The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - What is a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner? Insights from a Qualified PWP

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode 158: What is a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner Insights from a Qualified PWPEpisode Description:In this episode of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, Dr. Marianne Trent sits down with Ben Olofson, a qualified Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP), to explore the PWP role, training, and career opportunities. They discuss the journey to becoming a PWP, the challenges and rewards of the profession, and how it fits into the broader landscape of mental health careers. Whether you're considering the PWP pathway or are just curious about this impactful role, this episode is packed with valuable information and inspiration.Guest:Ben Olofson – Qualified Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner, sharing his experiences, training journey, and insights into the PWP profession.________________________________________Key Takeaways:• PWP Overview: Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners primarily work with low mood, anxiety, and other mental health challenges using low-intensity CBT approaches. They offer both individual and group interventions.• Training Pathway: PWPs undergo a year of training, blending academic study with supervised practice, and are supported by supervisors and tutors throughout.• Role Benefits: Offers a structured pathway into mental health work with opportunities for progression to senior roles or alternative careers in psychology.• Caseload Realities: The role involves managing a high volume of clients with robust support systems, including supervision, to prevent burnout.• Career Advice: Reflect on transferable skills, focus on client engagement, and prepare for a varied and rewarding role in mental health.________________________________________Highlights:(00:00) – Episode introduction: Exploring the role of a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner.(02:08) – Welcome to guest Ben Olofson, a qualified PWP.(03:35) – What drew Ben to the PWP role and its unique training structure.(05:28) – The balance of academic work and clinical practice in training.(06:34) – Addressing imposter syndrome and the support available for trainees.(08:56) – Practical considerations when applying for PWP roles.(11:04) – Transitioning from training to qualified work and the variety of clinical presentations handled by PWPs.(17:28) – The importance of supervision and personal well-being in the role.(20:54) – Managing high caseloads and the significance of job planning.(23:37) – Long-term career progression within the PWP profession.(25:21) – Pay bands for trainees, qualified, and senior PWPs.(28:48) – Entry requirements and advice for aspiring PWPs.(31:51) – Reflecting on transferable skills and personal experiences for mental health roles.(32:46) – Final thoughts from Ben on the rewards and challenges of being a PWP.Links:📲 Connect with Ben here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benolofson/🫶 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:

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. Have you ever wondered what a psychological wellbeing practitioner actually does? Perhaps

you're curious about how to train as one and whether it's a paid role. Perhaps you're wondering about the career progression for PWPs. Well, today I am sitting down with Ben, a qualified PWP, as we discuss the ins and outs of this really important mental health profession. From training paths to daily responsibilities, we are breaking down everything you need to know about becoming a PWP. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, which is now an award-winning podcast. We won the Best Science and Technology category at the Independent Podcast Awards 2024. It means a great deal to me. And thank you so much to you, my listeners and my watchers, because this, you know, I adore this podcast and knowing that you guys love it too,

and that you find it to be a really helpful support in your career or in learning about mental health it means a great deal. So that's going to live on the desk behind me when I'm recording podcast episodes. So there will be two ways of telling the age of this podcast. One whether or not I have my mole, what stages of mole removal I'm at, and whether I've got my award-winning trophy in the background. Anyway, today's episode, as we said, in the hook, is all about the very important role of psychological well-being practitioner. If you find it helpful, please do like, share, comment, subscribe, tell your friends about it. If you're listening on spotify please do rate if you're listening on apple podcast please do rate and review and please wherever you are listening or watching

please subscribe or follow the show it really is the kindest thing you can do for any podcast that you like let's dive in and chat with ben and i will be along on the other side of this podcast and i hope you find it really useful I just want to welcome along our guest today, Ben Olofsson. Hi, Ben. Welcome along to the podcast. Hi, Marianne. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here. Oh, thanks for reaching out. I think you originally reached out to praise my work, you know, which always goes down well.

