Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 61: Training

abroad and reducing perfectionism with Michaela Thomas

Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. There are a variety of different routes to working as a qualified psychologist in the U.K. Some of those include doing your formal training in a different country. Our guest, Michaela Thomas explains her journey as a Clinical Psychologist having grown up and trained in Sweden.

Perfectionism is also rife in psychology and Michaela compassionately guides us through how to navigate this. We hope you find it useful. I’d of course love any feedback you might have!

The Highlights:

• 00:28: Welcome and reasons people may have doctorates…. Or not!
• 01:51: How Michaela and Marianne met
• 02:52: What is an actual psychologist?
• 04:25: Michaela’s Swedish training and background
• 09:13: Moving to the U.K.
• 13:12: professional registration in the U.K.
• 14:42: Why was the U.K. an appeal?
• 16:51: How perfectionism can show up in psychology
• 21:04: Perfectionism sounds great but it’s flirting with burnout
• 25:36: Things which help perfectionism to ease
• 27:35: The learning curves we find ourselves in
• 29:54: Reducing the self-pressure
• 30:58: Perfectionism in relationships
• 34:25: Continuing your learning on perfectionism with Michaela’s podcast
• 35:51: Top tip for reducing burnout in psychology
• 37:38: Connecting with Michaela
• 39:42: Summary and connecting with Marianne and leaving a testimonial audio testimonial

Links:

• Connect with Michaela and download her free calm the overwhelm resource: www.Thomasconnection.co.UK/calm
• Check out her book the lasting connection here: https://amzn.to/3X81g4J
• https://www.instagram.com/the_thomas_connection/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-thomas/
• Get $40 off a remarkable tablet here: remarkable.com/referral/4LJU-DJD8
• Grab your copy of the new book: The Aspiring Psychologist Collective: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97
• 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 upcoming Aspiring Psychologist Book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent
• To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0
• Come and discuss this episode in the free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunity

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Episode 61

Hi, welcome along to the aspiring psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a Qualified Clinical Psychologist. You may or may not know that it is possible to be a clinical psychologist but not necessarily have the doctorate title that might well be because you qualified prior to 1995, where actually in the UK, clinical psychology was a master's taught subject instead, the doctorate wasn't, wasn't conferred at the end of that qualification, but of course, it might be because you did your training in a different country with a doctorate wasn't granted as part of that training, but what I know is that all of those people are still highly skilled and qualified and absolutely do brilliant work. So, today, we're going to be talking to somebody who is a clinical psychologist, but qualified in a different country and then came to the UK in hearing about their journey. We're also going to be thinking about perfectionism and whether it's a good thing or whether it's a bad thing and what we can do about it to be more compassionate to ourselves. Hope you find it so useful and I look forward to catching up with you on the other side. Hi, just wanted to welcome along my guest for today, Michaela Thomas. Hi, Michaela.

Hi, Marianne. So, good to have me as a guest. I'm really looking forward to it. Thank you.

Lovely. Thank you. So, well, you and I know each other. We first met on social media, I think didn't we in a qualified psychologists network, but yeah, we ended up doing that thing where you slip into each other's inboxes and then never leave?

Yeah, you're the most reliable reply to my mailing list comes from you. So, I know especially if I do something slightly more sort of thought provoking or something in the text for the subject, headline, then I know Marianne is gonna take the bite and she's gonna reply.

I do. I love replying to people's mailing list emails and that said, if anyone listening to this gets my mailing list email, it's okay to reply. I really love it. I think people think oh, it's just you know, it's a one sided communication, but it is an email you are allowed to reply. So, you are also a clinical psychologist, aren't you Michaela?

Indeed, I am actual qualified psychologist.

Love that. Love that. If in case you're not sure what the reference to actual psychologist is, I did an episode with another of our friends and colleagues, Tara Dr. Tara Quinta Murillo and she is a counselling psychologist, but we think about actual psychologists as professional psychologists with...

