Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: How to use Psychology in a war zone – Ukraine - Trauma

Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. In this episode of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, Dr. Marianne Trent interviews Dr. Alistair Teager about his experiences setting up a new psychology service in Ukraine. Dr. Teager discusses how he became involved in the project and the challenges he faced working in a war zone. He also talks about the importance of self-care and the impact of vicarious trauma on mental health professionals. Dr. Trent expresses her admiration for Dr. Teager's work and discusses the broader implications of providing mental health support in conflict-affected areas. The episode concludes with a discussion on the responsibility of media outlets when reporting on traumatic events and the importance of raising awareness about mental health issues in Ukraine.

The Highlights:

• 00:00 - Summary
• 00:53 - Introduction
• 02:13 - Moral Injury
• 03:12 - Request for ideas for future podcast episodes
• 04:07 - Welcoming Dr. Alistair Teager and his background
• 05:24 - Involvement in Ukraine
• 06:16 - Opportunistic Career Choices
• 07:14 - Duration of Stay in Ukraine
• 08:25 - Challenges of Working in a War Zone
• 09:21 - Impact of War on Ukrainian Refugees
• 10:48 - Collective Trauma and Ongoing Crisis
• 11:53 - Psychological Impact and Training
• 13:43 - Training Initiatives and Recommendations:
• 14:59 - Shifting Perspectives on Mental Health
• 15:21 - Universal Symptoms of Mental Health
• 16:24 - Ethical Considerations in Media
• 17:22 - Balancing Awareness and Sensitivity
• 18:33 - Self-Care in Trauma Work
• 19:29 - Self-Care Strategies
• 21:31 - Coping with Sleep Challenges
• 22:28 - Decompression and Peer Support
• 23:37 - Practicing What We Preach
• 25:04 - Concerns for Safety and Communication Challenges:
• 27:44 - Mundane Activities in Extraordinary Times
• 29:35 - Generational Effects and Societal Impact
• 31:55 - Offering Support and Mental Health Awareness:
• 33:35 - Acknowledgment and Gratitude
• 37:07 - Multifaceted Career in Psychology
• 37:58 - Closing Remarks

Links:

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Coming up in today's episode, I am joined by Dr. Alistair Teager, who returns to the podcast this time to talk with us about his experiences of helping set up a new service in Ukraine. It is a fascinating listen. We talk through all kinds of things and I hope you'll find it so useful.

If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this you'll podcast.

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. I've said it before and I'll likely say it again. I just love how varied our career in psychology and mental health can be. I love that. The last time we met my guest for today, who is Dr. Alistair Teeager. We were talking about how to get an assistant psychologist job, and in case you're wondering, that is episode 52, so you can watch that on YouTube or take a listen via Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and that was a really well received episode. And today we are talking about the fact that shortly after we recorded that episode, he went off to Ukraine and has been there a few different times to help set up a service. I really wanted to talk with him to kind of get the down low on what it had been like and to help us think about how we can use our skills to benefit others in perhaps very different contexts than that which we learned them in or which we're familiar with ourselves.

Honestly, just a privilege to talk to him. I hope that you'll gain a lot from it. We do mention a concept called moral injury, and I thought it might just be useful for me to explain what that is in case you don't know already. So this was a term that I only really became aware of during the pandemic, and it was something that was cropping up for people, health staff, for example, who were having to make decisions over who to treat, who to give certain technology to if there's only certain amounts available, and then afterwards having to then deal with the consequences of those decisions of that moral decision, and you can have a trauma presentation. So that's what moral injury is. So yeah, just to save your Google, because I like this to be a one-stop shop for useful stuff for you. If you've got any ideas for future podcast episodes, please do get in contact with me and let me know.

Please also, if you do value this content, please do rate and review it both on Spotify and or Apple Podcasts. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please do like, subscribe, share the content to help us get this word of the podcast that is getting really lovely feedback to as many people as possible. Don't let me stop you. Let's dive in. Let's reconnect with Alistair and I will see you on the other side of this. Just want to welcome our guest back to the podcast today. We met at Dr. Alistair previously when we were talking about how to get assistant psychologist jobs, but we were also discussing the very exciting and potentially a little bit worrying trip that you were about to make, Alistair, which was to go to Ukraine. Welcome back. Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me. Much appreciated.