And then we got chatting and we realised that it had been my intention to cover what a PWP is, but I've never actually done it. So I'm delighted that we met at the time that we did. And hopefully we can help our audience to be illuminated on what a PWP is and whether they would want to be one. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, there's a lot of talk about other roles you know a lot of what i've come across has been about assistant psychologist which obviously is a fantastic role and a very common route into psychology training but yeah i don't think a lot has been said or as much as we said about the pbp route so, happy to have that conversation and share my experiences today.

Perfect. So as you so rightly said, there's no right or wrong way to become a qualified HCPC psychologist. But a common way is to think about doing an assistant psychologist route or maybe even to work in education. But obviously, over the more recent time period, other routes have become available, which do actually involve professional qualifications. Can you tell us what drew you to the PWP roles? the fact that you start with the training gear where you complete a university qualification with a lot of support, guidance, use that training gear to really develop those key therapeutic skills that are so, so important for our clinical practice. With a lot of assistant psychologists I was looking at, I applied for a a couple fortunately didn't get onto those but then I looked into other routes and some across the PDP routes and yeah I was really attracted

to that training experience that you get and then yeah after that once you complete that a qualified role and yeah I'll see you know the training in low intensity cognitive baby therapy CBT so yeah that was really what what drew me to that. Perfect so it's a year of training and in that year you're seeing clients as well you're kind of learning on the job? Yeah so there is a little bit of learning on the job so in terms of how it's structured so you start with you know a few months of university training where you're not seeing any clients so that first period this three month period is you do a university module in assessments and engagement so looking at how you do an assessment so you might be doing a lot

of shadowing of qualified pvps or whether that's you know other other professions in the therapy service so so yeah so you're working toward your assignments okay uh so like the osci is is a big thing at the beginning of the training so you know that's uh where you're being observed to see whether you're okay to being given the green light to do assessments you know in the real world with with real clients and yeah so yeah there's a lot of learning on the job and then the next module is all about interventions okay so you know learning low intensity cbt interventions like you know behavioral activation cognitive restructuring these sorts of things and yeah that's a little bit less practice you get for that so you might do a week or so of teaching and then you're more or less thrown straight into

the deep end so to speak so yeah there is a lot of learning on the job but I think that's quite you know exciting and you know it's nothing to be scared of really having gone through it because all of the clients you'd be working with have been very carefully you know screened and deemed suitable to be for a trainee pwp to be working with so yeah it's a really i think it's a really really good experience yeah that's so reassuring and i think when we're a trainee in anything there's that kind of imposter syndrome thinking oh i'm gonna make this client worse you know someone else would be way better to see them than me but it's actually trying to hold on to that which is a really important point that they've been deemed as being appropriate to be seen by somebody at

your level of training and I think that's really important. Yeah absolutely I think imposter syndrome is something I've learnt even being a qualified PDOP and potentially looking to you know explore a clinical clinical psychology training at some point in the future. And speaking of lots of other people who are current trainees in clinical psychology, that may never leave you, unfortunately, that imposter syndrome. But yeah, you're right. You get lots of support through the training period. Certainly my experience is fantastic. From the service, you've got your one-toto-one supervisor you've got in-service buddies they set you up with you've got your academic tutor there's lots and lots of support so any time you know if you're going through personal difficulties

perhaps or just struggling with the nature of the course because it yeah to be fair you know it's really really rewarding and I think overall positive experience but it can be there are periods where it is it can be challenging you know it's quite um you know to balance that academic those academic roles you know doing assignments preparing for exams OSCEs whatnot and alongside clinical work it can be demanding so it's important to reach out you know recognize you know if you are experiencing any sort of signs of burnout or just generally struggling to reach out for that support. Absolutely. And we might just think, oh, it's only a year of my life. I can get that done. But it is a calendar year. And,

you know, you do matter. And, you know, sometimes there can be a tendency to think, oh, I can commute for two and a half hours a day for a year. That's fine. But actually that's not practical in the grand scheme of things and you've got to fit your own life around it. So, yeah, I think being considerate about where you apply and where you're going to work and how well that's going to fit in your life and whether you might be really lonely as well if you do up sticks and move. So you've almost come up with a plan to help yourself to thrive rather than just thinking. So even when I started

