Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode 149: Assistant Psychologist Roles: What the BPS Says You Should and Shouldn't Do

In this episode of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, Dr. Marianne Trent and assistant psychologist Luke Meakin dive into the British Psychological Society's latest guidance on recruiting and supporting assistant psychologists. They explore what assistant psychologists should and shouldn't be doing, the accessibility of the guidance, and how it aims to standardise the role across the profession. This engaging conversation offers valuable insights for aspiring psychologists, supervisors, and services employing assistant psychologists.

Whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a supervisor, or just curious about the evolving landscape of assistant psychologist roles, this episode provides a clear and detailed understanding of the latest BPS recommendations.

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Key Takeaways:

• Understanding the BPS guidance on assistant psychologist roles and responsibilities.

• Challenges with the accessibility and inclusivity of the guidance.

• Insights into voluntary roles, supervision, and ethical considerations for assistant psychologists.

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Highlights:

• 00:00 - Introduction and Overview of the Episode
• 00:31 - Host Welcome and Introduction to BPS Guidance
• 01:19 - Welcoming Back Guest: Luke Meakin, Assistant Psychologist
• 02:58 - Discussion on BPS Guidance Accessibility Issues
• 03:16 - Comparing BPS and ACP Guidance on Assistant Psychologists
• 04:58 - Challenges of Accessing the BPS Website and Resources
• 05:35 - Luke’s Experience with BPS Membership and Access
• 06:40 - The Restrictive Nature of BPS Resources
• 07:48 - First Impressions of the BPS Guidance Document
• 09:14 - Clearer Job Titles for Assistant Psychologists
• 10:16 - Addressing the Ambiguity of Assistant Roles
• 11:00 - The Controversial Honorary (Voluntary) Roles in Psychology
• 12:45 - Minimum Requirements for Assistant Psychologist Roles
• 15:49 - Exploitation Concerns for Voluntary Assistant Roles
• 18:23 - Ethical Considerations and the Call for Paid Positions
• 21:28 - The BPS’s Recommendations on Assistant Psychologist Responsibilities
• 25:17 - The Use of Supervision and Reflective Practice
• 28:08 - Balancing Contracts, Fixed-Term Roles, and Job Security

Links:

📲 Connect with Luke here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-meakin/

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📱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

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What does the British Psychological Society say that an assistant psychologist should be doing? What do they say they should not be doing? I am joined once again by Luke Meakin, an assistant psychologist. We are taking a look at the recent guidance put together by the BPS, looking at how to recruit assistant psychologist. It is an invigorating, lively, really interesting and helpful discussion. I hope you find it so useful.

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. It is my pleasure to bring you this close look at what goes on in the minds of qualified psychologists and speaking to our guests who I have just recorded this episode with and you are just about to meet again, it just reinvigorates my passion for this podcast. It really does that it's making a difference, that it's appreciated that you are getting access to really important, helpful conversations that you may or may not be getting access to in your immediate work or learning environment, but that it can help shape you and your thinking and hopefully make your life working in mental health work better for you.

Let's dive in and I'll catch you on the other side. Hi, just want to welcome back to the podcast, Luke Meakin, assistant psychologist. Hi Luke, lovely to have you back.

Hi, Marianne. Thank you for having me back. It's a pleasure to be here again.

Oh, I agree. I was like, when you're preparing for a day and you sometimes think, oh, I've got to do that today, I was like, oh, I GET to see Luke again! So was a geal shift, isn't it? Obviously, really looking forward to seeing you. So thank you for being here.

Of course, thank you. It's great to be back.

And we are talking today again about assistant psychologists and since we met, pretty much as soon as we'd met, we messaged each other to say, oh look, there's some guidance on the recruitment of assistance psychologists from the British Psychological Society now the BPS. And obviously when we met for our audience, it was last week for us. It was pretty much feels like a lifetime ago, but it was at the start of the summer and we were looking at the Association of Clinical Psychologist guidance for assistant psychologists. So we thought it might just be a really nice idea to just compare and contrast really. So we're not going to go over too much of what we've gone over before. So people, if they haven't watched the first one, they might find it helpful to do that. It's called What is an Assistant psychologist and what do they do if you're looking for it? And it's like years since it came out, it came out in October, 2024.

Yeah, I think it was really quite frustrating and confusing that it came out maybe one or two days after we recorded. So it is definitely good to have this time to discuss it because we've all in the industry been waiting for a while for the BPS to produce something.