So can you tell us a little bit about what your experiences were like when you went to your

Programme? Yeah, yeah, of course would helped us, I suppose, give a bit of the background to how it came about, I think. Sure,

That would be great.

I don't think it's something I thought I was going to be doing as an aspiring clinical psychologist. So yeah, coming out of training, I worked in neuropsychology. I also worked in major trauma centre, so with people with brain injuries, spinal injuries, muscular skeletal injuries. And I suppose as a part of that, when I was working or overseeing the major trauma service, the Ariana Grande concert bombing happened, so the Manchester arena Attack, and we are based at Salford, so we had a number of people come to our hospital as part of the major incident. So we provide a lot of the acute psychosocial care. And then more recently, we've sort of developed a bit of a spinal cord injury service as well. So I suppose thinking about Ukraine and what's going on there in the war and some of my areas of expertise, I think that the World Health Organisation reached out to a number of services, including the Stoke Mandeville, which is the National Spinal Cord Injury Centre.

And I'm in a couple of networks with guys from there, and Dr. Jane Duff, who's the lead there, she kind of knew my background and thought, actually, this is probably up your street or within your wheelhouse. So yeah, they were trying to set up a national rehabilitation centre for casualties of the war civilians and military with an onus on spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury. So I suppose that's where I thought, actually, that's probably something I can offer. I wanted to be able to do something but wasn't sure that was. And then this landed in my email inbox and I thought, I'm going to follow that up, really. So yeah, I suppose that's a bit of the backdrop to it. Yeah,

It's an incredible career that we're in, isn't it that sometimes something will just drop into your emails that you weren't necessarily pursuing, but once you know about it, you're like, oh, that is intriguing. I think I would like that. I think I would do that well, and it's that flexibility of our skills, but also our eagerness to learn and to support and help people as well. I think.

Yeah, I mean, I think I've never been particularly ambitious to want to do one thing or the other, but I've been sometimes in the right place at the right time and perhaps a bit opportunistic unic. And obviously with it being the war in Ukraine, people were incredibly supportive from my hospital, Northern Alliances. They wanted to be able to support the effort in some way, so they were able to provide me with the leave, but also permission to explore it really. So yeah, just went from there really.

Great. And how long were you there for?

So I worked there off and on between start of December and end of March, but I was effectively doing about two weeks in Ukraine and then coming back, working in NHS for two weeks, then going back to Ukraine for two weeks. But it's quite difficult because I suppose contextually it is a war zone, so it would take me two or three days to get to the hospital where we're working, and that's because I have to fly into Poland. Well, for starters, I'd have to get from Chester to Stanstead, which is where most of the flights go to a place called Jeev in Poland. Then I'd stay there overnight, then I'd have to get a UN vehicle across the border to Aviv, and then I'd stay over there overnight because you're not allowed to travel in vehicles during nighttime, and then you've got to line up with them when the transports happens. So then the next day I'd get a lift up to where we were based. So it's quite disjointed, but also understandably so.

If I was out there for 14 to 16 days, I might only be in the hospital for eight days because of the travel restrictions really. And I think personally, I went out for a week in December to start just to get a feel for it, which was really useful. It was quite anxiety provoking to think about where I was going, possibly more for my Mum, less so my dad when they had heard what I was going to be doing. So I think it provided them with a bit of a reassurance. And also it was kind of a dry run for me, sort of get to know the country a bit, get to know what the needs were, and then I went back in first week of January to, I suppose, start the work in earnest. So yeah, that's that side of things. It is a beautiful country. I've loved being out there experiencing the culture and stuff, but it's also incredibly daunting and humbling to see what they're going through and what we can come back to.

