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I flat out love comedy, laughing and having a great time. Some of my favourite comedians include the brilliant Mae Martin, Tig Nataro and Sarah Millican, but each of these comedians has a different comedy style. Also, I am a massive fan of The Handsome Podcast because it is just brilliant, funny and it always makes me laugh. However, what makes us laugh? What are the social psychology and cognitive psychology processes behind laughter? How does comedy impact our behaviour? In this cognitive psychology podcast episode, we’ll answer all those great questions and more. If you enjoy learning about humor psychology, mental processes and how our emotions impact our behaviour, then this will be a brilliant episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Personality Psychology and Individual Differences . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Introduction To the Psychology of Humor For decades, psychologists have wondered what exactly makes something funny. Whether this is a well-timed joke, a normal situation that ends up making us laugh or a weird accident that is embarrassing for one person but makes everyone else laugh. Why does this happen? Therefore, over the past few decades, psychologists have come up with a wide range of different psychological theories that reflect different perspectives to help us understand what makes something funny. One of the earliest theories comes from Freud who had a few ideas about humor, then different theories have developed over time in response to the findings of various neuroimaging studies. However, more importantly, we need to understand that whenever comedy or humor happens, this is a very cognitively demanding task. Since our brains need to help us understand what the joke is, our brains trigger the emotional roller coaster that we experience whenever we experience humor and our brains help us to experience the wide range of benefits of humor. For example, humor has social benefits, mental health benefits amongst others. Personally, when my mental health used to be really severe during 2024, this was actually around the time that The Handsome Podcast started and in 2023, when I had a breakdown because of abuse and intense homophobia growing up. I started to get into Mae Martin, their comedy and comedy was such an amazing break from all the psychological distress that I was experiencing. Even now, if I’ve had a tough day, if I’m stressed and if I just need something to make me feel better, comedy is my first choice. Good comedy never fails to make me feel better. In addition, it’s important to note that laughter, comedy and jokes really do have social benefits. If you think about it, a lot of our friendships just wouldn’t be the same without laughter. One of the reasons why I really liked my ex Giyu (yes that is a fake name based on one of our favourite Demonslayer characters) was because we laughed a lot, we smiled and we were always joking with each other. And I think if you find someone you can joke around with, relax with and just be yourself with, then that has the potential to be a wonderful relationship. Humor is a massive part of all friendships and romantic relationships. But why does this happen? That’s something we’re going to be exploring in the rest of the podcast episode. What Is Humor According To Psychology? As psychology students and psychology professionals, we all know that psychology flat out loves a good definition, and humor is no different. Also, we need to realise here that what we think of as humor is different to how psychology perceives humor. To me and you, humor might be a funny joke, a funny head-shaking story or a WTF moment. Yet to psychology, humor is about investigating how and why do we find things funny and what does this show us about how our minds and social interactions work. What Are Some Psychological Theories On Humor? One of the earliest theories of humor as I mentioned earlier came from Freud, and before you automatically dismiss the theory because it came from Freud, I want to add my normal counterargument. Of course, Freud got a lot of stuff wrong, and I will not defend him because some of his theories were just whacky. Yet without Freud’s ideas, we wouldn’t be investigating sexuality, adverse childhood experiences, trauma and a number of other fundamentals that are critical in modern clinical psychology. Anyway, Freud believed jokes allowed us to express taboo feelings or thoughts in a more socially acceptable way. This isn’t a perfect theory because it completely fails to explain how situations are funny, it doesn’t account for how social norms change the funniness of jokes over time and so on, but the theory laid the groundwork for several critical theories in the future. Another important theory in humor psychology is incongruity theory. This theory proposes humor comes from the unexpected juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated ideas. Then the theory explains why we find wordplay as well as puns humorous, because they force our brains to make connections between disparate concepts. After we’ve made these connections, we experience a nice “aha” moment and we get the joke. Personally, I think this is another nice enough theory because it explains why we find wordplay and puns funny. As well as I can think of a lot of times when I’m having a conversation, someone else will say a completely random idea that isn’t actually connected to my conversation (even though the other person swears it is) and this creates humor in the conversation. A final psychological theory of humor is the cognitive-perceptual theory. This approach to humor sees comedy as a mental process that involves our perception of incongruity then it is resolved in a playful, non-threatening context. In essence, this theory sees humor as a mini puzzle that our brains workout and the punchline serves as a satisfying solution. As someone who watches and listens to a lot of stand-up comedy, I definitely agree with this theory the most. For example, in Mae Martin’s Netflix comedy “Sap”, they tell a fun story about their parents apparently driving under a moose in their car before Mae was born. The idea of driving in Canada and a Moose, they are not weird concepts at all. Yet add in the element about their parents driving under  a moose, and that is weird. Then the punchline, resolution and Mae playfully telling the rest of the story, that is a very good resolution that creates humor. Overall, the field of humor psychology has developed a lot over the years as our understanding of key psychological elements change too. Since today, we understand that humor involves a wide range of emotional, social as well as cognitive elements, and unlike before, we understand that the joke isn’t everything in humor. The context the joke is told in plays a critical role too in creating humor. This is another reason why “you had to be there” explains why you can take the exact same event and tell them to two different audiences and one will find it funny and the other will not. This is another explanation as to why the relationship between the comedian, the audience and the cultural norms is flat out critical. For example, as a massive fan of Mae Martin, and I will shamelessly admit that they are attractive, I listen to Mae on a lot of podcasts over the years. Once Mae explained how they needed to do a show in somewhere like Russia, but it wasn’t Russia, and the social norm over there is LGBT+ stuff is very taboo, it’s criminal and it’s outrageous. Yet a lot of Mae’s comedy comes from LGBT+ stories, so they bombed as you can expect. This is because Mae’s jokes were in direct conflict with the social norms of the audience they were interacting with. Hence, why there was no humor in Mae’s set. What Are The Types of Humor In Psychology? Before we deep dive into the emotional and cognitive processes involved in humor, let’s explore the different types of humor that psychologists can study. We need to understand this because each type of humor has its own style, distinctive characteristics and potential impact on our social relationships as well as mental health. Furthermore, understanding the different styles of humor can be very useful for all of us, because it can help us navigate different social situations, understand what is a good style of humor to use at a given moment and what style you should stay away from. As well as recognising your own humor style can be a powerful tool for self-growth because if you recognise you’re slipping into self-defeating or aggressive humor (more on that in a moment), then you start developing healthier, more adaptive communication habits. As well as you can start to use more self-enhancing humor to build your resilience in face of life’s stressors. What is Self-Enhancing Humor? Firstly, self-enhancing humor is when you maintain a humorous outlook on life even when you’re stressed or facing adversity. A good example of this is when you’re able to find the funny side in a frustrating situation or laugh at your own quirks. Research shows that this type of humor can be a powerful tool for personal growth as well as your own resilience, and people who are really good at self-enhancing humor tend to have better psychological wellbeing compared to people who aren’t as good at it. Also, these people are better able to cope with life’s challenges and this humor style seems to be a defence against decreased mental health. As someone who comes from a clinical psychology background, I flat out love this type of humor. I think it’s brilliant that there is a way to use humor to protect your mental health, deal with the psychological stress in your life and most importantly, foster a sense of resilience. This is something I would say I am rather good at, because I can “bully” myself whilst making myself laugh very well. I remember joking with confused friends before who I didn’t get my jokes that I can easily entertain myself. Just something to think about. What is Affiliative Humor? Secondly, you have affiliative humor. This style of humor is the fun, warm kind that brings people together. For example, whenever you have inside jokes with your best friends, callbacks and light banter that improves the mood at family gatherings. These are all examples of affiliative humor. On the Handsome Podcast, there are a lot of inside jokes, callbacks and it helps to improve feelings of togetherness and it forms the “Handsome community” as the hosts put it. In addition, affiliative humor is generally good-natured, aims to amuse others without causing offense and it’s inclusive. This is why people who typically use affiliative humor are typically extroverted, enjoy better relationships and experience higher self-esteem. Personally, me and my family have a lot of affiliative humor because it’s fun, it’s great entertainment and recalling funny moments when we make a funny mistake can create a nice moment as a family. There is one example involving evergreens that springs to mind, but I won’t share that publicly on the podcast as it wasn’t me who’s the butt of that joke. Yet looking back at my own life, it’s easy to see how affiliative humor is the social glue that makes social groups more fun, entertaining and just lovely to be around. Social relationships without affiliative humor just aren’t as fun. Finally for this section, as someone who’s previously worked with a wide range of different students. This is a form of humor I very much encourage and I don’t shutdown, because I want the students to banter, have fun and have those great moments with their classmates. This might lead to more friendships, a more positive perception of school and these positive outcomes could lead to better academic performance. What is Self-Defeating Humor? I remember once when I was listening to Mae Martin, they were explaining how the main difference between UK comedy and US comedy is in the UK, there is a large focus on self-deprecating humor. This involves making fun of yourself excessively as well as allowing yourself to be the butt of other people’s jokes. Normally, this type of humor can be endearing, fun and it can be very amusing for everyone involved, but you need to be careful about self-defeating humor. If you do humor style excessively or take it to the extreme, then this reflects low self-esteem and it could be covering up deeper emotional difficulties that you might want to work on with a psychology professional. Also, research shows that overusing self-defeating humor can lead to negative mental health outcomes and have a negative impact on social relationships. I think I have an example of this, even I acknowledge because this came from an emotionally abusive relationship that this might be taken to the extreme. Yet because I felt weakened, that I wasn’t able to stand up to this former friend and I couldn’t challenge that without my formerly severe mental health being blamed for why I was feeling a particular way, I used to allow myself to be the butt of their jokes so my mental health history couldn’t be used against me. Being the constant butt of jokes made me feel awful about myself, it decreased my self-esteem and made my already tenuous mental health even worse. Thankfully, that person is no longer in my life and this is one of the great benefits. What Is Aggressive Humor? The final main style of humor is aggressive humor. This is where a person uses humor to manipulate and/ or criticise others through ridicule, teasing and sarcasm. Whilst this can be done playfully, aggressive humor has the potential to create social tension as well as harm social relationships, because aggressive humor is a good example of why humor is a double-edged sword. Humor can be funny but it can also hurt. This is one of the reasons why there are certain white straight male comedians that I just do not watch because their aggressive humor shows a clear lack of understanding of the difficulties that other social groups face. Interestingly, research shows that women tend to appreciate and use aggressive humor less than men, and this could reflect boarder gender differences in social norms as well as communication styles. More On Humor Styles and Psychology It's important to note that humor isn't a set category and in most situations, people use a range and combination of humour styles. I'm sure that you've seen that in some of my examples. For example, Mae Martin tends to use a lot of self-defeating and affiliative humor. Because they focus a lot on bringing people together through comedy, often without realising it.  Yet most people do have a dominant style of comedy. As well as Mae Martin has spoken openly about this, so I don't really see the issue with me rehashing some of it. Mae Martin's early use of a lot of self-defeating humor could have been a reflection of their poor mental health throughout their life. For example, their struggles with addiction as a teen and gender dysphoria, depression and anxiety as an adult. Thankfully, Mae Martin seems to be doing better now as they explain on The Handsome Podcast in January 2026.  Nonetheless, this raises another interesting question about comedy. What are the humor styles that are less easy to define and categorise? What is Dark Humor In Psychology? Me and my family are terrible for darkish humor, and this is one of my favourite types depending on my mood, what the joke is about and a few other factors. For example, dark humour jokes about immigrants, foreign people and fascism I do not find funny because to me, these are real world issues and innocent people are dying. Yet tell me another type of morbid joke and I'll probably die of laughter.  For instance, there's a scene in the Big Bang Theory that I love. A character was signing what she thought was a retirement card, but it was a Get Well Soon card because this person was in the hospital after a terrible car accident so she wrote "To Name, best of luck. You deserve this," Even now I'm smiling about that scene.  Anyway, dark humour makes light of serious or taboo subjects and this sense of humour doesn't fit into the four categories that we mentioned above.  However, we still need to understand dark humour because it is critical for some psychological and social functions. Dark humour is very important in times of crisis as well as in high-stress professions. Without dark humor, there would be nothing to break the tension, make the team members feel supported and create a sense of togetherness.  I will admit one of my potential flaws, which I am way better at now compared to as a child, is I am not always great in a crisis as perceived by other people. Because I laugh as a coping mechanism, but some people think I'm laughing at the awful news, dire situations or I'm being insensitive towards them and their news.  Not always ideal.  Anyway, the sheer diversity of humour styles that we have access to reflects the sheer complexity of human behaviour and our social interactions. Since humans need to adapt their language, as well as their humour styles, to different social situations and audiences. Humor's flexibility is another reason why it is a powerful tool in our emotional and social toolkit.  Lastly, to wrap up this section, I want to remind us why understanding different styles is important. Once you understand different humour styles, you can become more aware and intentional with your use so over time, these styles might become second nature to you. For example, if you're at an office Christmas party, a university social or you're in the break room at work, you might want to use affiliative humor. If you and your team have had a hard day supporting clients, you might want to use self-enhancing humor. As well as you might want to use self-deprecating just slightly to show humility. Understanding humor styles and when to use them appropriately can help you come across as funnier, more empathetic and more understanding as a whole.  Which in our profession as psychologists is flat out critical. What Are The Emotional and Cognitive Processes of Humor? For a joke to be funny, we actually need to get it, understand it and then the emotional response of humor and laughter needs to be triggered. Yet how does this happen? What makes something funny? What makes us laugh? This is what we're going to be focusing on in this section and we need to start with our cognitive processes. Since whenever jokes and humour are being used around us, several cognitive mechanisms are happening in our brains to ensure we find it humorous, or not.  Firstly, the cognitive process of perception is important because we need to recognise that something is meant to be humorous. For example, we've had times when a joke has completely gone over our head because we didn't understand it was a joke in the first place, we didn't laugh and find it funny.  Secondly, there is incongruity detection. This cognitive process happens because our brain is always searching for patterns, making predictions and helping the world to make ordered sense to us. Yet when our brain detects an incongruence, something that humor typically uses, it catches our brains off guard.  Thirdly, we have the cognitive process of resolution. This is because after our brains have detected the incongruity, our brains work out to resolve it. This is seen in everyday life as the 'aha" moment that comes in that split second we finally get the joke.  