Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode 123: How to master public speaking - psychologist insights

Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast.

For those who have received interview offers this year for the DClinPsy, congratulations! You might be feeling nervous around this time and that is okay, perhaps this episode might be helpful to you (and for those who struggle with public speaking!). In this episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, we speak with Assistant Psychologist, Jasmine, as we compare and contrast our experiences of speaking in public, group settings, meetings and the growth, self-care and bravery that comes with it. Join us as we discuss how our experiences shape our work as a psychologist, discuss tips to overcoming fear and anxiety associated with public speaking, and the value of speaking, feedback and self-care.

We hope you find it so useful.

I’d love any feedback you might have, and I’d love to know what your offers are and to be connected with you on socials so I can help you to celebrate your wins!

The Highlights:

• (00:00): Introduction
• (00:39): Introducing Jasmine
• (01:40): Jasmine’s entry to the psychology world
• (05:22): Stigma’s around older adult experiences
• (08:11): The importance of public speaking in psychology roles
• (09:18): Reflecting on childhood experiences that shape our careers as psychologists
• (14:16): The importance of where you place your attention
• (16:39): Being nervous is okay too (especially when it’s new)
• (18:28): Practicing leadership skills doesn’t mean getting it right first, every time
• (21:25): Finding long-term sustainable solutions to overcome difficulty
• (23:31): The importance of space spaces
• (27:12): It takes bravery to speak about vulnerabilities
• (29:26): Using our voice is not only just important to psychology
• (33:58): The value of feedback
• (36:45): Thinking about the bigger picture and the purpose of public speaking
• (39:58): Stop, drop (your shoulders) and breathe
• (43:17): It is important to take care of yourself
• (46:41): Sometimes, we need to give ourselves permission to grow
• (48:03): Connect with Jasmine
• (49:16): Summary and close

Links:

📱 To connect with Jasmine Iveson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmine-iveson-794381204/?originalSubdomain=uk

🖥️ Check out my brand new short courses for aspiring psychologists and mental health professionals here: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/short-courses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Coming up today, are you ready to shake off those public speaking jitters and dive into the fascinating world of communication? I've got a special treat for you today as I'm joined by an assistant psychologist who is just as excited as I am about spilling the beans on mastering, public speaking. Get comfy and grab your favourite cup as we go through our favourite tips, tricks, and maybe a few uncomfortable memories too. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a nervous newbie, this episode has something for all. So kick back, relax, and let's turn those nervous butterflies into beautiful speeches.

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Mari t Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. I'm so excited for today's episode. I'm joined by Jasmine, who is an assistant psychologist who originally reached out to me for a little bit of support, I think, but I sprung it on her and asked her whether she might fancy conquering her fears and joining me as a guest as we explore public speaking and how that crops up throughout a psychology career. It is a beautiful episode and one that I think will become a firm favourite. So I would love to know your thoughts. Please do drop a comment to share it if you find it helpful. And yeah, I will catch you on the other side. So hi Jasmine, welcome along to the podcast. It's so lovely to have you here.

Hello, Marianne. Thank you so much for giving me this wonderful experience. I'm feeling very blessed this morning, so thank you.

Oh, you're so lovely. That's made my day already. I think you'll be disappointed. Be underwhelmed by the end of this episode, but nobody else will be because it's going to be really, really useful. I'm really excited about what we're going to talk about today. So before we go on to talk about our topic, which is public speaking, let's have a little bit of a chat about you and what you are up to currently and your background in psychology.

Yeah, of course, Marianne. So I started off by studying psychology at a level. So I studied it at college. That was my first sort of encounter with psychology, and I was just so, so fascinated by all the theories, sort of understanding human behaviour as well, or trying to understand behaviour. And I just thought it was so brilliant how actually we can make a huge impact. And I loved how we sort of look at these theories and we use them in practise, but also we look at individuals and all individual differences as well as how to empower that person. And for me personally, I took a particular interest in mental health difficulties. So from studying at college and then going through to psychology, of course at undergraduate level, I sort of found that sadly there's so much suffering among humans and different stages of life through all these mental health difficulties sort of acquiring that knowledge and studying.

