For those of you who are applying to the EdPsy or DclinPsy, I wish you the very best in your applications. In the meantime, we have a new episode out focusing on relationships, dating and connecting with Finnish culture with Dr Mari Kovenan. Dr Mari Kovenan has wandered through different paths of psychology including occupational psychology, and specialises in Trauma, and has a podcast too! Join us as we discuss the importance of self-compassion, the parallels in dating, parenting and relationships, and why Dr Kovenan likes to be registered with both the HCPC and BPS.

The Highlights:

• (00:00): Summary
• (01:37): Compassionate Q&A’s to support you this application season!
• (03:12): Welcoming Dr Mari Kovanen
• (04:58): What exactly is occupational psychology?
• (07:41): Being registered with both HCPC and BPS
• (10:32): Networking – why is it important?
• (12:27): Protecting yourself from trauma
• (15:40): The importance of looking after yourself
• (19:30): On being Finnish
• (21:28): Generational Trauma amongst Finnish people
• (25:40): Being a psychologist working with both trauma and relationship coaching
• (28:17): Self-love in relationships & parenting
• (30:25): Compassion in parenting
• (33:47): How to Love Successfully
• (37:53): Connect with Dr Kovanen
• (39:02): Summary & close

Links:

📚 To connect with Mari on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/drmarikovanen & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmarikovanen/?hl=en

🎙️ To listen to Mari’s podcast “How to Love Successfully” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFieALdDRYBDalwQJERg4TQ/about and her website: https://drmarikovanencoaching.com/podcast/

🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support

📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0

📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97

💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested

✍️ Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervision

📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent

💬 To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunity

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Dating as a psychologist, Finnish Culture & occupational Psychologywith Dr Mari Kovanen

Coming up in today's episode, I am joined by Dr. Mari Kovanen, who is a counselling psychologist. We are discussing her route to becoming qualified, as well as her background being finished. We also talk about the unique quandary of trying to date when you are a psychologist and a mental health professional. Hope you find this so useful if you're to become a psychologist. Then this podcast with Dr. Hi. Welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I am a qualified clinical psychologist. Now, in order to become a clinical psychologist, I had to go through the rigmarole and sometimes what felt like the personal exquisite torture of going through the clearing house system to apply by filling in a form. If this is your reality right now or if you're filling in forensic psychology forms or perhaps educational psychology forms and you would welcome some additional support.

Please check out my replay q and A sessions, which are called Compassionate Q as because they're so nurturing and gentle and helpful, which you can find by going to my YouTube channel. Dr. Marianne tr, if you'd like a little bit more looking for the next level, looking for the next way to work with me and do please consider coming on board to the Aspiring Psychologist membership where the members say really great things about how helpful our work is and what we offer in helping them with their goals. I love that some of the connections we will make along the way are useful for us as part of our process, but also for the things we learn along the way too. It's my absolute pleasure to meet somebody today for the podcast who I've known about socially on social media for the last few years, but today is the first time we have met. I'm so excited to introduce you to her. I hope that you'll get a lot of useful information from it is another one where you might learn a lot about culture, specifically Finnish culture, but also about a different psychology discipline. In fact, two different psychology disciplines that don't get so much airtime in this podcast. I hope you'll find it really interesting and you might also learn some tips for how to date successfully too. Hope you find it useful. I look forward to catching you on the other side.

Hi, just want to welcome our guest for today, Dr. Mari Coven. Hi Mari.

Hi. Lovely to be here and thank you Marianne for inviting me.

Oh, well thank you for saying yes. So we have been in each other's world for quite a few years now, but this is the first time we've ever spoken to face-to-face, which is exciting. So we are both part of a psychology network and you are, I'm right in saying a qualified counselling psychologist.

Yes.

Lovely. And also from our chats in setting up this podcast, I understand you've done some occupational psychology as well.

Yes, that was in my past. Yeah.

Is that something that still informs your practise now?

Well, I suppose when therapy clients come to me often, they are obviously work related situations, so it's quite a good background to know and talk to people about situations. But I realised when I worked, I did selection the recruitment and it didn't hit those spots that I really wanted. I wanted much deeper connection and being able to help people really on a much deeper level. So yeah, I moved on from that, but I guess whatever you ever learn, you will never forget. So in some ways Oh,

I love that. I've never heard that phrase before. I really like that. But it isn't actually something we've spoken about in the podcast so far. For those that are listening that might not know what involves, could you briefly guide us through what occupational psychology is?