Yeah, we really have, and I think my first dismay with this was that I initially tried to download it this morning whilst I was eating breakfast, but I couldn't do it from my tablet because you needed to be logged in, so you needed to be a BPS member to access that. And that doesn't feel that inclusive really. Whereas the A CP one, I think I'm right in saying was just a freely available online document. So if anyone is working in a service and wanted to check what the BPS guidance is and they're not a member, they can't. And if anybody's looking to recruit, but they're not a BPS member, they can't necessarily access that readily. They might be able to contact the BPS and see if they can get a copy, but yeah, that was just a little bit of a hearts sink moment. So it delayed my processes but also made me think about people trying to do. Right. It's very tricky.

Yeah, I think you're totally right. It's kind of indicative of how the BPS tend to work in my experience, as you say, they put something out that's really helpful and they limit it straight away. And the website, I dunno if you go on there often, I tend to go on there maybe once a month or if I'm trying to search particular documents, publications, it's quite a cumbersome website or it can be depending on the device you're using. So luckily I was at work and I was able to get into it pretty easily, but I think if I was on an iPad, I think you use an iPad a lot. If I was on an iPad I would've struggled. So it's definitely a bit of a barrier before the first hurdles even jumped.

Yeah, I think there is something about the restrictive element of BPS. So I'd signed up for a course that I'd bought through them, and it's not a cheap course and I hadn't realised when I bought it that I only get six months access. And so I think it's nice to be able to get lifetime access and to be able to go back and engage with it again or watch it when you've got more head space or when you might be at a different stage of your learning journey to be able to take more from it. And yeah, that was a little bit annoying in terms of access too, I thought.

Yeah, yeah, I found that when applying for the extra divisions, the subdivisions, so I think I'm a member of the clinical psychology and psychosis, psychotic disorders I suppose. And it's really, really difficult to access those things on the website after paying for admission into the subdivision like yourself. You just said if there's six months you've got access to that. What if you need it in a year? What if you haven't prepared enough for finishing that training within the six months? And it just seems like they shoot themselves in the foot when they're trying to increase this inclusivity. They're trying to increase awareness to the role and bring more specific understanding from the wider industry into what psychologists do. It just seems a bit redundant at times, but let's try and give them the benefit of the doubt with this document, I suppose.

Absolutely. So this isn't supposed to be an anti-BPS thing. I guess we're just being curious and compassionately critical and thinking about what we would think would be good enough in any circumstance really in the psychology profession. So for anyone who is just interested in our conversation or doesn't perhaps have access to BPS guidance.

Yeah, I think overall actually from first read of it, I was quite pleasantly surprised, but I do think we can get into quite a few things here, but I was pleasantly surprised with the depth of it, but I think it missed the point on a few sections, which I'm sure you may agree with.

Yeah, one of my latter things that upset me was I was just getting into it. I mentioned it just before to hit record, but I was just getting into it and I was just at the point where I thought I'm quite enjoying this, and I was on page 24 or something of a 36 page document and then I flicked over the page and then it was references like it was done and I was like, oh, I feel like I needed or was expecting a little bit more.

Yeah, I know I was the exact same and it actually really helped me this morning. I was blocking out another hour or so to read it, but yeah, finished. So I was like, okay, I'm going to have to go and talk to some patients now, which is good. It's a positive

Exactly though. But when you realise you've got a 36 page document to read, you give that the appropriate time that a document like that requires, and then obviously actually you've over read the pudding by about a third. But that said, when I opened the document to begin with, I liked the glossary, I liked terms being clear, and later on during the document it describes what it wants assistant psychologists to be called and what it would prefer that they weren't. And actually it makes things less ambiguous, I think it makes things a bit clearer. So basically they'd like them to be called assistant psychologist, assistant educational psychologist, and voluntary assistant psychologist. And really those are the only three terms that they would like to be seen being discussed. And I think that's really helpful because I mean, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn then variety of different job roles that I see people having and sometimes I'm like, well, they sound more qualified than me.

Why is that? I've never heard of that. And then I look and see that they've actually done their psychology degree and that's it. And it's like right. And so sometimes I've actually spoken to people and said, what is this job title and how did that come about? And they're like, well, that's what our service asks us to call ourselves. And I said, it feels a little bit dodgy to me. And actually it does make you sound very, very qualified. It is like psychology lead or psychologist in charge or something like that. And I don't know, that sounds big. So yeah, for me, just this might empower people already in what is essentially assistant psychologist role to start that conversation with their employers about actually could we look to rename me in line or rename this role? It's not just about person. Is it in line with the guidance from the British Psychological Society?