I went on to try and get some experience, some work experience. So I started in residential care with older adults. That was just fascinating to see people of course with difficulties like dementia and actually how able some of those older adults were people going out for a full day and lots of physical exercise. And it was just so brilliant to have that experience. I then went on to work in supported living in the community again here I really learned how to sort of empower those people. Of course being there as a source of support, but really sort of having so actively involved within their care was so brilliant. I then went on to work within an inpatient setting, so I did work as a support worker within this role. Again, such valuable experience and I do still truly to this day, I use a lot of those skills, a lot of the experience that I acquired through the support worker role, the healthcare assistant. And I do really feel that that's informed a lot of my practise when I've transitioned into later roles, which just as an overview, I did train as a psychological wellbeing practitioner and my current role now is an assistant psychologist in an inpatient service, and it is forensic background as well. So that's just sort of a brief overview through my earlier years and then how that's led into more recent job roles.

Oh, that's so interesting. Thank you Jasmine. And I'm moved by that for a couple of reasons really. So it sounds very similar to my journey doing relevant experience mainly. So I loved what you said about how surprising older adults can be. And actually last week I was away with my mom and a lot of her friends for her 75th, and I was so surprised by especially some of the older members of the group who were 80 and above, they were dancing with me doing line dancing. We were doing curling, they'd been doing archery before I got there, cocktail making. It was really, really good. And even one of my colleagues and friends I spoke to recently, she's never really worked with older adults and she was surprised just how fun it can be when she crossed paths with older adults recently and how much you learn about life and it's not like doom and gloom, is it working with people at the later winter stages of their life.

Absolutely, Marianne. And I think it's brilliant how you mentioned there about those activities and the dancing and sort of the energy that some of the older adults do have, and also that element of wisdom as well, working with people at those sort of later stages of life. I learned so so much from those people. And I remember leaving the role and people were sort of thankful and they mentioned you sort of helped so much and all this lovely feedback and I actually said, no, you've helped me to develop not only personally but professionally as well. So yeah, absolutely. I think there might be some level of unfortunate stigma around that dependency of when people get older, but actually I know that's not entirely true and not always the case.

It really isn't. And I guess so much is dependent on health and kind of pain levels as well. But I think this would make a fascinating podcast episode in itself. But the reason you reached out to me, maybe we'll do that in future, but the reason you reached out to me is because actually public speaking, it's around in our client work, so it's around with having those conversations with clients and their families. It's also around in MTTs, around in supervision relationships, it's around in research. It's a big part of this journey as an aspiring psychologist, but also as a trainee and a qualified psychologist, isn't it Jasmine?

Yeah, absolutely. I feel just from my experience that through training and being at university and studying and learning lots of different topics, there was of course some opportunities to speak publicly. And I remember those moments where the lecturer would mention, you have a presentation as part of one of the modules. And I remember the feeling too well of the fast heart rate and thinking, oh no, we, we've got a presentation that is pending. But from my experience, there perhaps wasn't many times of having to public speak at university. And if we did, it were often as a group. So sometimes it fell, which is perhaps not the most helpful way, but it felt very easy to take that back step. And if there were sort of members in the group that perhaps were a little bit more extroverted or enjoyed those situations, they might take a little bit more of a lead.

And perhaps upon reflection, I maybe were one of those people who did take that little bit of a backseat. I would say just sort of as a personal reflection, I am much more of an introverted person. So from those university interactions, I would take that back seat. And even if I reflect on practise now as a multidisciplinary team, I'm constantly actively listening. I know exactly what's going on and if someone was to ask a question, I feel confident that I'd be able to answer to the best of my ability. But on many occasions, I am more of a listener and perhaps not the first person who would contribute. And that's something that I've really been aware of from a much younger age. So just yesterday actually, Mariane just having a little reflection and a little thing upon public speaking and that role, and I sort of thought back to younger years of being in primary school and I remember the school reports would say Jasmine is a quieter member of the class, more reserved.