Yeah, I feel like I've learned a tiny amount of culture from some Ukrainian refugees my mum had staying with her for a while and seeing their pictures of their homes in their areas where they'd lived before. It was beautiful. And then seeing what it had been raised to, it was just tragic and was real people. It's really, really emotive, isn't it? And we are recording this, Alistair, as you know, in the time when actually there's lots and lots in the media about the Israel attacks and the atrocities that have been happening there. And I was in a private practise discussion for someone who was a clinical psychologist that lives and works in Israel, but had trained in the UK and was really trying to help people in a crisis situation, but isn't necessarily a trauma therapist, and was saying, how can I do this? How can I be help? How can I be help? And I also work in trauma. I was saying, well, it's very difficult to try and help people find safety when there's so many unanswered questions and when we can't get that felt sense of safety. And of course when we're doing trauma work, it's partly we're having to say to people, it's over. Now, how do you do that? How do you manage that when you are in an ongoing situation?

Yeah, million dollar question really. I think one of the things I've talked about in a few of the conferences we've been to or with colleagues is actually there's a collective trauma going on, the psychologist that we working with. So it is more the role was more around training up the psychologist, getting a sense of what they're working with and perhaps identifying needs, but they're going through trauma, they're listening to the radio, watching the news every day. There's a lot of people that they know have been hurt, killed, or friends of friends, et cetera. So it's all very close to home. So them trying to manage their own wellbeing for want of a better word, really tricky, I think because there was, I suppose a spinal cord injury, SCI centre and a traumatic brain injury centre as well. There was certainly a degree of trying to get the patients or the clients through rehabilitation or get them engaged in rehabilitation to minimise their difficulties further down the line.

But there's lots of other things coming up, lots of guys with PTSD, lots of anxiety, lots of low mood, lots of maladaptive coping strategies, so almost trying to unpick that as well and trying to navigate it. And then also displacement. So millions of people have had to move and millions of people can't go back to where they are from. So even just trying to get these guys back or discharged from the hospital is a real tricky thing. I've been really impressed though with, for saying in Ukraine there's not a formal pathway for psychologists. A lot of the stuff they're doing is similar to what we do, but perhaps not necessarily with our clinical training or evidence-based or theory practise links, but it does make sense. So I think for me is trying to provide them or help 'em think about core skills. So there was things like motivational interviewing techniques and even just goal setting, also thinking about adjustment after spinal injury.

But with me only being out there effectively two or three months, I was never going to be able to train them in a therapeutic orientation. So we were trying to recommend that the WHO and the Ukrainian Ministry of Health look at getting them formal or accredited qualifications in things like CBT and in EMDR because it's recognition to the fact that those things would be helpful for a variety of reasons for the patients they're working with. So yeah, really multifactorial. And like I say, it's difficult to concentrate on one thing when there's a backdrop of systemic problems that you're not going to be able to resolve.

Absolutely. And I guess it's knowing that what you're doing is all that can be done right now and that it's helpful and worthwhile.

Yeah, that's something I've reflected on a fair bit. Again, I knew I was doing a relatively short-term contract, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do everything that would be possible to sort of moral injury side of things. But I suppose being in amongst that system, that ecosystem, you get more of an idea of what the government are doing or how the people are seeing things. So Zelensky's wife is the first lady, and she's very much on mental health ticket. She's really promoting that stuff for civilians, for the military, but also those providing care. And I think from talking to the psychologists in Ukraine as well, mental health is taboo. It is in most places, but they feel that it's very much so out there, very proud country. But I think this is bringing it to the surface, and I think it might be changing the culture in some ways in trying to say it does and can happen to people. And we need to think about how we support people before, during, and after in order to try and help people get better.

Absolutely. And to be human is to absolutely be unifying, but it sounds like actually it's just it's culture and kind of traditions that dictate how mental health is responded to, but actually the symptoms of mental health health are pretty consistent across our human population.

Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right there. I think there's definitely cultural language difficulties or differences, but there's often commonalities that we can see between people as well.

I'm intrigued in your opinion. So today I've been on LBC radio because a very big newspaper in the UK had decided to print a really emotive photo. I won't share too much information about it in case it's triggering for people, but the question I was asked is, was it right to print that? Is there a responsibility to print that? And they were really pushing me on that, and I was sort of dancing around that topic because in essence, my answer is maybe not in baby loss awareness week. There's better times we could do that, but it's so triggering to people, this kind of emotive photography. What's your viewpoint on the Alistair?

