The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - When you're hurting and feel like quitting psychology

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 34: When you’re hurting and feel like quitting psychologyThank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. In my endeavours to support aspiring psychologists, I have been approached by a few who have told me about difficult experiences in their roles that have left them feeling that this field is not for them. Today I speak to you about how we can manage the knocks and bumps that we experience along the way in psychology and how we can get support when we need it. I hope this helps you, and thank you for being a part of my world. The Highlights: 00:28: A busy week02:23: Deciding psychology isn’t for you03:30: When things just go really wrong 05:50: Different relationships we find ourselves in08:50: Feeling you’re being treated unfairly10:08: Accessing support 11:41: Jingles and testimonial13:08: Managing a difficult supervisory relationship15:10: Maybe it is time for a change? 16:05: A useful way to think about your role 16:59: A lesson from CAMHS 18:54: Ouchy feedback from clients! 19:52: Reaching out for support21:46: An announcement for new free content!Links:To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunityGet 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 Like, Comment, Subscribe & get involved:If you enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe and rate and review episodes. If you'd like to learn how to record and submit your own audio testimonial to be included in future shows head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and click the blue request info button at the top of the page.

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

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

If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. episode. With Dr. Marianne Trent Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. Thank you for being part of my world. And if you're listening to this live, I hope you're having a good summer so far. This morning, I was planning on recording a podcast episode before I had to do a guest podcast episode that I was doing for somebody else on grief. And it was on my to-do list, along with cleaning up my email inbox, which had been a little bit unchecked for about three or four days because things had just got a bit busy. But unfortunately the email inbox took longer than expected as is often the case and so yeah the podcast episode didn't get done and I just looked at it on my to-do list just as I was getting ready to finish for the day

and I thought oh it's too late now because the children are already here I've already picked them up from school and then I thought you know what they're both not in the room that I'm in they're happily playing together this is kind of how it's going to be over the summer because I speak to you before the schools have broken up at the moment and I thought well I'm just going to go for it. You know it would be a shame not to tick this off my to-do list and I can stand in my own way with excuses about why I can't do things or I can just get on and do it. So that is what I'm doing and it might be that this is timely for you. So that is what I'm doing. And it might be that this is timely for you. So today's episode is something that will likely happen to all of us at some point in our career. It may even happen at numerous times, numerous points in our career, because it's a really normal part of life. But I think when we work in the profession

that we do, it can be easy to get knocked and bumped along the way by people. And what we're talking about today is when things go wrong and when you might feel like quitting and running away and joining the circus and doing something that is so very different to working in the psychology field. And that does happen. When I was an assistant psychologist, somebody jacked it all in and became a personal trainer. They just decided enough of this shenanigans when I was at St Andrews somebody um quit their forensic qualification route I've decided it was no longer for them and went off surfing instead um and the last I heard was having a very lovely life indeed so you, it doesn't say anything about you.

If you decide it's not for you, that's okay. But what I'm talking to and who I'm talking to and the eventualities that I'm talking to in this episode are when things happen that make you feel really ouchy. So we're not talking necessarily about, you know, just an underlying sense that this isn't the career for you. Actually, I've changed my mind. We're talking about something that's happened that's led a different part of yourself to feel really hurt, really confused and like running away. So let me give you some examples of where this type of scenario might crop up for you. So it might be that you are in sort of a relevant experience role and maybe something has happened perhaps on one of the wards or one of the units that you work in maybe there's been an incident and it's making you feel like

this isn't going to work out for you or maybe you know there's an investigation into the role all staff members played in whatever the incident might be. And that can lead to lots of our human brains really mulling things over and really trying to make sense of what has happened. And, you know, we might have all sorts of complicated human emotions coming up as well. We might have shame and guilt embarrassment remorse regret and yeah it can feel really ouchy you know and there's one school of thought that shame was always supposed to feel ouchy but that it was supposed to be so uncomfortable that it kept us

from doing things that might lead us to experience that shame. So I'm not saying that you should feel ashamed for whatever it is that's going on. I'm just making sense of any shame that you do feel. And please know you can only experience that because of your human brain as well. And you definitely didn't ask to be human I certainly didn't we're just making our best way through this world with this incredibly tricky brain that we've got. So another example where this might crop up for you is perhaps within a supervisory relationship within your role perhaps there's just a bit of a mismatch. There might be that you're getting feedback about your performance with clients or your academic writing style or the way that you speak to the supervisor or your juniors or your seniors. And please know that it might not necessarily be you that the problem is with you

know we are like really intricate jigsaw puzzles aren't we and we can't expect all of the pieces to align all of the time you know sometimes there's going to be bits that don't want to fit, bits that don't want to lie flat. And sometimes we're going to find it more difficult to get things to lie flat with some people compared to, you know, to other people where things just feel more effortless. And as you reflect upon your life, you will be able to think about people that you could happily spend hours in the company of but not talking to you will be able to think about people that you could happily spend hours talking to in a really engaged switched on way that feels really academically and you know just professionally exciting there will be maybe maybe not even academically you know

maybe this is just someone in your personal life that you could talk to for hours but in a way that feels really good um you feel really enlivened to be around them maybe there's other people that you feel like you want to talk more to kind of anxiety you know you feel like these silences are uncomfortable and maybe there's just people who fit in between these parts. You know, maybe there's people that you just also don't want to spend any time at all with. You know, perhaps you can imagine really uncomfortable meetings that you've had in the past where staff members just aren't getting on. They're not liking each other. You know, I was watching The Last Dance yesterday, which is not at all about dancing. It's on Netflix and it is about Michael Jordan in the Chicago Bulls.

