Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode 96:

On being a Sikh, Imposter Syndrome, and therapeutic relationships with Dr Gurpreet Kaur

Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast.

We are almost midway through application season – I hope this is going okay for you.

In this episode of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, we welcome Dr Gurpreet Kaur, a Sikh clinical psychologist and an EMDR practitioner. Join us as we take a delve into discussions around imposter syndrome, reflect on spirituality and learn more about Sikhi. Gurpreet also talks about the importance of connection and therapeutic relationships and the experience of working with South Asian communities. Plus, Dr Kaur gives us a top tip to reduce burnout – helpful to all, and discusses resilience. Join us as we learn, grow and reflect on our personal experiences and our work.

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): Summary
• (01:08): A reminder on support for DclinPsy application season
• (02:16): Introducing Dr Gurpreet Kaur
• (03:40): The importance in fact-checking psychology related content in the media
• (06:26): Gurpreet’s road to Clinical Psychology to EMDR
• (09:06): trauma in minority backgrounds
• (10:09): What exactly is Imposter Syndrome?
• (13:21): Sowing seeds of change in schooling and working life to support wellbeing
• (15:20): The power to change the view of people
• (17:43): Give yourself the permission to learn from yourself, others and everything
• (19:18): On being a Sikh and pursuing psychology – lessons and reflections
• (21:17): Why are cultural diversity and therapeutic relationships important?
• (23:55): The need for “Sangat” and spirituality in Sikh communities
• (26:28): Ultimately, spiritualty is unique to an individual
• (27:47): Generational mismatch, disconnection, and Veechar
• (30:29): Marianne’s little tip in making connection
• (32:56): Making sense of experiences & the hard transition to get therapy
• (35:19): building resilience – learning and growing
• (39:06): If you’re hitting a wall, take a step back, reassess and take a different step
• (41:40): Connect with your identity, your internal self and your values!
• (44:00): Connect with Dr Kaur
• (46:27): Support for application season and close

Links:

👉To connect with Dr Gurpreet Kaur: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drkaurtherapy/ https://www.instagram.com/drkaurtherapy/ https://www.tiktok.com/@drkaurtherapy?lang=en

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Coming up on today's episode, I talk to Dr. Gurpreet Kaur, who is a qualified clinical psychologist and EMDR practitioner. We are talking about so many different things, including who should be and could be being on social media as a psychologist, but also talking about her faith as a Sikh and what that means to her, how she sees the world. And we just generally have conversations about culture, faith, respect, dignity. It's such a great episode and I hope you'll find it so useful.

If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide with this podcast to way to being the psychologist podcast.

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. As you listen to this episode, we are in the middle of clinical application season for the clearinghouse and also for the educational psychology programme too. If you would welcome some additional help, guidance, and support, please do check out the free compassionate q and a sessions that I run across my socials. But there are also replays available that you can listen to or watch on Dr. Marianne Trent on my YouTube channel. Whilst you're there, please do like and subscribe, check a comment in, and if you really like an episode, please do consider sharing it to your network too. So one of the things that we will absolutely need to learn about in any psychology profession and in working with people generally is about faith and culture and how that might show up for them, what barriers and what opportunities that might create for them.

And I had got chatting with my guest for today on social media and we'd started to have conversations along those lines. I hope you'll find this really interesting. Regardless of your own background and your own culture, there is so much to learn from speaking with others and learning about the way they see the world. I will look forward to catching up with you on the other side of this episode. Hi, I just want to welcome along my guest for today, Dr. Gurpreet Kaur, who is a clinical psychologist and an E M D R practitioner, Hi Gurpreet!

Hi Marianne. Thank you for having me.

Thank you very much for being here. We first became aware of each other sort of on TikTok and LinkedIn I think, but I feel like yeah, you've been on TikTok since I joined TikTok, so you've been like an omnipresent face. And that said, people should come and follow you because doing really well on there. Much better than me. But yeah, I really like the videos that you create and what you do on this. It's lovely to be able to spend some time with you kind of face-to-face in person.

Thank you so much. And likewise, I really enjoy watching your content as well, and I really think it's important what you're doing, trying to talk to people who are at that space where it's probably a little bit scary and unpredictable and I think it's really important to talk through some of the issues that are probably coming up for them.

Thank you so much. It's so kind of you to say. And just before we went on air, we were thinking about actually a change you've heard about on YouTube. That means actually it's going to be hopefully easier to find content from qualified professionals because I'm not sure about you, but one of my bugbears is when people perhaps have just done a psychology degree or even read a psychology book and then call themselves a psychologist and then sometimes putting out quite dangerous information online.