A qualification and registration, you know, being a qualified and I suppose in some way, scrutinized psychologists meaning that we adhere to the professional code of conduct and standards of our profession and I think this is obviously a bugbear of both yours and mine antar as of how there are charlatans out in the media talking about psychological concepts without being a qualified clinical counselling, health, whatever it's psychologists. So, that's why we are the actual psychologists because we do have those professional standards and boundaries.

Yeah, I love that and I am so proud to be a professionally qualified psychologists and I know you feel the same as well. Anyway, this is an aside, we're here today to think about a variety of things, but because you are not originally from the UK, but you do work and practice here now, I thought it'd be really lovely if you're able to share a little bit with our listeners and our watches over on YouTube, about how you came to be a clinical psychologist and how you came to practicing in the UK and how the transition has been from one country to another.

Sure, it's not been an easy ride by any means. I was born in Sweden and I did my doctoral training there or sort of the equivalent of your doctoral training, I should say, this is something that we've talked about before some triggers my imposter syndrome that I quite, unquote, only get a Master's for the equivalent training to what you have in the UK. So, we don't actually award a doctorate and I know historically that wasn't the case in the UK either. It's more of a recent development, isn't it? So although I am a registered and qualified psychologists where I hold professional registration in both countries, both Sweden and the UK, I can't call myself a doctor. So, I'm not Dr. Michaela Thomas because we then do a longer programme where you have the undergrad and the post grant rolled into one. So, that's the five year psychology programme. Whereas when you get into that, you are also expecting to come out the other side of that as a psychologist in training. So, you don't have to do the six final year where it's basically a supervised post, but you are no longer attached to university. So, you do 12 months, not like a placement, you are working, you're a salaried, you are a you know, one of the staff members, but you just have to have someone supervise you and that supervisor then has to sort of just sign off on your 12 months at the end of it to see that you know your suit to be able to practice independently after that. So, it's a six year process, but that means that our bottleneck isn't, you know, in between the undergrad and the postgraduate like it is here is really, really difficult to get into their first year and the benefit of that I suppose is that once you're in, you know, you're going to if you manage the five years, you're going to come out the other end as a psychologist and training and then qualified psychologist after the sixth year or so the downside is that there's a there's a lot of psychology training to go through, if you're not quite sure that that's what you want. If you drop out after the first three years, you can then account that to be a BSc in psychology.

So, you can kind of take that part qualification away. If you then feel like I don't want to do clinical training, I want to use psychology as a base for other kinds of training, for instance, I want to go into business management or whatever it might be. So, it's not a waste, quote, unquote, if you feel like I'm, you know, partway through the process, this is not for me, when you get to the more applied psychology in your placements, which are in the final two years or three years. It's a blur. This was a long time ago, I was 19 when I first got in. So, that process was interesting as well, because on my cohort, I was the very youngest. It was really rare to get in that early because I got into my on my first attempt. I had people who are like 45 on the course, obviously this was their second career and that's quite common in in Sweden. Because it's not starting with sort of with an undergrad such so yeah, it was a really interesting way of learning and it was lots of practical learning on the job. We had an in house Clinic at the University Department, we then had people from the general public who could come and see the psychologists and training and it was run like us if you having your own clinic.

So, that was really helpful because it had to manage not just to clinical issues, but also managing your time, you know, as if you were in a workplace with other psychologists, you know, the classic room fights, who's overrunning their slot and taking someone else's room space classic love it, very public sector and I found it really helpful as a way to get a real feel for the profession. So, one I qualified I worked for about six months in a camp service in Sweden, specializing in adolescents with depression and anxiety. So, for a while I'll be looking at IACT in the UK, I sort of had this dreamy aspiration that IACT was going to be everything that I've ever wanted. So, I moved to the UK, I got into the IACT programme and then I did seven years in two different London I up services, before I sort of took the plunge to fully work with my private practice that I now run solely online. So, the Thomas connection is my practice. So, that's sort of a little bit around how I got here, but there's a bit of a chunk there missing, which is how on earth did I get from Sweden to the UK? How did I get my qualifications acknowledged and that did take a couple of years for HCPC or HPC, as it was called at the time to acknowledge that my training was equivalent.

so did you have to do that before you got to the UK you couldn't sort of stump like show up and then be like, oh, quite fancy working as a qualified psychologist.