Finally, we have appreciation because if we successfully resolve the incongruity in a way that's pleasurable or satisfying, we experience humor appreciation.  On a side note, I am a massive fan of "Would I Lie To You?". I only started watching it a few months ago, and for our international audience, it is essentially when a group of celebrities tell outrageous stories in a hilarious way and they need to work out if it is a truth or lie. And last night I was watching it, a subtle pun was mentioned, my parents got it immediately but it took me a bit longer and I literally went "aha" when I got it. Moving onto the emotional side of humor, whenever we find something funny, we experience a range of positive emotions. For example, you might feel happy, surprise, amused and sometimes you might feel a little bit of delight at the really bad joke. I know when I hear some dark humor jokes about things we shouldn’t really say whether this is in the workplace or in my family life, I feel surprised, shocked and I’m really amused. It is these powerful emotional responses that humor triggers that gives humor an important and delightful role in our lives. As a result, you might believe that the relationship between cognition and emotions is easy to understand, because when we get a joke because of our cognitive processes, it should trigger a positive emotional reaction. In reality, the relationship between emotional responses and cognition isn’t that straightforward. We’ve all been in situations when we understand someone’s joke but we don’t find it amusing. I remember once near Christmas, in 2024 I believe, I was watching a so-called comedy special with my parents. For context, they are two late fifties white heterosexual adults who are middle-class. In the comedy special, the so-called comedian was trying to make jokes about why transphobia didn’t exist and why no one killed transgender people (the official statistics tell a very different story). I understood the bad and deeply offensive jokes he was making, but as you can probably tell by my tone. I didn’t find it funny. Then there are plenty of less serious examples too. All in all, we can understand jokes without always finding them funny. On the other hand, we can find jokes hilarious without truly understanding them. One of the factors that can be used to explain this mismatch between cognition and emotional response in humor is surprise. Since research shows that the unexpected twists in wordplay can trigger positive emotions, but surprise isn’t always enough. The incongruity needs to be resolved in a meaningful and satisfying way to the audience. What Role Do Individual Differences Have On Humor? In psychology, we know that individual differences play a massive role in our behaviour. For example, in clinical psychology terms, two people can go through the exact same event at the exact same time, but because of individual differences in cognitive styles, attention biases and child upbringing, they can have completely different behaviours after the event. Such as, a person developing depression after the death of a loved one and another person who doesn't.  Individual differences also play a massive role in our ability to appreciate and perceive humor. These individual differences can include cultural background, cognitive styles and life experiences.  Going back to my example from earlier, the reason I didn't find the "no transphobia" jokes funny is because as a non-binary person with a lot of transgender friends, I've experienced transphobia, hate and I know people are murdered because of their gender identity. This is no joke so a white straight heterosexual man who knows nothing about transgender people, making jokes about such a serious topic isn't funny to me.  This is an example of how life experiences impact humor.  Another individual difference that's important in humor psychology is "need for cognition". This is when people enjoy engaging in complex thought. People high in need for cognition tend to appreciate more sophisticated forms of humour more than people lower in need for cognition. Whereas people with a higher tolerance for ambiguity tend to find surreal or absurdist humor more entertaining. This helps us to understand why people differ in what they find funny.  In addition, our emotional as well as cognitive responses to humor change over time as we learn, grow and develop. For instance, if we think about stereotypes here, teenagers tend to laugh about sex jokes and even sexually implied words, like penis, can make teenagers die of laughter. Yet as the teenager learns more, experiences things and develops into adulthood, the same words and jokes might not make them die of laughter.  Overall, when we consider how important humor is in our daily lives, our social interactions and how we cope with the stress of everyday life. This shows just how important understanding the cognitive as well as emotional responses in humor are.  Especially, when we consider the wide-ranging benefits of humor. What Social and Emotional Functions Does Humor Have? Besides from being fun, humor serves a wide range of important social and emotional functions. We'll focus on these over the next few sections. Firstly, humor is a powerful tool for social cohesion because humor can create a sense of belonging as well as togetherness in social groups. This is even more important in workplaces when the appropriate use of humor can ease tensions, boost productivity and increase teamwork.  And what I think's really interesting is that the type of humor that teams use can reveal a lot about their group dynamics. For instance, using aggressive amongst other types of humor can establish social hierarchies and exclude others. Like if you constantly make jokes at the detriment of a peer then that peer might feel excluded from the team because of your humor style. Whereas inside jokes can strengthen bonds within the team by creating a shared history and language with each other.  All in all, this social function highlights the complex role that humor plays in our social interactions. The second major function of humor is stress reduction, because when we laugh, our body releases endorphins. This improves our mood. Yet humor has a psychological benefit too because when we laugh in a stressful situation, it acts as a psychological buffer that helps us to maintain our emotional health and gain perspective. Thirdly, humor improves emotional regulation because it helps us to process and express difficult emotions in a socially acceptable way. Some people compare this function of humor as the same as releasing a pressure vale in our minds so we can tackle tough topics by making it look like a joke. This is probably one of the reasons why myself and my family can have very dark humor at times, especially around accidents, deaths and scary experiences. When I’m nervous, I can strongly lean into these forms of humor, because it helps me deal with the topic more effectively than without humor. This is another explanation as to why people joke about death and our own mortality because humor is a strategy to help grapple with our impending death and limited time on Earth. A final cognitive function of humor for this section is humor can enhance learning and memory retrieval. Since humor can create links and unexpected connections between ideas. In turn, this can improve our problem-solving and creative skills, so when we understand a joke, we’re giving our brains a mental workout that benefits our cognition. As a result, humor can be a powerful memory aid when we’re learning new information. As well as this is why a lot of educators incorporate humor into their teaching methods so learners can remember a silly mnemonic device compared to the dull, boring lecture-style method of some teachers. Personally, as an aspiring educational psychologist, this is very useful to learn about, and as someone who works in education at the time of writing, this gives me some food for thought. Whenever I teach, I don’t always use humor because my brain doesn’t naturally work like that, but I have seen how effective it is in teaching French first-hand. For instance, previously, I worked in a class who was learning the weather in French and the teacher made up a silly action for “il pleut”. Which is French for “raining” and the students automatically remembered the French word because of his silly action. Therefore, as an aspiring educational psychologist, in the future, if I was trying to support a teacher to improve student motivation and engagement in their lessons. I might suggest, in addition to a lot of other psychological tips, that they incorporate humor into their teaching. This is even more important when we learn that humor can capture students’ attention, create a more positive classroom environment and make lessons more memorable. Since you can use humor to maintain engagement, reduce anxiety around challenging subjects and illustrate concepts to students. On the whole, this section teaches us how powerful humor is and it’s useful for navigating a wide range of life challenges that we are bound to experience at some point in our lives. Humor can help us to boost our creativity, cope with stress, improve our social relationships and teamwork amongst others. How Does Humor Improve Mental Health? Applying Humor In Therapy Settings Of course, I need to stress upfront here as someone with a clinical background, please do not think I am going to suggest that you start becoming a stand-up comedian with your clients. Do not do that. Do not try to make everything a joke with your client who is experiencing mental health difficulties. Yet psychologists can use humor and laughter in therapy to help them decrease tension, to build rapport with clients and help clients to see new perspectives on their difficulties. Personally, in my experience of counselling, some of my favourite moments was when I could laugh, joke and smile with my counsellor. It removed the power imbalance, it helped to remind me that my counsellor is human like me and they aren’t a judgemental, uptight person who I needed to be guarded in front of. It’s really, really helpful and humor is an amazing tool like that. On the other hand, we have to remember that humor varies between cultures as well as different individuals within the same culture. This is important for psychologists because a great joke that relieved tension in your last therapy session might be offensive to your client after that one. This brings us back to an earlier point in this podcast episode. Always remember your audience and the context of the joke. Such as, and to use a crystal-clear example, if you have a client with severe depression and the trigger was the death of a loved one. Do not joke about death. Another example of using humor in therapy is that in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, a therapist might use humor to help a client challenge their negative thought patterns. Since a playful reframe or a well-timed joke might help cut through the client’s cognitive distortions more effectively than logical arguments alone. As well as in a group therapy setting, shared humor can reduce feelings of isolation and create a sense of community. I remember a few years ago in a clinical psychology lecture, my lecturer was telling us how he’s literally had clients in therapy who have said to him “I understand what you’re saying and logically my thoughts and fears make no sense, but I feel that they are,”. This paraphrased sentence shows the power of our automatic thoughts and why they are difficult to change without professional help. Therefore, humor might be a useful way to overcome these difficulties. In fact, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of a therapist or counsellor getting you to imagine your anxiety or negative automatic thought as a person, you make them look silly and you interact with them like they’re a real person. It’s something along those lines, and this does sound silly and a little humorous, but it is a useful technique. I remember when I was doing my cognitive and interpersonal therapy workbook for my anorexia, one of the exercises was to imagine your anorexia as a person, so you visualise the anorexic self. And it was useful. Anyway, a final way how humor can be used in the therapy room is by using humor in visual forms, like cartoons, to address mental health difficulties in a less threatening as well as more accessible way. In a way, this reminds me of the importance of social stories, because these cartoons serve as a conversation starter with a client so you can help people to articulate their feelings and experiences that they might struggle to put into words. Cognitive Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, we've learnt a lot about humor and its psychological basis. We've looked at how cognitively demanding it is to "get" a joke then we've seen the great emotional and social functions of humor. From how humor reduces stress, improves our mental health and how humor can help educators and therapists improve their work.  Furthermore, our investigation of humor revealed the early Freudian and more modern theories of humor, as well as the importance of appreciating humor, and the cognitive and emotional processes that humor relies on. This led us to realise the importance of surprise, resolution as well as incongruity in humor. These elements all help us to create that "aha" moment and the positive emotional response that humor is famous for.  Ultimately, I have to admit that we've looked at a lot of great topics and I think this is one of those episodes that I'm going to keep coming back to. Especially, given how humor can be a powerful tool in clinical psychology and educational psychology to create a sense of belonging, togetherness, decrease barriers and increase engagement. I definitely think I'll be using that information in the future. Speaking of the future, when it comes to the psychology of humor, there is still a lot to research, understand and study. Especially, given the constant evolving nature of research methods, in particular neuroimaging, because these new and exciting research methods give us new opportunities to understand how the brain's mechanisms impact humor appreciation as well as perception. Also, there needs to be more cross-cultural studies exploring how humor operates in different social and cultural contexts, so we can expand our understanding of humor even more. At the end of this episode, I want to leave you with a few "simple" questions to help you start applying this content to your own life: ·       What is your dominant type of humor? ·       Think about how you adapt your humor styles in different contexts. Perhaps without even realising it.  ·       How could you use humor more thoughtfully in your professional life?     I hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Personality Psychology and Individual Differences . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Cognitive Psychology References and Further Reading Becker, A. B. (2021). When comedy goes to extremes: The influence of ideology and social identity on source liking, credibility, and counterarguing. Psychology of Popular Media, 10(1), 39. Berk, R. A. (2001). The active ingredients in humor: Psychophysiological benefits and risks for older adults. Educational Gerontology, 27(3-4), 323-339. Feibleman, J. (2022). In praise of comedy: A study in its theory and practice. Routledge. Gelkopf, M., & Kreitler, S. (1996). Is humor only fun, an alternative cure or magic? The cognitive therapeutic potential of humor. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 10(4), 235-254. Gkorezis, P., Hatzithomas, L., & Petridou, E. (2011). The impact of leader’s humor on employees’ psychological empowerment: The moderating role of tenure. Journal of Managerial Issues, 23(1), 83-95. https://neurolaunch.com/psychology-humor/ Kafle, E., Papastavrou Brooks, C., Chawner, D., Foye, U., Declercq, D., & Brooks, H. (2023). “Beyond laughter”: a systematic review to understand how interventions utilise comedy for individuals experiencing mental health problems. Frontiers in psychology, 14, 1161703. Kuiper, N. A., & Martin, R. A. (1998). Is sense of humor a positive personality characteristic? In W. Ruch (Ed.), The sense of humor: Explorations of a personality characteristic (pp. 159-178). Mouton de Gruyter. Lambek, S. (2023). Comedy as dissonant rhetoric. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 49(9), 1107-1127. Lefcourt, H. M. (2001). Humor: The psychology of living buoyantly. Springer Science & Business Media. Martin, R. A., & Ford, T. (2018). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach. Academic Press. Mayrhofer, M., & Matthes, J. (2021). Laughing about a health risk? Alcohol in comedy series and its connection to humor. Psychology of Popular Media, 10(1), 59. McGraw, A. P., & Warren, C. (2010). Benign violations: Making immoral behavior funny. Psychological Science, 21(8), 1141-1149. Olah, A. R., Junkin, J. S., Ford, T. E., & Pressler, S. (2022). Comedy Bootcamp: stand-up comedy as humor training for military populations. Humor, 35(4), 587-616. Ruch, W. (Ed.). (2007). The sense of humor: Explorations of a personality characteristic. Walter de Gruyter. Samson, A. C., & Gross, J. J. (2012). Humour as emotion regulation: The differential consequences of negative versus positive humour. Cognition & Emotion, 26(2), 375-384. Wanzer, M. B., Frymier, A. B., & Irwin, J. (2010). An explanation of the relationship between instructor humor and student learning: Instructional humor processing theory. Communication Education, 59(1), 1-18. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