Yeah, I totally agree. I remember in the last episode we did, we spent quite a bit of time discussing the common ambiguity of the role for various reasons. And I totally agree that it's helpful. The BPS have kind of said there's three pathways in which we would accept govern and assistance psych. And with regards to the voluntary, which I'm sure we'll get into a little bit, we spoke about it last time, the voluntary role, they do say that we don't support that, however we acknowledge it exists. So this is our recommendation. So I think it's really, really helpful to see them sort of clamping down and being more specific for those reasons you've just stated.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think the honorary role is a big conversation and we will come back to it, I'm sure. So I think for me it also, they said that to be an assistant psychologist you need to be a psychology graduate, which obviously then gives you the graduate basis for registration. I get it wrong. Is it GVC or GBR? I think I had GBR and we're talking about GBC now. Are we? No, I get them mixed up. There used to be something different. So what is it and what was it?

I think it's GBC, but I'm just checking my LinkedIn because

That graduate basis for Chartership though, isn't it?

Yes. So I have GMB PSS, which on the document I remember being really confused when the doctor application was asking for my titles, I was really confused, have I got graduate basis for chartership? And apparently yet you do, which gives you the G-M-B-P-S. But when you are at the level where you have passed through traineeship, that's when you can use GBC and then after trainee you are qualified.

So yeah, for me it's clarifying what an assistant psychologist is and that an assistant psychologist must be a graduate, which then made me think, well why are people advertising placement years as assistant psychologists posts because they ought not to be. Because actually that is against the BPS guidance now.

Yeah, who's leading, who is it? The BPS is supposed to be guiding the industry. And I had a really quick look at some of the job applications for assistant psychologists after reading this document. And whilst they're improving, there's still a few things that are not what the BPS have advised in this. So it just beg the question who is supposed to be governing whom, and I don't know where this confusion is coming from, but it would be nice to see everything sort of in the one path like this document and students, they're not assistants like you say, it would be dangerous for them as well as the service to be given that responsibility when they're just at university. There's a big difference in skill level and competencies and just personal development at that point.

And I think for me, one of the things that shone out of this guidance was there should be a development role. And even in cases where this is a voluntary role, I almost called it honorary, but I'm going to call it voluntary from now on because I think honorary makes the company feel better about it and perhaps makes the person feel better as well. But it is a voluntary role and it said that it should be no more than basically one day a week volunteering whole time equivalent. And that there should still be the same amount of requirements for supervision and that there should still be job plans and progression happening as part of that role. And you still have a right to accrue toil, obviously not paid time off, but if you're doing over and above the time that the service have said they want you, you can take that time back and that you still have rights to unpaid annual leave.

And for me, that really made me think about when I've been in services where there have been voluntary members of staff that it might just be like, oh, oh, so-and-SO'S not here tomorrow on annual leave. Perhaps we could ask the honoree to come in. Whereas the natural fact that's not okay. It probably never was. Well, it never was. But this firm set up more, this isn't just a supernumerary member of staff you might have on an NHS ward to meet minimum numbers. This is a voluntary member of staff who cannot be counted in the numbers. And actually there was even questions raised about whether a voluntary member of staff is definitely covered on the organization's indemnity and that needs to be an explicit conversation. Whereas in my experience, this is just not the case. And a voluntary member of staff has just been exploited massively basically in a nutshell.

Yeah, totally. I mean, I haven't been around the honorary role, but it just screams exploitation because even if all those things were put in place, well, I say that I can't see how supervision or access to supervision would happen with a seven hour shift. I think it was seven hours or seven and a half. I don't see access to that purely because of the pressures on teams and services. I don't see them not being given extra responsibilities that they shouldn't be doing because as you know, you've worked in the NHS and you're still close to it. The pressures are the pressures and unfortunately often everyone has to gets lumped with things they shouldn't necessarily be doing, which is what we were discussing last time, which is why we wanted the extra guidance, which I think this is helpful for because I still just don't understand why the honorary role exists exploitative, but it also cuts off a lot of the potential workforce that couldn't get into psychology. Like myself, I'm a white male, so statistically overprivileged position, I couldn't do that. I couldn't work for free for a day. So it must be cutting off a lot of people. So I don't see why the need exists still and maybe more about that from a managerial service development point of view, NHS, why it would still continue existing. I dunno if you could speak upon that with the pressures as to why the, they're all may exist still.