Well, this is exactly why I found it so helpful to come in through the IACT programme because at that point, I was then given the permission to be a trainee again, I was a CBT therapist in training. Obviously they've hired me recruited me knowing I was a qualified psychologist, but I couldn't work with that title. I was a trainee CBT therapist. So, yes and no. So, yeah, I had to do a lot of things before I left. The HCPC have a lot of hoops that you have to jump through in terms of showing that the training you've gone through is the equivalent so I had to single handedly translate about 80 pages of Swedish course curriculum information’s you know what every single five week course even I'd taken included and what the learning objectives were etc. and then get that approved from the university again. So, sending it back to them to say, does this translation match your objectives and so I basically sent about two kilos of paperwork to HCPC and that also included a wellbeing check that you have to go and see a private doctor, to who assessed you whether you were suitable or whatever I was suitable to practice independently, you know, as a psychologist and the doctor does look to me like, well, I could check your hearing and your sight and your reflexes, but I've no idea how to assess that you can actually practice so shall I do that and she took me to quit. So, the bizarre things were also I had to get someone to attest to me being of a good standing in society, or something to that extent, I can't remember this a long time ago and I was like, 15 years ago.

Like a moral standing.

Yeah, something like that and you had to have someone know you for at least 10 years or something like a big chunk and I had to attest to you being of you know, a sound mind as opposed to be able to practice in this delicate profession. So, I had to find, you know, what, my oldest friend is a lawyer. So, she had to write and she's making lots of rude jokes as she was writing it, but attest to that I was sound to practice so that all of these things put together in a portfolio similar to how perhaps people put together a portfolio within IACT within that training as well, to showcase your knowledge, skills and aptitudes, attitudes, KSA, your knowledge, skills and attitudes. So, I had to do one of those as well. So, there was a lot of paperwork and I think without the tenacity of I'm doing this, I've been given the post, I'm going to go for it. It wouldn't have worked out I think so. For anyone who's listening who comes from a foreign country?

Again, it's very difficult to say what it would be like for you this is, you know, well over a decade ago that I came to the UK, it was about 12 years ago, but it's helpful to have a dialogue with the HPC as well about what's what are they looking for, you know, so when I first applied to get my practitioner psychologist, their posts, pass it back and said, you missing something? Was pretty much I was like, well, what am I missing, it can be a bit more clearer. So, then I weren't pushed, they sort of said, well, we need you to have more practical experience of older adults. So, none of my placements had been with older adults in Sweden, they've all been with adolescent, children, adolescents and adults.

So, then I was given a couple of clients with an IACT after my service there was with documented all that center back in and that was enough. So, yeah, don't take no for an answer asked for why, what's missing? How do I add to this? What's the kind of what complementing information are you looking for? and then don't give up, have lots of tenacity, seek support from friends allow it to take a long time, I think it probably took me two years, I've actually been in the UK before I got my qualification at that point, I would already qualified as a CBT therapist for the second time, because it's already qualified CBT therapists from Sweden, but you know, you'd have to know that you want to be here for that to feel worthwhile.

Absolutely. It sounds like the HCPC kind of will tell you if you push the right buttons, but of course, when we first started training, the BPS, the British Psychological Society were our professional body and that's changed certainly, just before I qualified, I think it changed to the HCPC. Have the BPS or are the BPS any use in guiding this process for people that live outside the UK to your knowledge?

The honest answer is that when I came to move here in 2010, the overseas route for applying was closed, they were just not accepting it. So, since then, I've just never bothered. I've never applied for the BPS because there's not seemed to serve my ongoing career and my you know, the professional skills I have, I might feel differently about it now or in the future, but it's just never really felt like anything I needed, because I already had to have HCPC and I had to have be ABCP as my governing body for the CBT therapy. So, I sort of felt well what does the BPS add, if I'm really honest about it, what does it add apart from, you know, another professional fee to pay. So, I just haven't because there wasn't a route that was available or not an open to me in 20 while I moved in 2010 but I was looking at this for years before that. So, from about 2007 and it just wasn't an access route for me. So, I found a way in which was through I upped and then added the other bits as I went along.