We know from social and cultural psychology that our attitudes and opinions towards different topics are largely informed by the world we live in. Everything from our culture of origin, our family, our friends and more can influence our attitudes. This extends into our beliefs and attitudes surrounding mental health conditions and the lived experience of others. For example, hearing voices is heavily stigmatised in the West but in certain cultures, hearing voices is often celebrated and seen as a sign of the gods. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you're going to learn how culture impacts attitudes towards learning disabilities across the world, why this is important and more. Whether you're an aspiring or qualified psychologist, a teaching assistant or a mental health professional, this will be a great episode for you.  Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Gamification of Autism: A Guide to Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. What Are Learning Disabilities? To ensure that we’re all on the same page about learning disabilities, we need to define the range of conditions. Therefore, learning disabilities can be neurological, neurodevelopmental or mental health conditions that negatively impact a person’s ability to pay attention, coordinate their movement, perform maths calculations or it can impact their spoken or written language abilities. As well as whilst we mainly talk about children and learning disabilities because they typically aren’t recognised until the child reaches school age. They can impact a person at any age of their life and learning disabilities can be lifelong. Why Is Learning about How Culture Impacts Attitudes Towards Learning Disabilities Important? Even if you never ever intend to work outside your country of origin, like the United Kingdom for me, it is still flat out critical that you learn how different cultures see the mental health condition that you support in your clinical setting. Since we never know who is going to come through our therapy doors and into our service. They might be white, black, be a second or third generation immigrant or they might have another ethnic or cultural background that is different from our own. And when this happens, because it probably will during our psychology career and that flat out isn’t a bad thing. We must never assume that their experience and social network will be the same as our other clients.  The cultural beliefs, attitudes and opinions of their culture of origin will impact how they see their own mental health experiences. As a result, we will need to bear this in mind when it comes to our psychological interventions.  In addition, I wanted to research this podcast episode because in episode 353 of the podcast I discussed in the psychology news section that different cultural beliefs about thinness and body image impact eating disorders in ethnic minorities. Therefore, by learning about how their families might see their learning disabilities and other conditions, it might help us to better support them.  On the whole, the entire point of this psychology podcast episode is to enlighten you about what those cultural beliefs and attitudes might be towards learning disabilities. As well as I’ll suggest some ways how these beliefs might impact our clients and therapeutic work. What are Western Attitudes Towards Learning Disabilities? The first type of culture we need to understand is how the Western world generally perceives learning disabilities. Now, the main research is typically done in the United States of America and given how there are cultural differences between how the “West” and Europe see learning disabilities. This section might as well be termed how does the United States see learning disabilities. Yet I think a fair comparison would be to say that this first section covers how countries with a very, very strong American link perceives learning disabilities. Thankfully, over the decades, there has been a real shift in how the West sees learning disabilities. Instead of a lot of countries like the United States and some parts of Europe seeing learning disabilities as a range of conditions that need to be treated as diseases as dictated by the biomedical model. There has been a real shift in recent decades to move towards seeing learning disabilities through a lens of human rights as well as inclusivity. The focus in these cultures is to provide people with learning disabilities equal opportunities and access to learning, daily activities and society as much as possible, regardless of their condition and the severity of their condition. For instance, in the United States in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities in all areas of public life. Such as, transportation, school, jobs and all private and public places that are open to the general public. In other words, you cannot legally treat two people differently just because one person has a disability and the other person hasn’t. Furthermore, in Western cultures, there is a strong focus on enabling people with learning disabilities to participate fully in society. This can be achieved through technological assistive devices, legislation and an inclusive education system. Since the overall goal in Western Cultures is to minimise the barriers that people with learning disabilities face, whether they’re social or physical barriers and empower these individuals to live more independently. As a result, whether you’re a mental health professional or anyone who works with people with learning disabilities. It can be very useful to think about the benefits of the Western view of learning disabilities, and please rest assured this isn’t intentionally going to be cultural imperialism. I will point out the benefits of the other perspectives on learning disabilities too throughout the episode. Since the Western perspective stresses that we should be empowering people and this comes back to a very important fact about clinical psychology. We should never ever believe someone cannot do something just because of their mental health condition, until proven otherwise. Ultimately, the Western view of learning disabilities can be boiled down to having a strong focus on equal access as well as non-discrimination and this can be achieved through legislation. Like the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990). These cultures make use of technology to support independent living and inclusive education models. How Does The Middle East Perceive Learning Disabilities? Given how much the Middle East is on the news, I’m surprised that I very, very rarely cover it on the podcast because the Middle East does have some fascinating cultures, history and opinions. Therefore, the Middle East has a relatively different view of learning disabilities compared to the West because their perspectives on disability are complex as well as they are typically influenced by traditional values and religious beliefs. Traditionally, learning disabilities would have been viewed through a charity model where the person with the learning disability would have often relied on family support. That was it. Yet, there have been modern shifts in recent years in this geographical region because there are countries, like the United Arab Emirates, where governments and social groups are seeing learning disabilities as a social issue that needs government support and systemic intervention. Moreover, if we look at the United Arab Emirates in more depth then we can see that the country has been proactive in creating accessible environments and promoting awareness through dedicated policies, like the “National Policy for Empowering People with Disabilities”, as well as campaigns. What I find really interesting about these efforts is that the country actively wants to make Dubai a disability-friendly city. This is brilliant because it strikes a good balance between embracing modern inclusive practices and respecting traditions. Personally, what I think is flat out brilliant about the Middle-Eastern perspective on learning disabilities is that they’re trying to make their major cities disability-friendly. This I think is a great idea because in my batch of podcast episode ideas, I have something along the lines of ways to make society more autism friendly.  Also, sometimes I feel like in the West, there is such a strong resistance to making major changes because people do not want to change the way they live their lives, the way their cities run and they want to protect their traditions as much as possible. In other words, I cannot imagine Western cities wanting to become more disability friendly. Because whilst we have things like dropped curbs, lifts and accessible entrances, as a number of conversations that I have had had with people in wheelchairs amongst other disabilities have proved to me, Western cities and life is nowhere near as disability friendly as the general public believes. Therefore, it might be extremely useful for Western cultures to learn from Middle Eastern cultures about how to make disability friendly cities. Moreover, as an aspiring or qualified psychologist or another type of mental health professional, understanding how the Middle East sees disabilities can be very useful. If you have a client from the Middle East then understanding that traditionally learning disabilities are seen to rely on family support can be useful. It might explain why the parents or social support network of a child or even an adult with learning disabilities are resistant to the idea of getting governmental support. They might not understand that in the West, families get more support and the accessing of government support is emphasized. In addition, if you’re working with a client from the Middle East then you might want to bear in mind that you might have to do more signposting and explaining of how government support works for learning disabilities than you normally would. Middle Eastern families might be brand-new to the idea of government support or specialist support for learning disabilities, so you might need to explain everything from scratch. Ultimately, the Middle Eastern perspective on learning disabilities can be boiled down to influences of tradition and religion, but there is a trend towards governmental policies and support for those with learning disabilities and an effort to create accessible urban environments. Also, the government is helping to raise awareness and conduct inclusion campaigns. How Does Asia View Learning Disabilities? There are parallels between how the Middle East and Asia view disabilities more generally, because in several Asian countries, traditional attitudes towards disabilities are heavily influenced by historical contexts as well as religious beliefs. Yet more recently, these traditional attitudes have started to become more balanced with inclusivity but these traditional attitudes are still very much present. For example, in India, if someone has a learning disability or any disability for that matter then it links to karma and it is believed to be a punishment for their negative actions in a past life. Whereas in Japan, a learning disability brings a lot of shame on the family. Both of these cultural beliefs are rooted in certain historical and cultural narratives that are still present to this day. Nonetheless, it should be mentioned that Japan, whilst having stigmatising cultural traditions towards learning disabilities, it is making great strides towards becoming more inclusive. For example, Japan is developing accessible public transport as well as there are media campaigns to promote disability awareness. Furthermore, even in India where their traditional views stigmatise disabilities, there’s a growing movement in the country to empower and legally protect people with learning disabilities. For example, in 2016, India passed the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act and this legislation aims to protect people with disabilities against discrimination and give them equality. As well as the legalisation supports India’s advancement of various support systems and educational reforms and seeks to change how Indian society perceives learning disabilities and ultimately dismantles outdated stigma. Personally, whilst I do admit, it is good that the Asian perspective on learning disabilities aims to balance modern inclusion efforts with people’s right to follow a religion. A lot of the religious and historical contexts that influence public attitudes are harmful and negatively impact the lives of people with learning disabilities. Since if you grow up in Japan, for example, and society teaches you that you, the person with the learning disability, is bringing shame to your family. As well as if you can see your family being treated badly because of you, then that is definitely going to impact your self-esteem, your wellbeing and your mental health. Also, this cultural shame and people treating your child differently and the rest of your family differently because your child has a disability is going to take its toll. The parents might blame the child for having a disability and that will impact the parent-child relationship that we know from developmental psychology is so critical to outcomes in adulthood. I hope over time that these traditional views that stigmatise people and families with disabilities continue to change. On a more practical note, as an aspiring or qualified psychologist or another mental health professional, understanding how Asian culture impacts learning disabilities can be immensely useful. If you’re supporting a client from an Asian country with a learning disability and they’re experiencing a lot of shame then this might be an explanation. Then in your therapeutic work, you can explore, rewrite and challenge these cultural beliefs. As well as if you’re supporting a child with a learning disability and the parents from an Asian background are blaming the child, wanting to keep the therapy a secret or their engagement isn’t what you would expect. Maybe these traditional attitudes rooted in cultural and historical narratives might provide an explanation for you. Just some thoughts. On the whole, when it comes to how learning disabilities are perceived in Asia, attitudes coexist between inclusion and traditional beliefs, there are efforts to increase accessibility in urban planning and there is a growing legislative framework to support equality. Also, the media has a big role to play in changing the public’s perceptions of learning disabilities. What Are African Perspectives on Learning Disabilities? African perspectives on learning disabilities and disabilities are generally some of the most varied and diverse in the world. Sometimes this is a good thing because some countries and regions focus on the empowerment and supporting people with learning disabilities to become more independent. Whereas other regions do not work towards inclusivity in the slightest.  As a result, in many African countries, how cultures perceive disabilities can vary wildly from one region to the other. Yet generally speaking, the community plays the most important supporting role because the majority of African countries lack formal infrastructure for people with learning disabilities. Even though this is thankfully starting to change.  For instance, there are several grassroot organizations throughout Africa. Like in Uganda, there is the National Union of Women with Disabilities of Uganda (NUWODU) and this organisation works towards empowering women with disabilities, as well as advocating for their rights and fostering community support. Nonetheless, even though these countries are starting to develop more support, these African communities still face immense barriers on several fronts. For instance, these communities lack good quality healthcare, have limited access to education and there are low economic opportunities for people with disabilities.  These are major problems because you need good healthcare in place to give people with learning disabilities the support they need. Learning disabilities don't only impact a person's speech, reading and mental abilities. They also negatively impact their ability to walk, communicate and swallow. You need the expertise of healthcare professionals to recommend treatments, ideas on how to overcome the language and swallowing difficulties and more. Therefore, if you lack healthcare services then your ability to care and support the person with learning disabilities is greatly reduced.  Similar to limited access to education, if you're a parent or supporter of someone with a given condition you need to be able to learn how best to support them. You need to learn a lot yourself about the condition, how it impacts a child and how best to support them at different stages of their life. If you don't have the local resources or ability to educate yourself then you will struggle to support a person with learning disabilities.  When I want to learn something as an aspiring psychologist, I go online, look at websites and watch videos. If you don't have access to the internet, or if you don't have the technological skills to do research. Then again, you can't effectively support someone with a learning disability. Additionally, there are a wide range of cultural beliefs in African regions that sometimes hinder progress towards inclusion. Since in Africa, disabilities can be viewed as divine punishments or curses placed on individuals. This is a problem because no one wants to be associated or support someone punished by the gods and interfere with curses because it might negatively impact them too.  This is why it's important to focus on educating people as well as continue to challenge misconceptions about learning disabilities. Over time, this leads to African regions becoming more understanding and accepting. An aspiring or qualified psychologist, knowing about African perspectives on learning disabilities are useful because these cultural beliefs might explain treatment resistance, why the client might be all for the treatment but their social support network is resistant and the negative treatment from others might explain the low self-esteem and other negative mental health outcomes for the client.  On the whole, African perspectives to learning disabilities can be boiled down to there are strong community networks that support people with disabilities. And even though there are brilliant grassroot organizations that advocate for change, there are challenges and cultural beliefs that negatively impact perceptions. What Are Latin American Perceptions of Learning Disabilities? Now, the Latin America perspective on learning disabilities, and disabilities more generally, is something I really want to learn about. As a result, the main difficulty for Latin American countries when it comes to addressing disabilities is the immense struggle to overcome socioeconomic barriers. For instance, it is true that Brazil has passed several progressive laws that aim to support people with physical and learning disabilities. This is known as the Brazilian Law of Inclusion, or the LBI for short. This law aims to promote the fundamental freedoms and rights of people with disabilities in the country. As well as it encourages people with disabilities to get involved in society and social activities by making them more accessible. Nonetheless, part of me feels like this is a great example of a law being beyond brilliant in theory, but in practice, it isn't as effective as intended. This is because of the economic disparities as well as the different levels of implementation across different regions of Brazil. Since we know making places more accessible, giving people wheelchairs, talkers and other communication aids, all cost money. Money that is very hard to get in Brazil. Also, people with physical and learning disabilities experience a lot of barriers in employment and education in Brazil.  Again, as I spoke about in the above section, if you can't have an education then you cannot learn the skills you need to become independent and empowered. As well as your parents, family and other supporters cannot learn how best to help you. Also, they cannot get an education, get a good job and earn the money needed to support those with learning disabilities. Thankfully, there are signs that advocacy groups and social movements across Brazil, and the rest of Latin America, are becoming increasingly active in pushing for policy changes and raising awareness about disabilities. Therefore, they can make Latin America more inclusive.  Personally, similar to what I've mentioned before, being aware of the Latin American perspective is useful because whether or not if you have a client who directly comes from Latin America or has strong family connections to the continent. These can be useful explanations and social factors that can maintain psychological distress, or explain treatment resistance. For instance, parents of your client might not have the education level needed to fully understand how to support their child's learning, they might have a very, very low income and struggle to earn enough to support themselves and their child. As someone living in the United Kingdom, we have a good welfare system, so support is available. Not all countries have this level of support.  