my doctorate in clinical psychology, I was lucky that I did make friends, but I'd imagined I would be coming along and it would be a bit like undergrad, you know, that we all started, there was 15 of us in those days. We all started, we'd all be single, we'd all be exact same stage of life, we'd be the best of buddies and we'd be able to go out at weekends and in the evenings and, you know, help me to settle into this local area. But actually people were spread across a patch, you know, probably an hour's drive from the university. Some of them were married, some of them were married some of them were in long-term relationships only I think two of us were single when we first joined the course and different age spreads as well and so you can't always rely upon your cohort being the

ones who are going to become your friends and support systems I think we do need to go into this with thinking what's going to best set me up to thrive yeah absolutely I mean you highlight a really good point there that you know wherever you go you just don't know who you're going to be training with and I think at the same time that diversity of experiences you know people come from different you know backgrounds different ages I think it's a really nice thing. For example, me, I was the only male out of seven of us, I think, in our service when we trained. And a lot of people were slightly older. But that's quite nice, I think, about the trainee PwP position and the once qualified as well. You get a lot of mixture of people with different backgrounds different work experiences um so you can learn a lot from you know different people just pick

little bits up especially if you're working in an office environment you know you can just pick little bits up and it can be really helpful to help you know you to improve your own practice really so yeah I think it's really there's lots of things to consider but I think that is a nice aspect of at least my experience of the course absolutely there is so much to draw upon from your cohort that some people might have had experience in one client area and you know you can kind of look to them as the expert and others you know you might feel like I've never worked with this particular clinical presentation or population before. And you can kind of come together and support one another.

So is it like the CAP roles where individual trusts are recognising they would like to have this many qualified PWPs? So they kind of almost fund a set amount of training roles to then work in a particular service? Yeah, I believe so. I think it is similar to that role as much as I'm aware of. So yeah, all these courses are NHS funded. And yeah, in most cases, I mean, I can only speak of my experience, but that, yeah, so seven of us uh were there and i think everyone who trained and wished to stay on and and uh you know substantive role qualified pvp there was an interview process still which was you know but but yeah no it's um that was fine i got through that and uh yeah ended up with the qualified position in the same uh trust Different service though. So I started working just what we call in the core service,

but then since qualified, moved into the long-term conditions service. So working more sort of with health psychology, if you like, working with people with diabetes or IBS or chronic pain or fatigue conditions, et cetera. So that's been a really interesting transition and a really new and exciting challenge to develop different skills once qualified so yeah absolutely so i think i'm right in saying actually cap roles they are you train and then work as a qualified worker

in the same service it's almost a little bit like a preceptorship role but yeah if someone's listened to that episode more recently than i've done it please do correct me if i'm wrong but this actually is just we kind of are going to train this many pwps and we hope there'll be a job for a qualified pwp once you qualify but it's not a guarantee yeah not necessarily but uh yeah my experience it was still the same so it's just the different departments for the long-term conditions department uh bs you're right yeah okay and i think i'm right in saying that if you are doing your pwp route in england that you attract what's called health education england funding hee which then means that for a fixed period of time after you graduate,

I think it is, or after you qualify, you then can't apply for any additional HEE funding, which would mean that you have to kind of plan this into your career route if you are wanting to then go on to the doctorate in clinical psychology, for example. Could you tell us a little bit more about that, Ben? Yeah, absolutely. So that is something certainly to consider if you wish to, you know, especially I think if you're wanting to think about the doctors of clinical psychology and clinical psychology training. Yes, you have to. So it's once you qualify, it's the date in which the exam boards have, you know, you've received that qualification from those exam boards, that's all been okayed. And then it's a two year period until then you're