Great thank you and what was the appeal of the UK for you other than you know having a crystal ball and knowing that you'd meet someone and have a family and you know, live your happily ever after? Why the UK why was that an appeal to you?

Yeah, well, I'd always liked London and who doesn't like a major metropolis, but it was also, I mean, I wanted to get a good career. I was obviously recently qualified and I'd seen some people like John Wheatley and Glen Waller, people who were sort of CBT therapists are also involved and I up, they'd come for workshops to Sweden and I've been speaking to low or low about it and what the programme look like, you know, what's the difference between sort of going for the CBT therapy route versus the clean psych route and I, at the time really loved therapy and I just felt that the way in why I act felt more like I was able to use a skill set I had wanted and I really loved the initiative, of improving access to psychological therapy. We are, you know, we have we were doing primary care psychology in Sweden as well and it was sort of starting to develop, but I liked what David Clark had been doing without now having worked in it, it's slightly different story, but that will be another podcast episode, I'm sure, but I just felt the passion for that and wanting to be part of that system and I had been having long distance with someone for three years, who at that point was based in London. So, I felt that you know, if I get the right job, I can move to London, or we can, you know, make a go with this relationship. I didn't want to just move somewhere and not have something that was furthering my, you know, my purpose and what I trained for as well. So, when that came up, I thought why everything is aligned. Now, my work in psychology has obviously lasted for the 12 years, but that relationship did not and I met who is now my husband. Not long after that in 2012, I met him in 2012. So, yeah, so that's lasted a decade and so as my psychology interest, but not the relationship I moved to the UK for.

I don't think I realized about the other relationship. I love that I love knowing that sounds romantic though. And, you know, you had that in mind in your head, like that preparation and commitment and drive and that's so important in psychology and even hearing you as you're talking about all the hoops that you needed to jump through transcribing and translating and all of that for your work, that takes a great deal of drive and determination and commitment as well and so is it any wonder that in the profession of psychology, we've got quite a few perfectionistic traits, you know, because even people that have qualified in the UK, you know, the level of the academic rigor and the clinical rigor and what we've got to balance alongside our lives and all of that and demonstrating and talking about our competencies, we do have quite a few perfectionistic candidates and personnel within psychology, don't we, Michaela?

Absolutely. I think I was once told on a schema therapy, training that to the most common schema that we see shown up for psychologists is self-sacrifice and perfectionism and there's a reason why I built my entire practice to be specialized in in perfectionism, because I've struggled with this in the past myself and I would say that I'm a recovering perfectionist, I don't let it ruin my life anymore. I don't let it sort of zap joy out of my life, I don't let it impact the connection I have with others anymore. Because I've found ways of working with myself self with self-compassion and behavioral change. So, I think is so rife in psychologists. I mean, I do coaching and therapy also, for psychologists especially and they people come my way quite a lot with these kinds of very hard on themselves, very, you know, maybe low self-confidence and self-belief and this idea that almost like a sense of shame, about wanting to have something for themselves, as well as serving others, especially as private business owners, we can obviously see that, you know, I do need to charge I do need to make money off the work I do and when I work with other private psychology owners, people who are in private practice, they are entrepreneurs and he's really struggled to kind of identify with this idea that I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner, because we just want to serve and that perfectionism of selflessly self-sacrificing, might mean that they have real lack of boundaries, they might work, you know, three, four evening clinics or having 30 clients across the week and we see this also in public health, where perfectionism is something that makes people take you know, looking for the right word here, excessive notes and spending an hour to update the clinical notes for a patient and they might over prepare for supervision so that they spend two hours preparing for supervision and then feeling like I don't have enough time. So, we see a lot of the similar behaviors that you might see, you know, OCD, because perfectionism can be a part driving part of OCD and some people with OCD, you know, fall prey to kind of this idea that if I don't do it, something bad will happen and we can have that in perfectionism as well. So, it's really helpful to maybe identify that perfectionism is like an umbrella term that can host lots of things underneath it. So, perfectionism as itself is not a clinical diagnosis from the DSM five or anything like that, but it's very commonly associated with anxiety and depression and we as psychologists, or aspiring psychologists and training are not immune to mental health problems like anxiety and depression. So, being aware of these patterns of perfectionism, before they lead to stress, burnout, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression is really, really important. Because there is no such thing as perfect and training your career, your application process, none of it can be perfect.