And so with that encouragement to put your hand up more regularly, and sometimes I think that perhaps can be seen as a little bit of a negative aspect and something to develop and absolutely, I know that we want to contribute ideas, ideas, but I think there's a lot of strengths as well of being that sort of person from a young age. We know that for me, I was able to listen, so perhaps it might be different now, but I remember when I were younger it was sort of looked as maybe a little bit more negative if you didn't contribute as often. So it's something sort of, I feel that I've definitely developed, it has taken a lot of practise and a lot of focus as well to be able to speak confidently within group settings. But perhaps just upon reflection, I was just thinking perhaps some people are different. And I think that's what makes psychology such a wonderful field, that we all have different personality traits and when it comes together, I think it's wonderful. I really do. Yeah,

I think as part of our careers, there can be, we are definitely all different sorts of people. We definitely are. So on my school reports, it was always Marianne talks too much, but whether the quality was worth listening to, I think they were dubious about that. But I think we also can pick up trauma along the way as well about the way we speak or what we've got to say or when we've said things. So I remember when I was an aspiring psychologist, I think I was a trainee, I might have been an assistant, but my grandfather was of a very Victorian generation. And he once said to me, I'm really surprised that you do the job you do because listening to your voice is one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. And I was like, oh, right. And he died a few years later, but actually the assertive me now would've liked to have asked more, what do you mean? And also it's never okay to say that to somebody, is it? But also knowing what I know about his life and what I would imagine was incredibly traumatic. He was a paramedic in the second world war. So if we can imagine what traumas he must have experienced for him to say that my voice was one of the most traumatic experiences that really got to me.

I think I was an assistant psychologist because I remember taking it to our personal development group as kind of something to work on when I was a trainee. But it's been really helpful for me in terms of healing from that trauma that so many of my clients and then so many of the podcast listeners and the people in the media have said they love my speaking voice. So recently when I was on radio too, someone contacted me specifically to say, what a lovely voice you've got. And so sometimes we can give too much credit and power to one erroneous comment. I mean, that said, people may be listening to this thinking, yeah, I don't like your voice, I don't like it. But I can choose to not pay attention to that and to still do what I want to do regardless of other people's opinions.

Yeah. Yeah. Marianne, I think that's such incredible advice in terms of where you place your attention, as difficult as that may be. And that sounds like such a difficult comment to receive from someone and not kind in any way. And just to say as well, Marianne, I know I sort of sent this over in a message when I first contacted you, but your voice I find so self-soothing. I really do. And when I'm in after work in the gym, I love to the podcasts. So that's, yeah, just a comment from myself.

Oh, thank you. That's really you to say. It was just a random comment. I think we were around the dinner table at my parents' house and I dunno whether it was some hearing changes that he'd sort of lost the frequency of my voice or whether I was moaning at my Mum and he didn't like that I didn't have a chance or I was so taken aback that I didn't have a chance to ask for more information. And perhaps this is interesting food for thought, if people do get critique about their performance or their voice or their speaking style is to try and just take a moment to catch your breath and to know that this is just an opinion, other opinions are available and to try to get some sense of context because I'm never going to have that now and I've worked through those wounds, but also you are also allowed to be hurt by something somebody says, and that's okay. It's not okay that you're hurt, it's not okay, they've hurt you, but your reaction to being hurt is obviously human.

Of course, Marianne of course. And I think, I know it can be incredibly difficult, but I know you mentioned about trying to get more context and more feedback and I think that can be so helpful in terms of development as well, perhaps not in terms of our voice. That's something that we have and we embrace and that's sort of who we are. But if it's related to work and perhaps something a very difficult meeting, I think by receiving that feedback can be a great opportunity for development and growth too.

So when you'd reached out to me, I think you were kind of saying, this is something I struggle with and I think you might have wanted me to say, here's my top tips, but instead I said, do you want to come on the podcast and discuss this? And you were like, I really do, but I'm a bit nervous and that's okay too. You are allowed to be nervous about things we've not done before or that we've not done to that extent before. And we can learn a lot whilst feeling a little bit hopefully within your window of tolerance, but whilst feeling a little bit nervous,

Yeah, absolutely, Marianne, it was such an amazing opportunity. But definitely that same feeling of when I was at university and it was the presentation, I had that same reaction, but also recognising, I know you mentioned about the window of tolerance and for me this felt really safe and it felt like something that I could manage an absolute opportunity to come outside of that comfort zone and to feel the fear to complete it in very safe to deal with it in a very safe way. So yeah, definitely a little bit frightening, but I think this is a great way of showing actually, even if you feel that fear, we can do new things

And these opportunities in psychology will sometimes catch us off guard as they did with me. So I'm absolutely not perfect. And I will evidence this now. So when I was in a placement as a trainee clinical psychologist, I was at my first ever team meeting and they were reading through the agenda and plans and they suddenly said, and our chair for the next meeting will be Marianne. And I went, you are what?