So obviously I'm not an expert in it, but I did go to a talk at the European Congress of Psychology in Brighton over the summer, and they had an expert from the US on this very topic. And her advice was if there's new stories with images that are potentially traumatising, then she covers them up. She doesn't click on the videos, she might read the text, but their evidence is that if you engage with the picture or the video, you're more likely to get secondary traumatization you were if you just read the text. So that's not my opinion, but Well, I get it. I agree with it and I'm trying to practise that a bit to myself, but that's where they sat with it. I wouldn't like to comment on the moral duty of a newspaper because it's difficult. You've got raising awareness of things that are going on versus how do you do that and what content do you put out there for others to see?

Yeah, I agree. And in the pre-production chat that I'd had, I was saying this does make us aware of what humanity is capable of in terms of the compassionate focused trauma approach. Humans are capable of doing really awful things on purpose to other people, but also we are capable of imagining we don't necessarily need to a photo to have it paint a thousand words. And sometimes you don't need to see pictures of people that are wounded. Sometimes just the setting where they've been wounded is equally as powerful. I'm still struck with the images of when Asama Bin Laden was captured killed. That was really, really powerful. You didn't see him, but you saw the room and it is powerful. And I guess when we're working with people who either are traumatised or have been traumatised, there's a real impact of vicarious trauma both upon ourselves, but upon people that you have been working with as well. How do we look after ourselves in terms of the courage, trauma? How have you been looking after yourself?

Yeah, I think before I went out, I was trying to think about that before I needed to. And it was interesting, the first, when I went out in December, we're in a hotel that was slightly out of the city that we were based in, and we'd go to work in the morning, get back at four-ish, but it was winter, it was cold, it was dark. There's nothing else around, particularly you think about the things that we do around achievement, connection, I suppose enjoyment, internet connectivity was poor, so it was difficult to speak to people back home or even just go on social media to connect with people or stream stuff. There wasn't a gym in the hotel, so you couldn't necessarily do anything to keep yourself active. You couldn't go out for a walk on a dual carriage way. The nearest thing was like a supermarket half a mile away.

And so I felt that the first time around. I thought I took out some gym gear to work out in the room, tried to think about eating health early, but that's very difficult when you're living in a hotel. So I think, I suppose as A WHO team, we sort of agreed that we'd move into the city for the January to March phase because for me, I wanted to be a part of it and I like to go for a coffee or I like to go to the gym or I like to have a few options once to get back from work. And that was a really strong move to, I suppose be closer to it. And also we are able to experience the Ukrainian culture a bit more. I went to a coffee shop regularly in the morning and they got to know my order. I joined a gym and went to that several times a week, and that was great for me. I usually go out mountain biking or swimming or going to the gym and stuff. There were lots of restaurants we could go to. So again, sort of dipping into that. I think in addition to that, you've also got to think about what you eat. So my routine when I've had to think about why I eat when I get back, because I've probably put about 10 pounds from just sort of living the life and eating in hotels or restaurants three times a day.

And then I suppose the other things is trying to think about, again, foundation stuff, but not drinking particularly. I'm not a big drinker, but I'd have to make sure that I watched that because it's quite easy to, when you're meeting new people or you've got meetings with officials, you have a drink of the tradition around it and sleep sleeping somewhere different. I'm not going to lie. There were air raids or air raid sirens every couple of days, and they could be anytime of the day. They could be in the middle of the night, they could be for 10 minutes, it could be for three hours. So it's trying to think about, I often sleep with earplugs and eye masks. They definitely came with me, had some herbal sleeping stuff that I took occasionally, but that was just to try and keep me going because it's easy to say, but you're in threat mode most of the time.

And the work we were doing was pretty intense. I was also trying to navigate doing stuff back here by either providing supervision or dipping in on more complex cases that I'd left behind. So it's almost like give yourself permission to say, actually, I'll dip out of this, or I'll not go to that, or I'm going to give myself permission to self-care a bit. It's all very well good saying that, but it's very hard to do it. So I think for me, going out there and having that was really important. And then when I came back, it'd probably take anything from a few days to maybe a week or so to just decompress. I wasn't up here, but I was a bit more down the counter side of that. So again, for me was trying to do stuff with my wife and my dog and meet mates or organise a night or a day where I'd go, actually, I'll put this in the diary because when I come back I might not want to do that.