I think it's condoned because it's been established as a viable way of plugging service gaps and there hasn't been enough of a stand against it. And actually if I was still working in the NHS, I think I would be part of that stand. I cannot ethically get behind asking people to work for free. I can't hold interviews for who gets the privilege of coming to work with me for free and paying for their parking and their commuting costs and their lunch money and all of that. So actually they're out of pocket. So I think hopefully this guidance and the A CP guidance before it starts to, and this podcast maybe do, starts to turn the tide on that a little bit.

Yeah, it is good to see that they made several references throughout the document that the BPS doesn't agree with this role existing, but given it exists and the pressures it exists, we strongly recommend X, Y, Z. So maybe that, as you say, is a start in the right direction and hopefully that gives people the platform to talk more about it such as this podcast and hopefully one day pretty soon we can get rid of it because I don't see the positives in it really.

And I think especially because there's lots of mentions across the guidance around equality, diversity and inclusion and trying to think about contextual factors. They are recognising just how inaccessible the profession can be. And so to add that further tier of voluntary roles, I was reading it thinking if I've done a voluntary placement year and I'm legally allowed to say that that was an assistant psychologist post and put that I've worked for nine months whole time equivalent as an assistant psychologist, I'm going to have a significant advantage in gaining interviews for paid assistant roles. I think if you're not allowed to do that, then you'd have to call yourself a psychology worker, just a placement student. What would you call yourself in those circumstances? Because in my experience, everybody tends to call themselves an assistant psychologist.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. I've come across psychology assistants in, I suppose that was more private healthcare and they appeared sort of half the role of an assistant psychologist, but that was used interchangeably over there. So I honestly don't know what you could be referred to as. And as you said, honorary is a more positive spin. It's not an honorary position. An honorary position is usually used for quite senior people, maybe an academic institutions. This definitely isn't that. It feels and seems like exploitative potentially grunt work where they shouldn't be doing that at all.

And regardless of whether someone is voluntary or paid, they should be assisting with the work of at least one practitioner psychologist. And I think sometimes that is just not the case. Is it sometimes these posts, as we spoke about last time, are advertised and the practitioner psychologist doesn't even work in the service that supervises them. It's kind of super remote. They might even only have one contact hour a week and that is not a safe service and that is not an assistant psychologist role as this guidance understands it.

Yeah, yeah, totally. I don't know how you could achieve those things in one day. And just as you were saying that, I was just having a quick look back over the guidance and I've come to the job descriptions and person specifications and if you don't mind I I'll just read out the paragraph I highlighted. AP duties should broadly align with those held by practitioner psychologists like you've mentioned, but they should be at a level proportionate to the nature of the role should exclude management responsibilities and should include increased supervision. So right there that is at odds with the honorary and at least anecdotally with people I know who've worked in assistant roles, they haven't achieved that they should not be asked to take on roles that are significantly distinct from typical practitioner psychologist roles that rotate with or are combined with nons psychologist responsibilities, eg healthcare assistant roles, which we've kind of just alluded to that could happen or are primarily administrative. And then it goes on to recommend physical restraint is not part of the AP job role, which may be a separate conversation, but I think is really helpful to see that there.

Absolutely. I had considered that paragraph as well. And I don't know, for me, if you're working in an inpatient secure facility, restraint is potentially everybody's role. It's tricky. I think if there's a core staff of nursing staff available to do it, then that makes most appropriate sense. But if you are there and there is severe harm happening to somebody, you can't really say, I'm not doing that because an assistant psychologist. Can you?

No, I think you're right. Having worked in acute settings and I'm sure you have yourself been around them, you would definitely hope there is a reasonably staffed clinical team there. And I suppose it was helpful for me when I came into my current setting, which is adult rehab services, I had similar questions about that because the environment is similar to an acute ward, it's not the same high security, but it's similar in nature. And it kind of made me think of my time on acute wards when I was a healthcare assistant and we would be responding and the advice was sort of the therapy team, which psychology is included under shouldn't be responding because it severs that therapeutic relationship or potentially severs, which until that moment I hadn't really thought of that and I thought that was a great piece of advice because we are seen as a bit differently.

