Why it's never too Late to become a Psychologist - Advice for Older Applicants

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00

Are you considering a career in psychology later in life, but unsure if it's too late? Spoiler alert, it's not. In fact, your life experiences can give you a unique edge. Today we are diving into the practical steps, the challenges, and the incredible opportunities for older applicants who might either be starting or continuing their journey into psychology. Stay tuned as we explore why it's never too late to follow your calling. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I'm Dr. Marianne and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Now, today's episode has been born out of lots of people contacting me via the dms, talking about how lovely it is to be shining a light on how important it is to consider diversifying our workforce, but also really supporting the needs of older applicants. And please don't tune out if you are a younger applicant because this is still relevant for you.

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This is about how you can support others in your workforce, in your teams, perhaps people you will meet as your trainee, could be people in admin teams currently who feel inspired by the work that you do in your department and what your journey is like. So please do stay tuned because there's so much to gain from this episode, whatever your age. So you may already have watched the episode I did with Thomas Gully. The title of the episode was How to Start a Psychology Career in Your thirties and Beyond, and that is my most popular psychology episode ever on YouTube with at the time of recording almost 3000 views. So this is clearly something that is resonating with you. We've also spoken with Gavin about his experience of being a slightly older applicant and doing a conversion masters. So that's a really good one to watch as well.

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And of course we spoke to Rose quite early on in our journey about her experiences of already being a parent. So not necessarily super much older than the rest of her cohort at that time, but more life experienced in that she already has children during training. And more recently we've been thinking about the affordability of aspiring psychologist roles such as an assistant psychologist, especially if you are an older applicant. That was a really interesting chat that I had with Sam, who is a trained counsellor and also ideally wants to get onto the paid NHS Doctorate. Wherever you are here listening or watching you are so welcome and I hope that you will find this to be some inspiration, some advice, some insights into what could be a life-changing path for you and for those that you end up working with. So our first point to explore is why would someone consider a psychology career later in life?

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I think it's really important that we think about breaking that myth of it's too late, I'm too old. So I think we really need to really take a look at that myth of it being too late. Is it ever too late? Do we need to listen to that narrative at all? And I think sometimes case studies can be really, really interesting and really inspiring When we see it, we can be it. And so I want to be part of that narrative helping to shed light on the fact that older applicants are being successful. And we've seen that during my podcasts already. But let's have a look at the data, the equal opportunities data that's provided by the clearinghouse. I can only find the 2023 entry data at the moment, but it might well be that the 2024 entry data is coming and as and when it does, perhaps I'll do another episode on that.

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So let me know if you'd find that helpful. If you are on MP three, then please do connect with me on socials. Or if you're on Spotify, you can drop a question or a comment in there too. So it may not come as any surprise that the biggest chunk of applicants is in the 25 to 29-year-old category with 51.2% of applicants being in that age bracket. But if we're thinking about perhaps what starts to become maybe a slightly older applicant, certainly in my time on training, I think one person was 24, everybody else bar five applicants was in the 25 to 29. Already the data is starting to become a little bit more top heavy, which I think is really exciting because I gained so much from the experience and the wisdom and I think also the compassionate nurturing of the people that were slightly older than me on the cohort.

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So the data we are looking at is how many applicants are applying and how many applicants have been offered accepted places. So if we were to, for example, to look at the data for 30 to 34 year olds, which I think starts to be slightly older than average, then it was 687 people, which was 13.8% applied. 170 people were offered places unaccepted. That was 14.4% of the places offered were actually for people in the 30 to 34 years age bracket. So perhaps what's interesting there is that they also give us a column four percentage success of the applicants to be accepted. And actually the 30 to 34 camp was 24.7% likelihood of being accepted, which is only just below the 28% of the 25 to 29 year olds, which is quite exciting. I think for the 35 to 39 year olds. In twenty twenty three, two hundred and seventy five people applied, which was 5.5%.

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43 were offered places, but of course 15.6% chance of being accepted. So we were already starting to see that maybe there's something in the skills and experiences of our older applicants, which is making them a little bit more likely to get places in twenty twenty three, a hundred and sixty five people who are 40 to 44 years applied and 20 of those were offered places, 45 to 49 year olds, 80 people applied, which I love. I love that. This is so exciting to me. And nine of those were offered places, 50 to 54 years old, 25 people applied. And similarly for 55 and over 12 people applied. It looks like either none of those people were offered places or that they've grouped together the 45 to 49 or there's some sort of gap in the data. So I'm not quite sure what's happened with that. Might I would've hoped there'd be a zero if it was a zero.

