Outdoor Therapy with Dr Abi Tarran-Jones

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:28

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist, so episode 72, can't quite believe it. But thank you so much. Especially if you followed me right from the beginning, your enthusiasm and knowing how much you value this is so appreciated and keeps me going. Please do take a moment to rate and review the podcast on Spotify and on Apple. And if you are willing to leave me an audio testimonial or even just a drop into my dms with a testimonial about why you like the podcast so much I would be thrilled to receive it. I personally love learning about new ways to conduct therapy and to deliver therapy as well. And today's podcast is no exception to that. I'm gonna be chatting with Dr. Abi Tarran-Jones, who is the outdoor psychologist, and we are thinking about practical ways to take what we do in the therapy room outside the traditional four walls of a therapy room. I hope you'll find it so useful. So interesting. Abi was the delight to speak to, and, and I will catch up with you on the other side. Welcome along. I just want to welcome my guest for today, Dr. Abi Tarran-Jones. Abi is a clinical psychologist and is the outdoor psychologist. Hi Abi.

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 02:00

Hi Marianne.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:02

Thank you so much for coming on. I've been following you on LinkedIn. I often talk about LinkedIn on here, and it's how I get my guests. I love LinkedIn and I love when I see people that are doing psychology, but doing it a little bit differently. So that is absolutely how you caught my interest.

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 02:21

Yeah, thanks, Marianne. I think I haven't always practiced differently, so I am now working in an independent practice after kind of taking a big leap out of the nhs in order to kind of proactively innovate the way that I work. So as the title suggests, I take therapy into nature and the outdoors. And I'm really excited to talk to you about that today

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:51

And I know that I'm excited to learn, but our audience will be really excited to hear and think about perhaps how they might be able to, to start doing some of this as well. So, I know before we went on camera, we were saying that actually not everybody gets it, do they, not everyone thinks it's like an evidence-based thing or it's something we even should be doing or whether we should be funding it. Is that something you are coming up a against Quite a lot, Abi?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 03:19

I think that traditionally therapy has always been considered that, that it takes place in the four wall, four walls of the clinic room. And that's kind of how it's been delivered since kind of Freud for up the idea of lysis. And a lot of the time we end up delivering treatments and therapies within organisations within kind of standardised protocols and guidance in order to ensure that the, I guess the treatments that delivering are effective in evidence-based and safe, et cetera. And the majority of the research that's been undertake into talking therapies has been delivered in this traditional way. So I think what's fair to say is that the evidence-based for outdoor talking therapy is developing. Sam Cooley has done a lot of research into the outdoor talking therapy and developed together with Noel the b bps guidance for Taking Therapy Outdoors, which was published in 2020, pretty much on the back of, or as a result of how practice was having to change cause of covid.

(: 04:46

But suddenly we were thrust into this situation where we couldn't deliver therapy in a typical way. So it was either we go remote and you know what, what we recognise, I was working at the time in the NHS in an older adult setting, and there was many people who didn't have access to the technology, didn't have the skills to access the technology, and we were having to find more innovative ways of providing therapeutic support to our clients. So I think the majority of the world went remote. And what I loved was that Cooley really jumped on an opportunity to explore the power of outdoor talking therapy and to invest in time in meta synthesising the evidence base for that. So I guess I use a lot of the information that they developed through that guidance to inform my work and make sure that the therapy that I'm delivering is evidence based and effective. And I can talk more throughout our conversation.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 05:57

Brilliant, thank you. Yeah, and I guess the guidance was already perhaps on its way, but then the pandemic came around and it was like more relevant than ever.