Suppose to add to the assistant psychologist role, we are seen as an extra part of the clinical team but also a little bit different depending on the population we're working with. We can get a bit closer to them. We have the extra knowledge of the degree, but we also have hopefully supervision from a professional, a clinical qualified and we don't want to damage that therapeutic relationship. However, to your point, if there was absolutely no one else around, yes I would be expected to help out and we should. So maybe there could be an asterisk on the document alluding to what we're talking about sort of emergency situations. Maybe they should be trained in it and guidance should be sort of let the clinical team respond. Nursing team absolute necessary must risk to self risk to others. Cause I totally agree with your point there.

Yeah, lovely. One bit that made me quite interested, both from a qualified perspective as well as an unqualified perspective was when they were talking about the fixed term roles and that ideally they ought to be for a minimum of 12 months. And I was thinking, oh, I've done six month roles, I've done nine month roles, so 12 months obviously would be great, but there were also ought to be a minimum three months notice of renewals or not renewals. And that made me think, oh gosh, sometimes I've been a week away and got the nod that I'm being kept on. So something that makes that a little bit firmer but also I think empowers people to be able to think, oh, mine is four months away. I'll take this to supervision, I'll take this to my management to discuss this. Because wheels do turn very slowly in organisations, but it now gives you that kind of clout behind you to say or does it because would you feel comfortable with saying, I am aware we're four months away from the end of my contract and the BPS guidance does say that we ought to be aware three months in advance or there is that power differential isn't there?

How would you feel about that if you were on a fixed term contract, Luke?

Oh, I've been on a fixed term contract like yourself and I totally agree with you. It was very nice to see that, very pleasant to see it. But also I chuckled a little bit like wow, big, big step because I've been on fixed terms, I'm now luckily on a permanent, which is really nice. But with regards to the example you are giving, approaching your manager, whoever is in control of these things, line manager, Hey, contracts running out in so many months, can we discuss X, Y, z? And I've had those conversations, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get back to it. Things will be okay, time creeps on, you have the conversation again. Yeah, things are going well. And then I know similar people have had similar experiences to me and some of them have actually told me they've gone back to their supervisors who said, yes, we're going to extend, and then they were told, no, we're not going to extend. And I said, okay, I've got a month to find a job if that, which as you know yourself and as everyone listening will probably know things move quite slowly with the job applications and getting through references and such. So I think it'd be really helpful to be able to take this to whoever's in charge and say, look, I know you're busy. I know things are up in the air.

We have to have awareness, we have to have knowledge notice three months before. So really, really good to see.

Yeah, because this is rent, this is mortgage, this is childcare, this is supermarket bills, this is being able to pay your car bills. These are people's lives. And I think once you get qualified and perhaps get a little bit further removed from the kind of aspiring psychologist angle, it's easier to forget that I think.

Yeah, that makes total sense. And that's what we're all after I suppose. But that kind of goes hand in hand with having support with this in the first few years and certain things we have to put up with that. And I probably just outdated habits and behaviours which we could easily do away with. So it's good to see this.

It really is. And it really made me think about when I've done supervision for people because I actually have always thought that I needed to kind of countersign notes because they didn't yet have clinical responsibility. But this guidance really suggests that so long as the general standard of notes is being adhered to, that's no longer necessarily enforceable. Obviously someone was concerned about the standard of notes, they may still choose to do that and you might get someone who is a bit of a control freak asking for that to happen. But actually it might be useful to of the pressures of services even to write my own clinical notes. I've seen three clients today, I haven't yet written them. I've got to write them today. So after we meet. So in terms of the pressures of doing our own clinical notes, let alone checking perhaps your entire caseload of notes before I finish for the week, it does just make it that much trickier to do. So this might be an interesting conversation in supervision that this is no longer necessarily a requirement and how do we want to take that forward? What do we want to do about that? Do we want to explore making changes to the way that we do things in our service currently?

Yeah, I was really surprised with that because like I was under the impression everything had to be countersigned by qualified and if you were, for example, my supervisor, I assume that would free up a lot of time or you countersign things would take a lot of time. But I get it, it's best practise. It would be reflecting on you as the supervisor should something go wrong. But as you say, after a while we could discuss this in supervision and if they are up to a certain standard and it's like 85, 90% of the time that standard's being hit. But yeah, it gives them a bit more responsibility. It gives us a bit more responsibility and frees up that time that s from what I can see, just don't seem to have, you guys don't seem to have a lot of time to be spread out everywhere.

No, we've got too many projects, too many plates spinning, but too many demands upon our time generally. And that is absolutely the case whether you are in private practise or it'll be NHS and of course the NHS can have its own additional pressures. I really liked the section about how supervision should be used, how supervision could be used. I thought that was quite nice to have written down.