No, absolutely. And I think that's the reason we're out here, aren't we trying to get the information across people, but no, I think there are changes on YouTube where they're having people who are actually accredited, qualified practitioners out there and they're somehow labelling them as that as well. So I think it's a new update that we can all look out for and hopefully they'll do that across most platforms as well. I think that's really, really important.

Yeah, that would be incredible. I think sometimes the tricky thing is, especially in journalism as well, is that if somebody's got the bare face cheek to call themselves a psychologist, then sometimes the qualifications are assumed. And even with a degree and even with a master's, sometimes people will think, well, of course that's enough, but of course they're qualified. But what we know is actually it's only a professional qualification that gets you qualified.

It's so broad, isn't it? Psychology is such a broad term then the amount of categories that come underneath that and then how to qualify yourself in one of those areas. It's enormous. So no, actually you really take that with a pinch of salt when somebody calls themselves. A psychologist

Gets your radar wagging, doesn't it? It does. It

Does. That's why I was happy you were on. Was it five channel five doing your, it was channel

Five.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Get more qualified psychologists out there.

Thank you so much. And to anybody who's like, I dunno what you mean, I can currently be seen. So we are recording as episode two is about to go out on channel five in Inheritance Wars. Who gets the money? So if you're watching or listening to this on replay, you should be able to probably watch episode 1, 2, 3, maybe even four by the time it comes up, but I think I might be in each episode. So thank you so much for your kindness and support. So we weren't on here to talk about media, we weren't on here to talk about social media followings and proper people being qualified across these platforms. But what we really wanted to think a little bit about was you and your career and your faith and how that has been interwoven with psychology, how that's important for you and some of that stuff really. So could you tell us a little bit about your psychology history and career to date, please?

That's a really broad question. I think where to start, I started with the psychology route, I suppose at a level that was my first insight into psychology and what it was, went on to study it at degree level. And then I went on to do a master's as well. And I wasn't really sure about what route I wanted to go down or what I wanted to do as a psychologist until really into my degree where this idea of clinical psychology opened up to me. We're talking about the late 1990s now. This is a very long time ago and I didn't really know much about clinical psychology and what it was, but it sounded very interesting. So I started to find out a little bit more about it, went down the assistant route and very luckily I was able to get into a good course and that's how the process developed for me.

But it wasn't a particularly easy one. I certainly wasn't one of those psychologists who just applied and got on the first time or did one assistance post and that was my experience. I think it was quite a slog. And when I think about it, I do think that some of maybe my factors related to my background. So parents were working class, I didn't really have anyone that had gone to university around me. I didn't really know what this whole arena of clinical psychology was. There was certainly nothing like this that existed at that time. So it was hard to connect with people and find out about it. So it was really a process of just learning and figuring it out along the way. And yeah, I ended up kind of getting into clinical psychology that way.

Amazing. And what's your current specialism? Where do you work? What do you do?

So I worked in the N H S from 2001 that was pre my qualification really as assistant psychologist. And then all the way through up until around I'd say 2018 where I started to sidestep into private practise. And that's really just because mother of three kids trying to balance it all the constraints of the N H Ss as well and feeling a little bit like I couldn't thrive there. So I started to sidestep into private practise in Surrey where I'm based and I actually work online so I could see people from wherever. And I think throughout my career I always felt that some of the models in the way we were taught, particularly during training were great. And I think they've all got their positive aspects to them, but some were quite limiting. And I find that I found that personally there was a lot more that needed to be spoken about with certain clients than we were being encouraged to do maybe on the course.

So I found my interest really in trauma and I felt that that perspective enabled me to get a real good sense of a person's struggles and create a great formulation about what they were experiencing and why they were struggling. And so that's the area that I've started to, well, more recently I've really started to specialise and focus in that. So that's why I went on to study the E M D R. I became a practitioner in that. And quite interestingly how I'm seeing trauma show up for people, especially from minority backgrounds is as imposter syndrome. And so they're the kind of two areas that I'm very, very interested in. So the early experiences people have, how it impacts them growing up, and then the impact of that as an adult in that sense of that imposter feeling that they have. So quite diverse background, but I'm very specialist now

And I always try to save people a Google in case they don't know what something is. Could you tell us a bit more about what imposter syndrome is and how it might show up for people?