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 06:07

Yeah, exactly. I think like we saw with Covid in many kind of organisational settings with unprecedented change came unprecedented opportunity for innovation. And it's wonderful in some ways that some clinicians and therapists started to kind of adapt the way that they were working. In some ways what I think could be a, a bit of a shame is that as the restrictions around covid have been removed there's a sense of do we go back to working as usual or do we stay online? And I feel like there's a possibility that organisations can really are really missing the vote here on embracing a truly kind of holistic and creative opportunity to engage with our clients and enable them to, I guess, have a more empowered position within their therapeutic and recovery journeys.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 07:15

Yeah, I think there's, and there's real power to human connection, isn't there? And of course the internet is really useful. But I personally haven't been in a therapy room with a client since the beginning of March, 2020, so that is over three years now, which is strange, isn't it? Cause I obviously learnt my craft as you will have done in person with people and it's a very different craft indeed, isn't it? Even with us, you know, navigating connection speeds and things this morning and, you know, yeah. And in the beginning trying to sort out your audio and, you know, it, it's a different beast entirely.

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 07:58

I think it is. It's I guess it sits uncomfortably with me in some ways. I wouldn't have been able to practice remotely in its entirety like you have. I was I guess fortunate enough working in older adult settings that given that people didn't have the technology or the access and the incident or in some some settings because of the socio economic deprivation in the area, they simply didn't have internet. They didn't have you know, anything that would provide enough network speed to support video conversations. So we did a lot of our therapeutic interventions in person in people's homes during Covid which meant we were fully gowned up with our excuse me, with our, with our masks and our aprons and our gloves. And that in itself brings all sorts of difficulty to the therapeutic process because there's a physical barrier between you, even though you were in the room with somebody, they can't see your face, you might be wearing glasses.

(: 09:13

Cause at that point in Covid, they were worried about transmissions through bodily fluids and your eyes. And so there was no perfect way. But I really enjoy working with people face to face. I have an option to deliver therapy in my indoor practice in my outdoor clinic and online, and I choose to do the majority of my, my work face to face that what you mentioned about having that human to human interaction is so important. But I guess in, in order to deepen that further and think about why we might bring the outdoors into the therapeutic process, is that there's something important about the human to, other than human connection as well. So what it is about being connected with nature and things outside of ourselves enables us to understand ourselves better, have a deeper connection with kind of who we want to be and how we want to live in the world. And so I guess the opportunity to take therapy outdoors adds a whole new angle as well of enabling people to not only connect with you as a therapist, but also for us to use nature as almost like a co-therapist in the, in the, in the process. Brilliant.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 10:54

Thank you. Abi, could you tell us a little bit about, you know, you said the outside therapy space or the outside therapy room. Could you tell us a little bit about how you set that up and what that might look like if someone was being a fly on the wall?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 11:07

Yeah, so I mean, I chose a place called Cod Beck Reservoir to be my outdoor clinic. This is a beautiful little place just on the edge of the North York Moors in the North Yorkshire area. And it's I chose it because, well, some of it was practical, it's not too far from home, so my commute is not too long. But many of the reasons I chose it was because of the, the different terrain and landscapes that that space provide itself. The reservoir is, as it says still late reservoir. There's some lovely little kind of very evenly paved paths around it. So it really supports people to engage if they have more mobility issues or feel that physically they wouldn't be able to do something too strenuous. But on the banks of the reservoir, you go up into the woodland area and you can find some of those paved but kind of steeper hills, but also some beautiful little snickets, which means that you are just getting into the trees, which is just wonderful for kind of mindfulness exercises and stabilisation and grounding cos you've got, you know, the stimulation of all of the five senses with the bird song all of the sunlight streaming through the trees, the different vegetation.

(: 12:44

You've got the smells of being in the woodlands, you know, like earthy smell or the smell after the rain. And you've got the process of walking, or moving, which enables kind of a deeper kinesthetic experience to touch. So there's opportunities to kind of get off the beaten track, get into the woods. And then there's also at the top of the woods, Moreland like kind of beautiful rolling moorland and kind of everlasting views across the Cleveland Hills. So there's an opportunity to literally throughout the therapy gain a different landscape or perspective as we move around. And you'd be surprised how differently people make sense of their experiences depending on whether they're stuck in the middle of the trees in a darkened part of the wood versus at the top of the hill looking over vast expansive land. So the very nature of being able to walk through different terrains and landscapes means that people end up being able to view their experiences from very different perspectives.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 14:08