Okay, so it is really everything to do with human and work. So it is really starts from something even basics, like thinking about usability of things, how, I dunno, I've got this microphone in front of me and how usable is it for me? For example, how it works. So it covers so many things and then going into work wellbeing, organisational changes, and leading that kind of changes. And so it covers so many from the individual level really to bigger, more social organisational things. Yes, so I did selection, I did career counselling coaching. This was a bit, originally I'm from Finland and then we spoke a little bit before this that I started my training here and then I moved to Finland and I moved to work in a job centre in Finland. And all the job centres in Finland got psychologists in them who are helping people with their careers and career changes or finding your first career. And this was even set up after the war because they wanted really I guess make best use of the workforce. And now I was doing selection, but also helping people with their careers and thinking about careers and all of that kind of stuff. So there are so many different really areas to occupational psychology and if anyone is really interested in whether it's work wellbeing or all of these kind of things, it's a really good option.

Thank you. And I just love learning about things and learning about people. And I did not know that about Finland, that they've got psychologists in their job offices. That sounds like such, well, it makes sense, doesn't it? But it sounds like such a great idea.

Yeah, absolutely.

Brilliant. So you are a counselling psychologist, a chartered one as well, which for those who are listening means that you are registered with the British Psychological Society. But of course what we know about counselling psychologists is that it's a protected title, so you'll also need to be registered with the HCPC too.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Lovely, thank you very much for that. Whilst we're discussing the HCPC, I dunno if you find this as well, but when they take their subs out from me, I think it's a few times a year, they seem to just take it, but they do not send me an invoice. They do not send me a receipt and I'm like, how am I going to square that with my accountant? Where do I go with that?

Yeah, no, it is like a bit of a secret society in some ways. You hear maybe a couple emails come once in the blue moon, but there's not much communication with them. And I think that's why I've stayed with the BPS is because I guess I felt, well, I'll tell you what, when I was in Finland for that about five year period or so, the Finnish equivalent that society, the psychological society became really like a place, it's almost like a family. I lived in a small place and I was invited to go to their meetings and then I became active part of them. And also when I was then trying to get my qualifications transferred over and what have you, and I was even in contact with president and all of that and he was helping me. So it became such a community and I felt like this is exactly what you need in your life professionally, not obviously with the BPS, it's not quite the same much bigger organisation and so on. But I felt that I needed to belong somewhere because otherwise, especially now working in private practise, not part of a bigger organisation and the HCPC is just somewhere there really far in a background and it feels like there's no connection to that at all.

That's why I really, to be honest, I wanted to stay with the BP S because I thought that well, at least there's someone who will recognise that my college qualifications and who, if something happened, hopefully I could turn to them for advice.

Yeah, I agree. HCPC take the money and if there's any problems with our professional registration or someone complains about anything we are doing or some of our colleagues are doing, then they're there for that regard. But there's not much going on other than that. And so I think it's, especially when you are in private practise, it's about feeling like you're part of a club or something. There's other people that get you, and that's what I really like about our qualified group as well. But also I know that people listening to this will really value that support from their peers as aspiring psychologists as well. It's about finding your tribe, isn't it? And feeling not so vulnerable in any of the positions we're in.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's really important and that's why the psychology network, the online network has been so important because over the years, I mean you've probably been there more or less from the beginning of a certain Facebook group being there, and it is just you want to know that there's someone who you can go to and ask. I mean, yes, you've got your supervisors, but it's not the same. You don't get the same instant response. Whereas if you post a question, whatever it is, you are likely to get some sense of answer within minutes almost. And different perspectives as well, because of course in a supervisory role, it's just one person potentially. And there might be different views and different knowledge obviously, that different people share. So yeah, it's really important.

And I think we were just talking because we've got similar professional clinical interests in trauma and stuff, and we were just thinking together about the, I guess the impact of vicarious trauma. Weren't we on us as individuals on us as parents, on us, as partners, on us as friends. And we are recording this at the time where there's been some horrendous atrocities in Israel over the weekend and it's really a very moving time for so many people, either because of their friends and family connections or just because of the things they've been witnessing. And we were talking about how we draw limits around our incredibly empathic hearts really so that we don't burn out. How do you do that for yourself?