I've got to chair the next one. Which with hindsight is not very contained, is it? And I was criticised for my reaction to that, but I also think there's a learning point there for how staff teams provide novel information to people if they had said, welcome to everybody who's brand new to this meeting, actually, we shift the chair of these meetings every time, every week so that everybody gets a chance to do that and to develop those skills. And that we we're hearing different voices, and I know it might feel a bit anxiety provoking, but actually we've asked Marianne to do that next time. That would've been very different than just dropping that in there. So please, if you are listening to this or maybe you Jasmine yourself and you get asked to do something, know that that is probably quite a normal thing to do, especially in MDT meetings.

Suddenly you have to feed back on client work or CPA reviews or risk plans and managements. Somebody may suddenly turn to you and ask for your opinion or ask for you to run the show. And maybe just people need to be prepared for that because I wasn't. I wasn't. But of course, what we need to do is that we're partly learning to do leadership whilst we're working our way up. And so at any given opportunity, somebody may ask you to practise your skills in leadership and it's okay if you don't get it right first time every

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm just thinking back Marianne, so I know I mentioned about the support worker role experience and sort of the healthcare worker, and I think that gave me so much valuable experience that perhaps I didn't have much practise in public speaking and sort of chairing meetings. And it was only really when I did the psychological wellbeing practitioner course, I started to get some experiences of having that responsibility of perhaps speaking in supervisions where there were lots of different people present, sort of attending certain meetings where I've been required to give some feedback. The huge step for me, Marianne personally, was going into the assistant psychologist role. So when I started working as an assistant psychologist, there was lots of different meetings and it was all very quick as well. So I know you mentioned CPA meetings, discharge meetings, governance as well, the governance meetings with the full multidisciplinary team ward rounds.

So a lot of ward rounds where you'd have lots of different professionals, sometimes family members as well. So for me personally, it was a huge jump and there was lots of different meetings where I was required to speak. And I remember right at the beginning of starting the assistant role and I'd written a report and I remember it was sort of the week before and I was going to be presenting the week after, and I knew in advance. So I thought what I can do is over the weekend I can practise. So that is exactly what I did. I spent hours over the Saturday, the Sunday even I remember the Monday morning before going into work, I practised and then I went into the meeting to present this information and my supervisor absolutely wonderful and such a great source of support, she was in that meeting and I didn't tell anyone how I was feeling, how nervous I was feeling.

I just went into that meeting and I did know that the full report off by heart, I knew every single word and it was a very, really long report. And I went in there and I did speak confidently of course because I practised for so many hours. And I remember leaving that meeting and I got such good feedback from my supervisor and she said, you spoke so confidently, there's nothing to be concerned about. And I remember sitting down and thinking that's come at very significant cost because I have just spent the full weekend on Monday morning, possibly around 15 hours of memorising the whole report. And at that point I thought, this is not going to be sustainable. I am going to need to be honest about how I'm feeling. And I sort of thought about how if I was to do that long-term, I'm going to more than likely start to feel absolutely exhausted.

It is not going to be helpful for the company if I start to feel burnt out and exhausted, that is not going to help the service. And I also thought it's not going to help the staff and the service users either. We're all one team and this is not going to work. So that was sort of my turning point of saying, actually these situations are making me feel a little bit nervous. I'm doing excessive practising . And for me, Marianne, I'm so fortunate to be blessed with brilliant supervision where it's a very safe space for me to feel that I can speak about those sort of issues. And that's exactly what I did. So I received a lot of support from my supervisor and we sort of worked through the difficulty together. So we did it in sort of a graded way and in a safe way too, but for it to be a space to speak about how I feel, but actually how are we going to manage this because we know it's a key aspect of the role.