Sounds absolutely fascinating. And yeah I do EMDR and lots of work around trauma in it. We're often kind of trying to find a safe space, but the idea that you can in person in the moment, you know, create a unique safe space where you've also been with them is potentially really powerful, isn't it?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 14:30

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have to remember that when we're taking kind of deeply personal and emotive and sensitive therapeutic conversations into outdoor and potentially public spaces, there is gonna be an impact in terms of somebody's psychological safety and confidentiality. Okay. So what's really, really important in outdoor therapy is that the part of contracting and assessment and formulation, there's a deep understanding about what those individuals experiences have been in nature. Whether there's anything that could potentially be triggering or distressing for them if they might find being emotive and being emotional and other people potentially passing by, if that could be a really difficult experience for them. So you've got to think creatively about how you prepare people for these situations and will have very individualised plans for what to do, say if a member of the public comes past or if they meet somebody that they know, because that's, that's a possibility in these situations and when taking therapy outdoors.

(: 15:45

But that's not to say that people can't make a plan that enables them to feel prepared and empowered enough to deal with that situation when it arises. And actually on the very few situations where somebody has met somebody that they know whilst out in outdoor therapy it can often offer something useful for the therapeutic process in terms of whatever is enacted or triggered by that person coming into that person. That client safe space can then be worked through in a way that you just wouldn't get if you're sat in the four walls of the clinic room. So what I think some people might see as red flags, if they're carefully and effectively managed within an understandable individualised contract can actually end up meaning that there's more opportunities for learning and development then perhaps would, would have just being in therapy, in therapy room.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 16:55

It just sounds, you know, so rich and powerful. And so, you know, full of opportunity really. And what might a typical sort of first session be like for somebody?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 17:12

Well, it depends on the individual really. And I offer what I often call a hybrid approach, which is where people have the power to choose whether they want the session indoors or outdoors. So I'm really fortunate that my indoor setting is a little lodge that's converted at the bottom of my garden and sits within a woodland canopy. So even my indoor therapy is spent, you know, within, within a woodland hearing the birds song with squirrel scampering over the, the roof and climbing down the drain pipes outside. So there's always some, some sense of connection with nature, whether you're taking therapy indoors or outdoors when you're working with me. But I think it's really important at the outset that people are empowered to make choices in therapy. People often come for therapy when they're feeling stuck, when they're feeling disempowered, when they feel silenced or they have no voice.

(: 18:13

And sometimes just going to sit in someone's clinic space that can sometimes feel quite sterile or formal ends up being something that can be again, silencing or pressuring or intimidating in a sense. So outdoor therapy or offering a hybrid approach, it gives people an opportunity to make decisions and choices about where therapy takes place, how it looks, whether we take the outdoors, if they just wanna sit by the reservoir, if they wanna take a short walk or if they wanna get up into the hills, they choose whether to take it outdoors or have bring it indoors. And that seems to serve to settle some people. So I leave that choice to to them. And some people will choose to have the initial assessment sessions indoors because there's something containing about developing a relationship with somebody in the four walls. Having to process that initial raw emotion in a space that feels a little bit more private before then taking the therapy outdoors.

(: 19:28

So some people choose to do that. Other people really interesting, they go, I couldn't bear to be in a room with my distress, or Actually I couldn't bear to look at you in the face, that's really intimidating. I just want to meet outdoors. So I give them a choice and they can make those decisions. If it's an outdoor therapy session. What's really important is that we build in a sense of therapeutic frame and boundaries, so that that also offers some sense of psychological safety to the individual, but also to the practitioner. So I have what I call a therapy threshold, which is a place where we start and end therapy no matter what, when we're outdoors. It marks in some ways that that idea of walking through the door as a therapy room, this is when therapy starts and it's when therapy ends.