Well, I think this has become even more and more important I think in my career. I was mentioned earlier on that I've entered a face in life where I have small kids, I had them quite late, but also I'm in perimenopause, which I know now that hormonal changes will impact also. I mean I have been a highly sensitive person in the past, but on top of that is the hormonal changes, I think just more kind of feel things. So I've had to draw limits to the amount of information I consume the, whereas maybe before I would watch the news a lot, but I've had to really limit it and knowing where to go and really limiting the number of clients you can see because when you are talking about trauma, you just can't be doing it to, I don't know how many six clients a day or something like that. I mean, I think at the minute my ideal number probably would be two clients a day or something like that. Because if I see four clients, even in the day, I notice in the evening that I'm super tired and then it's a lot more difficult to be with the family even and they kind of whatever the kids squabbles and so on. The limits are really important. But also looking after myself in other ways in really lifestyle, it has to support everything. And it's much more important that in my early thirties I would've ever imagined.

And I suppose it's years of really doing just mostly trauma work. It's tough going, so really need to have those boundaries and look after myself. And it's not always, therapist often are not the people who remember to look after themselves first. So it needs to be like you need to be drumming into your own head that I need to look after me first so that then I can do this work and be of service to other people.

Absolutely. I think it's really tricky, isn't it? You and I are obviously a sort of established stage of our career and we're both working independently and so we kind of can our days around ourselves and to make sure we're not going to burn out either in terms of empathy or in terms of our mental health. But for many of our listeners, they are in really high paced, understaffed, over subscribed services where they are having to do many, many sessions a day and possibly not all massively traumatic, but I still remember when I was in the NHSI was having to see all four slash choosing to see in terms of my job, five clients a day in a, what is it, seven and a half hour day, including a lunch break. It is a lot. And I know people listening to this will be feeling really strung out and really overstretched. It's such a tricky job that we do

And I think we don't always, or it's not appreciated what difficult you are taking someone else, you are living someone else's pain for that time and your nervous system, you are helping them to regulate. So you are not just there as a almost detached person. At least I feel that my clients probably get a lot more focused time for me for much longer time than anyone else in my life because there's always other distractions and what have you. But when I'm with a client, I'm super focused and I also do have a bit of an ADHD brain, so I need to be focused and that's why and I can be in that space because there is nothing else apart from me and the client, but it can become draining and yeah, it's really important to look after oneself and

You're so right. The idea that I would even spend 50 minutes of focused attention on one of my children or my husband, they would be like, what's going on? It's hard. It's really hard. And I do try to build in five minutes at the end of the day to have focused time with each one of my two children. But it is hard when you are at the end of a busy day and perhaps our window tolerance is more squeezed and you're just ready to race to the finish line so you can just sit and not be needed by anyone. It is a tricky balance.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. I do the same. The bedtime is in some ways my favourite time as long as everyone's quiet and in bed and then we can have, I read to my younger one and then my older one I usually go and he wants me to be with him whilst he reads, so I read my own book next to him, but it's like we have together, but there's something about the kind of bodily regulation and we are being, instead of just doing together and obviously trying to catch up moments and a few minutes of one-to-one attention throughout or during the day, maybe in the morning or in the evening, but otherwise with the client, it's that time they are with you. It is so focused.

Thank you. I love that idea. So we've got children that are a similar age and we've recently switched to doing stories with the younger one and they're giving the older one a slightly later bedtime, but still quiet time in his room. But I love the idea of actually just snuggling down and reading together and sort of companionable silence. I might, well see if I can introduce that. So we do try and have sort of protected time where we'll chat about the favourite part and least favourite parts of our days. But I love reading actually. So yeah, I do usually just do that before I go to sleep. But yeah, I like that idea. So thank you. That will percolate through my brain and hopefully trickle through to my practise as well with my children practise. It feels like practise some of the time, doesn't

It? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, I mean he initiated and he's been asking for it and then we're going through different phases, but I think there is something about just that one-on-one time because they don't get that much time whilst they're in school and so on. So it's the evening and I suppose preparation for the separation when you are asleep and so on, and just being there together. But being together doesn't always mean that you're communicating through with your words. It can mean just existing and being and your body is touching even.