Additionally, another reason why learning the Latin American perspective is useful is because your client might not be from Latin America. Yet they could live in an area with a high Latin American population and the comments, discrimination and negative attitudes from other people might decrease the mental health of your client. For example, other people in the community might be bullying your client with a learning disability because they lack the education and therefore, understanding that they have a learning disability, it isn't their fault and they need support.  Just a thought. The final fact for this section is that the Latin American perspective is a healthy reminder for all of us that all physical health and mental health conditions are holistic in nature. You can try to support people with learning disabilities legally, but your support means little if you don't have the education, healthcare and accessibility plans in place to support them. This is why it's flat out critical that we always remember to work with other disciplines, other professionals and with the community and social support networks. We'll only be able to support a client with the best support if we work together. Ultimately, the Latin America perspective on learning disabilities can be summarized as varied with different levels of success. There are countries like Brazil that have the legal framework to protect people with disabilities from discrimination and empower them. Yet economic disparities impact their implementation. Then there are challenges for people in Latin America to have access to an education and employment. Yet there are increasing advocacy groups and social movements fighting for positive change.  What are the Scandinavian Perceptions of Learning Disabilities? I’ve saved my favourite perspective until last because I am so excited to share the Scandinavian perceptions on learning disabilities, and disabilities more generally. I enjoy a lot of Scandinavian ideas on topics ranging from mental health to offender rehabilitation and a whole host of other brilliant topics. Now, I get to learn even more about their perceptions about disabilities and I get to share it with all of you. This is going to be a lot of fun. As a result, Sweden, Norway, Denmark amongst other Scandinavian countries are often seen as the best in the world when it comes to their approach to disability. Since Scandinavian countries have robust welfare systems as well as inclusive policies in place, because for Scandinavian countries, it isn’t about just empowerment or giving disabled people equal rights to able people. In Scandinavia, people with disabilities, whether they’re physical or learning disabilities, are integrated into all facets of public life. I just want to stop there for a moment because that very basic idea is fascinating to me, and it shows a massive difference between the Scandinavian and the Western view on disabilities. The West might focus on inclusion and empowerment, but this is always thought about after the fact. For example, after a building was built and designed, after a school was created and after a housing project was designed. In the Western world, it is always Able People first and disabled people are always an afterthought. Therefore, the very idea that disabled people are thought about in the first place, I think it is amazing, positive and it’s actually heartwarming. In addition, Scandinavian countries focus on universal design principles so these environments as well as products are accessible to everyone, regardless of whether they have a disability or not, to the greatest possible extent. And this is what I want to focus on for a moment. Some critics would argue that there is no point thinking about disabled people from the start of a project because it is impossible to make it completely equal for them. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps that is false. Yet the entire point of becoming more inclusive and supporting people with disabilities is that we are trying. We are trying to make their lives better, empower them and we are trying to make them capable of participating and contributing to society as much as possible. If we can only get a little closer towards equality in a given project, then that is still fantastic. As long as we try to give people with disabilities the same opportunities as people without disabilities. Then that is okay. We have to try, and Scandinavian people understand this idea. This is something we should all be trying to understand better. Furthermore, in Sweden, there is the Swedish Discrimination Act and this includes direct support measures for people with disabilities and this ensures they have equal opportunities. Also, Sweden has a massive emphasis on educational inclusion so students with disabilities are integrated into regular classrooms and they’re supported by specialised staff as needed. That is mind-blowing to me as someone in the United Kingdom. I am speaking very generally here, but generally speaking in the United Kingdom, when we have someone with a learning disability, we rarely admit them to a mainstream school, or a “regular” classroom. Anyway, the very idea that we would keep students with learning disabilities in a regular classroom is rather insane or flat out weird in the United Kingdom. We just wouldn’t do it, and I do feel like this creates a lot of spare room for misconceptions, lies and even misinformation to be spread about people with learning disabilities. Therefore, I certainly think we can learn from Scandinavian countries about integrating people with disabilities in the education system, all aspects of society and make them just a normal part of society. A group of people without shame, without separation and without exclusion. On the whole, Scandinavian perceptions of learning disabilities highlight the importance of systemic support and these ensure practical inclusion at all levels of society. Also, Scandinavian countries focus on universal design principles so they are accessible to everyone, they have a strong welfare system to support individuals with disabilities, they focus on integration in education, as well as there is legislation to promote inclusion and equality. Clinical Psychology Conclusion As you’ve seen throughout today’s psychology podcast episode, across the world and its different cultures, there are a lot of different thoughts and feelings towards physical and learning disabilities. These cultural attitudes are influenced by historical, social and religious contexts, but despite these differences, there is, thankfully, a positive global trend towards fostering equality and inclusion for people with disabilities. Largely, this is because there is greater awareness and this increased awareness grows support for policies, wider social acceptance as well as community-based programmes. Personally, I’ve really enjoyed learning about different cultures, their contexts and how they perceive learning disabilities, amongst disabilities more generally for my own awareness as an aspiring psychologist. It’s given me new ideas, new perspectives and a greater understanding of the potential challenges and benefits that clients face in their wide social support networks. In addition, it is flat out critical that we learn about these global perspectives because to be able to be global citizens, it is important that all of us as aspiring or qualified psychologists or mental health professionals are able to recognise and respect cultural differences when working with people with disabilities. This understanding can lead to greater and more effective strategies in promoting mental health, physical health and any other therapeutic interventions we are doing with the client. As a result, an additional takeaway that all listeners and readers of the podcast can do is to start or continue to advocate for inclusive policies, support your local grassroot organisations and engage in cross-cultural dialogue and understanding so all of us can work towards improving the lives of people with disabilities everywhere. Also, I would add make sure you share your knowledge about disabilities with people, because knowledge empowers all of us to take active steps towards advocating for change within our local communities and beyond. For example, you could see what your mental health service, your employer or your local community is doing to support those with physical or learning disabilities. If you find something you like then support it, get involved and if there isn’t anything locally, make something. In my opinion, I understand that I have just asked a massive thing of all of you and you might be wondering what I’m doing. My job allows me to empower and educate people with learning disabilities every working day. Yet I am doing podcast episodes and sharing my knowledge and experience with other people too. Even if you learn one thing about a learning disability and share it with someone every week for 52 weeks (one year), you would have made a massive positive impact compared to doing nothing at all. Just a thought. What small action could you take today to improve the life of someone with a learning disability?   I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Gamification of Autism: A Guide to Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading Alnahdi, G. H., Saloviita, T., & Elhadi, A. (2019). Inclusive education in Saudi Arabia and Finland: pre‐service teachers’ attitudes. Support for learning, 34(1), 71-85. Artiles, A. J. (2023). Beyond responsiveness to identity badges: Future research on culture in disability and implications for response to intervention. In Mapping the field (pp. 310-331). Routledge. Grigorenko, E. L., Compton, D. L., Fuchs, L. S., Wagner, R. K., Willcutt, E. G., & Fletcher, J. M. (2020). Understanding, educating, and supporting children with specific learning disabilities: 50 years of science and practice. American psychologist, 75(1), 37. https://know-the-ada.com/cultural-perspectives-on-disability-from-various-countries/ Jansen-van Vuuren, J., & Aldersey, H. M. (2020). Stigma, acceptance and belonging for people with IDD across cultures. Current developmental disorders reports, 7(3), 163-172. Lipka, O., Khouri, M., & Shecter-Lerner, M. (2020). University faculty attitudes and knowledge about learning disabilities. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(5), 982-996. Moberg, S., Muta, E., Korenaga, K., Kuorelahti, M., & Savolainen, H. (2020). Struggling for inclusive education in Japan and Finland: teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education. European journal of special needs education, 35(1), 100-114. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! 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A lot of us think about career transitions and career changes during our working lives and especially towards the end and start of a new year. We consider what we want for the year ahead, where we want to be and what changes we want to make to our careers. This isn’t unique to psychology careers because everyone considers changes. Yet career changes are scary, intimidating and this fear can stop us from taking good opportunities and exploring what the job market has to offer us. Therefore, in this business psychology podcast episode, you’ll understand why is career change scary, what are the benefits of career transitioning with others and why social groups are critical during career changes. If you enjoy learning about careers, organisational psychology and social psychology, then you’ll love today’s episode. Today’s psychology podcast has been sponsored by Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers in Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology and More . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Brief Introduction To Career Changes I haven’t met a single person who hasn’t transitioned or changed career at some point in their life. My mum was a dental nurse for a few years and she loved it, then she changed her career when the rules changed and she’s been working in insurance for decades. My older brother started off in carpentry then he changed to something in construction and now he works for Southern Water maintaining the water system. Career change is simply part of life and that is hardly a bad thing. This is even more common and important for aspiring and qualified psychologists, because we all know the all-important assistant psychologist roles are next to impossible to get. This means the majority of aspiring psychologists need to start in a different career, build up their experience and then hopefully transition to the psychology career they’ve always wanted. I recently went to my graduation for my MSc in clinical psychology and from the conversations I had with other graduates, I am not alone in starting in non-psychology careers and hoping to transition over time. However, when we’re in the middle of a career change, it can be really disorienting, confusing and it can feel like we’re wandering through a dense forest without a map. This has a wide range of negative impacts on us that I’ll talk about later in this podcast episode. Yet it doesn’t matter if you’re switching industries, returning to the workforce after a long break or you’re stepping into an entirely new role. You are probably going to feel alone or doubt yourself. I was talking to a brilliant young woman who was working construction with her dad and brother. Another woman was working as a wellbeing practitioner and someone else was working as a neuro-something trainer. Some people are doing very well and other people are still struggling to find a psychology-related job, and that’s okay. Building upon this, when we’re in the middle of a career change, we tend to question and ask ourselves whether we’re the only person who feels unsure of their career change and whether we actually have the ability to make it to the other side. As an aspiring psychologist, this is definitely something that I’m concerned about. I really, really want a psychology job in the future because I love clinical psychology, I want to help people and I want to work in this amazing profession. And yes, I do acknowledge the profession has a lot of flaws but I want to work in clinical psychology regardless. Yet I do question whether I have the skills, the ability and the experience to ever break into this guarded profession that seems to be reserved for middle-class women. However, I know a lot of people can experience fear of failure, fear of judgment and fear of the unknown when it comes to a career change. This is normal, understandable and it’s okay that someone is feeling like this. On the whole, considering that our workplace culture celebrates self-reliance, we typically feel like we need to have all the answers. This is even more true if you come from a toxic workplace where any workplace mistake is seen as incompetence and you’re berated for it. I’ve heard a few horror stories like that over the years, especially from women. Therefore, one solution found by researchers is that we all might benefit from being able to ask for help as well as navigating career changes with other people. Why Do Career Changes Make Us Uncertain of Who We Are? Whenever we normally think about the challenges of career changes, we typically think about how they’ll impact our routines. I know as an author, podcaster and a million other things, any sort of career change will challenge my time and organisation even more. This is also true if you’re a parent, a carer or you do additional things outside of work (which I highly recommend you do. Your work being your life isn’t healthy). Yet career changes can also challenge our sense of self because according to Bridges’ model of transition published in 1991, career changes make it difficult to distinguish between internal transitions and external change. This means the “neutral zone” is psychologically challenging for us. This is the psychologically vulnerable period where our old identity has been removed and our new identity has yet to fully emerge. This is something I experienced shortly after leaving university and being a student ambassador. For six brilliant years, my identity was being a psychology student, researcher and a student ambassador. That identity got shredded after my last Outreach shift and because I was unemployed and didn’t have a clue what job I was going to get, my mental health dipped a little. I was unsure of who I was and what my identity would morph into because my new identity in my new job hadn’t emerged yet. In addition, during this psychologically vulnerable time, we can experience self-doubt, symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as uncertainty according to Goodman et al. (2006). This is even more common for people who experience layoffs, unemployment or they need to undergo a career change because of caring responsibilities. Also, according to Ibarra and Barbulescu (2010) identity discontinuity, when your current role doesn’t align with your sense of self, can continue to negatively impact your motivation and self-esteem. This is why group support can be so important during career changes. Why Can Groups Improve Your Confidence During Career Changes? Building upon what I mentioned earlier in the episode, one reason why I feel more confident about undergoing a career change in future is because I know how natural they are, a lot of people are interested in them and there is no shame in a career change. My point is that social groups give us a sense of normalisation, and this is especially true when it comes to career changes. In many healthy workplace environments, there is already a sense of “we’re in this together” and this can be applied to career changes too. I know that I am not the only teaching assistant wanting an out, looking for another job and will jump ship in the future. This helps to lessen my feeling of fear, like I am making a massive mistake and people will think less of me because of it. In addition, because social groups provide us with a sense of “we’re in this together”, this potentially creates a safe space for us to express the same fears about a career change that all of us have been secretly holding onto. For example, fears about whether we’re good enough, whether artificial intelligence will replace our skills so they aren’t relevant anymore, and whether you should go back to what you were doing before or try something new. We all have these fears and it is perfectly okay, understandable and healthy to express them. This is why undergoing a career change with other people can be useful because you can undergo this journey together. Building upon this, this is where co-regulation can come in because you and your fellow career-changers can create a safe, supportive group that allows you all to co-regulate. This is when your nervous system can stay calm because you’re with other people according to Porges (2011). Also, co-regulation allows you to stop only seeing yourself through the lens of self-doubt but through