able to start and receive, you know, embark on any future funded training. So for me, yeah, it's 2023, which I qualified. And so yeah, until 2025, I can't do any further training. Perfect. Thank you. And I think, again, I'm right in saying that you could apply for it, but you couldn't start and receive and start that training until those two years had passed. So because the application process is quite long, for example, for Declincy, the deadlines are in November, but it doesn't start until the following September so if you knew that your two years was going to tick over before the courses start in September

then you should be you should be fine for that yeah I think there's a bit of confusion online a bit of confusion but yeah that is I did look into it and yeah that is definitely right so people may have thought it's where you when you can apply for it but it's not so you can apply and then it's when you start the next training. Great thank you so what sort of clinical presentations might a trainee or and or qualified PWP be working with? Yeah so you know predominantly it's mood, depression and anxiety or generalised anxiety. So those are the main mental health presentations that you'd be working with. Could also be people with panic disorder, could be people with difficulties with sleep. I know

not in my service that I work for, but in services maybe at step two they as a pwp they may work with people with with OCD but I don't I don't know that's not every service that differs from service to service but yeah it's predominantly low moods and anxiety but for me working in the long-term conditions service now a lot of what we do is about you know acceptance work or adjustment like adjusting to you know living with a long-term condition so you may do one-to-one work in the form of guide self-help which is typically around about six or so sessions you know varies in like maybe 30 minutes to 45 minutes perhaps where you're working through you know supporting people with low mood

and generalised anxiety or you may be doing group work as well so for me in my in my service we run a workshop called building emotional resilience living with a long-term condition yeah and that can be really lovely people can connect and share their thoughts and you know work together almost and learn from each other as service users to support each other with long-term living with long-term conditions which obviously can pose its own challenges and also you may also do online work as well so see cbt computerized uh or low intensity cbt which yeah so you know doing the same sort of things you'd be doing with guided self-help maybe over the phone or face to

face but just sit that online so guiding you know clients through online computer modules to support them managing low mood and anxiety maybe sleep difficulties as well so yeah it's quite a varied mixture of things which i really like that variety of you know one-to-one work working in groups working different you know methods of delivery as well so doing there's a lot of telephone work but you can you know do video face to face so yeah that's really nice it's quite a varied role i think which is really good to develop a lot of those skills therapeutic skills yeah absolutely am i right in thinking you're supervised by a qualified senior pwp or might you be supervised by a a clinsych or another HCP psychologist? Talk to us about the supervision then. Yeah, I think most people, at least in my

experience, would be supervised by a qualified senior PWP who has undergone specific supervision training or approved supervision training. Maybe there are some people out there in services where they're supervised by other practitioners, maybebt therapist perhaps but no for me it's always been a senior pwp who supervised me so yeah supervision so you'll have at least so minimum of one hour per week of case management caseload supervision where you'll be sort of going through you know reviewing you know the patients you're working with you know any questions is you know, it can be like a reflective space as well, where you can reflect on, you know, what's working well and maybe some challenges you might be experiencing with maybe personal challenges or, you know, challenges with patients you're working

with. And then there's also, I believe it's a minimum of one hour per fortnight of clinical skills supervision, where this is more in a group setting. So you'd be talking with your team, your fellow PWPs, senior PWPs as well. Maybe it's, again, a reflective space where you can reflect on particular cases and work as a group to help you all to develop your practice and your skills. And so, yeah's in the training year I believe there was more of that clinical skills or was on a different sort of schedule just because it's nicer to when you're training to you know have that more time to develop those

skills but you still get a lot of that once qualified as well so yeah supervision I think it's really yeah been massively important to me i think important to all of us regardless of maybe what stage we're at in our journey what role yeah i just think you know having that safe space you know to to yeah to share and your experiences in this in this job in this profession working in mental health because it can be yeah difficult because you know if you had lived experiences yourself or something a patient might have said you know has has stayed with you and it's been difficult it's really important to have you know a good relationship with your supervisor have that safe space to share how you are doing you know we don't want to we need to look after ourselves and you know that's why I'm so lucky because every supervisor I've ever had has, you know, we've always had a 10 minute slot or so just to reflect on my own personal well-being and self-care, you know, to, I guess, really reduce or prevent burnout, really, because it's like that oxygen mask analogy.