It's almost ironic, isn't it? Because if you didn't know what perfectionism was, sounds great. Like, oh, perfectionists. Oh and it sounds like you'd be really happy, doesn't it?

Yeah.

But the opposite is true and actually, like you said, they're quite often very highly stressed and quite miserable. They're not thriving, are they? They're you know, tinkering. Tinkering is that word, faltering, on the edge of burnout actually.

Flirting with burnout, we often say, because it's sort of close to it and it's almost like you're dancing on a deadline of everything and that can be very difficult, because that can lead to patterns of procrastination, as well, when you are working so hard that you don't have a sustainable pace, you're kind of going into boom or bust. You know, actually, I'm doing everything and then I'm so exhausted, accompany bother to do anything, or I might even feel low and flat. So, in the up phase, when you're working on really hard or maybe completing your application, or applying for jobs. So, you might feel like, Okay, I've got this sort of energy, but it can be a really adrenaline and cortisol fueled energy that makes you just kind of like, burn all the cylinders and then as a response to that, because your body eventually says, no, you can then enter into a bit of a slump, where you then kind of come into the bust and that's where we, you know, with repeated cycles, like that can even find things like chronic pain, you know, your body has just literally depleted all its resources.

So, you run through all the cortisol that you have and that can make it really difficult to get motivated to take action and procrastination can be something that follows that sort of pattern of overworking, burnout, procrastination and then you add a bit of self-criticism into that like, what's wrong with me? Why am I so lazy? Lazy is a road very common word, I hear what's wrong with me, I'm not able to adult like adults, other adults and that self-criticism then leads you into maybe just kicking yourself up the bum and thinking I'm going to do it now, but it's all motivated and fueled by criticism, fear of failure, almost like a punitive. Passionate unkindness is one of my clients, terms that she used ones. It's almost like the you everything you do is then fueled by fear of not being good enough for fear of failing and then that's very different to being fueled by a sense of joy, vitality, meaning like, this feels really purposeful to me and I feel uplifted and lighthearted when I do these things. If you felt that way, I wouldn't say that your perfectionism is causing any problems for you. So, we kind of think about the difference between functional or dysfunctional perfectionism and it's working out for you. So, striving for excellence, where you might feel a sense of pride, when you hit your ambitious goal, you might feel a sense of joy, the things you've achieved, that's very different. You kind of think I'm highly skilled or unconfident about what I do and I take great pleasure from it. That's very different to striving for perfection, which is associated with actually less likely to meet your goals, or you meet them last minute and you meet them at the cost of your wellbeing.

So, that's a really helpful distinction for anyone listening who has been thinking the perfectionist, which was a great thing, because life won't be perfect if I perfect everything and the reality is that it doesn't tend to be and I see that in a few different ways. Partly because we don't then take action to start so much second guessing and doubt overthinking it, trying to perfect everything so then don't start. So, someone listening might be like, well, I need to send three applications out and I just haven't said any because they're not good enough. Right. So, if you don't take action, you're not gonna get any result. You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take, to quote, Wayne Gretzky. Yes, I quoted an ice hockey player on a psychology podcast. So, if you don't get started, don't take action, you won't get your results. That's one thing as either inertia or procrastination don't start or do start, but it's no good knife and I'm not brilliant at it straightaway. So, then people give up and they don't have that tenacity because it's not instantly rewarding and it's like imperfections want to be really brilliant at what they do immediately, or they get impatient. Or lastly, they do finish it, they get to that stretchy goal, but they take no joy from it and called savor their success. They just look literally for the next mountain to climb, even though they've just finished and they're exhausted. So, it doesn't sound that perfect, does it?