(: 20:29

And it's my responsibility to get people back there within the hour, which can be challenging at times. But largely within the therapy I give them the choice on where they go. So we meet a fork in the, in the path, and they're choosing where, where they like the session to go. And this is what Cooley and Knowell suggested in the, in the guidance offers an enhancement and an enrichment to a therapy that they call mutuality. So there's a mutuality that's developed within the therapeutic relationship, which means that that power imbalance has been broken down, it's less hierarchical, they're no longer stepping into My Space, I'm stepping with them into theirs or into our space. Nature isn't owned necessarily by anybody. Yes, we might have landowners, but it's a space for us all to embrace and we all have our own connection and story with being outdoors.

(: 21:38

So taking therapy outdoors means that is no longer on my terms. It offers the opportunity for that client to feel comfortable in a space that, you know is their own. And the idea of kind of walking alongside each other also enables people to feel a little bit more what's the word? What's just calming in some way. You might be able to relate to this Marianne. You know, often people say, well, you know, if I wanna put the world to right, I'll go and have a walk with my friend and we'll talk about everything. And we can do that because there's no interpersonal pressure, we're not being scared we're not being watched. And being in nature, it's distracting in terms of the stimuli that's around us, but it's also calming and restorative so we can have really deep and personal intimate conversations in a way that feels less intimidating than if we were just in the house or trying to have a conversation over dinner. So that mutuality and that sense of freedom that comes with working alongside somebody and kind of entering into their own world really frees up the therapeutic alliance and enables people to be much more expressive probably earlier on in the therapy.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 23:19

Yeah, and I dunno if you're aware of it, but the founder of EMDR who has sadly passed away quite recently, she put that together as a model initially cos she'd been out for a walk and thinking about something that'd been really problematic for her and observed that the very act of walking, you know, and I think she was tapping her legs as she went sort of absentmindedly, she felt a lot better. And so, you know, even talking about things that are challenging as somebody is walking or using both hands, for example, you're getting that bilateral stimulation which helps everything process and lay flatter, doesn't it?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 23:56

Absolutely. Absolutely. So bilateral stimulation is the core part of what taking therapy outdoors brings to the process. Cause walking, as you say, one foot in front of the other provides that bilateral stimulation of the brain, which we need to in order to process traumatic experience and memories. So you don't really need to tackle any of that cause walking itself will offer the same stimulation that's required, but kinda to deepen that a little bit more, so we can take we can think about the cat plan and cat plans theory about attention restoration. So in our, in our day-to-day lives you know, when we're working, when we're on the computer, when we're studying, you know we're, we're on placements and we're actively trying to problem solve, decision make, you know, consider rationales for things. We're using a part of the attentional system called Focused Attention.

(: 25:06

Okay. And when we're using that day in, day out, it's extremely fatiguing, it's resource heavy. And that's why at the end of the day when we've kind of, you know, finished a day at work or we've been working on an assignment or we've been you know, spending endless kind of hours looking at the computer doing Zoom stuff, it's, it's, it's kind of just mind numbering. We might end up with a bit of fog, might have a headache, we might have reduced attention, our concentration might, might not be quite as good. What nature offers us is an opportunity to switch systems. So in nature we tend to utilise a part of the attentional system, which is unfocused or spontaneous because we're constantly just drawn to something visual in our, in our visual field or in our auditory fields or what we're feeling with a wind kind of brushing through our, our, our skin.

(: 26:19

We'll suddenly turn to that, that, that place or away from it, we'll see something we like or we'll hear something we like. And we're no longer engaging in focused attention. We are using spontaneous attention and we're just drawn to whatever's is around us. So that automatically means that our eyes are moving left and right, left and right, left right, that bilateral stimulation happens no matter what. And CAT planning, suggested with attentional restoration theory that moving onto kind of that unfocused attentional system enables the kind of the restoration of concentrated off focus attention. So it actually ends up being something that's important for our cognitive restoration and supports kind of the US in terms of rest and managing fatigue. So just to kind of take that idea a little bit further, just not just only is it about the walking and the movement of our body left and right, but our eyes are drawn and our sensors are drawn in different directions and that also offers another level of the bilateral stimulation of the brain.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 27:39