You know, we've got to look after ourselves before, you know, we're able to really truly look after other people. So, yeah, I think supervision is really important in the training year and also once qualified. Absolutely. Supervision rocks, doesn't it? And it's not something to be scared about. I know when I first having a supervisory relationship with when I was an aspiring psychologist, it felt almost like I was being grilled and told off. But that's really not what it's supposed to feel like or what it's supposed to be like. But we have to allow ourselves to grow into that now i know from my experiences of of working alongside pwps and senior pwps you guys work really hard you have high caseloads and a lot of face-to-face sessions per day could you kind of give us a obviously not talking about clients specifically

but how many you hold in your caseload and how many face-to-face hours or sessions you're doing across a day ben of course yeah it's definitely a lot you do work with a high caseload uh so they say low intensity high volume i believe yeah so i for me, I have around about five to six assessments, which is normally done over the phone. So they're hour long assessments. And then I think I'll have around about 14 one-to-one clients. And each of those sessions for me and my service, again, because I work with long-term positions, is slightly longer.

It's 45 minutes a session. So yeah, it's quite a lot. And some of those will be made up of people who are delivering guided self-help. Some will be online low-intensity CBT, so through something called Silver Cloud. And yeah, if you're working with group, maybe that would be slightly less one-to-one. But yeah, it can be quite a lot. So I think for most PTPss it's around about 20 or so hours of clinical contact or 20 just a little bit more than that maybe which yeah doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for other meetings and maybe other training or CPD admin as well because

obviously you've got to write up clinical notes and you know letters and you know referrals etc so yeah it can feel quite a lot at times. So I think that's why it's really important, at least for me, to block out those times, putting in my diary, times for breaks, times for admin, times to take a break from the screen at home and put things down. So yeah, it is quite a high caseload.

But I don't want to put people off. It can be done just with the right support and being kind to yourself as well, of course absolutely job planning is so important i would not survive even in qualified practice without a job plan it really important and it's you know i too stopped for lunch just on socials yesterday i'd put that i always no matter how busy i get i'm always stopping for lunch and i've got my eye on the clock now because i've got a 1 p.m meeting and it's currently 11 58 so we need to make sure that we both both got time for our lunch, actually, you know, it really matters. And doing something that is non-work related, I find really, really

helps me to decompress and helps me bring my best to the afternoon and then beyond, you know, when I have to parent and do everything I've got to do Friday is an awful day Friday is swimming day like this is the worst day of the week like we've got to we've got to make sure that we are resourced and that we are putting good stuff in rather than just expecting ourselves to run on empty all the time because you know like you said like it's a year to train but then you've got to really want to be a qualified PWP. And some people don't think about this as a springboard to another profession. Some people will do this until retirement.

They will be a qualified PWP, so you've got to be able to make this work. Yeah, absolutely. It's important, like you said, to have things outside of your working hours that you look forward to and have that to, as you say, decompress. That's taking your children to swimming classes or not, I don't know. But, you know, for me, maybe not. Having, you know, my dog is a big part of my life. So, you know, doing things with him, you know, spend time with family, friends, you know, sports, being physically active as much as I can be. Yeah, no, it's so important. Also, another point you raise, yeah, some people will stay in this sort of profession you know sports being physically active as much as i can be yeah no it's so important i also another

point you raise uh yeah some people will stay in this sort of profession and there's lots of progression potential for progression within the pdp world as well so you can be a senior pdp as you said you know you can you know go into more leadership roles as well as a lead of the pdp in the service so yeah some people may stay in this and that's okay you know everyone everyone's different aren't they they've all got their different aspirations don't they but yeah it's important i think yeah to have that time outside of work as well and not just make your whole life about psychology and mental health it really is and even this evening after swimming and it's not me it's tomorrow tomorrow going to a sausage and cider

evening at one of my family members house i don't tend to drink at the moment so i'm going to take some posh apple juice but it's just about trying to plan bits into your week that help help the groundhog day to feel a bit less groundhog day i think absolutely important your dog sounds like a great source of support as well. Non-judgmental. Always happy to see you. Can I ask you a little bit about the pay scales? So when you're training, what band are you? When you're qualified, what band are you? Do you go up when you're a senior? Do you go up if you do any teaching on any courses? Talk to us about a bit about money. Of course. So as a trainee P2P, you'll be paid a band four NHS salary.