the strengths, insights as well as potential that other people see in you. Personally, I remember when I was feeling lost between me finishing my Masters and me finding my job. I was filled with self-doubt because I was getting assistant psychologist interviews, I was getting great feedback and lots of job rejections. I thought I couldn’t do this, I was a failure and I was never going to get a job. Yet everyone kept saying that I was good, I was kind, compassionate and clearly loved psychology. So I kept talking with university friends and family members, I focused and eventually I thankfully found a job. Forming supportive groups with other psychologists, graduates and friends can be a great idea. Especially, because you and your friends and peers can hype up each other and when someone has confidence in us, it’s so much easier for us to have confidence in ourselves. Why is Group Support A Protective Factor During A Career Change? A protective factor is something that acts as a buffer against stress as well as it helps us to cope more effectively, and research shows that group support is an effective protective factor during disruptive times (Cohen & Wills, 1985). I definitely think a career change, finishing university or becoming unemployed counts as a life disruption. This is why social groups are so important. Also, research, like Taylor (2011), shows that when people have supportive communities to rely on during major life changes, they report less psychological distress as well as greater wellbeing. This is why peer mentoring can be so effective, because Ensher et al. (2001) found that peer monitoring increases self-efficacy, opens more opportunities and provides emotional validation to employees. And being a part of a group with shared intentions can increase collective resilience and momentum. For example, Moen et al. (2008) found during a longitudinal study that women who were returning to work after caregiving and when they took part in a group-based re-entry programme reported stronger career identities and higher confidence compared to women who didn’t have these programmes. This applies to career changes because if you undergo a career change alone then your bouts of self-doubt, negative thoughts and fear will likely increase. Since you won’t have anyone to hype you up, no one to believe in you and no one will be able to spur you into action. Yet if you, your friends and maybe your peers want to undergo a career change at the same time then you can form a supportive group that can hype you up, inspire confidence when you have none and you can hold each other accountable. Personally, I definitely find the idea of being accountable to be flat out critical through the job hunt. When I was applying for jobs after my Masters, I will fully admit that I didn’t want to do it. I might have had rent, council tax and bills to pay on a house I wasn’t even living in (that’s a whole other story) so I needed the money, but the job hunt was just depressing. It was draining, I hated the job rejections and I hated feeling like I was nothing but a failure. Yet because my parents occasionally asked about jobs and they held me accountable because I lovingly wanted them off my back, they gave me the momentum to apply for jobs. If you and your friends form a supportive group, you can do the same for each other. And considering how hard finding a job is after university, I would really recommend towards the end of your BSc or MSc that you sit down with your friends, talk about wanting to form a supportive job-hunting group and you do it. I think this would have improved my mental health, my outlook and my confidence during my job hunt because I would have known I wasn’t alone. What Kinds of Groups Work To Support A Career Change? Throughout this podcast episode, I’ve mainly focused on the idea of a group of friends or peers coming together and forming a supportive community where they can support you, increase your confidence and you can check in with them from time to time. Yet there are other social groups too that might be useful during a career change. For example, a parent re-entry group so you can support each other in your return to work after caregiving, a one-off therapy support group, class or a focused retreat as well as a career transition circle for people changing careers. The most important things when it comes to social support during a career change are that the people come together with shared intentions, mutual respect and consistency. Since when we know we aren’t alone, it makes the prospect of finding a new job or changing careers a lot less scary. Business Psychology Conclusion As I mentioned near the beginning of the psychology podcast episode, at some point in our lives, all of us will want to change careers. Whilst traditional wisdom in the Western world would tell us to do everything by ourselves because the job market is competitive and by helping others we might allow them to succeed at the cost of our own, this isn’t true. We can only really change once we realise we need help and support from other people and that’s okay. Massive changes, like changing careers, are not meant to be done alone. This is why regardless of whether you’re changing careers, you’re re-entering the workforce after some timeout for whatever reason or if you’re starting up your own business, joining a group of likeminded people might be more useful, valuable and insightful than you could ever think of. Not only because you’re receiving support but because you’re supporting others too and that is wonderfully rewarding in its own right. I know sometimes in the race to become an assistant psychologist, a mental health professional or whatever psychology-related career we’re all striving for, we sometimes forget why we want it in the first place. We’re all so busy trying to write perfect cover letters, practice for interviews and more that we forget. However, seeing someone else, like a peer or friend, follow us in our psychology journey and see their excitement and delight when they get some success and they explain why they love clinical psychology or whatever area of psychology in a mock interview, it can be a powerful reminder of why we, ourselves, love this amazing, infuriating and sometimes elitist profession. And why we work hard every day to make our dreams of becoming a psychologist, a reality.   I really hope you enjoyed today’s business psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers in Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology and More . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Business Psychology References and Further Reading Applegate, J. M., & Janssen, M. A. (2022). Job mobility and wealth inequality. Computational Economics, 59(1), 1-25. Bhargava, A., Bester, M., & Bolton, L. (2021). Employees’ perceptions of the implementation of robotics, artificial intelligence, and automation (RAIA) on job satisfaction, job security, and employability. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 6(1), 106-113. Bridges, W. (1991). Managing transitions: Making the most of change. Perseus Books. Chao, G. T. (2009). Formal mentoring: Lessons learned from past practice. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40(3), 314–320. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012658 Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2), 310–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.98.2.310 Ensher, E. A., Thomas, C., & Murphy, S. E. (2001). Comparison of traditional, step-ahead, and peer mentoring on protégés’ support, satisfaction, and perceptions of career success. Journal of Business and Psychology, 15(3), 419–438. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007870600459 Ghosh, R., & Reio, T. G. (2013). Career benefits associated with mentoring for mentors: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83(1), 106–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.03.011 Goodman, J., Schlossberg, N. K., & Anderson, M. L. (2006). Counseling adults in transition: Linking practice with theory (3rd ed.). Springer. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/upward-spiral/202504/career-in-transition-heres-why-not-to-go-it-alone Ibarra, H. (2023). Working identity, updated edition, with a new preface: Unconventional strategies for reinventing your career. Harvard Business Press. Ibarra, H., & Barbulescu, R. (2010). Identity as narrative: Prevalence, effectiveness, and consequences of narrative identity work in macro work role transitions. Academy of Management Review, 35(1), 135–154. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.35.1.zok135 Moen, P., Kelly, E. L., & Huang, R. (2008). Fit inside the work–family black box: An ecology of the life course, cycles of control reframing. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81(3), 411–433. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317908X325450 Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company. Rachmad, Y. E. (2022). Career Development Theory. Taylor, S. E. (2011). Social support: A review. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of health psychology (pp. 189–214). Oxford University Press. van Hooft, E. A., Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D., Wanberg, C. R., Kanfer, R., & Basbug, G. (2021). Job search and employment success: A quantitative review and future research agenda. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106(5), 674. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

Even though failure is part of life, it can still hurt. For example, you can fail to pass an exam, you can fail a driving test and you might fail to get a date for a party. Everyone fails at things in life. Yet depending on your mindset towards failure, failure can decrease your self-esteem, increase your critical thoughts and it can even make you feel a little depressed. Therefore, by the end of this social psychology podcast episode, you'll learn why failure can hurt, how to recover after failure and more. If you're interested in social psychology, psychology of failure and more then this is a great episode for you.  Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Social Psychology: A Guide To Social and Cultural Psychology . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Why Can Failure Lead To Anxiety? As I mentioned in the introduction, whenever we experience failure, we can feel disheartened, anxious and we can even feel a little depressed as much as failure is part of life. For example, when I failed my driving test for the first three times, I got really anxious that I was never going to pass, that I would always be a failure and that I was useless. Another example is during my psychology undergraduate degree because I couldn’t seem to understand academic writing and I couldn’t achieve the 2:1 that I needed to be able to get onto a Master's, I felt useless, pathetic and I was anxious about my future. A final example is when I was struggling to find a job after graduation, I was anxious that I wasn’t going to be able to become a psychologist, I felt pathetic and I was so depressed. Failing to find a job is so soul-crushing and depressing and just awful. Nonetheless, in the end, I did past my driving test and I love driving. I did achieve my 2:1 and I’ve now completed my MSc in Clinical Psychology and I did manage to find a job. In addition, as an aspiring or qualified psychologist, you will fail at some point in your career. You will probably fail to get onto the doctorate of clinical psychology the first time, you will probably fail in getting the first assistant psychologist role you apply for, and you will probably fail an interview or two (or more) in your career. Failure is part of the human experience. Especially in a career as competitive and difficult as clinical psychology. As you can see, failure happens to everyone, and ultimately what determines our journey towards success is how we handle failure. That’s why in the rest of this psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn a wide range of strategies to help you overcome anxiety and recover after failure. How Can Practising Self-Compassion Help You Recover After Failure? Treating yourself with understanding and kindness after failure can help you recover and bounce back quicker, because this decreases your self-criticism and negative self-talk. These negative thoughts only prolong your feelings of anxiety, hurt and failure. This is why it’s important to extend the same support and empathy that you would towards a best friend or loved one, because it will help you to feel better so you can keep trying. This applies to aspiring and qualified psychologists because whether you’ve failed a job interview, failed to get onto the doctorate or you’ve failed to get a specific grade on an assignment. It’s important that you’re kind to yourself and understanding. This is what I should have done during my undergraduate degree. Instead of seeing myself as a useless, pathetic idiot who was too dumb to do a Master's, I should have been kind and understanding. This would have decreased my pain, my hurt and anxiety so I could bounce back and focus on doing better next time. How Does Recognising and Accepting Your Emotions Help You Recover After Failure? When you recognise and understand that disappointment, anxiety and frustration are normal after failure, then you can give yourself permission to experience them. This is much healthier than suppressing your feelings because this can stop you from moving forward. This is why I always allow myself to experience all my emotions that I’m experiencing, and sometimes I will just allow myself to lie on my bed for five or ten minutes and feel everything that I’m feeling. This gives me permission and the space to process my emotions so I can move forward and basically crack on with my life. Moreover, as aspiring or qualified psychologists, this can help us recover after failure because whenever you don’t get a job, you fail at a job interview and you fail to get onto the doctoral course of your dreams. You are going to feel bad, frustrated and anxious about the future. You need to be compassionate and allow yourself to feel these emotions, do not suppress them and accept these emotions are understandable, valid and a normal part of the process. This allows you to get back up, fight again and move forward after failure. How Does Embracing Failure as a Chance For Growth Help You Recover After Failure? I always see failure as a chance to grow as a professional, as a person and as a friend so I can be better for next time. Therefore, seeing failure as a chance for growth is a healthy mindset shift because it allows you to see that failure is a stepping stone towards success. As well as our brains contain a lot of neurocircuitry that are dedicated to increasing our dopamine levels after failure, so we feel motivated and we want to try again. As a result, if we embrace failure as a stepping stone towards success and personal growth, then we become more positive and less anxious after failure. This mindset shift allows us to become more positive and recover quicker after failure. Personally, when I went through the awful process of trying to get a job after my graduation, I flat out hated all the failed job applications, all the rejections and all the failed interviews. I went through so much failure, I was depressed and I was so drained by the entire process. Yet I always saw each failure as a stepping stone and something to reflect and learn from. Which is what we will talk about now. How Does Reflecting and Learning Help You Recover From Failure? Taking the time to reflect and learn from your failures can be a powerful step towards recovery after failure because if you analyse what went wrong, identify factors within your control then you can make adjustments for the future. For example, I always fail at interviews whenever I am asked something along the lines of “tell me about yourself”. I hate that interview question with an utter passion, but I understand that my interview preparation is very much in my control, so I need to practise this and learn from this failure. That is why I’m going to do a podcast episode on how to answer this interview question in the future. This will give me a chance to reflect on my experience and failure, learn how to be better and this will increase my likelihood of not making this failure again. This makes me feel hopeful, excited and more relaxed about future attempts too. As a result, as aspiring and qualified psychologists, I would highly suggest that you take a few moments to think of your past failures and reflect on them. What could you change so the failures don’t repeat themselves? How could you learn from them? What skills can you learn and develop to prevent the failures repeating themselves? And dear listener, giving up is not an option. Keep trying, keep learning and keep moving forward. How Can Seeking Support Help You Recover After Failure? After you’ve experienced a failure, it can be lovely, affirming and just heartwarming to reach out to supportive friends, loved ones and others who can support you. Sometimes you just need to rant at understanding others who know what it’s like and sometimes you don’t want advice, you just need to rant. Sometimes after a tough day, a failure or whenever you’re feeling bad, having someone to support you and talk to is exactly what you need. As aspiring and qualified psychologists, if your working environment is a safe space then talk to your peers, your friends and let them know your frustrations and how you’re feeling. Never bottle it up and you’re probably find that they have had similar feelings to you and it just takes one person to open up to put the rest of the team at ease.  