But if there's something already organised, it's kind of in the offering. So yeah, I suppose for me being a bit organised, thinking ahead of time about stuff that I know is good for me and then trying to stick to it or getting other people to remind me for it. I think after say that one of my trainees that was back in Sulford before I went out, I was like, check in on me because I might be a bit more irritable than normal. I might be a bit tired. And she was great at just sort of asking that question because again, when you're in a perceived position of power, people don't necessarily ask, but it's really good just to have someone that within a safe space, almost like a peer supervision element, just to try and make sure that I'm not going down a path or that I'm not thinking too much, I'd say. Yeah. So yeah, there was a few things that we teach others to do, and I wanted to practise what we preach. I haven't done anything specific in terms of supervision or seeking, I suppose, counselling support because I don't think it's, I've been one step separate from that and it was short-term basis, but if that comes up in the future, that's not something I would shy away from for sure.

Oh, you mean, you said the words right out of my mouth, but you really have been practising what we preach, the basics of eating, sleeping, activity, scheduling, trying to look for the things that keep you well generally, and trying to see what you can do to keep those as constant as possible. But it made me think about some of my conversations with the people that were staying with my mom, and they were like, there's too many vegetables here in this country. We need more meat. We need more meat. And so I can see how if that's kind of what you were around, that you might have put on more weight than you're used to as well.

Very much so. It's a lot harder to lose when you're a bit older as well.

Oh, I hear you. I hear you. But it's only the second time I've met you. I follow you on Twitter and was trying to follow your exploits on there a little bit. We allowed to say Twitter anymore. I don't think we are, whatever it is. But your parents, I was worried about you sadly when you were there. There were two British journalists, it turned out who were missing and did not survive. But to begin with, that was reported as two British men. Everybody who knows you, and everybody who knows them of course would've been thinking, oh gosh, oh gosh. And it's very difficult.

It

Wasn't easy for you either.

It's tricky. I also wasn't allowed to say where I was and there were people who did know, but I think from my side, I was able to tell broadly people back home where I was and I was sort of Northwestern Ukraine, which is very reassuring when you think how far away it is from things, but say people who slightly more removed or might be able who won't have got a message from me, just in general, were wondering what was going on. And interestingly, a lot of my friends who I worked with out there from the WH Os have still been working out there and it's been harder for me back here seeing what's going on out there and then going, oh gosh, is that near you? Or there is something near them and worrying about them more now I'm back than I was about myself when I was out there.

I felt far safer when I was out there then people might thought I would've been. So yeah, that was odd. But yeah, I think it was funny telling my mom and my dad about it. My mom worked for the NHS there 40 or 50 years as a nurse, and she did a bit of work in Hong Kong over that time. And so she was sort of used to the idea of doing a bit of work away, but I think I told her, oh, I've got a job. It's really exciting. I'm going to be working for the wa o. She said, oh, that's amazing. That's fantastic. And then she goes, where? And I was like, oh, in Ukraine. And then I took a screenshot of it at the time I was, but it was crest fallen. But at the same time, there's so much pride in it, and I think that was the heartening thing.

I didn't want to make people too worried or too upset, but at the same time, it's a very just thing to be doing. And I think if I thought it was too dangerous, I would've just probably pulled out or tried to end the contract early. So yeah, it is difficult, isn't it? We have it in the uk if there's a major incident in London, I've had that with friends, 2007 mates working in London and the bus bombing, and I was like, oh gosh. And there's the whole check-in thing and that sort of stuff. So yeah, I've seen it from the other side.

I think that's the thing, isn't it? I was struck by that today. So just before we met I popped to Aldi to get some bits and pieces and bought myself a new pair of slippers, which I very excited about. This is the thing, isn't it? People are just going about their normal lives. And even in Israel this time last week, people were just out there buying slippers and dishwasher tablets, and it's when it just catches you in the middle of your ordinary life, it's really derailing.