So imposter syndrome was a term that was developed in 1978. It was actually by psychologists who found that there was a group of women who, despite their high achievements, despite how good they were at everything, they just felt like they were not good enough. They felt like their success was not their own to own and they felt like their strengths were just, they kind of put themselves down a little bit. And so that's how it is today. It's people who are perfectionists, it's people who fear failure. It's people who have that constant need to feel like they have to do better despite putting a lot of work into it and maybe sometimes overwork with that as well. But it's inherently that sense of not being good enough. And I think that shows up for a lot of people. And unfortunately I think a lot of the systems that people work in and the organisations actually encourage that sense of overwork, overperform be a perfectionist, what we want and that's what get you the rewards. So it's a systemic issue I think as well as a personal one, unfortunately.

Yeah, I dunno what your experience of parenting children in modern schools is, but it very much for me seems that they're trying to give more attention to everybody regardless of ability levels and trying to make sure that everybody is not always the same children that get certificates and awards and praise. And it's not just the children that are struggling that are getting the attention. So even I think we've got our youngest children in the same school year, but the SAPs happened last year and they were giving everybody extra tuition in our school year so that everybody could do better rather than just specific children. And I think there's obviously a covid fallout here in terms of our children and what they've been through for their early education, but for me it feels, because I was a governor for two years as well, a parent governor, it feels like they're really trying to do what they can to make everybody feel worthwhile.

And what we go through working with people with trauma is that sometimes school might be a safe place and they try to really, it's probably school dependent, but really holistically we meet the needs of a child. And so I do hope that in time things may even our emotional literacy and our ability to talk about our feelings may be better than for my age group, I think. And certainly the way we raise our boys, I think schools are being much more mindful and certainly with all the gender stuff that's going on currently, very much more mindful about things not just being for boys and not just being for girls and that boys don't need to be tough and not cry and brave and yeah, I think it's very interesting having even I'm 42 even reflecting on the way that I was schooled and what my experience of watching others be schooled was to now what's your take on all of that Gurpreet?

Oh, It's all very different now and I do think there is much more emphasis on the child's wellbeing. You're seeing a lot more focus on that. My concern is that, well, I think it's great in that it's sowing seeds. It's sowing seeds that maybe our generation didn't have in our school's experience. I do get concerned actually if it's not mirrored at home or if children don't experience that sense of safety or that kind of language around being able to express themselves or emotional vulnerability, it's still going to create a disparity, isn't it, between what someone's hearing at school and what someone's experiencing at home. So unfortunately, I just think it's more of a systemic issue. I think the schools are doing what they can do, which is great, but again, it's only a very small part essentially. I know when we're at school we feel like it's forever, but really it's such a small part of a person's lifetime, isn't it?

And then if then they fall into a career that actually demands very, very high standards of them for them to be just okay or on par with other people, I think that's where the damage can happen because it can really fuel some of those earlier negative call beliefs if they've been picked up along the way in situations that may be a bit more adverse. So yeah, no, I think schools are doing what they can. I just think there's a lot more that can be done. And I do think that there's more opportunity for people to learn with, for example, us being for therapists on social media, there's a lot more information out there in terms of mental health, mental wellbeing, mindset, all of this stuff. And I think companies are getting a lot more into this as well. So they're recruiting a lot more people to come and talk. But I think it's that part where people are giving themselves the permission to think, actually this applies to me. Let me sit and figure out my beliefs. Let me think about actually what are any barriers that I have, what are my blocks, what are my pain points that I need to probably do some work on? So it's kind of a mixed bag, isn't it?

And I think what you're describing so nicely is the work that you and Dr. Claire Plumbly and of course Dr. Julie Smith have done is shaming what people are going through and knowing that actually it's not my fault the way I'm feeling and the things that can be done and I don't deserve to suffer, I don't need to suffer. And to have some confidence that that can change,

That's really powerful. Absolutely it there's a really nice hashtag that's, you make sense on Instagram. I can't remember the therapist that had that, but I thought that's it. Because we are told so often or we're made to feel so often that there's something wrong with us that because we don't fit in, it's because of us or because we can't perform in the same way. It's because of us. And I think that's it. If you can understand your life story, your life circumstances, the situation that you were born in, the cards you've been dealt with, then it just gives you so much more grounding in who you are and acceptance hopefully to move forward from that point rather than some version of yourself that you think should exist based on some external definition of what a person you should be. I think it is just a marrying up of all of those things, really isn't.