So useful, so interesting as well. Thanks for sharing that with us. And I guess I'm thinking about our audience being aspiring psychologists and or mental health professionals. And I'm imagining, you know, in fact I did suggest going out and walking with clients and it was very family said, no, it's too risky. How do you begin to kind of have that conversation with, with employing trusts managers, supervisors, teams around risk Abi?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 28:09

Well, I think it can be a little bit more difficult, but as long as you've got multiple levels of assessment of risk throughout your contracting and formulation, and you can make a clear articulated argument for why taking therapy might be in this person's best interest then you should have a, like a strong case. You can use the Cooley and Knowell guidance to really help you to understand what needs to be considered as potential risks within outdoor therapy and what might be required to mitigate against those. So for example, in the assessment process, you would have questions about what that person's relationship is with nature, why they're drawn to taking therapy outdoors. Some people just have a natural affiliation with being outdoors. That's where they go to heal and to being invigorated. I know that's certainly the case for me.

(: 29:12

And that's a little bit about my journey into why I chose to become a specialist in outdoor therapy. Which I can share in a little, a little while if you're interested. But you wanna find out what, what the relationship that person has with, with the outdoors is why they might want to deepen it. Now some eco psychologists suggests that actually, yeah, the research that we're looking at is the wrong way around. It's not that there's physical and psychological benefits to being in nature, it's actually the fact that due to industrialization and urbanisation, humans have been removed from their natural communal settings. And it is that disconnection with nature which is causing us distress.

(: 30:09

And I think that that's really powerful to the point where some people will suggest that there is a thing called nature deficit disorder, that the reason we're hurting as humans is because we are no longer living connected with nature. We forget that as human beings, we are nature, we are an animal an an organism in this greater whole. But unfortunately, I guess the way that humans have developed in modern societies and modern cultures is that we often think ourselves as greater than nature and the things around us. And that that has led to some difficult situations like the climate crisis that we find ourselves in. But yeah, so there's this sense that if we enable people who connect more with the natural world, not only will they gain the benefit of, of of kind of, you know, reduced stress, reduced anxiety, lifted moves, sense of contentment the physical benefits of being in nature kind of linked to the reduce the kind of the suppressing of the stress response and supporting our immune system, supporting our cardiovascular system, those types of things. If we actually enable people to connect more with nature, they're gonna reap the benefits of that. And I guess that's what one of the reasons why I was interested in bringing therapy outdoors and making people more connected with their, with their natural lens.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 31:59

Yeah, and I think in terms of services, you know, one of the very contentious issues when I was in the NHS was room availability in the service I was most recently in. But actually this is a way potentially, I know you said that you've got an outdoor space and an in and an indoor space, potentially this is a way of increasing capacity cos we often had the staff but not the rooms. And so when I was, yeah in my most recent job at one point I had four peripatetic clinics that I'd set up which isn't very great use of my time, you know, diving all over the city. But I was passionate about, you know, trying to maximise my time efficiently so that I could see, you know, the number of clients that was in my job plan. But not all therapists were doing that because they couldn't get the rooms. And potentially introducing a new therapeutic outdoor space is quite useful in combating that difficulty.

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 32:57

Yeah, exactly. I think, so there's going to be logistical reasons why organisations might benefit from broadening their perspective on where therapeutic can be delivered. But also I think there's something important about recognising the impact on therapeutic outcome for clients like you. I'm sure Marianne will have spent many a time, many a session in a room with a client and it's felt really, really difficult. It's felt like kind of the, the phrase that's coming to my mind is like, it's like drawing blood from the stone. Like people in some settings, they, they, they close up, they struggle to feel safe enough to express themselves. Particularly those people who have experienced some level of neglect or abuse find it difficult to trust others. For some people being in a room with somebody is paralyzing, okay, it removes their voice, they feel silent.