And they were talking about one of the team who had just, it was episode two, if you want to know specifically which one I'm talking about. There was a member of the team who just after a while was so kind of cross with his position that he started kind of being quite disparaging about one of the managers and it made it quite uncomfortable for everybody really you know he'd be shouting things on tour buses and you know just it just all got really complicated and we can probably you know picture relationships like that that might have happened in staff teams that you're working with as well hopefully you're

not the one shouting things at your at your staff teams but you know we can't expect everybody to get along all of the time and this reminds me of some other stuff um you know with Carl Mahe in episode 31 we're talking about leadership and change and cultural kind of temperatures of organizations and if you like this way of thinking you might find it helpful to listen to that episode as well so that's Carl Mahe episode 31 but you know if you find yourself being the one who feels like you're being singled out or criticised for some reason, that can feel really, really conflicting. That can feel really, really complicated. And another example might be that if you are perhaps in a university environment and you're getting feedback about yourself, perhaps your essays aren't, you know, they're not seeming to garner the results that you feel they ought to be.

Or when you compare the feedback you're getting to that of your fellow cohort, it just doesn't feel like you're being treated that fairly or you's be you're being you know given different feedback to other people um and it might be that because you've got um different skills and talents it might be that you know when we spoke to dr deborah kingston for episode 30 she recognized that she was dyslexic um well she didn't it, one of her tutors did. So it might be that maybe writing is something that you find more challenging, and that you could do with some extra support in that. And so I guess that's one of our first pieces of advice here. It would be to think about whether you've got any formal sources of support available to you to help you get a different opinion on where you're at

right now. So it might be that you've got a centre for academic writing, perhaps linked to the university that you are doing your studying with. It might be that you have got a personal tutor, perhaps as part of whatever course you're studying, that you can access to have some advice and discussion with about how you're feeling. At this point, let's take a short break. And I will be back along with some more pieces of advice that might be useful if this is happening to you or indeed to someone that you get qualified. So come and take a look. It's right here in this book.

It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective book is really informative and helpful in preparation for clinical training. It gives some good food for thought and lots to reflect on. It's right here in this book. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. Hi, welcome back. So we've been thinking in the first half about the different types of situations that you might encounter that might make you feel a little bit wobbly and like quitting a role or quitting, you know, an entire career. But yeah, so we've covered a couple of examples about what you might do in an academic setting. Within occupational settings, it might be that there's another member of your team that you could talk through how you're feeling sort of more

informally or more on the record as well you know perhaps there's a team manager who you have a good relationship with that you could talk about these things with of course you could speak to your supervisor yourself and have that on the table and have a discussion about what might be going on and this point you might find it helpful if you haven't done so already to go and grab your free supervision shaping tool which you can do by checking out the link in the show notes and but I do believe goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk forward slash supervision I'm fairly sure that's right but yeah that way you can get um the supervision shaping tool straight into your inbox um and that will then help set up any future supervisory relationships in a way that helps you

know how you're going to problem solve if there are problems in future um but if you haven't done that already you could still think about bringing that to supervision to just help you examine the temperature of the water and how to have things be different. If you feel like it's not really the time for that, then of course, if you are employed, you could think about discussing your concerns with HR. And if you can't get a good fit with the current supervisor, you could, in fact, consider whether you might have a different supervisor within that role. And it might be that that's perhaps not in your immediate service and that you access supervision somewhere else. But it's really difficult if you do have such a breakdown of relationship um and it's understandable if you feel like you want to look around for jobs that might feel like they're a better fit for you not because you're not good

for that job sometimes things just don't align um and so yeah sometimes people contact me and they're really demoralized by the experience that they're having at any particular job and I have to say that on balance it sounds like it's not them that's the problem and actually in a different environment somebody might be really celebrating their success and really pleased with you know their performance and then they go on to get a different job and they contact me and they're like oh my god this is so different you were right you know it wasn't me it was just that there was a a bad fit you know a bad culture fit as um as cull would say it was just you know it wasn't working out

for whatever reason but they've been able to move past that perhaps a bit of therapy to work out what the lasting legacy has been from that and if there's been one but to be able to take themselves and their development and their advancing skills forward and it can be useful to think about job roles as you know what can I gain from this role what can I give to this role how can I try on these shoes whilst I'm in this role and then when I leave what might I like to keep what might I like to take with me and there might be some things that you're really pretty pleased to leave behind and I found that in training you know during my placements was that for some stuff I really liked it. I'm definitely going to keep that. I love that. And for other stuff, I'm like, no, not keen to ever do that again.