It Is. And honestly, I just feel like we've got the best job in the world. I love how I've been able to learn and grow and develop. And I remember when I was in my probably mid twenties and I was in a job working for local council and I just thought, oh, this is it. I'm not going to make any more friends. I'm not going to have any more big opportunities. This is it. And then soon after that I then got a paid assistant post and had a big expansion of friends and then regular supervision and being able to grow and learn and shape and develop. And all of the supervisors I've had along my journey have really helped have a look at myself and my impact on my clients. I dunno about you, but every supervision session I have, I learn something more about myself or ways to help clients and it's like it's so invigorating. It's not stagnating at all.

It's an amazing career. And actually I think that that whole personal professional development bit that we are told from day one is so crucial. It's so very, very important. And giving yourself the permission to actually be able to learn this stuff for you, not just learn for your clients or not just learn because your supervisor has suggested that this is important for you to learn and pass all the course requirements. I think just to be able to benefit from that ourselves and to take that on board, I think that's a really crucial part. And actually that part I feel really sits well with myself as a Sikh, as a person who comes from sikhi which is a religion, that it's a way of life that is fairly young compared to some of the other major religions in that the word Sikh actually means learner. And so to be able to give myself that permission with my job and what I do to be able to actually just learn and soak up all of this information for myself to keep learning and to keep understanding what are the new models, what are the new theories, I love it.

It's a bit strange sometimes. I dunno if you feel this, but it's quite surreal to be able to have that permission to be able to do that with my job. It's a privilege. It really is.

It is. And I'm glad you brought up your religion there. I was wondering how that is impacted on you and the way that you see the world and your clients. And I wonder if I've made a horrendous faux part all of my life because you've just pronounced it 'SICK' and I've always called it Sikh and Sikhism. Have I been doing that wrong all the time?

I don't think there's a right or wrong. I'm not here to tell anybody. I'm just glad that you are aware of it because it's actually one of the fifth biggest religions if you like, but there's not much known about it. I think we say Sikh because that's the way we pronounce it. That's just our way of verbalising it. Sikh is fine, but if you would like to go forward saying Sikh, that's great. It comes from Sikh because our religion is based on the idea that we had some gurus showing us the way, if you like. We had 10 gurus. And so if we are following this way in this faith, then we become a Sikh of them so we become a Sikh. But no, I don't think that've made some big error or anything like that. It's a learning process and again, all we can do is just keep learning, isn't it about each other's cultures, religions, perspectives. And I think it's just nice to be able to bring this in so casually actually into this conversation because there have been parts, I suppose of my career where I've not been so comfortable to actually bring in who I'm. So it's just nice to be at a point where this is a fluid thing that can now come into conversations.

And what I love about our profession as well is that we get a chance to work with people from either as colleagues or clients or both from such a variety of backgrounds. I remember when I just started in Heart of Birmingham service when I was just qualified and I was given a load of little books that are given to children about different religions. The first one I picked up was Rastafarianism. And actually until the age of what was I, 30, 29 30 or something like that, I think I might've been 30. I hadn't realised Rastafarianism was actually a religion. I just thought it was a sort of Bob Marley way of being. I didn't realise that that was actually a religion, a way of life. And I think it's incredible, isn't it? What we can learn and how we can understand the way that others might see the world.

Yeah, absolutely. But that's a crucial part of what we do and I think as an effective clinical psychologist, I think that's the bit that makes the difference. So I think there's a tendency when we're very early on in our career, very early on in our training to just try to do what we're told in terms of meet those assessment requirements, think about the intervention, think about the model, the theory and all of that. But I think it's so important to really sit with a person's culture, whatever that is, and however that shows up for them rather than our definition of what that should be for them. And I think that's very, very powerful. And then that's the bit that can really create that relationship and that therapeutic bond that can be very, very healing for a person. I can't remember the name of the paper or actually much about it, but I remember quite early on in our training we were told that the most important part of a successful therapeutic intervention is actually based on the relationship between you and the therapist rather than the model rather than the theory or anything else that you do.

And I thought that's really powerful. Why is that not emphasised more?

I wonder if that's Rogers, was it Carl Rogers and his kind of relationshipy type stuff? He's certainly spoken about that, but it might not have been the one that you're thinking of. I think

It was a specific paper and they did a diagram, I should try and find what that was. But it was quite a large percentage of it was actually based on the therapeutic relationship, which is process-based it. And I think that can be emphasised by actually sitting with and trying to understand who is this person in front of me? What's their relationship to their world, their environment, their culture, their spirituality, their race, everything that actually people probably don't ask them much about that probably they may not sit with much that maybe they're walking around just with their, I suppose, assumed versions of what they think it is rather than sitting with it and actually thinking about it separately from a different perspective. So I think that's really, really powerful.