Yeah, I think I suppose to reflect on what it looks like out there as well, there is a new normal for the guys in Ukraine. There's a curfew still at 11:00 PM for everyone across the country. There's air raids and people are supposed to go to air raid shelters, but depending on where you are, you're more or less likely to do that because there's an app that tells you there's an air raid. There's also people messaging saying, oh no, it's not here. It's com here, et cetera. Everyone's got power banks because phones and electricity can go down. Similarly, you walk down the high street, every shop's got a a petrol generator outside. When the power cuts happen, the transport infrastructures being affected because the fact to invest in the military, so getting around is a lot hard. The roads are a lot more cut up, but there's a big belief amongst the Ukrainian population about winning and also that this is the right thing to do.

And I think that's reflected in some of the people who've joined the effort from neighbouring countries worried about being next. So it's a really interesting one because I suppose they have adjusted to it, but it's still not right. One of the things that was really telling was one of our drivers was talking about for air raid happens during school hours, the school shuts, so parents have to go get the kids, pull 'em out school. And I'm like, well, there's a generational trauma about to happen, or what are the generational effects of people not getting adequate access to education over time? What does affect people going into employment? Lots of working age. Men are in the military. So yeah, there's just a lot of dynamics where people have sort of accepted a new norm, but there's no endpoint in sight. How do you carry that on really?

Yeah, really important questions. Really important questions. And I guess we're humans and we adapt, don't we? Yeah. Because what are the other choices?

No, it's just such a huge question, isn't it? We've not experienced wartime in our country. There's a few generations back you have, but it's very different when you see it firsthand or even secondhand.

And I just had not imagined there'd be an air raid app. There are apps for everything, but they're pretty useful. That's a pretty useful app to have if you

Need it. It is incredible. Yeah. Again, I didn't think that would be the case, but I think I've had friends who'd been out in Japan and they'd get warnings about tornadoes, and I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And then it is when I got to Ukraine, oh yeah, you need to download this. This will tell you when air raid starts and when it stops. And where we were staying as well, they had a siren. And it is what you hear in the films from the blitz, it's exactly that. And it's like you feel like you're transported back in time and it's a very evocative noise, very loud, obviously, but it's just, again, it's, that's something that'll stick with me when I hear something on the tv. I was like, oh, transported back. Not in a reliving sense, but it's just reminiscent.

So it's loud, but I dunno if you've ever been to a Sound Bath class, but certain frequencies resonate in your body. Do you have that experience with it?

I suppose thinking about it now? Not, I usually had ear plugs in, but yeah, I don't think I had that per se, but I think I'd probably acclimatised to it in a way. I don't know if we've holiday In Hebden Bridge, they've had similar sirens around flooding, so I wonder if there's a certain pitch they have it. So it is might say resonating in a very physical way.

Yeah. Oh, I've there so many questions and conversations to have with you, but if people are moved or intrigued about what we're talking about, is there a best place they can learn or is there a best place they can offer any support themselves? Alistair?

Oh gosh, I don't know really. I think it is tricky. I think there was, I suppose, a big move early on in the war about people offering support and sending things out there, but I don't know how that looks at the moment. I suppose most big cities have got Ukrainian communities that could reach out to, but aside from that, I suppose for me, I'm trying to share the good work that's being done out there and share it as a mental health is on the agenda and the WHO and the Ministry of Health out there are pushing this, but it's difficult to, I suppose it's difficult to get that momentum or sometimes to know what to do. And I've had a very small part to play, but I suppose I'm just trying to at the moment, support the guys I know in being able to support more people. So almost like multiplier effect. So yeah, I'm not sure really, Marianne? I'm sorry. Yeah.

Okay. That's all right. And you feel like it's a small part, but I guess for me, I know that the goodness that you are putting in there and the good practise and the really sound principles of how to set up a service in a compassionate holistic way are going to be far reaching, not just now, but in years and years to come. So I think I feel really proud of you as a human, but also really proud of the profession that you've been able to do that and you've been able to offer that at such an important time for that country. So not my place to be proud of you, but I am all the same. And thank you for doing this really important work and to share your skills so richly and freely at risk to yourself.