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But I wonder if actually a really interesting point to consider here is maybe some of the older applicants hadn't necessarily understood what the requirements were. Perhaps they hadn't done a conversion masters, perhaps they hadn't done enough relevant skills experience. Perhaps the people they were asking to be references or suitability statements were not ideal. And so perhaps this kind of content is really helpful for everybody, people of all ages to be able to really think about what the experience they have, whether they meet the minimum requirements because we can't know whether some of the people who are applying we're kind of screened out at the first chance. And it might just be that because we have to report on the people who have applied, we might also be getting people that maybe haven't done the best applications or haven't fulfilled the minimum requirements for application. So I don't mean to discredit anybody older applicant or not to suggest that you maybe haven't done the best of applications, but it could be a potential reason.

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I feel like I need to apologise if you can hear anything noisy. Someone has started doing some tree fell near me, which is always fun when you're on a podcast. So I think further breaking that taboo and thinking about it never being too late for me, I speak as a 43-year-old woman and I have children who are, as I record 11 and eight years of age, and I've really noticed certainly over the last couple of years, this idea of a second spring. I am out the other side of the very young and very exhausting parenting stage. My children were not sleepers at worst, my eldest woke up 31 times a night and I was going to work. So when I went back to work following my maternity leave for both children, sometimes they were waking seven to 13 times a night really regularly. And I was holding down either a four day a week job or a three day a week job with that level of chronic exhaustion.

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That really did take its toll on my available emotional resources really to be able to think about drive. And so if someone is in that kind of tricky stage of their life, once things settle down, I think that's when this second spring idea comes around. And certainly it's over the last couple of years that I've been able to focus more time and more energy on other pursuits that interest me like this podcast, like the Aspiring Psychologist membership, like writing and publishing books. And so if I was still the same age, still with my same husband, still with my same children, but I hadn't yet become a qualified psychologist, some of that energy, some of that striving and drive would and could have been used by me to focus on developing my career. So you may be watching this, and I don't know what your gender is, but whatever your gender is, it might be that you are now at a stage where your dependents don't need you quite as much and perhaps hopefully your parents are healthy.

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And so they're able to be quite independent Still as I'm recording this, my 75-year-old mother is flying back from Vietnam after spending 10 days there. So we're starting to really bust that myth of what age looks like. And yes, she's not pursuing a career in psychology and I don't know currently of anyone in their seventies who is doing that, but if you are, I would love to hear from you. But yeah, like age is just a number. If you're healthy, if you're happy, if you're thriving, you have something to offer. So really it's okay if you've got the energy, if you've got the determination, and even if your parents or your children are not as independent as you would like them to be, you might still be like, no, this is still right for me. I've got room for developing this psychology career in my life and I salute you.

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So our second consideration are the practical steps. If you haven't already done a British Psychological Society approved undergraduate psychology degree or joint honours, which confers that British Psychological Society approval, I'm obviously speaking from a UK perspective here, then you'll need to do a conversion masters that is approved by the British Psychological Society. They can be done as distance learning masters, so you might still be able to work full-time or part-time around those. You don't necessarily have to kind of stop your life, stop your career, stop earning money, but of course you're going to need to be thinking about how you are going to do justice to that master's so that you do really well in it and how you're going to be able to weave in any research aspect of that master's too so that it fits in your life. Because what I know is when you're trying to fit too many things into a finite resource such as the 24 hours that you have in the day, your wellbeing can take a really big hit.

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And it might be that you can do that for a very fixed period of time. What I think is really useful to bear in mind is if we are thinking about a whole year or two years or maybe even three years, that is a big chunk of your life and it might feel doable. We think about it with commutes. You think, oh, I can commute 90 minutes each way. That'll be fine. Yeah, it might be fine for a week, but are you going to want to do that for three years? So we just need to be mindful. We really need to be tuning in to what's realistic, what's reasonable for us to do, for us to achieve, but also for those who might be supporting us around our home, around our families, around ourselves, really to asking them to put up with as well. But if you have an open frank conversation with those people and hopefully get their buy-in as well, that's a really great place to start.