And then once you're qualified, you'll be able to band five. And a senior P2P will be a band six. And then if you're a lead P2P, I believe it's a band seven. So yeah, you get up the band as you progress. Amazing. What a brilliant answer as well like so you basically got a span from band four to band seven which is really similar really to assistant psychologists are often band four i never made it to a band five i don't know they do exist i think it's very

service dependent um whether you can get a band five one. But then I went on to training at band six. Then when you qualify, you become band seven. So you might struggle to get to 8A unless you went into kind of service stuff or kind of higher up in your trusts. But there's very, you know, if you wanted to just stay in the PWP arena, there is scope for progression, which sounds really promising. Yeah, absolutely. Just before we finish, Ben, was there anything that felt surprising about your training or working as a pwp

yeah so i mean what's surprising to me was you know the incredible amount of support that you do get through you know the training gear and also once qualified i don't think i'd ever worked in so supportive and you know mindful of you know your own mental health and you know personal needs as a practitioner really so yeah that was definitely one thing was that support and you know meeting other people from all different backgrounds with their own personal experiences as we said earlier bringing different you know skills uh different experiences to the table and kind of drawing from each other's was really really nice and just yeah it's so easy at least in my experience I was lucky that it's so easy to just get along with everybody and have that support and that you know there's a lot you

know within the PDP role there's there's a lot of skills that you develop and if you are interested in progressing further i think it is definitely a good choice i know obviously as we said about the health education england funding and the now new two-year rule and that may put people off but i do think it's a fantastic experience you know for future training um so that was definitely something as well and and yes you know it's you know the variety you get as well is really that's what appealed to me you know working with different client groups you know different ages different backgrounds different experiences different presentations so yeah i'd you know really recommend it for any aspiring psychologists out there maybe if they're graduating university or thinking about what to do.

Yeah, I definitely think it's a good alternative if you're interested to, you know, stand assistant psychologist route. So, yeah. Absolutely. I think I would have found this really an interesting route if I hadn't done the assistant route and it had been available when it was my turn. One question I realise I haven't asked you is, is kind had been available when it was my turn. One question I realize I haven't asked you is, is kind of the prerequisites who can apply. So I'm guessing you need to have done an undergrad psychology degree, probably that confers you the GBC with BPS. Is there anything else? Do you need clinical experience? Could you go straight from graduating? Do you need to have known anything about CBT? Do you need to have

clinically relevant experience? Could you talk a little bit to that? Yeah, good question. So I believe actually you don't necessarily need the psychology degree. You may just need a degree. And there are different routes. In my training, there was the sort of postgraduate route and there's also the undergraduate route so perhaps some people a bit you know older maybe has a lot of time out of education so maybe they want they prefer to do the undergraduate route but in terms of um you know prerequisites i think just having those common factor skills interpersonal skills really really important uh they do uh i think in my i was looking the day my person spec job description uh for my training role and it said that yeah essential criteria was some experience

working with you know supporting people maybe with mental health difficulties or learning disabilities so for me yeah i um started after university so they've had masters and then i worked as a support worker for a year with older adults with learning disabilities and autism so that's what I you know reflected on my experiences also did some volunteering with MIND as well so yeah I used that in the interview to reflect on and you know demonstrate that I have had that type of experience before going on to the trainee PDP role so yeah I do think that's important so maybe people if they are you know fresh out of university looking things make you know some