It really doesn't, no and actually, even when we get on to what feels like the Holy Grail and the clinical psychology doctorate, sometimes depending on which course you pick, sometimes that can fuel perfectionism as well. So, happily, I ended up on a course that doesn't give you grades for your assignments. So, it was pass or fail with the pass rate being 40% and so for my assignments, if I passed, I was happy and there was no like, what did you get? You know, what did I get? Where am I did I come bottom, because everybody was just pass or fail and actually, I found that really, really useful in just aiming to do enough, you know, so I wanted to do, you know, I wanted to do well, it wasn't like I was purposely thinking, what I'm aiming for 40%, but you never got your percentages, I just was aiming to cover the areas I thought would be reasonable as the best of I could, best stability that I had, but of course, when we are training, we're managing a caseload. We're managing, you know, peer relations on the cohort, we're managing our real life, which might be I moved for training. So, I had my real life where I was living my real life with my home friends, where I grew up. At one stage I was dating at one stage, I was dating seriously, you know, different people, different strokes, different folks. Plus the academic work, plus the relationship with my clinical, my academic supervisor at uni and then the staff that were teaching us and relationships with the people facilitating that. It's a lot, a lot and so for me, just that one thing, I think helped me keep everything, all those plates spinning, you know and balls in the air, because I didn't have to, you know, try not to be lost, you know, in my academic work.

And not being graded on a curve like that either. It's not so per formative, but it's more about building the identity in the skill set of a scientist practitioner of a clinical psychologist, we had the same in my training, it was only pass or fail given and I then struggled when I moved to the UK and was doing the academic training. That's part of it absolutely. Obviously, it was a year PG dip with Royal Holloway and suddenly that was like distinctions and all sorts of things. I've never had this before, it was a real learning curve for me and knowing that I people in the UK are learning how to do application processes and interviews so much earlier than we do. You were evaluated from much earlier, you have come to understand this from like 11 year pluses and GCSE and all sorts. So, what I didn't have that experience, so I didn't know how to academically write in a way to tick the boxes to get the higher marks and that was really, really hard and it's something that sort of I'm gonna say it out loud because that's what happens with shame. It makes us want to hide so I'm going to say that I only got only got a pass in my PG dip there and has anyone ever asked to see it since? No. Am I a good psychologist? Yes, I've taught psychology, both UEL and UCL I've run my own private practice. I obviously have been working as a senior psychologist in in the NHS for seven years, I ran a staff wellbeing clinic where I headed up to see with tea service guys in St. Thomas hospital, you know, headhunted to do exactly that. Did anyone then go? Oh, but you only had a pause? Yeah, no, I'm sorry that you could only put more effort into those scientific articles that you're reviewing, so you could have had a distinction that would have picked you. It doesn't work like that. So, I really want to take some of that external pressure away from you that the evaluation that is happening through academia stops to have that same relevance when you're in exit academia, but then being aware of...

But then sometimes it doesn't because if people got to undergrad, or at masters, sometimes they are penalized for that or they're asked to do additional things or they're told it just doesn't count. You know, it's not good enough. So, you don't need your assistance like...

What I meant is my this sort of later on because this was obviously the PG dip I did on top of my you know, MSC This is equivalent to your Declan Psych. So, yeah, absolutely when you were looking to go into that bottleneck of the application process of wanting to get onto the doctoral training, absolutely, that does count on that one. I just meant, what you do after that. So, that's why it's so helpful that like, for instance, your doctoral training that only had pass or fail, because beyond that point, when you come out and you are a budding psychologists, there are so many other ways of evaluating your skill set through, you know, really good supervision and having, you know, reviews of your work. So, yeah, so just to reiterate that, obviously, it does, it's not like it doesn't matter what grades you get, as you go through your undergrad and assistants like person, things are just meant more, I wish for people to put less pressure on themselves to nail every single thing perfectly. Because when you then start to work clinically, in the real world, at that point, it doesn't matter.

It really doesn't and I like your thinking about other ways we can learn about not being perfectionistic as well and what I'm referring to is, Michaela is the author of a wonderful book, which I've got here, if you're on YouTube, with a lovely gold swirly pattern there which I really like the lasting connection by Michaela Thomas and that is a compassionate therapy guide for thinking about relationships, isn't it, Michaela, talk us through briefly, your book, baby, because I know we're not talking about relationships here, but I think this is a lovely book and it'd be remiss of me not to allow you to mention that when you're on my podcast.