And, you know, that's OK. And I think sometimes we can do the same with with our roles as we're heading towards becoming a trainee as well. So it can feel, you know, I think I'm sort of reflecting on what it's like when you are a young person in a school, or when you've got children, or when you work with children, perhaps in CAMHS services, is that it can feel like this time period in our lives and their lives is going to last forever but what we know is things quickly change um you know in cam services you know young people would come in and see me and it would all feel like everything was the end of the world and then a week later you know a teacher's gone on long-term sick or um you know a new person's joined the school or someone hasn't been at school

and so the bullying hasn't been around and things are very different even a week later and I think we can absolutely keep changing and keep rolling with the changes that our life brings us but but to think about perhaps some of the difficult areas as being states rather than traits. But if you recognise that whatever you're going through right now is impacting on you in a longer term way, it's making you feel depressed or anxious, fearful, perhaps even traumatised, you know, then that's starting to become a trait, you know, and that's not okay. And so we need to think about whether you might reach out for occupational health at that point to help think about how to protect you and to help you to feel better and differently in future. So that is also an option. But, you know,

I think it's just really tricky. You know, we can have, we can get so many knocks and bumps and scrapes along the way. And these can come in the form of feedback from clients as well. You know, some clients aren't going to like you. No matter how good you are, there will be some clients who just don't get you or don't like you, or you've just got a bit of a mismatch no matter what you do they don't seem to get it there was one client who complained about me when I was working in an adult service and you know when we looked into it it didn't seem like the complaint was that justified I think it was just a mismatch you know know. But even then, it feels horrid when you get a complaint coming about you. It can make you feel like, oh, what's the point? Oh, I'm going to

quit, you know. I'm just going to comfort you. I'm going to just look after myself and eat ice cream for the rest of my life. I'm rubbish. I'm ridiculous. Even if we didn't particularly rate the opinion of the person giving the feedback it can still feel like it knocks you when you do get that feedback because you know when we're setting out to help people in this profession you know we're certainly you're not getting paid that much and so you know sometimes the feeling we get from the work we do is the stuff that makes the difference. And so if we're just getting not that good money and like negative feedback all the time, you can really be bogged down by it, you know, and that can really a hard time, reach out to somebody you care about or someone who is supportive. This might be a friend in psychology. It might be a friend out of psychology.

It might be a partner, might be a parent, might be an auntie, might even be me. You know, someone that you trust. Let me know what's going on for you. Please know you're not alone. Please know that whatever you're feeling and experiencing, it's only possible because of this unique, tricky human brain of ours. And yeah, you're lovely. You're really striving for this career, you know, and you're not doing this because you think it's going to get you, you know, golden shoes and things. You're doing this because you genuinely care about easing the stress in other

people's lives and helping people understand themselves and the world better and have a different experience. You know, this isn't like a narcissistic career. You're doing this because you genuinely care about other people and that makes you very special. But it also means that you might get bumped and scraped along the way. We don't want hardened professionals. We want human ones. And so please know that it's OK to be human, but make sure you're being well supported. And with that in mind, if you would like to register for your interest for the Aspiring Psychologist membership,

there are spaces becoming available again i believe it's friday the 2nd of september at 8 a.m but you need to be on the list and you'll only be able to come on board if you are on the list so go to the link on my show notes or to the link tree on any of my socials or if you connect with me on social media a great place to do that is on instagram and linkedin where i'm dr marianne trent for both of those you will absolutely be able to find information about how you can do that you might also find it useful to look and read the words of the Clinical Psychologist Collective. But I would love your thoughts on this episode. Please let me know if you are hurting or if you've hurt in the past

and what advice was helpful for you. This is probably a good place to tell you about the free Facebook group, which, well, I'm going to let it out there. You know, I haven't created it yet, but I am paving the way for a free Facebook group. So I will make sure that that is up and running by the time this podcast episode lands. So yeah, come along, join the free Facebook group, which as yet doesn't have a name, but I'm fairly sure is going to be called the aspiring psychologist community with dr marianne trent so look out for that come and join and come and discuss your thoughts about today's episode won't you um thank you so much for being part of my world as ever come and subscribe to youtube come and like and follow the show on Apple or Spotify, wherever you are listening to. Yeah, do lots of good things such as tagging me in socials if you really enjoy an episode, telling other people about it. And I will look forward to catching up with you very soon for our next episode, which will be dropping into your ears from 6am on Monday. Thank you. And

if you found this helpful, I'm really glad. I will speak to you very soon. Take care. The Tricky Brain Kit. The Tricky Brain Kit. It's a kit on the course that helps you work with those that have depression or trauma. The Tricky Brain Kit. A tricky break it 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 Trent. 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 with confidence that no, I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist, I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay but trust me you will not put the book down once you start