Yeah, definitely. In my personal experience, I have struggled with supervision in times over my various roles. Sometimes coming in with it being a bit cloudy, a bit ambiguous, not really knowing what it's specifically used for. And then other positions, it's been very specifically defined and I felt like I couldn't bring certain things into that space because they didn't meet the predetermined definition of what supervision was for. So it's really good to see this. And they went into quite detail, actually quite a bit of detail. It's really good to see that it can be sort of what you and your supervisor create. And with time you are building up that relationship where if there is something outside the norm, you bring that in and it should be able to exist there and you go forward and see how it's best going to help your practise, which they kept referring to supervision is to develop yourself and the supervisor to help the people you're with, which is really good to,

And I loved the idea of actually using that to link your theory and your practise, but also explicitly mentioning that you should be stop short saying compassionately tested, didn't it? How did it phrase it? Let's, let me look that up. And I liked the idea that it said that supervision could be used to offer APS intellectual challenge, enabling reflection, which for me sounds like it's a compassionate challenge as well. It's not like we're trying to catch you out. We're trying to help you grow and develop from a respectful stance. So supervision shouldn't feel like you are being found to be lacking. It should be, you should hopefully be in your window of tolerance and well, yes you should. Let's say that in supervision, you should be within your window of tolerance. Let's go there, Luke. Well, I'm certainly saying that and that it shouldn't feel like you are being grilled. That's not the intellectual challenge we're looking for. It's something to help transform you. So that's even what they say, transformational learning and psychological support, not just that. What do you know? Tell us what you know.

Yeah, I like the window tolerance. That's really helpful. I tend to use that a lot when I'm talking to service users. I think it also mentioned, I can't find it right now, but it mentioned the zones of proximal development, which is something I tend to think of as well. It's very constructive. It's through the relationship supervisor and the supervisee. This is where you can get to with the right constructive feedback, supervision is going to help you get there. It might be uncomfortable at times, but that's what I, as a supervisor, I'm here to help contain that. And if you are struggling, you come to me, we'll figure it out together. It's a joint relationship and it's building upon what I gather those foundational elements of what make a psychologist because like yourself, when you are qualified, you're going to be plopped in a team or in a service or run your own thing and you're going to have to be able to support staff at the same time as service users, patients. So it's really good to have these challenges in a safe space, which I suppose is the compassionate side of things.

Absolutely. And it should be safe. And as I was hearing you talk, I was thinking, oh look, it's going to be a really lovely supervisor when you're qualified because it should almost feel like a nurturing, not parental, but that kind of supportive relationship. It should be a little bit, get behind me, I've got you. If they want you, they're coming through me first so that you can't be asked to do everything by everybody and nor can you be criticised or got at that should feel like there's someone on your team and on your side. And yeah, that is all about looking out for you. But the training strategies you mentioned, I'm glad you mentioned that that was page 15. I'm glad you mentioned that. So that's the use of zone of proximal development theory within supervisor supportive learning, which is by ART and CL 2017. And when I read that I was like, yeah, use of the zone of proximal development theory. And so it's okay even at my age and stage of my career to be like, yeah, don't really know what that is. But you've sort of gone into what that is as well. So thank you for covering that for our audience, Luke,

I am sure you remember it. I think it was Vygotsky, if that rings a bell. It's essentially you work at the boundary, the edge of your ability. And if you are able to work at the boundary of the edge, then you will make, with the right guidance, you will make that leap. Whereas if there is too much of a leap, say your supervisor is very, very senior, for example, and you are very, very new, that gap is too big, it's too much of a gulf. You can't access that next zone or the next ring. That's how I viewed it anyway.

I see. It's not being too overstretched, it's what is realistic as a next step

Just outside of your comfort zone. Exactly.

Yeah. Okay. We had to take a little bit of a break in between the first half of that reply and my second half because my little boy just got back from summer school and he came brandishing a certificate, which I can't show you, it's got the name of the school on, but he said, I've got an award for genuine integrity. And what was it you said?

So genuine integrity is one of the school values and it means to do nice things for other people even when there's no one looking.

Okay. So I dunno if you heard that, but it's one of the school values is integrity, but actually this award is for doing nice things for people or doing the right thing even when nobody's looking. And I was like, gosh, isn't that isn't what we do in the psychology world and isn't that what we are asking for in our assistant psychologist roles as well? And he's celebrating now. He's like, he's scored a goal, but that matters, doesn't it?