people may if they're lucky get on to a trainee PUP position but maybe they would like to do some support working experience or maybe as healthcare assistant or some other similar roles where they are supporting other people with you know mental health maybe physical needs as well so yeah yeah so important isn't it the engagement and the soft skills that you mentioned one of my favorite jobs that i've ever done was a home carer and i learned so much about dignity and respect and coronation street um Street from doing that because it's not just about the practical elements. It's about honouring that relationship. Whatever your role is in care or mental health

is knowing that you can't just be expected to be accepted because you've got the badge or the name, you know, the job title. You've kind of got to earn that therapeutic relationship, that working relationship with your client. And I think for me, certainly my advancing age has helped with that as well. And my life experiences, you know, even having traveled independently around the world and now being a mother and, you know, having a husband and an extended family and having worked in non-relevant roles you know I worked in Argos head office for a while you know working on the

wedding list gift department and working in store support and doing temping roles in organizations across Milton Keynes like I learned so much that is useful to my roles now from from just my life really so I think that's a really good point yeah absolutely I think it's not necessarily this is what I've learned you know looking into applying for the uh Deakin is it's not necessarily you know what you've done is of course how you reflect on that and what you've learned from that and yeah doing whatever, even if it's not necessarily psychology, mental health related, those, you know, really important transferable skills like you mentioned. Yeah, you know, really can help inform your practice as a, you know, PDP, psychologist or whatever. So, yeah, that's really important, too.

It really is. Thank you so much for your time. And so thanks so much for kind of pitching this episode to me as well, because it is so important. And, you know, we want people to be well informed about what this involves. You know, we want people to thrive in the roles that they're doing so that they can help others to thrive, you know, by doing their work. So thank you so much for your time, Ben., you know, by doing their work. So thank you so much for your time, Ben. Thank you for having me, Marianne. It's been a pleasure. You and I are going to get together again at some point to talk about the fact that you've got diabetes type 1 diagnosis

and to think about that and striving for a career in mental health whilst managing those kind of physical health complexities. So if people have enjoyed our chat and would like some more of Ben, then do look out for that in the future as well too. Thank you so much. Thank you. What a wonderful chat with Ben that was. I feel like I've learned loads about the PWP role and the training and the career prospects too. How about you? Has this done what you needed it to do? Has it done everything that was advertised on the tin? Please do let me know. Please do drop me a comment. Please do like, please do share,

subscribe, do all those brilliant things. You can also come along and discuss this episode with me on my socials where I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. And please do come and join the Aspiring Psychologist Community Group too. In this episode, Ben and I discussed imposter syndrome, and you might well find it helpful to have a listen to episode 155, which you can grab wherever you listen to your podcast or on YouTube, where I'm taking a deep dive, a solo deep dive this time, into imposter syndrome. You may also find it helpful to listen or watch the episodes on clinical associate psychologists. They are episodes 39 and episodes 124. You may also find episode 115, what is a mental health and wellbeing practitioner helpful if you are

trying to work out what your options are for your career. Of course, there's a very special four-part series looking at assistant psychologists, which spans episode 148 to 151. On YouTube, there is a specialist playlist for assistant psychologist episodes too, where you can catch them all. Thank you so much for being part of my world. If you enjoy being here and you are grateful, please do consider grabbing me a cup of herbal tea to say thank you. The costs to run this podcast are all met by me and I don't have any advertising or funding available. Please do check out the Aspiring Psychologist Collective book and the Clinical Psychologist Collective book and the brand new book, The Autistic Anthology, which is all about real life mental health professionals with autism diagnoses

and their experiences of getting diagnosed and providing a service to people in mental health. If it's your time and you're ready for the next step, please do check out the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which you can join from just £30 a month. We cover CBT, we cover research skills, we cover reflection, we cover personal growth and development, and most importantly, we cover believing in yourself and getting you the dream with this podcast that you'll see you'll be on your way to being qualified it's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast with Dr. Marianne Trent my name's yana 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.