That's very kind of compassionate of Marianne, knowing how hard it is to do book promotion. So, the last thing connection, I still wrote with, with people who are high striving and perfectionistic in mind, there's a whole chapter on connection, not perfection, because when we're really hard on ourselves and we don't give ourselves enough grace or self-compassion, for mistakes we make, etc., it will have an impact on our relationships. So, the book is based on the three different methods or models I use in my couples work, which is, as you mentioned, compassion focus therapy, but also acceptance of commitment therapy or act, as well as behavioral couples therapy, which is sort of like a CBT version for couples. So, I blended these three together and I couldn't find anyone who had written a book like that on that subject. So, I decided that maybe I should.

So, that's where the book baby was, where it was coming from and I, I feel like it's sort of there's a lot of things out there around communication training, how to improve your decision making, obviously, the work of people like John Guttmann and Julie Guttmann. So, there's a lot of that out there already that I've cited in the book, but what I wanted to add to it is also how we can soften and soothe these very sort of high triggering situations that we ultimately have when we live so close to someone in proximity with someone every day, is that idea of how do I bring them that threat? How do I de-escalate and soothe that through compassion. So, you have everything from mindfulness practices to breath, work to compassionate letter writing in the book to you know, finding a way to talk to your inner critical voice in a different way. So, developing your compassionate self and also how you are compassionate towards others. So, I saw a lot about how we you are with the other partner how you are towards them, but what they didn't see enough about how you are towards yourself. So, that's why I wrote the book on that subject on how to develop compassion for yourself and your partner.

Well done and it's a really great read and actually, I recommend it to clients who don't have relationships as well, because it really, I think helps people think about what a good relationship will look like and how it actually is supposed to enrich your life, not deplete it and so you can still be your own person. It's important that you are and well done. This is a really lovely book and I know that Dr. Judy Smith and deliciously Ella, are big fans of it as well, so well done to you and another one of your babies is another thing that I like to listen to and it is your pause purpose play podcast. Could you tell us a little bit about that as well Michaela?

Yeah, of course and you know, incidentally, someone really amazing has done an episode on grief on it. Dr. Marianne Trent, if you want to check out that episode and then search for Marianne Trent and grief and pause purpose play that you can listen to your fantastic host as well. It's a psychology podcast and is aimed at high striving women who put a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect, who might have really stretchy ambitious goals but as a result, they then find themselves being overstretched or drowning in their ambition, maybe then either overworking feeling, you know, burnt out or don't take action and hold themselves back with self-doubt, fear and procrastination. So, basically the things we've talked about today, that's the one I cover on the podcast and it's a mix of guest interviews, where I talk about sort of everything related to perfectionism and then how we improve our well-being, as a recovering perfectionist and solo episodes with me where I sort of do 1015 minutes sort of short nuggets of learning around this concept of perfectionism. So, go check it out, if you think you are a bit of a perfectionist and you're not quite sure it's just good in your life and you might want to consider the costs of your perfectionism as well, you can go and check it out.

Brilliant, thank you so much. So, before we finish, before we share your contact details and everything, could you offer us your top tip for our audience for how to how to reduce the chance of burnout in this career of ours?

Wow. I think being really aware of what is the external pressure that you're under. What is the internal pressure that you bring with you? So, the external pressure to be aware of that, if it's no longer serving, you know, might be that even a psychologist we can enter toxic environments of work, be in the private or the public sector. If you're aware, there's an external pressure that is too heavy on you and you're about to experience burnout. Then also think about how much internal pressure you take with you by having unrealistic high standards or excessive demands on yourself to be a certain way. So, being aware of where that external and internal pressure meet and if they've come together as a perfect storm, that is an opportunity for you to practice self-compassion, that no wonder that I'm really stressed out here. No wonder I'm at the point of burnout because I'm in in a high demands environment, with unrelenting high standards on me and how I should perform as a psychologist or trainee and then I have my internal world saying it's never good enough and I beat myself up for making mistakes and you know what, in your, in a high external pressure environment, you wasn't more likely to make mistakes, because you're overworked. So, that will probably be my top tip to help you make wise decisions about when you stay and when you leave and when you actually decide that this is not coming from the environment, it's coming from me, maybe reaching out to someone like myself, or you know, speaking to someone in counselling, therapy, coaching, whatever it might be to get you some help to soften those codes and you know, the masks and the shirts that you have on yourself and it might be that you're able to thrive in it even in a high demands environment, if you shave away some of the internal pressure.