Yeah, that's brilliant. First I'd say congratulations, well done. He's clearly getting that from his mother, potentially father as well. I don't know, but I know he's getting it from you. But yeah, it's really poignant message and much of our work will be behind the scenes. I'm in a tiny small office right now on the edge of a ward just myself and many assistants and qualified will know much of your work is spent in here preparing, looking at histories and trying to build cases. And then you go out and interact with the team or the patients and it's good for that to be acknowledged just like your son there because it is a huge part of the role. And we get into it knowing that. And we also want to do that. We want to help others with or without that recognition I suppose.

And it goes beyond, you mentioned the office, but it goes beyond that as well. We've got to be making sure that we are speaking respectfully about our clients even when they're not in the room. And I think having been part of teams, it can be easy to slip into colloquialisms or less than respectful ways of talking about clients or clients' families. And it is a reminder, isn't it? That integrity runs through all of our interactions when we are wearing a lanyard and for that matter when we are not, we've got the integrity to uphold the NHS values even when we're going about our day-to-day lives. And there's all the separate conversation, but all what you should and shouldn't be seen doing when you are wearing a lanyard or even when you are on social media and you've tagged that you work for the NHSI

Think if I could go follow this up a little bit, you've just said about using colloquialisms, it made me think of something. In my experience, the role of psychology, whether it's assistants or psychologist I have found is quite well respected in NHS fields and it's getting more and more respect, which is great, we need it. But with that respect, the whole Ben Parker, great responsibilities with great power comes responsibility and so forth. And with all that respect we are given, we should remember to do the things you've just mentioned, to uphold the values, to uphold the ethics that we do so believe in that are all sort of embodied in everything we are doing to try and help others. And with that extra respect and responsibility we're given, we can kind of stand up and say actually to staff, nurses, whoever it may be, let's not talk about them like that.

Let's keep it professional. And in my experience when that's happened, I haven't been kind of shunned away. It's like, oh yeah, they're right, they're right. Because for better or for worse, the fact that psychology is so well known in popular science popular world, that does bring with it a bit of cache and a bit of respect that we can use to our advantage at times. And it's also what makes it feel so in my experience, it's what makes it feel so hard when we do feel exploited, when we don't have the right support behind us because we think we are an important role for the patients and for the team. So yeah, I think it's a really good point and really useful to use your son as an example there.

Absolutely, hello. I feel like I'm doing a good enough job, you know and that's about as much as I have capacity for, and I think that's all we need. That's all we need as parents. It needs to be good enough. It doesn't need to be exceptional and maybe my good enough is exceptional for them. I don't know, a whole other conversation anyway, I'm just conscious of time. Are there any other points that you want to draw or bring forward before we close Luke?

I suppose just from the guidance it mentioned reflective practise and I would've liked to seen a bit more about that because it is so huge in our discipline, so it's good that it's there, but they went in quite detail with regards to supervision, which I was really pleasantly surprised with, but they didn't leave much for reflection or reflective practise and the difference between those two things. So that would be a gripe of mine that maybe they could increase in the improve in the future.

It felt like it had been dropped in as a buzz phrase, but there wasn't much legwork put into what that looks like. And I think it would've been really nice to have, I know some case study examples about what is good practise and what isn't good practise and what are your options if you find yourself in X, Y, and Z. But maybe this is very much a recruitment document. It's not necessarily hugely useful for someone that happens to find themselves in that role

Role. True. Well, I still think that's a great idea actually because even for recruitment teams, it would be good to see what is an intermediate or medium example and what is a bad example for recruitment and for the actual people trying to get their job. So I think that's a great idea and maybe someone's listening to this and they'll take your idea forward. I hope they do well,

Maybe I'll just do it. That's also an option. Just before we finish, I realised that we haven't covered what much of the guidance has been put together from, and it's from a relatively smallish research study done by the BPS where they sampled people who identify as assistant psychologists who are British Psychological Society members. And the number of respondents for that was 3, 3 7, so 337. But of that, it gave us some insight into demographics. And you observed that actually initially you thought that some of the demographics were changing and gave you a little bit of hope for the future, but it's hard to tell with it being a small sample, but also that it's limited to only BPS members of course, because it might be certain people that are more likely to be members, but of this, they also were sampling how often people were getting supervision. I think it was something like nine people were not getting any at all, which is like, oh, that is awful, isn't it? That it brings it into stark reality.