As well as I understand lots of assistant psychologists form supportive groups so you can all talk about, support each other and vent your frustrations about the challenges of getting onto the doctorates or taking the next step in your psychology journey. In addition, when it comes to failure, you might want to work with a reputable coach who can help you to achieve your goals. A lot of them offer a free consultation and you should check if they have a track record of success, and this can be really good for some people. For example, my ex-boyfriend went to a work coach and he always said that it was really helpful, useful and insightful. I remember how he always hated mock interviews and watching himself (because they were recorded) were just hell on earth for him, but they were useful. As aspiring and qualified psychologists, there are a lot of great ways how you can seek support. I am aware of a few mentorship programmes, memberships and other coaching provided by psychology professionals to help you progress in your career. I know the wonderful Dr Marianne Trent does her psychology membership and that is meant to be brilliant, so there are options for you to seek support, learn and develop so you can recover after failure. How Can Learning From Successful People Help You Recover After Failure? Learning from successful people can help you recover after failure because you can study their paths to success, get insights from their resilience and apply their strategies to your own life. You can do this by reading their books, following them on social media and listen to them on podcasts. This helps you recover after failure because you can see that your goal is achievable, you can get inspiration from them and you can learn from their mistakes so you don’t make them yourself. I would add here that it’s important to acknowledge that you need to follow your own path, because you are your own person, you have your own background and life circumstances. This is something I do a lot in my author life because I flat out love USA Today Bestsellers Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I have learnt so much from them over the years, I have a working relationship with them and they are amazing people. Yet I understand I cannot copy everything they do because we live in different countries, we have different careers and our social worlds are very different. This is why it’s important to pick and choose what you learn from them. If I apply this to psychology for a moment, you all know that I am a massive fan of Dr Marianne Trent, but we are different people so I cannot copy everything from her to get her career. For example, I’m a fiction author, she’s prepared to move across the country to chase her psychology dreams and she was willing to commute for two hours a day for a psychology job. I am not. Therefore, as much as I want her career in the end, I have to take a different route and focus on what makes me happy. Just something I think about. How Can Setting Realistic Goals Help You Recover After Failure? When you break your goals down into smaller, more manageable chunks that align with what you’re capable of as well as your resources. This helps you to recover after failure because it makes everything seem a lot less daunting, overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. Also, this helps you to set realistic goals for yourself so you can avoid any unneeded pressure and anxiety about reaching unattainable levels of success that are outside of your current abilities and resources at this moment in time. Furthermore, it’s important that you celebrate your progress along the way, even if it’s a bit of progress that you perceive as small. It is still a good step in the right direction towards your goal. A personal example of this is I understand that I am not going to become a clinical or educational psychologist anytime soon. Yet I can continue to work in education, develop my clinical experience and learn more about clinical and educational psychology so I can progress in my psychology journey. This attitude of wanting to slow down, focus on small steps and learning over time helps to give me confidence, it takes the pressure off and I am a lot less anxious about meeting my goal. On the whole, sometimes a massive reason for your failure in the first place is because your goal was too big and unattainable at this moment in time. How Can Embracing A New Approach Help You Recover After Failure? You all understand that we cannot keep doing the exact same thing and expecting different results. Therefore, after a failure, whether it is a job application, a job interview or you trying to show your psychological knowledge on a doctoral application, you might need a new approach to get the result that you want. Instead of you falling into the same trap that gets you to use the same thought processes and hoping beyond hope that you will magically get a different result. This is why it’s important to adopt a radically new approach after failure because this helps you to unlock new opportunities and hopefully avoid the same failures and mistakes again. To do this, you can challenge yourself to embrace the exact opposite way of thinking, take risks and ask yourself “why not?”. This helps you to flip the mental script, consider other points of view and it opens you up to new ideas and solutions to your difficulties. Also, you can do this by challenging your beliefs, your opinions and explore different angles. For instance, I used to be dead set on the idea that I need to become a clinical psychologist because that was the only thing I wanted in my psychology career. Yet as I opened my mind up towards exploring educational psychology, I have to admit that this might be a better fit for me given my skills, my years of experience and what I’ve achieved in these areas. This has helped me to feel less like a failure in my psychology journey. That is just one example. Another example is I used to avoid researching the “tell me about yourself” interview question because I didn’t think it was important, it was a waste of my time and it was pointless. Yet as I found out, it was silly of me to go into psychology job interviews, give my same bad answers and expect different results. That is why I’m taking the new approach where I focus on how to answer these questions really well. To apply this point more generally, aspiring and qualified psychologists can use this knowledge because as reflective practitioners, we always need to be thinking, reflecting and opening ourselves up to new ways of doing things. Therefore, I highly encourage you to think about your failures, be it a job interview, a job application or maybe even a clinical situation, and question whether you need a new approach to avoid the same mistake happening ever again. On the whole, as you can see, when it comes to recovering after failure, it’s important that you have the ability, or at least cultivate it, so you can challenge the status quo, you’re open to new ideas and you explore new areas. This is the only way how you’re going to be able to unlock new perspectives, find opportunities and forge a path towards your goal and definition of success. How Can Staying Motivated and Persistent Help You Recover After Failure? By continuing to be persistent and motivated after failure, it can help you recover because it reminds you that failure isn’t a permanent state. It is just a single moment in time. Yes, it might be a painful moment in time and failure can hurt you, make you feel anxious and make you feel bad. Yet by staying motivated and focusing on your strengths and past achievements, this will help you to cultivate a positive mindset. In turn, this allows you to bounce back and recover quicker after failure. As well as this allows you to use the power of dopamine to propel yourself forward so you can continue your journey towards success. I apply this to my everyday life because I understand at a deep level now over the past few months that becoming a psychologist really is such a long journey for normal people. Unless you are gifted enough with the right living situation, good mental health and a lot of money so you can do the years of unpaid work experience that is required of you, then becoming a psychologist will take years. And that’s okay. That fact and simple realisation no longer makes me feel like a failure, useless and pathetic. Instead it frees up my mental energy so I can focus on learning, being positive and doing things that I enjoy instead of ruminating over the unfairness of clinical psychology. Since rumination doesn’t get me towards my goals. Learning, being happy and moving forward, that is what moves me closer towards my psychology goals. As a result, as an aspiring or qualified psychologist, you need to focus on feeling your emotions, accepting them and finding a way to stay motivated and persistent. Essentially, never stop working towards your psychology goals, but look after yourself too. Why Can Practising Self-Care Help You Recover After Failure? A final way to help you recover after failure is to practice self-care because you need to take care of your mental and physical health by engaging in self-care activities. These are activities that promote relaxation, like mindfulness, exercise and hobbies that make you happy. As well as maintaining a healthy and balanced diet, getting enough, consistent sleep and avoiding self-sabotaging behaviour are all important as well. If we focus on self-sabotaging behaviours for a moment. It isn’t uncommon for someone to start sabotaging themselves after a failure as a form of self-punishment for the failure. For example, excessive drinking, overeating and self-sabotage. These behaviours are driven by negative emotions as well as a lack of self-compassion and all the other strategies that we’ve learnt in this episode. Therefore, it’s important to recognise these maladaptive and destructive patterns of behaviour and replace them with useful behaviours that are going to get you closer towards your goals. Personally, when I kept failing to find a psychology job after my graduation, I made sure that I engaged in self-care activities to protect my mental health. Like, reading, writing, watching good programmes that I enjoyed, hanging out with friends amongst others. You need to do what makes you happy. As well as even now as I have a full-time job, my time is a lot more limited but I still make sure to practise self-care by listening to audiobooks, writing, running my business, learning about psychology and talking to peers and friends. You need to find out what makes you happy and incorporate it as a non-negotiable in your life. On the whole, engaging in self-care practices can support your physical and mental health and this helps you recover faster after failure. Social Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, I am really pleased that we’ve learnt about how to recover after failure, because failure isn’t nice. Failure makes us feel pain, anxious and even a little depressed even though failure is a part of life. Yet failure isn’t a problem and makes us feel bad, it is our response to failure that decreases our self-esteem and mental health. Therefore, by having a positive growth mindset and you see failure as a chance to reflect, grow and develop as a person, it can help you recover after failure so you can move on, work towards your goals and hopefully thrive. Here's a little reminder of the ten strategies to recover after failure that we’ve spoken about today: ·       Practice self-compassion ·       See failure as a chance for growth ·       Reflect and learn after failure ·       Recognise, process and accept your emotions ·       Seek support after failure ·       Set realistic goals for yourself ·       Learn from successful people ·       Practice self-care ·       Stay motivated and persistent ·       Take a new approach   I hope you enjoyed today’s social psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Social Psychology: A Guide To Social and Cultural Psychology . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Social Psychology References and Further Reading Balaji, M. S., & Sarkar, A. (2013). Does successful recovery mitigate failure severity? A study of the behavioral outcomes in Indian context. International Journal of emerging markets, 8(1), 65-81. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/neuroscience-in-everyday-life/202307/10-strategies-to-conquer-anxiety-after-failure Knepper, R. A., Tellex, S., Li, A., Roy, N., & Rus, D. (2015). Recovering from failure by asking for help. Autonomous Robots, 39(3), 347-362. Nikolić, N., Jovanović, I., Nikolić, Đ., Mihajlović, I., & Schulte, P. (2019). Investigation of the factors influencing SME failure as a function of its prevention and fast recovery after failure. Entrepreneurship Research Journal, 9(3). I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

For the past few months, I've been working as a teaching assistant in a special educational needs school and whilst there are lots of psychological reflections and lessons I could talk about, there is one I want to focus on. The link between anxiety and diabetes. This relationship is something I've seen firsthand multiple times as a teaching assistant and as an aspiring psychologist, I always enjoy learning about the relationship between psychological experiences, like anxiety, and how they impact our physical health like diabetes. Therefore, by the end of this biological psychology podcast episode, you'll learn how does anxiety impact diabetes, why does this happen and more. If you enjoy learning about the mind-body connection, clinical psychology and biopsychology, then this will be a brilliant episode for you.  Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Biological Psychology.  Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Why Are We Talking About The Impact Of Anxiety On Diabetes? There are a few reasons aspiring and qualified psychologists need to be aware of the link between stress, anxiety and diabetes. Firstly, you might be working in an anxiety service and you see the stress of the anxiety combined with the diabetes is maintaining the client's anxiety. The client is worried about developing diabetes complications, they're worried about their constantly high glucose levels and the diabetes medical professionals aren't sure what to do because the high glucose levels are caused by anxiety. Therefore, as part of the clinical work and the psychoeducation part of the intervention, we would need to educate the client about the link, so they understand if we decrease their anxiety, their diabetes should be easier to manage too.  We cannot do this vital psychoeducation unless we fully understand the relationship ourselves. We'll discuss some other benefits of reducing anxiety for diabetes later in the episode to.  Secondly, if you want to get a job in clinical health psychology or be a part of a psychology team in a diabetes service, then you need to understand and be able to explain how psychological experiences impact physical health. As a result, by understanding the relationship between anxiety and diabetes, you'll be in a better position to write better job applications and give good interview answers. How Does Stress and Anxiety Impact Diabetes? Stress and anxiety impact diabetes because whenever you’re feeling stressed or threatened (a factor that makes you feel anxious), your body reacts by activating your fight-or-flight response. When this happens, your body releases the stress hormones, cortisol as well as adrenaline into your blood and this causes your breathing rate to increase. In turn, this leads to increases in blood sugar levels. In addition, it’s important to note that the increased glucose levels from stress can lead to other long-term problems. Most importantly, this includes when you become burnt out, tired and you become physically and mentally exhausted so your diabetes becomes harder to manage. Since what I’m learning about diabetes management is you seriously need to pay attention to the carbs in your food, how much insulin you need, how much insulin you’re actually putting into your needle and so on. As well as you need to remember to prime the needle, test it to ensure there are no air bubbles in the insulin and that you count to about ten when injecting yourself with insulin to ensure the full dose was delivered. This all requires a lot of mental energy, focus and to be able to do this, you need to be in a good place. Diabetes management gets a thousand times harder if you have negative mental health, you’re burnt out and you lack the ability to focus. Furthermore, it’s important to note that people with Type 1 diabetes have a more varied response to stress on their glucose levels. For example, typically stress leads to increased glucose levels, but in Type 1 Diabetes, it can lead to decreased levels too. As a result, to apply this knowledge to aspiring or qualified psychologists, we can use this knowledge in our clinical work by explaining to clients what’s happening to their bodies when they become anxious with the stress hormones. Then we can explain how this has a knock-on effect for their diabetes, and the linking of their anxiety and symptoms to their diabetes might actually be a useful way to give them a tangible example that will aid their understanding of the mind-body connection. As well as you might be able to use diabetes management as a realistic goal that the client is motivated to work towards, and increase therapeutic engagement too. How Does Mental Health Impact Diabetes Management? In late 2024, the International Diabetes Foundation found that 77% of their 1,880 survey sample said that their diabetes diagnosis caused them depression, anxiety or another mental health outcome. As well as 55% of participants reported a fear of needles, 58% of participants have experienced stigma and discrimination because of their diabetes and 79% of participants developed diabetes burnout because of the strain and daily demands of diabetes treatment and management. Now, this is why aspiring and qualified psychologists are so useful because all of these difficulties are not medical in the slightest. A psychologist is the best professional for a client with diabetes to talk about their anxiety, depression and their burnout. As a result of a psychologist can work with the client to develop strategies, techniques and adaptive coping mechanisms to decrease their burnout and the negative mental health impacts of treatment. A medical professional cannot. This is why it’s important for psychologists to become aware of diabetes, so we can help people with the condition, help them thrive and give them back control of their lives. Also, this will allow the client to live with their condition instead of their condition controlling their lives. In addition, psychologists are brilliant for helping people treat, challenge and overcome their fears. When it comes to diabetes, psychologists can help people overcome their fear of needles. Perhaps they might use graded exposure, and this is only an idea, maybe a client would start off talking about needles, then seeing a cartoon image of a needle then an image of a real needle and then a video of a needle and so on until you start handling real needles to overcome your fear. Furthermore, 75% of participants reported that diabetes burnout led to them stopping or interrupting their treatment and management because they were feeling overwhelmed or stressed. This is very dangerous because this can lead to the glucose levels being unregulated, them dropping and skyrocketing uncontrollably and if you don’t counteract the low or high levels, then this can lead to fatal complications. For example, a diabetic coma and death. This is why as aspiring or qualified psychologists, we absolutely need to support people with diabetes to prevent burnout, empower them to look after their own health and give them tips and tricks to manage their mental health. Otherwise, they might burn out, stop their treatment and potentially experience very deadly consequences. This is even more important when we find out that 75% of people with diabetes want more psychological and social support from their healthcare team. Psychologists are some of the best professionals to deliver this critical work that clients desperately need. How To Recognise Stress in Diabetics? In a moment, I’ll talk about some of the ways you can know if stress is affecting your glucose levels, but first, we need to understand how you recognise stress. This knowledge will allow you to understand what you’re looking for when you’re monitoring your stress levels. Therefore, we probably know already that stress can directly impact your mental and physical health, and there are several signs of stress. For instance, some physical signs of symptoms of stress can include sleeping too much or too little, fatigue, general feelings of illness, headaches as well as stomach aches. Other