It's something that I am going to be required to do. And I remember, I think it was a podcast quite early on in the series and I believe it was a lady named Rose Marianne, and she spoke about the glass and the rubber balls. And for me, that was a concept that I found so, so helpful. And I thought to myself, okay, so the glass ball is going to be the speaking. I'm going to have to speak in these meetings because it's very important for all the external professionals, internal professionals, the service user as well, which is my main focus is helping that person of course to get better. That was by glass ball that I knew I can't drop. I've got to keep being able to speak and to develop this skill. But the rubber ball for me was the relentless practising the extensive hours that I was spending to memorise information. So that concept really helped me to think actually I'm going to have to sort of abandon and sort of put to one side these rubber balls because it's not working and it's not going to work long-term either.

And from that moment, Marianne, after my supervision, and I felt like this huge weight had just been lifted, and I thought, actually, I'm being really honest now about how these situations do make me feel. And I'm very blessed to be a part of a wonderful team. And I actually spoke to other professionals and other people outside of psychology. I understand that that might not feel very safe and contained for other people to do, and I understand that. But for me, it did feel that I could do that. And I spoke to nurses, to management team to senior healthcare workers, and I was just so astonished at how normal it's to feel those nerves and that anxiety and even people who had sort of done the role for lots and lots of years still normalised that experience. So for me, I think that's something that I will remember throughout my learning and it was a brilliant point of me just acknowledging that this is a little bit of a difficulty and receiving that support has been, it's been amazing. It really has

Well done to you. And that takes real bravery actually to make yourself so vulnerable as to say, yeah, actually this has come at great cost and I would like to work on this. Sounds like you felt incredibly safe in that supervision relationship, which is important, but well done because sometimes by recognising our ouchie spots, it can help us to just thicken and develop narratives that can be ultimately really useful to ourselves, but also others listening to this, others in your teams that then felt validated and normalised by your experiences. It's really, really powerful. It's okay to say, actually, this makes me feel a bit, ugh. And then you can work through that. Yeah, so the episode you mentioned was on becoming a parent during training and that wasn't a concept I'd heard of before, but it really is powerful.

Yeah, absolutely. Marianne, I sort of love that idea and I think it's such a simple explanation, but it does. It really works. You can put it into practise. And for me, I sort of understood that if that rubber ball of this extensive practise in, if I don't do that, of course I want to feel prepared, but not to that degree to put that level of pressure onto myself. That frees so much time where I can take good care of myself and I can perhaps do other things outside of work. And I think I want to be able to help the service user to the best of my ability and also to work in a team and to provide the right support and help. And I think the only way to do that is of course by taking good care of ourselves. And I remember there was a lecturer, he was amazing, and I remember him sort of saying to me, you can't pour from an empty cup. And that's really stuck with me, that actually that is so true that if that cup is empty, it's going to be incredibly difficult to support and to help anyone else. So I think that's a really important concept to bear in mind.

It really is. And I'm just thinking about again, when you said that you were practising for hours and hours and hours and you were almost making it like it was in your rote memory, it was perfect. You didn't even need to glance at it to know what it said. And the other extreme of that, I had an experience of doing some legal training for expert witness work. The other extreme was I'd read a report for 20 minutes and then had to stand on a lecter and have a judge grill me on it as a role play. But in a court situation, it would be different if I'd written that report myself. Of course I would know that inside and out, but it's okay to be imperfect. It's okay to just practise hearing the words in your own mouth and coming out. And I do a lot of that with the media of course, that a journalist will ask me a question and I'm thinking inside, oh man. But what comes out is that's a really good question, which just gives me a moment to think because you can control it while still thinking in the background. And these opportunities for speaking, for using our voice will come up in a variety of ways. So it might come up in the media, might come up in your clinical work, it might come up maybe presenting research at a conference. We've got to be able to say yes to these opportunities. We've got to be able to pitch these opportunities for ourselves as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And I remember I just had a little reflection then, Marianne, when you were speaking about maybe going into something and maybe not you've read something for 20 minutes or so and maybe not feeling like you are that level of prepared that you would want to be. And what I'd sort of been really honest about the way that I were feeling and I had worked with my supervisor and the experience had become very normalised. I did ask to do some staff training with one of my supervisors. She really kindly agreed. So the training was led by a registered psychologist, but of course I was there to sort join in and present some information and it was such amazing experience because she sort of approached it in a very different way. So I feel as though through me practising extensively, I'd become almost a little bit robotic.