(: 34:05

But those people actually, the therapeutic outcomes that we can get from being in a room with someone is limited. Okay. So there were some people that I was working with at the time, you know, prior to leaving the NHS and I put a business case forward for them to take that therapy discussion outside. And thank, thankfully I had quite a creative lead psycho lead psychologist at the time who, who, who authorised that for me. And it just transforms the work. You put that person in a setting which they feel safe in because it's theirs, they have ownership over it, and you're not staring them in the face and you're walking alongside them and suddenly they can speak. And for those individuals, the therapeutic outcome, the benefit is gonna be significantly better. So organisations are going to benefit from people having access to a therapy which is best suited to their individual needs, which means that they're gonna be, we're gonna be working through those wait lists in a way that meets you know, differing needs.

(: 35:24

Now not everybody wants to take therapy outdoors and not every practitioner wants to do that either. What's really important is recognising that there has to be a joint interest in, in taking that, in that, that work outdoors. Because if we end up trying to force some practitioners to do something they're not comfortable with, we're actually gonna damage the therapeutic process. And if we try and put everybody in outdoor therapy, cause we don't have rooms when they don't have a natural affiliation with the outdoors or maybe something traumatic or tutoring happened for them outdoors, we're gonna be doing people harm. So it's not just about this is something we should just be offering. It's coming back down to that very bespoke initial assessment and formulation about what is it about nature and being outdoors it's therapeutic or invigorating or restorative for this particular individual. And how does that marry alongside their more generic and traditional therapeutic goals and bringing those things together.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 36:33

Absolutely. So it sounds like it's bespoke for the client, but also for the therapist as well. And yeah, I'm imagining a number of clients that I've worked with who've been, you know, salted in Woodlands or whatever, or went out running, you know, that's not, that would just be flooding, wouldn't it do that to them straight off the bat?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 36:53

Exactly. And some people don't realise. So I've had people come exploring, I'm interested in outdoor therapy and they've not made connections with part of their experience, which actually could end up being quite triggering or challenging for that person. And that's not to say that we then don't do it. We might do it in a more graded way and we might have very explicit things around particular parts of nature or interactions, which would be more challenging and have ways of managing or mitigating against, you know, those becoming potentially triggering situations. So it, it's, it's not a blanket rule and it's not one size fits all. It's very individualised and it can change. So I've had people who I've been working with indoors and we felt stuck to a point, you know, we've, we've done some good work, but it's just not moved on.

(: 37:50

It, a particular client's coming to mind. I was working with him in relation to an abusive relationship that he was stuck in. But he hadn't realised it was abusive to start off with and had some really challenging suicidal ideation and intent around what was, what he was struggling with at the time. Although he didn't realise the reasons why he was feeling that way. We did a, you know, good piece of work using cap to help make sense of the relational dynamics. He was, he was struggling with and he knew he had to leave, but we kept getting snagged, you know, make really, really clear plans about how he can do that safely and he would get caught and pulled back in. So I offered that for the therapy to take to, to go outdoors. Sometimes putting one foot in front of the other literally means moving, becoming unstuck.

(: 38:47

And for him it was the landscapes that really offered something about beneficial for, for the therapeutic intervention. So he was drawn to going up, you know, onto the, onto the hillside and I asked him what he was feeling as he got to the top when he was looking out over the, you know, expansive kind of landscape. And he just said, free, this is freedom. This is what I want, this is what I need. And it was almost, it was a very powerful, embodied, emotional experience of what freedom felt like, that he didn't have any grasp of that before. Then there was this sense of an emotional embodied experience that, oh, this is what I'm after. And versus seeing, which was, you know, a space just on the other side of a, a drystone wall of deforestation of kind of like a burial ground for trees.