No, thank you. It's very nice of you to say. I think it is always nice to hear, isn't it, that people are proud of you and glad that you've done what you've done. I don't think I'd, I'd say that's what I did it for is something I thought I can do. It's within my zone of proximal development. It's within wheelhouse to a degree, but perhaps a bit of a stretch. But yeah, I think when I was leaving Ukraine and when I was finishing out there, you got a sense of the outpouring of the gratitude. And when you're walking down the streets, people are generally like, why are you here? And then when they find out it's similar, sort of a bit of amazement, but also then a real outpouring of love and affection for the fact that you're actually wanting to put yourself in that situation.

And I was probably a bit blase about it at the start. I'm probably still a bit now, but yeah, I think over time I probably think about the gravity of it. And I think seeing the psychologist, particularly like Nadia, who's one of the ones I've been mentoring and seeing how she's come on since I first went out there and she was almost learning and sitting in the stuff I was doing to now when she's delivering teaching or CPD for others is great. And like I said, hopefully there's just a thin foundation that they can then build on and provide to others. Because previously it's probably been, it's not been a particularly popular profession, similar to ot, relatively new or sort of under sourced or lack of structure. So hopefully, unfortunately this has brought it to the surface, but hopefully there is some good coming out of it in terms of the public perception of psychology being changed.

Anna, you're making me think about when I've worked with service personnel and when I've worked with people that work in the police and in the fire service, it is often a certain breed of person that is able to run towards things that people would usually run away from. Would you say you are kind of a white knuckle, sort of adrenaline sort of guy generally, or is

This new? I was going to say no, but then he'd probably ask me a follow up question about, oh yeah, I've done that and I've done that and I've done that. So I think I do those sort of things, but I'm not necessarily an adrenaline junkie, but I do, I've always been competitive sports, so I've done things that I think to relax. I've always done something quite active. But yeah, I think, again, just going back to what you're saying about people running towards it, a lot of the guys we saw out there were military obviously, and I suppose there's a lot of them who wanted to get straight back into it or felt guilty about not being able to go back. And for me, I was just like, I've never been inclined to join the military. I've always been very impassioned about people who have, but it was just very humbling to see these lads with these awful injuries going, so I want to go back and fight for my country. I've got band of brothers or a band of sisters that I want to be in amongst again. So yeah, I like doing things that are energising. But yeah, I wouldn't say I've run towards it quite so much.

No. Okay. Well, thank you so much for taking time on your day off as well. It's again, dedication to the cause. It's been an

Absolute, I'll take it back as toil. It's fine.

Okay. It's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you, and thank you for coming back on again because it feels like a really important conversation, and I wanted to just pay kudos to the really important work that you and your team have been doing.

No, thank you, Mary. It's really nice to, I suppose, be invited back on and I suppose talk about something different and I suppose share that psychology is not just one element, and if there's something that takes you fancy, there's an option for you to try and pursue that if you look into it.

Absolutely. It's a multifaceted career, and I'm never stopped being blown away for the directions that a single psychology degree can take you in. It's incredible stuff. Thank you again, and yeah, I hope you have a lovely weekend and it's restful. I want you to rest. I want

You to, I'm resting, don't worry. Been out for brunch. I'm going to walk the dog. Everything's

Good. Okay. My desire to keep you safe is like, oh,

Let's look after us. I'm interested. I'm not anywhere ridiculous at the moment.

Okay. Thank you again for your time.

Thanks, Marianne.

Oh, thank you so much for watching. I hope that you found that as interesting and experience to listen to or watch. If you're watching on YouTube, as I did to speak to Alistair, I said it all really just what a privilege to speak to him and what incredible work he's done, and yeah, I just feel really proud of him and of our profession. I would love your thoughts on this episode. Please do come and connect with me on socials. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. But also do come along and join the Aspiring Psychologist Community Free Facebook group. Please do either watch the compassionate q and as for psychology application season, either live or on replay by going along to YouTube, clicking my videos, Dr. Marianne Trent, going to the live tab, and you'll find them all there. They're also in the playlists. Yeah. Tell your friends if you do find this useful, and if you like the sort of things and the conversations that I have and the support that I can offer, do also consider the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which is doing great things. Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of your world and for being part of mine. Next episode of The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast is available from 6:00 AM on Monday. Until then, be kind to yourselves. Take care. Bye.

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