So I feel like I was going into these meetings and I knew what I was going to say and if anything would throw that off course. So someone perhaps would ask a question and I weren't quite prepared for that. That would really throw me off and I'd be in a little bit of a mess in some ways of how do I respond to this? This is not what I prepared for. And when I went into that training, I remember the psychologist, she would pause regularly and she'd sort of get to a slide and she would say, if everybody could just bear with me for one moment, I just want to explain this in the most helpful way. And afterwards we had a little chat about that and she sort of mentioned that it's absolutely okay to do that. You don't have to go into any training or meeting with all of the answers if you need a little bit of time to think and absolutely do that and just be really honest with the people that that's what you're doing so that they're aware. And I think it just really helped to connect to the people on the training that actually we are human too. We're not robots and we're human and we're all connecting together. So I think that was, for me, it was really valuable to learn actually it's okay to not always get it right and to pause occasionally too.

It really is, and I dunno if you're watching The Apprentice at the moment, but you can sometimes see those real cl moments where they're asked a question or they're having to do their pitches on stage and they just freeze and clam up, but it might look like it's all of their presentation, but actually it's probably highly edited so that it's probably 10 seconds of their presentation. And so we've got to kind of know that actually the kind of lens that we might think others are using for us, unless we happen to be on the apprentice, is probably not the real lens that everybody else is seeing our behaviour through.

Yeah, absolutely. And I've been ever so careful with this one, Marianne, because I know that sometimes seeking reassurance can feed into being a little bit of a safety behaviour, but for me, I have found that if I do, for example, if I do give staff training, I do find it extremely important for myself to gain some feedback. Of course, if people feel that they're comfortable to do that. And that's been an incredible chance to learn from different people's perspectives of how they have actually found the training. And often that is, it does contradict with the way that I viewed how the training had gone and other people have this different view, and it's the same in other meetings if it feels safe to do so. I will sort of ask for some feedback if the concept was clear, if people did understand, if perhaps there was anything that I could have done differently. So I really do see it as almost like a journey for consistent learning and just taking those opportunities to gain feedback to see that situation, I guess from a slightly different angle, which I know sometimes can be a less critical angle as well.

Definitely, I loved being part of teams where we would do 360 degree feedback. So you're asking for people above you below to the side of you to fill in forms about you and the things that you do well and the things that maybe could do with some development. And you learn such a of interesting viewpoints about your position in the team and what your values are seen to be by others. And you can obviously use that as part of your appraisal if you are in an employment where you have appraisals. But yeah, we mustn't be afraid to ask for feedback, and I've worked in a service where they used to do feedback Wednesday, so every Wednesday everybody using the service would be given questionnaires about their experience. And so we're kind of getting a good slice of feedback about ourselves and what we do well individually, what we do well as a service, and what perhaps needs a little bit of further work and development. This is episode 1, 2, 3, and I can't quite believe that we've really got to this stage of the podcast without discussing what is such a key component of what we do in psychology. So I think one of my first episodes was doing a presentation, but actually that public speaking does run throughout everything in psychology, doesn't it?

It really does, Marianne. It does. And as you mentioned day to day it's there as well. And we know that I've sort of found my own ways, Marianne, that perhaps wouldn't work for other people. They've worked for me throughout what I've learned, ways that actually you can do this and it's going to make it that little bit easier. And I always remember the purpose of perhaps why I'm doing that public speaking. So if it is a staff training, I always remember actually by speaking in this setting, if I am to help a couple of people there to reduce the risk of them becoming burnt out or if they're going to take some knowledge away that makes them feel more equipped for them to do this role, then that in my opinion would be worth that little bit of unsettle at the beginning of that training in order to help those people.

And it's the same for meetings like the discharge, the CPA meetings. I always remember the purpose of why I'm speaking in that environment. So I sort of create that distance between myself and the fear and I look at the bigger picture and I think, well, actually I'm here to give the feedback of the service user who has done incredibly well, has made significant progress, and I hope then is able to go forward to live that fulfilling life. So I feel like I always try and look at that bigger purpose behind that fear and also behind the reason why we do the sort of work that we do in terms of speaking. And of course as well, Marianne, and I've found sort of ways to feel a little bit calmer of course before public speaking. And I am a huge fan of trying out skills if we're teaching them to service users, for them to use them in order to feel a little bit better.