So I think that anyone who is sick who's listening to this will feel excited that we are having this conversation. But probably the majority of people listening will be thinking, well what is Sikhism and how might my clients who are sick be viewing the world or what cultural constraints and opportunities for them to flourish have they got? And once we can't pigeonhole people, sometimes it's useful to even things like for Judaism, you might not want to make plans with them on a Friday evening. They might have plans, what might we be able to learn or think about how to be inclusive and understand someone who's sick?

So I think it's a tough question to answer in a way because I don't think there are set things that might necessarily you could refer to in that way to say, oh, connect with this or connect to that. But actually one example that's coming to mind is I had a trainee on my course ask me because he was feeling quite a block with an elderly Sikh gentleman he was working with who had depression. And we spoke about something that's quite important in our faith, which is Sangat, which is community, and actually finding a way to connect with his Sangat again at his local Gurdwara, which is the place of worship. And actually such a simple intervention for that elderly Sikh gentleman to hear this young white British professional to suggest actually, have you got any Sangat? Can you connect with your Sangat It was quite transforming for him apparently that in itself was such a small thing, but it had a powerful impact on him because it somehow reminded him of actually a key turn, which is actually we do need sungar around us.

We do need Sangat who are inspiring. We do need people who can uplift us and we do need to feel that sense of connection as human beings. So I think that's really, really important. Spirituality is obviously a very, very important part of Sikhi and that's going to look different to everybody not coming in with any assumptions I think about what that looks like for people. It's going to be an important aspect, but it can look like actually some kind of meditation, some kind of prayer, some kind of singing through what we call kirtan or listening to Kirtan, which is religious songs. And I think that can be quite an important discussion to have with people because I think with any faith or with any practise, there can be some quite heavy connotations about what they should be doing and what they should be practising or how they should be doing that.

And that in itself can become quite burdensome for people. So I think trying to allow a person to connect with any aspect in a way that feels more meaningful to them is the discussion that probably needs to be had with that person rather than what they should be doing. It really comes back to that CBT approach, doesn't it, to try to take away any of the heaviness to try to neutralise the thoughts and try to really reconnect your values to what your understanding of your practise is. So I think that's essentially really, really an important part of it.

Thank you. And do all Sikhi cover their hair? It might sound like a really basic question, but all I've certainly got friends who don't, but you do. Could you guide us through a little bit along those lines please?

But absolutely not. You'll get people who cut their hair, who shave their kind of beards because traditional Sikh men keep their beards and we keep our hair. That's really an important part of Sikh. But again, it depends on that person's connection to their religion. So I think that's an important thing to talk about just because somebody looks a certain way, we cannot make any inference about what their level of connection to their religion is or their faith or their way of life. So it always comes back to that one-to-one discussion with that person in terms of what meaning it has to them.

Absolutely. How does that matter to you? How does that show up for you and thinking about the messages that you've been given from your own family? And I know when I was working in heart of Birmingham, there was lots of conflict actually with young people who had been raised, who'd been born in Birmingham, but their parents were first, they were born elsewhere in different countries and there was lots of conflict between the east meets west of the usually young women wanting to grow up being western but not wanting to alienate and upset their family. And it's really, really tricky road to try and travel. I think

That's going to be a conflict for anybody really, isn't it? Coming from a different culture where their parents maybe are first generation and they're born second generation here and it's thinking about how to manoeuvre that. A lot of the blocks that I see actually when I'm thinking about some of the South Asian clients I see because I think it is a really broad category of people who probably struggle with this. There always seems to be some block in communication in terms of actually what maybe the expectations are and the why, and then connecting to the value is this important for you? And if it isn't, why is it important for you? So there seems to be a very big mismatch between parents, the generation that came here, what they understand about what's important versus children here. And sometimes that's because actually the values may be not being lived.