Yeah, I think it's really good to see statistics behind it, some good data, but as you say, it's very small in the grand scheme of things. And I think I'd noticed some of the socioeconomics were shifting. However, then when I read the asterisk at the bottom, the reference, I suppose it said that they had kind of created their own metrics. They'd taken the data and then they'd post data. They'd created three metrics to loosely be placed upon different metrics of the working class, middle class and maybe lower middle class or something. So even that in itself is a little bit loose. So I don't know how much it is actually changing. It would be good to see more robust statistics wider, maybe reach out to people who have worked in the profession and who are qualified now as opposed to just aps. I'm not sure. But it's good to get some stats, but I don't know how far we can take it.

Yeah, hearing you speak about asterisk, my husband says that I love small print. If I'm watching TV and there's an advert and it says 67% of people preferred this or yada, yada, yada. And then it says, this mascara is amazing, it's going to change your lashes. And then I'm looking at this asterisk and it says, this advert is filled with lash inserts. I'm like, I'm outraged. And he's not even noticed the asterisk, so just is kind of letting it flow over him. And I'm like, no, it's not fair. It's not right.

No, we have to find out where our numbers come from because statistics can be manipulated and used. And when you read that, the asterisk at the bottom, you're like, oh, it's not actually that significant really, is it? So I can use the data, but it's not really saying what I think it's saying.

So absolutely the worst offender is when you are watching shampoo and conditioner adverts and it says versus unconditioned hair. And it's like if I bought myself a really cheap conditioner from the cheapest brand I could find, I may have similar results to this because I'm not going to not condition my long hair. So yeah, we can skew the stats however we want.

I guess this is the gift and the curse of viewing things analytically.

Indeed it is. Luke, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you again and I was like, let's keep this about half an hour, but it's such a big and important topic that we've not managed that at all, have we? But yeah, I think these are really helpful and interesting conversations to have.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you loads, Marianne, it's been good to chat. Again, glad you're recovering from your surgery recently. You look great. You look very, well see, you're very active on LinkedIn and to your point, it is important we have these conversations. I think if I'd have stumbled across these things a few years ago, it would've been really, really helpful. So hopefully it helps some in the industry.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, so I've been quite vocal on my social media with the fact that I'd had a mole removed just last week actually, and had to wear this big bandage for a week. So I had my stitches removed on Monday, and we are talking currently on a Wednesday. It's a Wednesday today, isn't it? So yeah, it's been a really interesting process actually, and I decided to start talking about it from a health anxiety, public health perspective because so many of us don't go to the doctors with changes that we've noticed in ourselves. And obviously I hope that it will have a really good outcome for me, but this might just change somebody else's outcome if they see me talking about it.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it will because I've been in similar positions where I've had surgeries for health reasons and I've tried to cover certain things up and I just thought, oh, it doesn't really matter that much. I'm healthy. I'm trying my best, and that is what you're trying to do, which is really important.

Thanks Luke. Thanks so much for your time and also before we finish, you've been able to do this in your work time because of another bit of guidance that suggests that we ought to be able to spend, is it 3.75 hours per week whole time equivalent on continuing professional development, which might include something like this or going to a research meeting or maybe even listening to Aspiring Psychologist podcast episodes? I don't know, but you should have CPD in your role.

Yes. I'm going to milk it a lot and say this is part of my 3.7. Did you say 3.5 hours? I

3.75 hours, I think whole time equivalent. I think

The other hour or so I'll be listening to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast.

Well, thank you very much. I'd say other podcasts are available, but I don't really know that they are. Thanks so much for your time, Luke, and please don't be a stranger and let me know if I can help with anything in the future.

Thank you, Marianne. Yes, I will do. Definitely. Who knows. Hopefully be back on one day

For the next stage of your journey. That would be marvellous.

Thank you.

Thanks, Luke. Thank you once again to our guest, Luke Meakin. What an absolute pleasure it is to speak with him. If you haven't yet caught our previous episode, it's episode 148, wherever you get your podcasts or as I said on YouTube, it is the one that was launched in October called What is an Assistant Psychologist, and what do they do if you don't already subscribe to the channel, please do take a moment to do so. If you don't already follow the show on your podcast platform of choice, please do. It's the kindest thing you can do for free for any podcaster. Please do take a moment to rate and review. If you are listening on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify, you can rate as well. Come and let me know what you think to this episode on the free Facebook group, the Aspiring Psychologist Community with Dr.

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