Thank you. And as you spoke, I was wondering about Finnish culture really. I really don't know anything at all apart from Finland, apart from I went to university with someone who was finished and had a very, very marvellous feather coat because he told me it was very, very cold in Finland. But other than that, I think, I dunno anything, would you be able to guide us through just a little tiny potted history about what it means to you to be finished?

Okay, well I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is the nature, the connecting with nature in a completely different way. If you live in a country now, and that might be your life kind of thing, but it's basically the country of thousands of lakes like so many. And the nature is literally on your doorstep. And whilst British people talk a lot about the weather and so on, but I think Finland, you pay even more attention to the changes in the nature. And so obviously four seasons you get proper, proper winters. The spring and the summer it varies, can be a little bit like here, sometimes it's hot, sometimes not. So it varies. And autumn obviously. And then I guess one thing that is about the sun that in the winter there's less sun and then in the summer there's so much sun that the just you go to bed or even at, well say two o'clock in the morning, it's like at daytime. So the nature is amazing in terms of with the culture, I think the culture has been, I've reflected a lot on this and coming away is easier to reflect when you are in the culture.

The second world war, definitely, and the kind of war times. And we were, at one point we were part of Russia and then we were part of Sweden and then the Russia tried to take over and there was all of that sort of many, many, many, we be independent now for whatever over a hundred years. So all of that, I think there is a lot of trauma that, for example, my generation, my parents and obviously grandparents went through my hometown was the, what do you call headquarters for the army during the second World war. So there's a lot of stories that I heard as a kid about all sorts of things going on. So I think there was a lot of that and that has in the culture as definitely left scars. And now it's nice to see that the younger generation, because it obviously takes a few generations to come out, hopefully the ones who are in their twenties and at least we've had all pairs and young women and what have you. And I think they seem to have a different energy probably when you're 20 anyway, you've got different energy to in your forties.

So there's been a lot of that historical kind of trauma. And I think what's about a lots of this studies or this kind of happiness measurements and so on, they've rated Finland really high, but a finished person would never say I'm so happy because I think it comes from these sort of contentment in your life. We have a very large middle class, so we don't have very many people who are right on the top and it is not as hierarchical that way. And the state looks after people, well, people obviously complaining always perfect. So there is, that is quite a wealthy society, small society. There's only 5.5 million, 5.4 million less than in London. And you can imagine when you've got so few people, it's a lot easier to manage. Schooling is good or healthcare, all of that kind of stuff. But I think generally what used to be that the nature of people is that you have to be quite humble. Don't put yourself up too much. So all of the marketing that I've done in my private practise, I've had to do a lot of work in terms of showing up and putting yourself forward. And what does that mean? Not really supposed to. Yeah, I think the nature, being close to nature is really important. Thank you

So much for illuminating us a little bit on finished culture because it's not something that many of us probably know that much about. So yeah, thank you for sharing those insights with us. It sounds like a wonderful place to grow up actually. But yeah, like you said, so much smaller than the UK Certainly.

Yeah. Oh, I must not forget is that Santa Lives in Lapland, which is obviously part of Lapland. Lapland covers four countries, but big part of it's in Finland, so I have to do a bit of advertising for them.

Yeah, amazing. So yeah, we are just now conjuring up exactly how

Cold and snowy that becomes at times. Okay, thank you. And now you've got quite a unique niche, haven't you, that you are working in and I first considered reaching out to you for the podcast because of a hilarious meme that I'd put together one day thinking about how when we are dating as psychologists, you start to think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And it was a bit of a tongue in cheek post, but it really did get me thinking about you and your work and how we go about choosing a good enough forward slash brilliant partner for ourselves. Could you tell us a bit about your niche, Murray?

Yeah, so I've talked about my trauma work. So actually I have two businesses which I've separated. And the why I've separated them is because I have those clients who very much come with the trauma history and they want to work on that, whether it's child emotion or neglect, mother wound is the key word for a lot of the clients that I work with in terms of therapy.

But then I wanted to really start doing something as a little bit more lighter, more fun, and what do I love? I mean, I love talking about relationships and even those over the years with therapy clients, many who were in that place or whether it was that they were recovering from toxic relationships or they were wanting to meet someone or what have you. And I realised that actually there's a niche there in itself dating when you come out of that and when you're more focused on coaching. So when we think about how to go about finding someone who is compatible, but everything starts from within in anything else. It starts from within knowing oneself, knowing who you truly are, what you want in life, in relationships, and also knowing your history, of course, your attachment adaptation and understanding what it is that you need in a relationship and how to communicate that even when you are dating.