(: 40:00

And we went there and he was like, oh God, this is where I am. This is where I'm stuck now. It's like a graveyard. And we did some work about what, what he needed to do to be able to climb over the wall or walk through the gate. And it was really powerful stuff. And the next session he'd left and I was like, why did you leave? And he was like, oh, because I knew what that felt like. Now I knew that that was worth this and didn't matter how frightening it was, the potential of leaving, I knew, I knew what hope felt like. I knew what it looked like and I could climb over the wall.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 40:45

So powerful and such transformative stuff, isn't it? You know? And yeah, it's, you never know what's gonna be the difference that makes the difference until it's happened. Until it's done. It's honestly, we've just got the best job in the world to be part. It's a real privilege, isn't it, to be part of people's stories and part of people's transformation and healing. Just before we finish, I'm conscious of time and I would love, I could talk to you all day, but this career of ours can be really tricky to get into and especially around this time of year with interviews and, you know, people having other people's celebrations, their own celebrations or their own disappointments and that kind of relentless slog of, oh, Autumn's coming, I've gotta do it all again. And, you know, I've got to do research, I've gotta do, you know clinical work I've got to formulate, I've got to reflect. There's a lot. Have you someone, can I ask lots of my guests? Have you got like a top tip to try and reduce burnout in people's lives, Abi?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 41:48

Well, I think that something that's really important to kind of share is that where I live now in the North York malls I moved here for clinical training. So I didn't live in Teesside on even know where Teesside was before I kind applied to the course. And I'd applied to a variety of different universities in stock North. Cause I'm a northern girl at heart. And when I came over here you know, I, I did certain things for self-care, good friendship groups. I had, I did a bit of running that I enjoyed, but I was moving away from all my family and friends. That's face, face it, it was a really difficult time. I've never lived in Teesside before. I didn't know anyone here. And so that was really challenging.

(: 42:42

And, but that's where my love for nature came in. I was, I was you know, I switched my row shoes for some trail shoes and I found a local running group and I used them to help me to explore the local area. I downloaded OS maps app on my phone and I just immersed myself in nature. And I genuinely think that that was something that was hugely important in enabling me to feel a sense of balance when I was undertaking the doctorate programme. There is so much pressure, okay whether you are doing all of the work and all of the voluntary stuff and trying to get everything in your application or whether you are already on training and trying to figure out how to balance all of the different parts of the job that it's so important to hold onto something restorative for you.

(: 43:45

Re restoration and working in re in a way that helps me to be invigorated and calmed was a reason I took therapy outdoors. That is the benefit that it has for me. So I guess make space for time in nature, it is deeply therapeutic. It doesn't need to be massive. Our connection with the outdoors and getting benefit doesn't need to be, you know, going hiking in the late district. It doesn't need to be far away. It can be as simple as taking an early morning walk in your local park and just connecting with the environment through your five senses. Getting up in the morning and getting some daylight as soon as we can to start the day is really, really beneficial to improve our sleep so that we can rest appropriately and manage all of the, the stress and the burnout that we might be experiencing throughout the day.

(: 44:53

So I guess a couple of things jump to mind. I really like the idea of a sit spot. So you could take five minutes and go and sit in a natural space, be about a park, a garden, a cemetery by the beach. It doesn't need to be wonderful and awe inspiring. And sit down, close your eyes, tune in with your sentences, what you can hear, what you can feel perhaps the wind around you, and slowly open your eyes, look around you in your immediate vicinity, look at the floor, the grass beneath you, perhaps even better, taking off your shoes and feel the grass underneath your toes and take in all that you can through your five senses in your immediate surrounding. And then through that five minutes, gently unfold a little bit further and look a little bit further, further into the distance.

(: 45:54

Until suddenly at the end of the exercise you've got your whole kind of experience. You can turn around and take in the two 60 degrees and just notice what it feels like to be deeply connected through your five senses in a space, in the, in the natural world, in your environment. And just take a pause for you. Take a pause in nature and connect. And another thing that I really find valuable, and it kind of links into the case example that I just shared, is that we can often find ourselves stuck or perplexed or with a question we just feeling indecisive and we can't find the right answer.