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Please do catch up on the Gavin Distance Learning Masters episode as well if that would be useful. Also, as part of our practical steps considerations, it's likely that you might well need to gain some more relevant clinical experience. Of course, you might not be watching this as an aspiring clinical psychologist. If you're for example, an aspiring educational psychologist or forensic psychologist or a counselling psychologist, the same applies. You're going to need some relevant experience that usually involves being supervised by an HCPC practitioner psychologist, but not always. You don't always need to have had that. But it is advantageous because it really helps shape your thinking about the kind of work that you are doing and applies that psychology lens specifically to what you're doing. So those roles where you might find yourself working under qualified psychologists might be assistant psychologists, it could be psychological wellbeing practitioners.

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It could be that you're doing honorary work, although there's a whole can of worms that you could get into on that. There's another video, another episode that you can listen to on the considerations that we need to take on board for honorary roles. It might be that you are even working as a qualified CBT practitioner, something that hopefully gives you access to the psychologist in your team or you are working closely with them is really usually the best way to help advance your skills. Of course, people facing roles where you are working alongside people who are distressed or overcoming challenges like nursing can be really useful as well. And that could be mental health nursing, that could be physical health nursing. And of course people in teaching are uniquely placed to be able to think about making that leap to educational psychology, but also sometimes to clinical psychology as well.

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When I was on my cohort, we had someone who had previously been a teacher, we also had someone who had been a physical health nurse. And it might be that you can go straight from your master's to apply and get places on your chosen doctorate course, but it might be that you need to do something where you are having more exposure to qualified psychologists too. And the step three of our point about practical steps is about the affordability of some of these routes. And of course Sam's chat with me where we are thinking about whether assistant psychologist roles are affordable for anybody, especially older applicants, is a really useful watch or listen. Okay, our third consideration area is the effort, and we need to think about acknowledging that, but also hopefully inspiring you too. So it is a challenge. I get that. I absolutely bow down to that.

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It's a lot if you're thinking about doing a master's or an undergraduate course, some sort of conversion, really taking your career in a different direction from where you are now. That can feel a lot. It can feel daunting. It's tricky, but I think it's worth it if you've got that idea, if you're feeling unfulfilled in what you're doing currently, really speaking as someone who vibrantly and passionately loves, being a qualified psychologist, fills me up, fills my cup, I love it, and I want you to feel similarly fulfilled in your career too, whatever that might be. So it is a lot of effort, but it might be really that you are investing in your future self and your children as well, or the people around you, you're showing them what can be done when you need to start afresh or that you deserve to be happy, you deserve to thrive, you deserve to have this time for yourself, maybe especially if you had your children earlier or if life was complicated and chaotic when you were younger, but you found more predictability, you found more solid steps and you've built a life around yourself that supports you now to optimally engaged to begin to think about what might make you happy.

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Maybe you've got those things in place now that you didn't have when you were younger, and why shouldn't you use those as a springboard to get somewhere fabulous for your future? So our fourth consideration is really thinking about balancing our lives as perhaps older applicants. And I feel like I really resonate with this topic because I'm 43 now, and it really gets me thinking about what would I be doing if I wasn't a qualified psychologist? And I think I would be like, well, I'd be the number one listener to this podcast. I would be my own biggest fan. I'd be commenting on all of my social posts. I'd be like, oh, Marianne. So please feel free to be my groupie if that's helpful as well. You can come and follow me on all of my social platforms where I am Dr. Marianne Trent, but I love to know more about you.

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I love to know why this content resonates with you. I love to see your comments on YouTube. I love to see your likes. I love it when you say how inspiring this content is. And the same goes for the books as well. I love seeing your reviews of the Clinical Psychologist collective of the Aspiring Psychologist collective of the Grief Collective of an autistic anthology and of talking heads. So if those books have meant something to you, please do take a moment to leave me a review on Amazon or Good Reads. So I think what we learned about from Rosie's episode was really thinking about how you can support older applicants, how you can acknowledge that they might have some additional struggles, some additional challenges, how you can be a really great friend, a really great colleague to somebody who is an older applicant, how you could think about what social events you are creating and whether it matches with bedtimes for children or getting home for supporting parents.

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Maybe ask them to help you to plan something that kind of gives them the best chance of being able to engage and take part. But you might well need to be a time management ninja. And I think absolutely. When I was training, my experiences were those with children would kind of have a tendency to go out to the library or to a coffee shop to get work done and really made sure they used that time incredibly effectively to get those essays done, to get things written often ahead of time. So they knew it was done. They knew it was done to the best of their ability. Whereas someone like me who had all the time in the world and often didn't have a partner, certainly until the second year, I'd get the same amount of work done, but in a way longer time because I allowed myself more procrastination.