So it's not as simple as like most people I used to do this to is that you go out there and you start meeting people and then you hope for the best, fingers crossed. And most of the time nothing comes out of it. And depending on your relationship history in terms of your early relationships at what you learned about yourself and about relationships and even your later relationships as an adult, you might be drawn to certain dynamics. If you're not aware what the pool is, and even if you're aware, you might still end up in the place where you are replicating the same dynamic you had in your early relationships. So everything starts from you, but then also you need to work through perhaps those things that are holding you back, whether in terms of confidence and going and meeting people you need to work through also if you have those pools towards certain type of people.

So the internal dialogue, you need to be aware of it and you need to nurture the parts of you that maybe didn't get nurtured in your earlier relationships or in your kind of childhood relationships. And so self-love is a massive piece of this work. Only when your data from a place of that you are filling your own cup and your focus is on you rather than with someone else completing you. Because often what happens is that many people, they meet someone and I mean, this is what I learned when I worked with couples or helping individuals with their relationships. That's often there is that hope and wish and you're demanding the other to complete you, but in fact you are separate entities and you need to learn to really nurture yourself. And only when you can look after your own needs first, then you can go into a relationship with someone else. Then you can, yes, co-regulate each other, but it's not dependent. Your happiness is not dependent on the other or how they are. So it's when you are dating from a place of I have enough, then you are also likely to attract someone who thinks in the same way. I

Really agree. And so many of the clients I work with who might be single are almost looking for a partner to fix themselves and then to start their lives. And it's like, no, no, no, no. We've really got to work on you enjoying your life, finding joy in your life, thinking that you are worthwhile and that you are a good person to spend time with rather than thinking that somebody else is going to do that for you. Because then, and I think it's something that is really important as a parent as well, raising children that they need to feel like they are worthy, not just that they need to be grateful because so-and-so has paid them attention because it's such a minefield, isn't it?

Absolutely, yeah. As a parent, I think doing this trauma work and hearing so many stories or people when they really didn't get enough, they are no perfect parents, but when they really didn't get enough, and then there's always the feeling like, I'm not enough and I need someone to complete me. And then so being as a parent, it feels that there's quite a lot of pressure in some ways. But at the same time, I've said to many clients who become parents, it's like self-compassion is your biggest toll as a parent because there are no perfect parents and we all make mistakes. But what's important that is that you're kind to yourself and you acknowledge your mistakes and you've repaired the relationship. And that way also your child learns about repairing the relationship in the future.

Such important words. And still now, even with my husband, I've been married 11 years together, 14, and I've been a parent for 10 years. I'm still always thinking, gosh, I didn't do that brilliantly. I'm going to need to repair this rupture that's important to me. And it paves the way. And I think in terms of my relationship with my husband, I also sometimes need to remind myself that he's not a mind reader. It's not acceptable for him to imagine or hope that he will be one. And I can't really just be disappointed ethically if I haven't communicated my own needs. That's been one of my learning points over the last 13, 14 years, I think.

Yeah, I think many times girls especially have grown up not really expressing their needs, and then there's always been this fantasy of their partner who knows exactly what I'm thinking. And so many even male clients come and say, my wife says that I should know what she's thinking. So well, I tried to study humans and I still can't, I can't know what's going on in anyone's mind that we need to learn to express. And for many people it is difficult, but even going into dating as many times, it's difficult to express oneself there and communicate what is it that I want in the relationship instead of just hoping that hopefully the other person wants the same. And without these important conversations, we don't know is it going the right direction or is it not going in the right direction? And

Yeah,

Absolutely. It's so important and for women especially to communicate what we want and what we need because it's not clear. And I think men's thinking the way they think, it's very much more straightforward in some ways. So if it's not on the radar, it's not on the radar. So that's why it needs to be. And many times men have said, and I think my husband as well, you need to be be clear. I don't know unless you're clear, then I can do whatever. But if it's not clear, it's really tricky to navigate

Really important stuff. And I know you've got a podcast as well that talks through some of these issues. Could you tell us a bit about that?

