Use your annual leave

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Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Maryanne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Hope that you have had a really lovely Easter break if you are listening to it as this episode drops at 6:00 AM on Monday. So today is episode 70 of the podcast, which feels like kind of a big deal. And it means I've stayed really, really consistent, which I'm really pleased about. And I've sent an email to my mailing list every week to tell them about the podcast. If you're not already on the mailing list and you want to be reminded when new episodes drop if you're not already subscribing. But even if you are already subscribing, sometimes, you know, life gets in the way and we forget to listen to our favourite podcast. So yeah, why not sign up to my podcast mailing list, which you can do by going to my website, www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk.

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And then if you scroll to the bottom of that first page or that matter, any page on the site, you will see a little thing that says Subscribe to mailing list. And if you are listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, I love it. If you would take a moment to rate and review. If you're watching me on YouTube, hi, please do subscribe and like this video as it helps us to reach more of a wider audience. So today was originally scheduled to be one of the podcast episodes that I've already recorded but haven't quite finished editing. And yeah, I've had a week off and always it was my plan to tidy those up, but instead I actually did just have a week off because you are allowed to do that. And so yeah, I found myself with an episode that wasn't ready and so I thought I'd just create a very short one to yeah, encourage you to use your time off as time off as well.

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And to, yeah, just pay reference to where you might be at right now because if you are having interviews for whatever realm of psychology you are going into, I'm aware that there is a bit of hiatus at the moment, a bit of a break over the Easter break, probably to let the staff who are running the interviews to have their Easter time off as well. But it means that if you were in the, in your stride really with interviews, you might now be feeling a bit like, what do I do now? How do I maintain this? You know there's no energy going on, you know, now I'm just supposed to sit here and, you know, look at Easter eggs and be cheery and suddenly have time for my family when actually what I want to do is, you know, submerge myself in research theory and clinical vignettes.

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You know, it can be tricky to straddle the two. So I'm sending you love if that's what you are finding to be the case. And also someone made my day the other day. I was just going to bed and I checked my LinkedIn cuz I'm very badly behaved like that. And I saw that someone had sent me a lovely message. I wanted to share that with you. So there's an intro, but I won't read that bit, but I'll cut to the chase. I wanted you to know that I'm a big fan of your podcast, not just the jingles, but the content as well. My colleagues introduced me to it and I've been listening ever since. I'm really interested to know how psychologists conduct themselves when in the therapy room, whatever that means these days. I'm particularly interested in reflexivity and I've gained a lot by listening to how you talk to your clients, the sort of questions you ask, the things you might pick up on, and how you generally carry yourself.

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I suppose in that sense, you're sort of role model to me. I wanted to reach out and tell you that you've helped me in my journey as I've today found out that I've been offered a place on the counselling doctorate at U W E starting this September. So thank you for doing what you do. It's genuinely been a massive help. I even mentioned you on my personal statement as someone I model myself on whilst also bringing my authentic self too. Thanks so much for being such a positive influence, super grateful, wishing you all the best. Honestly, when I read that, it almost brought me to tears because the idea that what I'm doing is making a difference is incredible. Honestly, when I read that that just made my day, you know, I created this podcast because I wanted to be able to level the playing field, to be able to give people access to thoughts, insights, reflections of a qualified psychologist.

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If you are not in that position where you have ready access to one or if you are, but would welcome alternate perspectives or maybe you don't even like the person that's supervising you or those around you in your team. And yeah, I wanted to be able to have you guys advance your skills theory, practise reflections and knowledge you know, but not be held up by those that you find yourself around. You know, because we are all busy people, we absolutely are not everyone has got the time to spend with aspiring psychologists. You know, ideally it would all be job planned and it would be happening regularly, but even with the best of will in the world, that's not always the case. So that's part of the reason why I put this podcast together and why I'm remaining consistent with that. So I'm thrilled, you know, when people contact me just to say how valued it is really, and that's why reviews mean a great deal as well.

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So yeah, if you do have a moment to drop me a review or if you'd like to leave me an audio testimonial for the podcast about the podcast itself or about the books the Clinical Psychologist Collective, or the Aspiring Psychologist Collective, or the Grief Collective for that matter, you can do so very easily, very simply by going to my website, www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast. And there's very click click button on there that will take you to the platform that I use for recording testimonials. So honestly, that is about it for me for today. I hope you've, yeah, you can give me permission to give you a shorter episode today because everybody, even those working in mental health, especially those working in mental health, deserve and need time off. Very likely you too. So you can give yourself permission to not work on the days where you're not working.

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You can give yourself permission to only work within the hours where you are working and where you're paid to work. If there's a culture whereby you work extra, it's okay to actually question and challenge that culture. It's okay to leave at your agreed finish time and only start at your agreed start time. It's absolutely okay. And you know, it's okay to be flexy as well if you need to be discuss that with your management team and your supervisor if you need that at any given point. You're not necessarily saying you need it forever, but you might be saying you need it right now and you know, you are a human and we don't want you to burn out. And so time off and working in a way that helps you maintain your best for yourself and your clients is really important.

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So don't be afraid to ask those questions about whether there's any way that things could be done differently while still doing your job. The answer might be no. There might be good logistical managerial reasons for that. But it's okay to ask those questions. Couldn't even help myself there. Could I, I said I was going and then I chucked in a little learning point, but do remember that we've got more compassionate q and a dates coming up. Our next one is on Monday the 17th of April, 2023 at 7:30 PM and the one after that is on Tuesday, the 2nd of May at 7:30 PM and they'll be live streamed across my socials. So yeah, if you've got any questions in advance, let me know. Otherwise, do tune in live and feel free to ask any questions there or just give me a high and a high five, that's fine too. The replay for the first one is also available via my YouTube, Dr. Maryanne Trent. People are finding the clinical Psychologist collect and the Aspiring Psychologist collective really useful reads as they prepare for interviews. So you might well find that useful too. Hope, as I said, you've had a lovely Easter and I will look forward to catching up with you very soon from Monday at 6:00 AM for the next episode of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. Until then, thanks for being part of my world and do stay kind to yourselves. Take care

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