Thank you so much. That's really, really useful stuff to consider and now if people do want to get themselves on your mailing list and be able to respond to your mailing statements like I do, the best way to do that, Michaela?

Well obviously, I have a bunch of nice freebies. So, if you want to just sign up to the newsletter, you can go to the Thomasconnection.co.uk/newsletter, but if you actually want something for your time, you can go to the Thomasconnection.co.UK/calm and download my calm the overwhelm freebie where you can look through a checklist of physical and psychological signs of overwhelm some very quick simple tips for what you can do to implement some self-care and also the little objections, the stuff that gets in the way of you actually doing those things. Because as psychologists, we have lots of tools and tricks and tips for how to look after ourselves and the biggest thing I see is that people don't tend to do it, so is that implementation is very hard. So, get on my mailing list, if you want to have some ongoing tips on how you can work with this and I'd love to, for you to say reply, like Marianne does and that will make my day.

Brilliant and if you have you got a favorite hangout on socials, where's the best place for people to like your stuff and engage with your stuff because that's always important, isn't it?

It is and yeah, so obviously, I put a lot more out on social stuff than I do in the newsletters as well. The newsletter the one that I have on Fridays, which is my elsewhere that it's called, Good Friday. That newsletter is all about letting go of the sort of rigid rules that we have for ourselves. That is exclusive to the mailing list, but otherwise, I hang out on Instagram, the_Thomas_connection, or Michaela Thomas on LinkedIn. So, Instagram or LinkedIn.

Perfect and I regularly interact with you both of those places and more. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and your kindness. I know that people will find what you've said really, really useful. So, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me and I don't think it was perfect, but it was good enough and I'm happy with that.

Certainly was. Thank you Michaela. What a pleasure. It was to spend time on camera with one of my colleagues but also someone who's become a dear close friend over the last couple of years. Hope you found it so useful, listening to Michaela and I. I'd love any feedback. Come and join us over on the aspiring psychologist, community free Facebook group. Let me know what you think. I love creating content that you want to listen to read, watch, depending on whether you're reading this on the blog, whether you're watching this on YouTube, Like, Subscribe, comment if you are and if you're like, oh, I didn't know that was on YouTube, we are. It's Dr. Marianne Trent over on YouTube. So, come and follow and subscribe there and if you're listening to this on podcast, our most popular podcast platform is Spotify. Followed then I think by Apple, if you're listening on Apple, take a moment to rate and review the podcast series as that helps us get shown higher up the listings and shows that we are creating useful content that our audience find useful. Regardless of whether you're watching, listening or reading. If you've got stuff that you'd like me to discuss, or people you'd like me to chat with, then let me know get in contact with me via my socials. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, all places, or my specific podcast page on the website, which is www.Goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and that's where you can access all episodes of the podcast via my website if you didn't want to access it via Spotify or any of the other means and you can also fill in a form you can also whilst you're there, record me a very quick audio testimonial, either about the podcast or one of the books to use within the show. So, yeah, if you've got a couple of minutes that would be so welcomed and if you've got a couple of spare pounds in your pocket and you value the content, please do consider donating to help me with the podcast running costs as that is something that I fund entirely myself. To find out information about that check out the link in the show notes or go to my link tree which you can access from any of my socials. Thank you so much for being part of my world and I look forward to catching up with you for our next episode of the aspiring psychologists podcast which will be available for you on Monday at 6am.

Thank you so much for being part of my world and I'll catch up with you very soon take care.