If children don't see the adults actually living out their values, there will be a sense of a disconnect. It could be due to numerous reasons, couldn't it? But I think parents coming here, it was just such a stressful time to come here and manual workers just working as many hours as they can to give us that security. And I think that again, that can cause some sense of kind of disconnection as well, can't it? There's that sense of it's not neglect, but it's almost unintentional neglect there isn't there? And so a child is going to go looking elsewhere probably, and they're going to go towards their friends, they're going to go towards their school, they're going to go towards other sources that are more interesting for them. And so that disconnect can unfortunately start happening. And I think the repair for that or the way to try to overcome that is what we're trying to do as parents nowadays, I suppose in our generation is talk, explain, converse, have conversations, contemplate. Which again is a very important part of Sikhi is this idea of Veechar. Were you able to have discussions around all these concepts, around all our experiences, around the difficulties? And sometimes, unfortunately, I think that is the bit that causes the block when that doesn't happen and then you're clashing heads.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I really want to make sure that we're getting all of these terms. And so what I'm going to do is once we've got the transcript for this show, is I'm going to send the little pieces with words that are not native to me to you to make sure that we're spelling them and perhaps we'll on socials that we will get a little thing going with what it means and what it is and how you might hear that and recognise that when it pop up.

Thank you. That's really even that in itself, that's a really respectful thing for you to do and I appreciate that. Thank you.

I just am always keen to learn. And whenever I've worked with people whose first language is not English and we've had to have an interpreter, I've tried to get them to teach me how to say hello and how to say goodbye, and I've written that in my diary. And then when I see them, I have used the hello and goodbye. I wish it stayed in my head after we stopped work. I would know loads of different languages for hello and goodbye, but it doesn't, once I discharge them, it's just gone. But it matters, doesn't it, in that moment when you're trying to forge relationships and you're trying to make somebody feel really, really safe to share really harrowing times in their lives, it really is important.

It's a form of connection, it's a form of being seen, isn't it? It's a sense that actually this person in front of me has enough respect to see a version of me that is important to me. And I think that's the bit that I think can help really make a therapist develop that bond with somebody that they're seeing to actually show that person that I see all of you, and even though this part might be a tiny, tiny part, I recognise that this is really, really important for you. This goes for supervisors, this goes for everybody really working with another person. It's just an effective form of communication. I think it's basic respect. It's basic respect as well,

Making me just so fondly reflect on some of the clients that I have worked with across the years actually, and those incredible bonds. And I think especially with the east meets West stuff, sometimes what I'm able to give them as a western woman is to be compassionate, to be seen, to be heard in a way that's really, really shaming. Certainly when people have been perhaps held captive against their will in prison or in different situations abroad, to then come here and get my Western perspective on that to help them be more compassionate and realise it's not their fault. It's really, really powerful. I'm not suggesting that west is best at all, but sometimes I think it's more expected or just kind of brushed under the carpet in certain cultures and not even nationally here in the UK as well, but sometimes having someone just draw attention to that wasn't okay, that happened to you, that must've been really, really challenging, can be so liberating for people.

I think that's huge. That's a really important part of that therapeutic space, isn't it? And I think that in itself can cause a block for people coming because there can be, I suppose there has to be some way when you're not in that therapeutic space, there has to be some way to make sense of what you've experienced. And so in a lot of South Asian cultures, I dunno if you've seen it on social media, there are so many memes, there are so many reels on how the discipline was quite severe, but somehow they've made it into a comical experience and sharing that with friends like I used to get hit with this or I used to get with that, hit with that. And I think that that is a way of making sense of the difficulties and the harsh discipline that a lot of people experience growing up.

It's not just South Asian culture. This is quite prevalent I think for a lot of people when they're growing up. So then to think about, actually, do I need therapy for that? Because yeah, I know I'm a bit snappy. I know I've got a bit of an anger issue here. I know that I am short tempered or whatever, but do I need therapy for that? No, I'm okay because everyone else had this as well, and that's a shared experience that I've got. So that makes sense. And I think so that way I think it causes a bit of a problem that actually people kind of latch onto the meaning that they make of their adversity and that prevents them from then going into this space that can feel quite alien. What would that feel like for someone initially to sit with someone who's saying, gosh, that's harsh. How do you feel? And then to open up what that could potentially feel like that I think that's a really, really hard transition to make. So even to get to therapy is such a very hard transition for a lot of people.

Yeah, I agree. And even today, this morning I was having a chat with someone and I'm not the sort of clinician that's going to chat you on the phone and then book you in my diary. I was like, you need to have a go away, have a think about whether you feel this is going to be a good fit for you. And there's no timeline on this. Entering therapy is such an important decision and I hope it will be life-changing for you. So I really want to make sure that you are comfortable with this decision and that you feel that now is the right time. Because sometimes clients just want to put a toe in the water, make contact, and then run away for a good six months because it's just not quite Now they're not quite ready.

Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. I agree completely. I mean it's making me think about an experience. I did a call out on my social media, I do intensive work and I thought I had three slots that I wondered if anybody would want to do and had so many inquiries. I had so many people interested. But then to actually book that in to sign up to that there was a real, real drop off because of that commitment. It's so hard to actually go and do the work. So a part of that is actually building yourself up prior to getting on with the process, not just jumping into that process and actually thinking about obviously the people listening to this and the journey that they're on, that in itself is building them up, isn't it? To get ready to go onto the clinical psychology, doctorate, all of that learning, all of that preparing, listening to podcasts like this, listening to more people talk about their own experiences. I think that builds up some sense of, I don't really particularly like the word resilience, but there is an element of that there. I do think it's a tough process to go through, and I think you have to really be very strong and firm in who you are and why am you doing it before you even start that doctorate that brings with it a whole different kettle of fish doesn't it

Does. And I think resilience was a word that came up time and time again in the Aspiring Psychologist collective. And for me it's almost can be a little bit damaging because sometimes there can be a tendency to use resilience. Resilience, just a bit like a sponge to soak up really loads of rubbish treatment from people. And I guess that's not what I mean, and I know that's not what you mean either. It's about just keeping the goal in mind. And it took me three times to get on the clinical doctorate. It's not just clinical psychologists or aspiring ones who will listen to this. It kind of tries to be inclusive, but probably most people are looking at clinical. But for me, if I'd quit after my second attempt, then I wouldn't now be a clinical psychologist. So there's something around that tenacity and resilience and determinism that has got me to where I am. And of course maybe there's something about me that, but of course my own privilege that's allowed me to be supported well enough just about well enough in some cases to get me there to feel safe enough to have food on the table. And so there's absolutely conversations to be had around that as well. But you do for the most part, need to be able to keep going and keep going in a way where you don't know when there will be the finish line, you imagine or hopeful. It's so hard

Is bringing it back to me. It's a long process as well. It's almost like a year, isn't it? I think the whole churn of it, but it is a very hard process. But that's what I think what I mean, that every time you go through it, I think you keep coming back to the why am I doing this? What's the point? Can I do this? Can I keep going on? And that in itself is a learning process because you keep growing with it. I think I've known people who have tried, I think I met an assistant once who was on her eighth go, she just wasn't stopping and she got on you eventually. I think the system ends up working for you some way or another, as long as you keep learning with it. That's the most important part, isn't it? To just keep learning and growing with it rather than internalising it, trying to think. It's something about you making it about actually how you are a failure and all of those negative thoughts. Try and step away from that. I think that's so massively important. And just remind yourself this is a big system and eventually you just need to find your way to work it.

Yeah, absolutely. And certainly the advice I would give is don't use your form from last year because I love the way you say churn. It does feel like a churn. Like it's, oh, here we go again. In the space of a year, you should have changed so much since you last wrote that form. And so don't look at it. Look at last year's until you maybe a few weeks away from submitting in case you've missed a golden nugget that you did put in last year. But for me, I would say always start again because you are living a different life. And even if you're in the same role, you should be thinking differently about the work you're doing in the space of a year.

Absolutely. Keep learning, keep growing, keep talking to people about their experiences. Keep asking questions. That's the process. It's just you are like a sponge because you just want to absorb everything to keep checking whether it's what you want to do to keep learning about the different areas of psychology that exist and the different ways of working. And if you feel like you are hitting that wall, then that's the point, isn't it? To step back and reassess and maybe take a different step or a different action forward. But keep learning's so, so important. We don't stop learning. And it's coming back to the earlier point that we said that's the benefit of C P C P D. That's the benefit of talking to people with networking, liaising. You just learn so much about how we can help people differently. I think that's the great opportunity of this work.

It really is. We've got our placards out, but this is what I want for people. So whoever they are, whoever discipline they want to go in, even if it doesn't end up being a professionally qualified psychology discipline, I want them to love what they're doing and where they're at and to know that that's possible.

That's key. That's key. I think people coming into this profession have core values, don't they? Of compassion, of kindness and wanting to connect with people. And that's always got to feel good. I think that's always got to be a guiding force for them. So I agree. I think it's just about keep doing what feels good, keep doing what feels right. It's not always going to be a great easy experience, as you all know, but I think as long as you can keep checking in with whether it's in line with your values, with where you are at, that's the most important thing.