I'm a huge fan of being able to try them yourself as well to see if it works for you. And some particular skills have worked for me before going into public speaking. And of course one is the breathing exercise. I find that incredibly helpful before speaking. I remember listening to a TED Talk, I believe it was on YouTube, and I remember someone described the voice as being an instrument and a tool. And when you can communicate information that can be incredibly powerful. So I have found personally, by slowing down the breath, that helps me to think a lot clearer and be able to present in a much better way and a much more helpful way. And I use other skills as well, the visual imagery, just different skills that help me to feel safe and calm and soo before perhaps going into an environment where it might feel a little bit more threatening as everybody's looking at you and they're waiting for you to speak. And it sort of feels like that big moment. I just try and calm everything down of course before going into those environments. So I am, yeah, the biggest fan of trying out those skills because I know we're teaching them to people. So of course it can be really helpful if we can use them day to day as

Well. It really is. It really is. And I've been in the middle of presentations and I've taught people, let's just practise. Let's just drop our shoulders, let's take a breath. But also using that for myself. So when I was going down to London to film the Channel five series, I was sitting in the reception area and it was incredible. It's where MTV used to be filmed and it's just a really cool, really cool kind of vibrant London space. And I was sort of feeling not worthy, like oh, and starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed, and I just sort of had to take a moment to have a breath, drop my shoulders, do a little bit of mindful breathing, notice my feet on the floor, and to just say to myself, right, Marianne, everything you've done, very much like you were saying about your progression throughout your career, those roles come with you and stay with you.

Everything you've done in your point, in your career, in your life up to this point has been brought with you. All of the people that you value, they're still part of you, they're here, everybody including yourself, wants this to go really well. You are going to need to give yourself permission to recognise the fact that they've chosen you for this gig. They think that you are good enough, so you are going to need to give yourself permission to be good enough. And literally after that, the rest of the day went smoothly. I just had to get out of my own head and just allow myself to do that job.

Yeah, yeah. I love how you explain that as well, Marianne, to get outside of your own head when it feels very trapped and feels very overwhelming. And I know sometimes that's when the thoughts can pop into the mind of you can't do this. And for me at those moments, it felt very much like you just wanted to run for the door because it feels in that fret zone, and we know actually by running for the door, that's not going to help. It might feel a little bit better on that day when you've left, but quickly afterwards I imagine it would feel a lot worse. So yeah,

That was the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted to do this TV gig, so running out the door would've been the opposite of that goal for myself and of completing the project. And so yeah, we need to think about obviously teaching, training, consulting, presentation. It's a key part of our role in psychology. And I guess the bit we perhaps haven't looked at is if somebody's really, really struggling with this and the kind of sensible talking to your supervisor trying to do role plays, it's not working because it is such a key component. It's maybe the kind of thinking about where in psychology you might feel more at ease might be kinder to yourself. So if doing one-to-one stuff or doing group work is just so far outside your comfort zones, it may be kinder to do work that doesn't involve that for you.

Yeah, yeah, most definitely. And I know Marianne sort of really early on when I'd started the assistant role and I sort of opened up about the way in how I'd been feeling, and my supervisor was brilliant. She sat down and said, let's give this a go. Let's see how we get on. And then if that doesn't quite, it's not helpful for you, we'll look at other options. And I think that is such an important point that of course, I know we speak about the window of tolerance and we know that if that's sort of we're really struggling and it's really short and we're becoming unwell and we're not feeling good, then of course at that point we want to look at those alternatives and perhaps not to keep putting ourselves into these situations for us to become completely burnt out. So of course, taking really good care of ourselves, and I know the discussion as well with my supervisor around it's absolutely okay. If it would feel as though you need more extra support, then that's absolutely okay to gain that sort of outside of the service as well. And for me at that point, it didn't feel as though I needed it then, but I've still got it in my mind that it is always an option that people can request for that help and it's available. And yeah, of course, I know I mentioned before, but I really do think it's important to take really good care of ourselves in these at times, very difficult roles.

