Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 3

Navigating Life Events as an Aspiring Psychologist  

Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. Life events don’t always happen when and where we expect them to and sometimes, we wish they hadn’t happened at all. In this episode I talk about navigating these events and your own mental health as an aspiring psychologist.   

The Highlights:

• Welcome: 00:28
• Looking after yourself and raising your hand: 02:36
• Grief: 04:00
• Parenting: 10:39
• Relationship Breakdown: 13:40
• Personal Support: 14:35
• Relocations: 16:28
• Summary & Close: 18:15

Links:

• To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0
• To check out The Grief collective Book: https://amzn.to/3pmbz5t
• To check out The Our Tricky Brain Kit: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/tricky-brain

Connect on Socials:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodThinkingPsychologicalServices

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marianne-trent-psychology

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmariannetrent/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodThinkingPs1

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Hi, welcome along. Let's think for today's episode about life events and psychology. So of course the desire to progress our career and to get on and to do the next thing, the next assistant psychologist post, or the next research post, or the next rung on the ladder of whatever you are doing, can feel really pressuring. But of course, as well, with the needs of the service and the needs of the clients, of course, because it's not an easy time to be a human right now. And so as a result of that, the need for mental health services has gone through the roof. Now of course, we don't just necessarily work in mental health services. You might be working in forensic services, or risk management services, or neuropsychological services, which is kind of mental health anyway, isn't it? But you know what I mean.

So it's not easy, and so the clients might not be coping. They might not be coping on a waiting list, and they might be phoning up regularly and you have to be on duty dealing with that. And it's really tricky to really want to be able to run a service and to offer a service to people, but when there are limitations in place it can be really tricky. Because we have ways that we can't respond as we would want to. This can lead to an impact on you as a professional. It can lead you feeling pretty stuck and pretty burned out. And that might be the first of the life events which feels relevant to you as an aspiring psychologist.

What we don't want is for you to burn out on your journey there. But with these conflicting, or massively high demands of the service that you work in, it could happen. And so we've got to be able to look after our mental health. We've got to be able to raise a hand if you feel like you're not managing so well. And actually it can be really useful if it leads to a period of therapy for yourself, or something therapeutic, because it can give you really useful insider insight into what it's like to be a client. So it's not all bad.

And of course it, if it helps you feel better and helps you use different ways to cope with situations so that they crop up less often, or less likely to crop up in future, then that is a win-win. What is not to like there? We all are thinking about trying to maximize our window of tolerance, to give ourselves more jam in the sandwich, to be able to cope better with life as it ebbs and flows, and ebb and flow it will.

So my life ebbed when my dad was unwell. And grief is another area which can crop up right in the middle of your ordinary life, when you were least expecting it. And it can be incredibly derailing, as I experienced. And if you'd like to read more about that, you can check out the grief collective book, Stories of Life Loss and Learning to Heal. But yeah, grief will be a sucker punch to the gut every time. And when you are trying to get on in psychology, it can feel like it's not okay to take your foot off the gas. To react, or to take time off from what you are doing. But what we know is that you are going to be your best, optimal self at work when you feel like you've got more jam in that sandwich. When you feel like you've got more flexibility, when you feel like you're not really, really hurting in the moment, when you are not really reeling from your own personal circumstances.

And what I found was that whilst my colleagues were incredibly supportive when I did return to work after my dad sadly passed away, that we could try and give me cases that weren't about cancer, that weren't about dead dads. In a trauma service, there's a surprising amount of kind of dead dads, unfortunately. Some have arisen through really traumatic murders. So we tried to be as selective as possible about that, to look after me. But my dad was called Norman, God rest him. And with the best will in the world, I couldn't have predicted that a case of someone I was working with, that someone significant in the story was called Norman. And so daily, when I was seeing the client, I was having to hear the word Norman and just, in terms of my own transference issues, having to just deal with that and manage that.

And so it is worth thinking whether you are well placed to be at work at the moment, if you are suffering with grief, and whether you can raise that with your supervisor. Or maybe rejig what you are doing so that you are less likely to be triggered whilst you are hurting. But it might be useful ... So I found it really helpful to have some EMDR, so eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, to help me with my grief. And that absolutely helped me to feel more contained about it, to stop things being so leaky. But when these sucker punches happen and something really significant happens in our life, you're allowed to be human. None of us are super human, or should be thinking that we ought to be. So if you've got that in your head as the ideal, then it might just be worth having a little rethink about that. Another big life event can be becoming a parent, and I will be back to talk with you about this just after that ad break.

