of short nuggets of learning around this concept of perfectionism so go check it out if you think you are a bit of a perfectionist and you're not quite sure it's just good in your life and you might want to consider the costs of your

perfectionism as well you can go and check it out brilliant thank you so much so before we finish before we share your contact details and everything could you offer us your top tip for our audience for how to reduce the chance of burnout in this career of ours? Wow. Meaty. I think being really aware of what is the external pressure that you're under and what is the internal pressure that you bring with you. So the external pressure, to be aware of that, if it's no longer serving you, and it might be that even as psychologists, we can enter toxic environments at work,

be it in the private or the public sector. If you're aware there's an external pressure that is too heavy on you, and you're about to experience burnout, then also think about how much internal pressure do you take with you by having unrealistic high standards or excessive demands on yourself to be a certain way so being aware where that external and internal pressure meet and if they've come together as a perfect storm that is an opportunity for you to practice self-compassion

that no wonder that I'm really stressed out here no wonder I'm at the point of burnout because I'm in a high demands environment with unrelenting high standards on me and how I should perform as a psychologist or trainee and then I have my internal world saying it's never good enough and I beat myself up for making mistakes and you know what in you in a high external pressure environment you're also more likely to make mistakes because you're overworked so that would probably be my top tip to help you make wise decisions about when you stay and when you leave and when you actually decide that this is not coming from the environment it's coming from me maybe reaching out to someone

like myself or you know speaking to someone in counseling therapy coaching whatever it might be to get you some help to soften those coulds and you know the musts and the shoulds that you have on yourself and it might be that you're able to thrive in a even in a high demands environment if you shave away some of the internal pressure thank you so much that's really really useful stuff to consider and now if people do want to get themselves on your mailing list and be able to respond to your mailing list emails like I do, what's the best way to do that, Michaela? Well, I obviously have a bunch of nice freebies. So if you want to just sign up to the newsletter,

you can go to thethomasconnection.co.uk forward slash newsletter. But if you actually want something for your time, you can go to thethomasconnection.co. uk forward slash newsletter but if you actually want something for your time you can go to the thomas connection dot co dot uk forward slash calm and download my calm the overwhelm freebie where you can look through a checklist of physical and psychological signs of overwhelm some very quick simple tips for what you can do to implement some self-care and also the little objections that the stuff that gets in the way of you actually doing those things. Because as psychologists, we have lots of tools and tricks and tips for how to look after ourselves. And the biggest thing I see is that people don't tend to do it. So that implementation is very hard.

So get on my mailing list if you want to have some ongoing tips on how you can work with this. And I'd love for you to say reply like Marianne does and that will make my day brilliant and if you have you got a favorite hangout on socials where's the best place for people to like your stuff and engage with your stuff because that's always important isn't it it is and yeah so obviously I put a lot more out on socials than I than I do in the newsletters as well the newsletter the the one that I have on Fridays which is may I swear that it's called Friday and that newsletter is all about letting go of these sort of rigid rules that we have for ourselves that is exclusive to to the mailing list but otherwise I hang out on Instagram and the underscore Thomas underscore

connection or Michaela Thomas on LinkedIn on linkedin so instagram and linkedin perfect and i regularly interact with you both those places and more thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and your kindness i know that people will find what you've said really really useful so thank you so much thank you for having me and i don't think it was perfect but it was good enough and i'm happy with that it certainly was thank you michaela what a pleasure it was perfect, but it was good enough. And I'm happy with that. It certainly was. Thank you, Michaela. What a pleasure it was to spend time on camera with one of my colleagues, but also someone who's become a dear, close friend over the last couple of years. Hope you found it so useful listening to Michaela and I.

I'd love any feedback. Come and join us over on the Aspiring Psychologist Community Free Facebook group. Let me know what you think. I love creating content that you want to listen to, read, watch, depending on whether you're reading this on the blog, whether you're watching this on YouTube. Like, subscribe subscribe comment if you are um and if you're like oh i didn't know that was on youtube we are it's dr marianne trent over on youtube so come and follow and subscribe there um and if you're listening to this on podcast our most popular podcast platform is spotify followed then, I think, by Apple.

If you're listening on Apple, take a moment to rate and review the podcast series as that helps us get shown higher up the listings and shows that we are creating useful content that our audience find useful. Regardless of whether you're watching, listening or reading, if you've got stuff that you'd like me to discuss or people you'd like me to chat with, then let me know. Get in contact with me via my socials. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, all places, or via my specific podcast page on the website, which is www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk forward slash podcast. And that's where you can access all episodes of the podcast via my website if you didn't want to access it via Spotify or any of the other means. And you can also fill in a form. You can also, whilst you're there, record me a very quick audio testimonial, either about the podcast or one of the books to use within the show.

So yeah, if you've got a couple of minutes, that would be so welcomed. And if you've got a couple of spare pounds in your pocket and you value the content, please do consider donating to help me with the podcast running costs, as that is something that I fund entirely myself. To find out information about that, check out the link in the show notes or go to my link tree, which you can access from any of my socials. Thank you so much for being part of my world. And I will look forward to catching up with you for our next episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, which will be available for you on Monday at 6am. Thank you so much for being part of my world and I'll catch up with you very soon. Take care. to learn from so many things that you can try

The Aspiring Psychologist Collective The Aspiring Psychologist Collective If you're looking to become a psychologist Then let this be your guide With this podcast at your side You'll be on your way to being qualified

It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast With Dr. Marianne Durant 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'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.