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So it's likely that this is going to hyper focus you if you are an older applicant because you might well have more things that you've got to compartmentalise into your life. So self-care, looking after yourself is really important. Still important that you've got time and money to eat. You've got to be able to move lovely body of yours if you are physically able to do so, because I honestly believe that really does keep us so well. And I think the power of asking for help from your community, from those around you, from your friends, from your family, it's okay to draw down on that as well as give back to people, which is something you may have been doing for the last few years. Yeah, I'll pick those up for you from the school run. I'll do that for you. Come around, drop them off.

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That's fine. But it's okay to ask for help as well. And people are not mind readers. They don't know that you might want them to pick up your child or to keep them for an hour or so after school. But if you ask for what you want, you are so much more likely to have your needs met. And similarly with your partner as well. Actually, would it be okay if we thought about what days I cooked, what days you cooked? Because that actually will really free me up to do my masters, to do my essays, to think about doing what I need to do in a way that gives me that protected time. So I think our fifth point is thinking about encouragement. You are uniquely qualified. You've got the wisdom. Hopefully you've got the resilience. You've got that determination in being an older applicant, which is going to be such a key asset to yourself, but also to those that you work alongside and to the clients that you work with as well.

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You're going to be a source of inspiration at any time Somebody can decide to turn their career in a different direction and that they matter, that their needs for fulfilment are important. This psychology career of ours, it isn't just a job for me. Like I said, I find it a privilege, but it's a calling I love. I love talking to people. I love helping people to alleviate distress in their lives and to find balance and perspective and compassion and to acknowledge what they've been through, why it's had an impact on them, to help them to make sense of what they've experienced and to know that it doesn't always need to be this way. I honestly feel like I've just got the best job in the world, and if you don't feel like that currently, I want you to feel like that about what you do, whatever.

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It's so you are not starting from scratch. You are starting with all of your experience, and you get to build upon that. Let's think about your experience, your wisdom, your years of training experience, your parenting, your being friend, your being a sibling, your being a child. That is all things that you bring to the table that helps make you relatable, that helps you to draw down on your wisdom. Also, a really great psychologist, colleague and friend too. You'll get to be a supervisor. You'll get to inspire the next generation regardless of their age. Of course, in one of our episodes, we were speaking about how it feels to be supervised by somebody that's younger than you or that you are similar age to, and that's all useful grist for the mill as they say. Really important reflection points, and it's okay. We don't necessarily need to think about people as an age, but it's okay to be less experienced than somebody that is younger than you because they got their quicker or they've had more opportunities, they've had more privilege perhaps.

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So yeah, don't let your age and your beliefs about your age and maybe some embarrassment or some shame or your thoughts around imposter syndrome. Get in your way. Don't try. Don't let chips on your shoulder get in your way either. If you want to do this, then please do let me know. I'd love to know what this episode has evoked for you. Please do if watching on YouTube, let me know in the comments like, subscribe, share this episode with your friends. It would be so appreciated. I'd love your stories as well. Regardless, whatever your age, I'd love to know your individual story, why it matters to you, why you started your career in psychology and what age you were when you started it. So I hope that's been really useful. If it is your time and you are ready for the next step, please do consider the Aspiring Psychologist membership where we will help you to develop the skills and the abilities and the reflections that you need to be able to reflect, to be able to formulate, to be able to think confidently and talk confidently about research.

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To be able to separate a theory from a model and to be able to be a really lovely, empathic, thoughtful clinician. You can join from just 30 pounds a month with no minimum term. If you wanted to join for a longer period of time and pay for six months upfront, you would get a free 30 minute one-to-one with me. If you are like, I'm in it for the long haul, I'm going to be here for a while while you can join for 12 months upfront, and you'd then get either your choice of two 30 minute one-to-ones, or one hour one-to-one where we can really go to town on getting a bespoke plan in place for you. Whether that's scrutinising applications, whether that's practising interview questions, whether that's really thinking about tailor making your career and how we are going to get you to where you want to be. There's also loads of inspiration in the Clinical Psychologist Collective book and the Aspiring Psychologist collective book too. If you're looking to become a psychologist,

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