(: 46:44

Getting a different perspective is really, really valuable. There's times in that scenario where we see, we can't see the wood for the trees, we're just stuck in the problem and we can't see your way out. So take that problem on a walk with you, you know, you might walk, if you can get up high, it's really great because there's a sense of helicoptering up when we get high. We see things from a completely different perspective. We're unable to think more reflexively about our situations when we have height or if we can't find height, just gently allow that question to form as we take a walk through a world or in nature in general and see what happens. See what answer and what answers the natural environment can provide.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 47:35

Thank you. That's the most wonderful answer and I know it's one that people will find really useful and it's not like a massive thing that you need to do. Everyone can find those five minutes. And I've actually got, we've got Easter break coming up as we talk today, and I've got some time booked in, in a woodland with my children, so that makes me feel even more, you know, like that's the right activity to do. So thank you for nourishing me in that way, but an absolute joy talking to you today. Abi. If people want to know more about you and your work, where's the best place for them to follow and connect?

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 48:11

Yeah, so you can follow me on LinkedIn if you just look for Dr. Abi, Tarran-Jones. I'm sure that you're gonna put everything in the bio, Marianne, but also if you wanna go to my website that's www.theoutdoorpsychologist.co.uk and then on Instagram I am @the _outdoor_psychologist, so you can look for me in a variety of different places. And if you're interested to learn more about what I do, reach out, connect I'd be curious to hear your questions or to hear your reflections on what you've heard today.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 49:03

Thank you so much, Abi. I'm sure you'll be yeah, you'll be very popular. People will be tapping up your little inbox, so thank you very much. It's honestly been really, really interesting and yeah, really nourishing speaking to you. And I'm gonna definitely think about how I can enrich my own life with more outdoors stuff, but also my children as well who are still quite young as well. So yes, thank you so much.

Dr Abi Tarran-Jones (: 49:28

Yeah, you're welcome Marianne. Thank you for inviting me today. It's been lovely to speak to you.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 49:33

Thank you so much to our guest Dr. Abi Taran Jones, whom you found that as interesting as I did and it certainly made me think about how we use our bodies, how we use our voices, where we deliver therapy, and the value of the setting in which we deliver it. Let me know any salient learning points for you. Also let me know what's happened if you've tried to take therapy outside of traditional therapy walls in your trust or wherever you work and how you got on. Love to know what you make of all this in the free Facebook group, the Aspiring Psychologist Community brackets free group with Dr. Marianne Trent who do come on over there. Please do come and connect with me on my socials as well. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. And if you are watching on YouTube, even if you're not watching on YouTube, slip on over type in Dr.

(: 50:37

Marianne Trent. Click subscribe. And like a few things as well, if you're feeling particularly generous, please fling some comments into some of the videos as well. I realised that I've done it again, . I realised that I had it in the diary to do a compassionate q and A on Monday the 17th of April. But that's also the same time that I have an expert in the membership guiding people through C B T formulation and skills and it was all about how to, to do that well and how to think about planning your intervention and talking about your intervention, which can be really useful for interviews as well. And that was on my mind and in my diary for seven 30, but I'd neglected to see that I was also supposed to be running a free compassionate q and a, so I'm so sorry.

(: 51:32

I am likely to schedule it for a Tuesday because I think I need to keep Mondays free because Mondays are the days where we have Marianne Mondays in the membership. And clearly it's too much for me to hold in mind that I've got two things happening at seven 30 on a Monday. So it is like take place on Tuesday, the 25th of April at 6:00 PM So I'm gonna get that in the diary and I really hope you can join me. And I once again, very sorry for anybody that was hoping to catch up with me last Monday. I totally forgot to is human. And again, I'm sorry. And if you needed that for your interviews, I can only apologise. As you might well know, we have new episodes of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast landing at 6:00 AM each Monday morning. And so have a lovely week, be kind to yourself and I'll look forward to catching up with you for our next episode. Thanks for being part of my world. Take care.