I love that. And I feel like, honestly, I could talk to you all day, but time is slightly limited because of the podcast. Could you give us maybe your top tip for reducing burnout for aspiring psychologists, if that's okay?

Oh gosh. Top tip for me, it always comes down to what I just said there with your values and being really connected to your current sense of identity and who you are and where you're at. And I think a lot of people overstep that. So we're so busy in our lives, we're so busy with the doing and the trying to reach the place that we think we should be at that we don't often pause enough with where we're at and reflect enough on that process and how that feels for us. So doing a lot more of that really sitting with and really, really thinking about where am I feeling internally? What are my values and what is happening around me to connect me to those values? Or what is pulling me away from those values? And what can I do to help myself feel more balanced with that?

I think that's so crucial. So a lot of just the sitting with the reflecting and just encompassing all of that within compassion, because regardless of where you are at, there are going to be challenges. And if you can start to develop that compassionate voice within yourself, I think that's going to be one of the most important and most powerful tools you'll take forward. And I remember you saying, actually, Marianne, I listened to one of your earlier podcasts. I'd be interesting to know if this statistic has changed, but you said the self-compassion one was the one that was downloaded the least. And I find that so interesting because that's the problem. We tend to overstep the stuff that's going to help us. So really, really do think about actually, what are you doing to tool yourself up in a very kind way that connects you to your values. Really important.

Yeah, the compassion, I think was one of the least three downloaded episodes. So what I will do is I will seamlessly look at the stats, and then when I do the outro for this, I will give people the answer to that little riddle. But yeah, thank you for highlighting that. It's so important, isn't it? And for me, it was the difference that made the difference. And I wish I'd picked up literature on self-compassion whilst I was an aspiring psychologist because I didn't discover it until I was qualified, until I was a mother of two, until my dad had died in 2008, I think it was. And so just think about what a gentle journey I could have had on myself had I had self-compassion in my world.

That's perfect because it's a journey either way, isn't it? So is it going to be a brutal, harsh one, or is it going to be one that actually you can be quite compassionate with yourself about and actually just nurture yourself through because you will be growing and learning either way. So I suppose it's that choice point that Ross Harris talks about, and it's just deciding which way am I going to tackle this, and how am I going to get myself through this? You will get through it one way or another.

You will. Thank you so much for your kind words and your thoughtfulness and your time today in helping us learn more about you and the way you see the world and your culture and your religion as well.

Oh, thank you so much. M you're really easy to talk to and I love what you're doing here, so absolutely. If anyone has any questions, just touch base, reach out. But no, thank you for inviting me along.

Oh, and we haven't done the where can people connect with you, so we should definitely do that. Where can people hang out and meet you and get to know more about you and your work? I'm so sorry about that.

No, no, that's fine. I'm on social media at Doctor Call Therapy, so if you can access me Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook at Doctor Call Therapy.

Lovely. And for anyone who is not watching that on YouTube, that is k a u r, so doctor is d r, and then K A U R therapy. And that's you across all of your platforms, is it?

Yeah, that's it.

Love it. A bit of consistency. Thank you again for your time and let me know if I can help with anything in future, but it's a pleasure to speak to you in person

Too. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome back along, what an incredible conversation and what a pleasure it was to speak to Dr. Kaur. I hope you found it a really interesting list. And in answer to the question about the Compassion episode, it is episode number four, so it was way back there in the early days. It has since increased its popularity. It is now up there in the top three pages of downloads, but there are 10 pages, so it's still only on page three. So they absolutely could do with a little bit more airtime I think, for sure. But yes, not doing as badly as it was, so maybe me saying it was one of the least downloaded episodes has helped people. Please do remember that the Clinical Psychologist Collective and the Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book are really, really useful companions for you. Whatever stage of your career you are at, there are links in my descriptions for both of those.

If you've got any ideas for future podcast episodes, please do let me know. And if you'd welcome some more advice, support, and guidance, do consider the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which you can join from just 30 pounds a month. And there's loads of great stuff in there about completing your form, about reflecting about C B T, about formulation and so many other useful bits. Thank you so much for listening. If you are watching on YouTube, like I said, please do subscribe. Please do drop me a comment. I will look forward to catching up with you for the next episode of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, which will be available to you from Monday 6:00 AM Thank you so much for being part of my world and be kind to yourselves. Take care.

You're then with this podcast. You'll be Dr. Enter.