Yeah, so it's called How to Love Successfully, and it's focused on dating specifically, well, dating and wellbeing. It is not just about relationships mean. So when I started to focus on trauma, I came across a lot of somatic therapies and did some training and so on. So all of these body-based stuff really spoke to me, and I want to bring a little bit of that to the podcast too, because we are these physical beings. I used to be certain just living in my head, completely disconnected from my body, and I find that this is the case with a lot of people on the hold. So really understanding not only our thoughts, but really what goes on in the body and kind of making the connections, whether you are dating in the relationships, just living your life really, you need to know what's going on in your body because of course your emotions live in your body. So yeah, so I invite guests and we talk about relationships from different angles, but I also do individual or solo episodes and talk about different dating, dating related topics and so on.

Where can people listen to the podcast if they'd like to take a listen?

So the easiest way perhaps is to find via my website, so it's dr me coaching.com/podcast. And then also I have a YouTube channel, which is called How to Love Successfully. So you can find there too if you want to listen and watch on YouTube, but I'll give you all the links so you can put them in the show notes.

Yes, I will indeed. So before we finish, could you offer our listeners your top tip, perhaps reducing burnout on the way to a career as being a psychologist would be marvellous.

Oh my goodness. This is a thing for all of us in different stages of our lives. And yes, I do remember how it was then aspiring to be a psychologist, and maybe sometimes there was that sort of questioning whether will it ever happen. And I guess sometimes it's about honouring, well, a lots of times it's about honouring our feelings and not trying to deny that, but just mindfully observe and being with and noticing that and really having in life other things too, so I can understand that they work and if you are as an assistant psychologist and whatever you're doing right now, life is probably very busy. And like you were mentioning earlier on that work in the NHS and all of that kind of stuff, but really focusing on having fun things outside. There is life beyond the work life and life is, I notice it myself now being middle aged that it goes so fast and if you just focus on career like I did for many years, I feel. So it's about grabbing those small moments and trying to be in the moment, but also acknowledging if you are having a difficult time and it's difficult to trust whether you'll get to this career that you want to do. There's always a way. There's always, I mean, I think that's what I've learned in life is that whatever, even if it's not the path that I initially thought, there's maybe a round trip that can help me to get where I need to go. So that's what I would say really.

I love that. I've not heard that before either. So it might not be the path, but it might be a looping road that helps you learn something that's useful for your actual journey.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that. That's made my day. I'll use that with clients in future. So yeah, we've got your website and that will be in the show notes and we've got your YouTube channel, that'll be on the show notes. You are also on LinkedIn and on Instagram, so I know we discussed beforehand that you are Dr. Ma Coven on LinkedIn, and you are Dr. Ma Coven coaching on Instagram.

That's right. Yeah.

Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time and helping us learn about so many important topics, occupational psychology, a bit about cancelling psychology, a bit about Finnish culture, of course, yourself and your very interesting niche as a dating coach.

Oh, thank you so much. It's been such a fun conversation, and it is been so lovely also to speak with you really now in person, because it is almost like you watch someone's videos for a long time, and it's almost like you get to know them, but you don't really know them, and you haven't it exchange or had a conversation. But yeah, it's been really lovely to connect with you today and share something to your audience.

Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure, and please let me know if I can help with anything in future.

Oh, thank you so much. It's been really lovely.

Oh, what an absolute pleasure to speak with Dr. Mari Koan. I hope you found our conversation nourishing and wholesome, and it is given you lots of interesting points to reflect upon. Please do come and let me know what you think to the episode, which you can do by coming along to the Aspiring Psychologist Community Free Facebook group. My next live Compassionate q and a date is on Tuesday the 7th of November at 6:00 PM and that will be running across all of my socials, so that's where you can catch the live one. But don't forget those replay ones are available on my YouTube channel two. The easiest way to do that is to go to Dr. Marianne Trent. Click on the live tab and then you should be able to see them there. But you can also look at the playlist, which you can access via clicking any of the links in my social media bios, and of course, do consider the Aspiring Psychologist Collective book and the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. Thank you so much for being part of my world. Please do let me know what you think to this episode. And yeah, thank you so much for being part of my world. I will look forward to coming along with the next episode of the podcast from 6:00 AM on Monday. Take care, be kind to yourselves, and I'll see you very soon.

If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be this podcast. You on the.