Hello, my name is Veronika Kasova. I live in Edinburgh and I just graduated with a Masters in Psychology of Mental Health. Marianne recommended me the Clinical Psychologist Collective when I was not working on LinkedIn, and I must say, I love it. It is one of a kind. It's like a window into the lives of people on the path of becoming a psychologist. The stories are unique, honest, and filled with a kind of intangible wisdom on the personal storytelling you can uncover. A common thread in the stories I valued most was to be compassionate, not only with others, but with myself too. Also, not fixating on becoming a psychologist, but enjoying life, growth, and the final results will come as a byproduct. Marianne, thank you for taking the time to collate all the stories, the book is a true gem, and I think every aspiring psychologist should have a copy on their shelf. Thank you.

So, becoming a parent. This is something that I get asked reasonably often, should I have a baby before I start my training? Should I have a baby during training? Is it best to wait until after training? And I think it's such a unique decision based on you. Based on your age, based on your gender, based on your ideals for what kind of parent you'd like to be. So I know that for me, it felt like being an attachment parent, and using principles of gentle parenting felt like they resonated with me most, okay? So that's baby wearing and breastfeeding, I was a breastfeeding mama. Even with children with tongue ties to overcome that. And bed sharing when needed as well. And actually that would've been tricky if I was trying to work as an aspiring psychologist at that time.

But like many things in life, we do just get on and make the best of a situation. And actually, if you feel like the time is right for you to start a family or to expand your family, then that might well be what you want to do. And I think that I'm most definitely a better psychologist since becoming a parent, because it's given me new insights into positive regard, and unconditional positive regard. Given me new insight into love, and difficult feelings, and parenting with a partner and staying on the same team, even when you don't always agree. I've really learned a lot.

And so I'm not suggesting that you have a child to become a better psychologist, please don't think that's what I'm saying. But like learning to dance in the rain, isn't it? That you might well stumble across new insights and reflections that are really useful that do make interesting talking points for interviews, when you're demonstrating points, when you're demonstrating that, that you have a good real life application of theory and can weave that into your understanding about clients, and to advance your skills in being an aspiring psychologist.

And another common life event can be relationship breakdown. When you thought someone was going to be your forever, and you hope they might be, or even if they were your just for now. I absolutely during training spent a few days laying on a sofa wailing because the person I thought was going to be my right now for a bit longer wasn't. Oh, dear. Poor, poor Marianne. She was hurting. She was hurting. And so if you're experiencing your own heartache, heart goes out to you, because it's not easy. When you're trying to navigate that, and whilst still showing up and still being present. Still trying to help clients and your staff team when actually your world has got a bit dented.

So yeah, it's important to think about who you are able to talk to about things like this. Are you well supported by your family? Have you got friends that you can talk to about it? Even if they can't change it, which of course we often know they can't, but can they hear you? And I think with relationships, it can be really useful to think about. You've already imagined the next stages. You might already imagined children, or you might even have booked holidays or weddings or something like that. And so to then alter your perception of what your life might look like in future can be tricky, it can be problematic. And you can allow yourself to grieve for what you've lost, and you absolutely can grieve for things that haven't yet happened. For things that you had imagined would happen.

It's taken your life in a deviation from on the course that you would've hoped for. And we kind of have to hope that things might work out for the best, and that what's for you doesn't pass you by, but it doesn't always feel that way. And that's sometimes a way that we make sense of what's happening to us, but doesn't necessarily help us to deal with that pain. It doesn't get that person to change their mind, or you might be the person that's decided to end this relationship because they're not the person that you need, and yet you can still grieve for that relationship.

And I know that another common issue for aspiring psychologists is another biggie, and it's where you live. So it's really common to be applying for jobs all over the country, and maybe even the world, when you're an aspiring psychologist to try and build those skills and competencies that you might be lacking. What you recognize you would benefit from new skills, experiences, and opportunities. So I know at any one time in sort of 2006, 2007, I think I had an interview being offered to me in Nottingham, one in the Lake District, bearing in mind I was living the Milton Kings, and one Birmingham. That's quite a big spread. That's massive, isn't it? And I think if I'd been offered those jobs, two of the interviews I didn't actually end up going to in the end, but if I'd been offered those, I would've considered relocating, even though I didn't know anyone there.

And I know that's really common in psychology, to just up sticks and go somewhere else, especially when you start training. But that takes time to adjust to, to find somewhere to live, and to make sure you've got to feel safe there if you don't know the area of the country that you're going to be living in, and to find new normal takes time. As well as trying to throw yourself into this new job, you're doing something pretty important, which is settling into a new home environment. And that might be that you are renting with others and trying to get through all of that, everything that's inherent in that as well.

So there are absolutely many, many different life events that can crop up on your journey to being an aspiring psychologist. So I thought it would be useful to just give you a little of an overview of those. And if you've got any more life events that you'd like me to talk about, just give me a shout. I do have a five day challenge coming up, so if you'd like some opportunities for free to learn about building the skills and competencies to help you be the psychologist you would like to be, then do check out www.GoodThinkingPsychology.co.uk/Aspire. I will look forward to catching up with you for our next episode very soon. Take care.

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