It really is. But also I think just before we wrap up to think about, sometimes the feedback you get may be not in your best interest. It may be that somebody said something as a trauma from their own past or because they don't like you is okay, you probably don't like them very much either, and just to not let, I guess not throw the baby out with bath water and to not let one bad egg ruin the whole baking. So just to know that it's okay if you are finding it really challenging, and actually if it's overwhelming, you're making you ill, that's not okay. It's not okay. I was thinking about acting upon that, but also knowing that if you can do that within your window of tolerance, as you've so beautifully demonstrated today, that really great things can happen for you and that you're able to write on your CV to be able to help you and others in future.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I'm just thinking Marianne, right at the beginning, just first, there's anyone who's listening and can relate in any way to this sort of fear and anxiety of speaking. If I was to go back two years back, I would've found it incredibly difficult to speak in a ward round, for example. That would elicit lots of anxiety for me. If I reflect now through exposure and doing it in a safe and contained way, I'm sort of sat here on a podcast with you, Marianne, which when I compare the two in the space of two years, I feel that it is definitely doable for people. It might feel a little bit difficult, but it's definitely something that people are able to do, and I think that should show it in some ways.

It really does. You've demonstrated that beautifully, and we can just give ourselves permission to grow, give ourselves the requisite things to help ourselves to thrive. Plenty of sleep trying to nourish ourselves well, trying to get some great work-life balance. You'd mentioned that you are really into yoga just before we hit record and just trying to know that psychology is not your only life. It's not the most important thing in your life. It should be holistic, so it really matters to me. I'm absolutely very proud to be a psychologist, but there's got to be other strings to my bow as well.

Yeah, of course, Marianne, and I know you mentioned about the yoga and absolutely, I try to do it sort of every morning before starting the day. For me, even if it's five, 10 minutes, it doesn't have to be very long, just spending that time aside to do yoga, to do meditation, I guess the meditation rather than doing just to be. And I find that sort of a wonderful way to start the day, and it sort of makes me feel a lot more content and comfortable throughout the day as well. So I know that might not be for everyone, but I found that to be really, really helpful, particularly if I'm speaking and doing training, staff training and those sort of things.

Brilliant. I honestly, I've loved speaking with you, Jasmine. It's been an absolute pleasure and I know so many people will find this useful. I can see this as being a real long-term favourite of the podcast. I will look at the stats and I'll keep posted, but it runs through so much of what we do, so thank you for pitching it to me as an idea, even though you didn't realise you were pitching it to me as an idea. I think probably part of you might have preferred me to just go, lovely, I'll talk about that. Thank you. But I thought you'd have the idea. It's so much more interesting to have your take on it, and this would not have been the same with just me talking on it, so thank you for reaching out to me. If anybody else wants to connect or follow you, you are Jasmine Iveson on LinkedIn, aren't you?

That's right, Marianne. That's correct. Yeah. And Marianne, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to speak, and I do believe even if one person can relate in some ways, and for me, that's significant, so big. Thank you.

Absolutely. You are so welcome. It's been a real privilege.

Thank you, Marianne. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Oh, thank you so much again to our wonderful guest for today's episode, both for her thoughtfulness, her sensitiveness, her attunement to the process, but also for reaching out to me and suggesting this topic, and I'm so pleased she said yes, because it's a beautiful episode. I realised that I mentioned CPA and then we discussed it a few more times since then. In case you're not familiar with what that is, that means care programme approach. I think it's always really important to cover the acronyms, and I'm sorry that I let that one slip through. I hope that your journey as an aspiring psychologist, or maybe for that matter, a qualified psychologist, is going really well. Please do bear in mind the compassionate q and as which you can access live, do look out for the most up-to-date dates, but also on YouTube. There are the playlists of previous q and As, which support you through application and interview stages for psychology.

I would welcome any reviews for this podcast. Please do consider leaving me a testimonial or even if you wanted to be a voice as a testimonial for the podcast or for the books and to feature on this podcast yourself. Please do check out the details in the show notes for how you can do that. It's a really simple process. Please do come along and join my free Facebook group, the Aspiring Psychologist Community with Dr. Marianne Trent. There's also the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which gets wonderful reviews. Thank you so much for being part of my world. If you've got ideas for future podcast topics, please don't be shy. Come and connect with me. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, everywhere, and that is spelled DR Dr. Marianne Trent, M-A-R-I-A-N-N-E. Thank you so much. I'll look forward to bringing you the next episode, which will always be available first on YouTube, usually on a Saturday, but all of the MP threes are available from 6:00 AM on Mondays. Take care.

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