signs of stress can include you becoming restless, anxious, depressed, unmotivated or irritable. As well as stress can cause you to engage in a range of unhealthy behaviours as you try to manage your stress. For example, you drink alcohol to excessive levels, you act out in anger, you eat too little or too much, you withdraw from your friends and family members as well as you smoke. Finally for this section, it’s important for aspiring and qualified psychologists to be aware of the signs of stress because our own self-knowledge is very, very poor. This has been confirmed by multiple social psychology studies, so sometimes we might miss the signs that we are stressed. Yet we might be supporting a client who is telling us about these signs but they don’t realise they’re stressed. This knowledge allows us to gently point out “you might be stressed”. How Can Diabetics Know If Stress Is Affecting Their Glucose Levels? You might be working with a client who suspects their anxiety is impacting their glucose levels and they’re not sure, so they’re asking you. Personally, I would always refer them to ask their diabetes healthcare team if you are not already apart of it. The diabetic specialists will always be more knowledgeable and qualified to answer. Yet just for your own awareness and knowledge, this next section is going to be very useful. If you or your client suspects their stress is impacting their glucose levels, you could get them to keep track of additional information of their stress. This includes the date, what they were doing and how intense the stress was, because this will help you both to understand what’s causing the stress. Then once you understand the cause, you can address it in therapy or in your own time. For example, you might be extra stressed on a Monday morning before you go to work and this suggests that you have work-related stress that needs to be dealt with. In addition, because people are keeping track of their glucose levels, the possible lifestyle factors that can contribute to stress and how their glucose levels respond, a person might notice that their glucose levels are regularly higher than their target range. This can cause them additional stress because they’re worried about diabetes-related complications and then the stress causes their glucose levels to rise. This becomes a vicious cycle. On the whole, keeping track of stress, lifestyle factors that contribute to stress and your glucose levels helps you to understand patterns. Then you can work on how to address these difficulties with a professional. How to Reduce Stress for Diabetic People? Now that you’ve been monitoring your stress patterns and you’ve worked out a few factors that contribute to your stress and higher glucose levels, what are some ways to reduce stress? Some ways to reduce your stress levels and hopefully decrease your glucose levels can include exercising regularly because this releases hormones into your bloodstream that make you feel good, so your stress levels and hormones decrease. I also found out tonight that my mum might be diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes so I was researching it and explaining it to her, and exercising regularly is a critical part of Type 2 Diabetes management. Some other ways to reduce stress for diabetics is to spend time with loved ones, reduce your caffeine intake and avoid known stressors, like high-stress social situations. This helps you to self-regulate and decrease your stress response so the body isn’t pumping adrenaline and cortisol into your bloodstream. This should decrease your glucose levels as a result. In addition, it’s useful to practice mindfulness techniques as well as take part in relaxing activities. This can be yoga, but it can be any activity that brings you joy and helps you to relax. It can include listening to music, going for a walk or playing with your dog. Clinical Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, I am really pleased that we’ve learnt how stress and anxiety impact diabetes, because this was a lot of fun for me. Since it is always great to see how psychological experiences can impact our physiology. This is why I find psychology so fascinating, interesting and just so much fun. Just as a small recap at the end of the episode, stress and anxiety impact diabetes because whenever you’re feeling stressed or threatened (a factor that makes you feel anxious), your body reacts by activating your fight-or-flight response. When this happens, your body releases the stress hormones, cortisol as well as adrenaline into your blood and this causes your breathing rate to increase. In turn, this leads to increases in blood sugar levels. Whether you or a loved one or friend are living with diabetes, or you’re an aspiring or qualified psychologist working with a client with diabetes, you now have the knowledge to understand how diabetes can cause anxiety and how anxiety and stress can impact diabetes management. This is critical knowledge to understand, because psychologists can be an important part of the puzzle when it comes to diabetes treatment. Ultimately, this knowledge can help us support a client with diabetes so they can live a full, happy and productive life and most importantly, they can thrive.   I really hope you enjoyed today’s biology psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Biological Psychology.  Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Biological Psychology References and Further Reading Bombaci, B., Torre, A., Longo, A., Pecoraro, M., Papa, M., Sorrenti, L., ... & Salzano, G. (2024). Psychological and clinical challenges in the management of type 1 diabetes during adolescence: a narrative review. Children, 11(9), 1085. Diabetes and mental health. (2024).https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/living-with/mental-health.html Diabetes impacts the mental well-being of 3 in 4 people with the condition. (2024).https://idf.org/news/diabetes-hidden-burden/ Franquez, R. T., de Souza, I. M., & Bergamaschi, C. D. C. (2023). Interventions for depression and anxiety among people with diabetes mellitus: Review of systematic reviews. PLoS One, 18(2), e0281376. Fraser, E. E., Ogden, K. J., Radford, A., Ingram, E. R., Campbell, J. E., Dennis, A., & Corbould, A. M. (2023). Exploring the psychological wellbeing of women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM): increased risk of anxiety in women requiring insulin. A prospective longitudinal observational pilot study. Health psychology and behavioral medicine, 11(1), 2170378. Harikrishnan S, et al. (2023). Role of lifestyle and stress on diabetes mellitus: A case-control study.https://biomedpharmajournal.org/vol16no2/role-of-lifestyle-and-stress-on-diabetes-mellitus-a-case-control-study/ https://www.healthline.com/health/diabetes-and-stress I'm so stressed out! Fact sheet. (n.d.).https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/so-stressed-out-fact-sheet Ingrosso DMF, et al. (2023). Stress and diabetes mellitus: Pathogenetic mechanisms and clinical outcome.https://karger.com/hrp/article/96/1/34/841550/Stress-and-Diabetes-Mellitus-Pathogenetic Mersha, A. G., Tollosa, D. N., Bagade, T., & Eftekhari, P. (2022). A bidirectional relationship between diabetes mellitus and anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of psychosomatic research, 162, 110991. Sharma K, et al. (2022). Stress-induced diabetes: A review.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9561544/ I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

People with ADHD typically struggle to get started with different tasks and this can really impact their ability to do things at work, home and school. Yet why does ADHD make it difficult to get started? In this clinical psychology podcast episode, you'll learn how ADHD impacts people's ability to process time, how their brain works and how we can support people with ADHD to start tasks and thrive. If you enjoy learning about ADHD, mental health support and working with neurodivergence then this will be a great episode for you. Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Introduction To Psychotherapies: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Types of Psychotherapies . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Why Does ADHD Make It Difficult To Get Started? Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) makes it difficult to get started because ADHD impacts how the person processes time, execution as well as motivation. Also, starting tasks is known as initiation and this is negatively impacted by ADHD. Hence, making it really hard to get started on tasks. For example, my ex-partner used to say they would stare at their assignment for hours wanting to do work but struggling to get started. A former friend of mine said when him and his boyfriend went to the library together, he would take ages to start studying and typically, by the time his boyfriend wanted to leave, he was only just getting started. A final example is another former friend used to struggle to get assignments done because they would do everything they possibly could to avoid assignments because they couldn't get started.  This is how the ADHD brain works and it doesn't make the person lazy, stupid or anything negative. This is simply how their brain works and we need to support them instead of criticising them. What is Initiation in Cognitive Psychology? Initiation is your ability to independently start an activity or task, and for people with ADHD, there is a gap between wanting to start and actually getting started. This isn’t because the person with ADHD lacks motivation, can’t be bothered or they’re being lazy. It is because there are neurological differences between them and people without ADHD that impact their dopamine regulation. According to MacDonald et al. (2024), dopamine regulation is important in our perception of time and prioritisation, and these are critical in our ability to get started or initiation. In addition, this negatively impacted dopamine regulation seen in people with ADHD leads them to feel stuck even when they understand what and how they need to do a given task. For example, a young boy who I’m working with at the time of writing, he knows exactly how to do long multiplication but because he’s off his ADHD medication, he felt stuck and he couldn’t get started even though he point-blank said to me he knew what he needed to do. Also, the dopamine dysregulation causes people with ADHD to become overwhelmed when making decisions, they don’t know where to start and they stay away from tasks that feel too boring or too large or tasks that will take a long time. One example of this was a former friend of mine who would always avoid doing their university coursework. It wasn’t because they were unmotivated, they were dim or they didn’t understand it. They didn’t want to get started because the coursework would take too long, they were large pieces of coursework and it would take a long time. Another consequence of this dopamine dysregulation is that people with ADHD need an absolute deadline or a “last-minute rush” to get anything done. For instance, another former friend of mine would honestly try to get their essays and coursework done a month before, but they just couldn’t. They would end up getting it done within a week before the deadline because it was how their brain worked. However, the difficulty that these consequences cause is that the feelings of procrastination and inability to start tasks and activities can cause low self-esteem and a cycle of shame. As well as to the outside world, it might look like the person isn’t achieving anything and they’re being lazy, but in reality and on the inside, the person with ADHD is fighting a massive battle. Personally, this is why I had so much respect for my ex-partner, because even though they had ADHD, they would sit staring at their laptop or their coursework for hours just trying to get their brain to comply with their desire to get the coursework done. I respect that because they’re trying and they’re attempting to overcome their inability to start tasks. Moreover, I think as aspiring and qualified psychologists, I think for us, this information helps us to educate ourselves so we can challenge our own biases. There might be times when we look at people with ADHD and think they’re being lazy, they’re not trying and if “only” they tried harder they could succeed. When these thoughts happen, we need to catch ourselves, be kind to ourselves and just remind ourselves that people with ADHD aren’t lazy, this is a part of their condition that we need to support them with. In addition, this knowledge can be useful to us because we might be supporting a client who is criticising, berating and having relationship difficulties with someone with ADHD because they think they’re lazy. This knowledge about ADHD helps us to gently educate the client about the impacts of ADHD and we can hopefully support the client whilst they see ADHD isn’t a problem. It's just a thought on how we can apply this information in our clinical work. Finally, for this section, this information about ADHD and initiation can be useful to teaching assistants and anyone who works with children with ADHD. It helps us to be compassionate towards them and supportive, so we don’t tell them off for not doing their work, and instead we focus on how to support them to get started, do their work and learn. Three Strategies to Help People With ADHD Get Started I always like to give you practical tips and reflections in my podcast episodes, so in the rest of this episode, I’ll give you three tips to help people with ADHD to get started, how they apply to aspiring and qualified psychologists and teaching assistants. Why Can A Consistent Routine Help Someone with ADHD to Get Started? Creating a consistent routine helps someone with ADHD to get started because it helps the person not have to think about what needs to be done every day. This means they have to spend less mental effort and energy on their routine and this frees up their energy to focus on remembering things and getting activities and tasks done. In addition, this technique works because we understand that the ADHD brain struggles with self-direction and remembering “what comes next”. Therefore, if you have a consistent routine then this reduces the amount of energy needed to start an activity or task (MacDonald et al., 2023). To apply this in a practical context, for a young child, it’s useful to have consistent morning, after-school and bedtime routines. Due to this ensures that the sequence of events remains the same every day so there are no new things to adjust to so they can focus on getting things done instead of dealing with the adjustment. For teenagers as well as young adults, their consistent routine can include placing certain items in certain places so they can easily be picked up in the morning. For example, even though I don’t have ADHD (probably and that is slightly up for debate), every evening before I go to bed, I make sure that my glasses are in the same position, that my supplements and tablets are in a certain place and more so the next morning, I can just get up and go instead of searching for these important items. Then for adults and parents, a consistent routine might include making the lunches at night and setting everything up that they’re going to need for the next day the night before. Applying this to aspiring and qualified psychologists, this technique can be a useful activity to do with clients so we can sit with them, talk about their routines and get them to plan their routines. If they’re resistant to the idea then we can try something small in the beginning, because the very act of making a routine is something new so this will be difficult for them to start. We might also want to encourage some kind of reward to increase their behavioural activation so they start doing their new routine and over time, it will become habit and hopefully the client can see the positive impact this is having on their life. How does the “Just Five Minutes” Strategy Help People With ADHD to Get Started? When a person with ADHD is struggling to get started, if you get them to tell themselves that they can just work on this activity or task for five minutes then this can help the task feel more doable, manageable and it can start movement on the task. This works because it helps to make the task feel small and this creates momentum. Once the student or person has momentum and they’re starting on the task and the five-minute timer is finished. They can see how they feel and they will probably continue the task so they keep going and going until the task is finished. Or if they do stop after five minutes then they’ve still achieved five minutes more than they have before, and that is an achievement. Then they can keep chipping away at the task in five-minute chunks until it’s done. Again, applying this to aspiring or qualified psychologists, we might be working with a client who’s ADHD is causing them clinically significant levels of distress. They might be struggling to do work at their day job, struggling to complete coursework and their work and school life might be suffering because of it. Yet introducing this strategy to a client’s life can be very impactful, useful and it can make previously “impossible” tasks seem more doable so they can hopefully practise it, and their work and school life might get easier. How does A Body Double or Turning on Music Help People with ADHD to Get Started? When I was at university and involved with the neurodivergent society, one of their activities was a body-doubling session and this is very effective for people with ADHD. As well as one of my former friends actually asked me a few times to be in the same room as them whilst they worked so they could get stuff done. I always had writing, business and other activities to do so I didn’t mind too much. Yet body-doubling is a very effective strategy to help people with ADHD get started. This is because the ADHD brain craves constant stimulation and in comparison, daily tasks and activities feel boring. Therefore, a task and activity feels more doable to someone with ADHD if you pair it with something they enjoy, like music. For example, my ex-partner would listen to music during their coursework, and on one of our dates we laughed about this. They would listen to some nice classical music, maybe a podcast or something else peaceful whilst doing this coursework. All whilst I would be listening to dramatic music from the anime Demonslayer. In fact, as I write this podcast episode, I’m listening to some epic Christmas music because it matches the level of stimulation that I need. I cannot do things in silence. As a result, one way how people with ADHD can use this technique to get started, and even combine it with the other strategies mentioned in this episode, is to do a task for the duration of a song. As well as put on some music or your favourite podcast whilst you’re doing a boring task. This is similar to asking your friends, family members or loved ones to sit with you or at least be in the same room when you’re trying to do things. Instead of us aspiring or qualified psychologists trying to apply this tip to our clients, let’s apply this tip to psychologists with ADHD. Of course, we shouldn’t really listen to music during a therapy session with our clients. Yet you can definitely be listening to music or a podcast when you’re writing up your cases or clinical notes. As well as if clinically appropriate and if it’s okay with the client, I don’t really see why you couldn’t have some soothing music in the background of your therapy room. If you’re supporting a client with special educational needs, neurodivergence or high anxiety, then they might actually make your therapy space more welcoming and inclusive if you play some soothing music. Clinical Psychology Conclusion Personally, I really have enjoyed today’s psychology podcast episode, it’s been a lot of fun to learn more about ADHD, how ADHD makes it difficult to get started and how we can support people with the condition to get started. Therefore, we now understand that ADHD initiation is a real struggle and it isn’t the result of a character or personality flaw because they’re lazy. It is a real neurological difference that can be overcome with the strategies and techniques discussed in today’s episode. As a recap, here are the strategies you can use to help a person with ADHD get started on a task or activity: ·       Listen to music or body double ·       Create a consistent routine ·       Just do five minutes   I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Introduction To Psychotherapies: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Types of Psychotherapies . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading Arnold, L. E., Hodgkins, P., Kahle, J., Madhoo, M., & Kewley, G. (2020). Long-term outcomes of ADHD: academic achievement and performance. Journal of attention disorders, 24(1), 73-85. Fidosieva, H. R. (2025). Strategies for supporting students with ADHD: Overcoming challenges and enhancing success. European Journal of Special Education Research, 10(8). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/special-matters/202511/why-is-getting-started-so-difficult-with-adhd Karhu, A., Närhi, V., & Savolainen, H. (2018). Inclusion of pupils with ADHD symptoms in mainstream classes with PBS. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 22(5), 475-489. Khan, M. U., & Aslani, P. (2021). Exploring factors influencing initiation, implementation and discontinuation of medications in adults with ADHD. Health Expectations, 24, 82-94. MacDonald, H.J., Kleppe, R., Szigetvaria, P.D., & Haavik, J. (2024). "The dopamine hypothesis for ADHD: An evaluation of evidence accumulated from human studies and animal models." Frontiers in Psychiatry. Mastoras, S. M., Saklofske, D. H., Schwean, V. L., & Climie, E. A. (2018). Social support in children with ADHD: An exploration of resilience. Journal of attention disorders, 22(8), 712-723. McDougal, E., Tai, C., Stewart, T. M., Booth, J. N., & Rhodes, S. M. (2023). Understanding and supporting attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the primary school classroom: Perspectives of children with ADHD and their teachers. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 53(9), 3406-3421. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

As a teaching assistant, I can see the massive negative impact that chronic illness has on children, their families and their social life. As well as I am a massive supporter of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory that proposes what happens to a child in different microsystems (like family, school and friendships) are all interconnected and impact a child’s learning and development. Equally, in my experience, a chronic illness diagnosis is immensely stressful for parents, it puts a strain on family relationships and it can even cause anger in the parent-child relationship. That is something I see a lot in my work. Therefore, in this clinical psychology and health psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn how to help families support children with chronic illness, why chronic illness is hard on families and how parents can look after themselves during this immensely stressful time. If you enjoy learning about health psychology, mental health and chronic illness, then this will be a great episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Working With Children and Young People: A Guide To Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Introduction To Children With Chronic Illness As I spoke about in my previous podcast episode, What Is Chronic Illness For Psychologists , a chronic illness is a condition that lasts for one year or more and it requires ongoing treatment and attention. For example, depression, diabetes, allergies, asthma, cancer, dental decay, haemophilia, sickle cell anaemia and many, many more. As well as according to the United States’ Centers for Disease Control, more than 40% of school-aged children have at least one chronic health condition and 1 in 4 children have multiple chronic illnesses. Furthermore, chronic illnesses for children begin with an acute phase that follows the diagnosis of the illness and then the child goes through a long stressful phase associated with maintenance and treatment of the condition. Each of these phases directly impacts the child, and if we take a systemic approach for a moment, this stress creates ripples across the family system and it raises challenges and stressors for the parents too. Why Is Helping Families Support Children With Chronic Illnesses Interesting To Psychologists? Partly sections like this come from my paedology training from the university, but as my audience is mainly made up of aspiring and qualified psychologists, I want you to understand that even if you don’t intend to work in health psychology. This knowledge is still really useful. Therefore, if you work in clinical psychology, you might be supporting a parent with depression, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder or another condition, and they reveal that their child’s chronic illness is a major factor behind the development and maintenance of their condition. Especially, if they have a stressful, high-demand job and then they need to come home and support their child with their chronic illness. This means the parent is likely to have no “off time” or time to themselves, because they are always “on”, focused on something and their brain can never relax. The knowledge in this episode will give you an extra level of understanding about how to support these clients. If you work in business psychology or another workplace environment, you might have a friend, peer or partner who is the parent of a chronically ill child and this presents you with a few challenges. This knowledge could help you to design workplace interventions and policy suggestions that better support this parent while they manage their child’s chronic illness whilst still being productive, happy and feel supported at work. As well as this episode would give you knowledge and empathy so you can understand what your peer or partner is going through, so you know how to support them. Finally, if you work in educational psychology, if we apply Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, this is a theory I will talk about more in a future educational psychology podcast episode. Then we understand that parent-child relationship will have an impact on the school-child microsystem too. This is even more important when we consider that a chronic illness is always with a child, it is always having to be managed and the school and parents need to have good communication so both microsystems can adapt their treatment strategy accordingly. This ensures that the child is happy, healthy and able to focus on their education. How Can Families Be Helped To Support Children With Chronic Illness? After that introductory information, let’s move on to learning about what families can do to support children with chronic illnesses. Support A Chronically Ill Child By Keeping A Regular Routine Research shows that keeping a regular routine is flat out critical because a chronic illness tends to disturb everyone’s daily routines, including the child’s, siblings’ and parents’. This means whilst it might take you a while to get your bearings after a chronic illness diagnosis, research shows that creating a new normal in terms of your family routine can lead to positive outcomes for all family members. This new normal can include doing chores, waking up, going to bed, the process involved in breakfast, lunch and dinner, managing health-related needs and going to other activities. In terms of psychologists, this is a useful tip because we could work with a client to brainstorm new routines, small changes they could make to their daily life so it feels more ordered and organised for them and less overwhelming. The same goes for business psychology. We could suggest to management ways to make the workday more friendly to their routines and medical needs of their chronically ill child. Equally, the parent might want work to remain the same to give them a sense of normalcy and continuity during this stressful time. Support A Child With Chronic Illness By Becoming an Informed Advocate I know I always write this whenever I discuss supporting children with physical or mental health conditions, but it is so important that parents and caregivers become educated and informed about their child’s chronic illness. The most important aspects of positive management of chronic illness is learning about “best practice” treatments and what your child’s symptoms are. In addition, families can become informed advocates by reaching out to community support groups, national organisations for specific disorders and illnesses, hospital outreach programmes and most importantly, use the internet. Something I have observed is so many people just do not know how to research online and it’s concerning. For example, my brilliant mum might be a type 2 diabetic so when we were told, she didn’t have a clue, so I researched it online, explained it to her and I made her feel more confident in her understanding of her possible condition. Yet she didn’t know how to research it herself. Also, I would add based on my work, I would suggest that families are not scared to have in-depth conversations with the medical or psychological teams As an aspiring or qualified psychologist, this tip is useful because regardless of our setting, because of our research and critical thinking background, we are in a unique position to help parents. We can help families learn how to research, how to find good sources and how to understand the information that they’re reading so they can become an informed advocate. As well as for clinical psychologists in particular, a lot of our training focuses on being able to explain potentially distressing or psychologically complex information to a wide range of audiences. This means we are in a good position to effectively explain to the family why it is important that they become informed advocates. Families Can Support Children With Chronic Illness By Making “cannot”, “cans” Throughout this podcast episode, I’ve spoken about the overwhelming, stressful and worrying nature of finding out your child has a chronic illness. As well as it can produce a wide range of emotions for parents, like guilt, grief, heartache and depression and intense anxiety. This is especially true because when it comes to chronic illness there are a lot of things that cannot be fixed, changed or controlled and parents can even wish away their child’s chronic illness. Ultimately, this leaves them to feel powerless. Granted, I did a past podcast episode called, “ How To Stop Feeling Powerless To Help A Friend?”,  so this episode might give you a few more ideas about how to stop feelings of powerlessness. Yet a lot of this negativity and feelings of overwhelm can come from your self-talk and how you frame things in your mind. Therefore, some people argue that instead of focusing on the “cannots”, it is best if you change them into a “can”. For example, don’t say “I wish my child didn’t have epilepsy,” instead you could say “I can’t stop the seizure medication side effects making my child so tired,” This is useful because it gets families to stop putting the blame on them and it gets them to realise and remember that this is out of their control. Another example is “if only I could stop the needles from hurting my child,”. This “can’t” sentence focuses on the family failing the child by not doing able to do something. Yet we can change the sentence to become more positive by saying “let’s ask the nurse for some numbing cream before the injection today,”. This is a practical step that the family can take to help the child and this helps to combat feelings of powerlessness. In terms of aspiring and qualified psychologists, this is similar to a lot of our cognitive restructuring work and behavioural activation. We can help the families to become more positive, change their automatic thoughts and to release some of the guilt, pain and anxiety that they have about their child’s chronic illness. Families Can Support Children With Chronic Illness By Creating a Collaborative Team The worse thing you could ever do for yourself, your child and their chronic illness management is to go at this alone. This will make you burn out, stressed and it will make the entire process even more overwhelming than it already it. Also, you don’t know everything about your child’s condition. This is why it’s important to monitor your child’s illness with a collaborative team of healthcare professionals as well as paraprofessionals. Yet it’s important that you include help outside of healthcare professionals in your team, so please include people like teachers, trusted friends and family members. These people also need to be in the loop about your child’s medical needs, because this will help you and your child feel safer, more supported and potentially more socially confident. Another reason why a collaborative team is important is because according to my new favourite theory, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, the child’s education, learning and development is impacted by the relationship and interaction of the family and school microsystems. This is even more true when it comes to managing a chronic illness. Ultimately, this is a useful tip for aspiring and qualified psychologists because we will be a part of the collaborative team (most probably) and we can support the family with their mental health, how overwhelming the situation is and we can support the family to thrive. Support Your Child With Chronic Illness By Practising Self-Care I’ve written about the importance of self-care so many times but it is flat out critical, because if your mental and physical health isn’t good. Then you cannot effectively support your child with chronic illness. This is why it’s important for parents and carers of chronically ill children to focus on their own mental health by resting as well as refuelling. I understand and it’s perfectly normal if families feel bad for taking time for themselves, because they tend to believe time for themselves is time away from their family. Yet this isn’t true. In reality, by taking time for yourself, you’re able to be a better parent or carer in the long-term. Therefore, please focus on self-care by asking for help, dedicating a scheduled time to take breaks and delegate tasks to others. I would also add it’s important to go out with friends and family, do hobbies and activities that you enjoy and eat a good and healthy diet. This has been supported by research that found families that devote time to self-care are better able to deal with child illness and family management. Finally, aspiring and qualified psychologists are in an excellent position to support families in this regard. We have the psychoeducational skills to teach them the importance of self-care, we can teach them how to practice self-care and we can help them to incorporate these small but important practices in their lives to prevent burnout, overwhelm and anxiety. Clinical Health Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, I have to admit that it has been a lot of fun putting this episode together. From the research, to reflecting on my own experiences to applying this knowledge to aspiring and qualified psychologists, I have learnt a lot and I hope that you have too. I would add as a final point that whilst many families and children do learn to cope, live with and thrive with chronic illness. It is still an immensely difficult time for a child and if they’re continuing to experience emotional struggles and mental health difficulties that negatively impact their daily functioning and the management of their chronic illness, then it might be a good idea to seek mental health support. As a final recap, here’s how families can support children with chronic illness: ·       Keep a regular routine ·       Be an informed advocate ·       Create a collaborative team ·       Change “cannot” to “can” ·       Focus on self-care   I really hope you enjoyed today’s psychology student life psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Working With Children and Young People: A Guide To Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology and Health Psychology References and Further Reading Burton, L. (2022). The family life of sick children: A study of families coping with chronic childhood disease. Routledge. Griffith, A. K. (2022). Parental burnout and child maltreatment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of family violence, 37(5), 725-731. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/two-takes-on-depression/202505/tips-for-families-dealing-with-chronic-illness-in-children Mardhiyah, A., Panduragan, S. L., & Mediani, H. S. (2022, October). Reducing psychological impacts on children with chronic disease via family empowerment: a scoping review. In Healthcare (Vol. 10, No. 10, p. 2034). MDPI. Wakelin, K. E., Read, R. K., Williams, A. Y., Francois‐Walcott, R. R., O'Donnell, N., Satherley, R. M., ... & Jones, C. J. (2025). The Effectiveness of Psychological Interventions for Families of Children With Type 1 Diabetes on Caregiver and Child Functioning: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis. Journal of diabetes, 17(6), e70112. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and  if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

As I explained in my psychology podcast episode, How To Advance Your Psychology Career In 2026 , I'm starting to pursue a career in educational psychology. As part of this careers in psychology drive, I made an action plan that will help me develop my knowledge, apply psychological theories, research and concepts to education and I'll be better prepared to apply for the educational psychology doctorate later in 2026. Therefore, in this careers in psychology podcast episode, I'll guide you through my action plan, I'll give you tips and tricks on creating your own psychology action plan and by the end of the episode, you'll understand how to practically take steps towards your 2026 psychology goals.  Today's psychology podcast episode is sponsored by Applied Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Introduction To A Psychology Career Action Plan Whilst I highly recommend that you go back and read or listen to the episode " How To Advance Your Psychology Career In 2026 ?". This episode is essentially a practical demonstration of the two following shortened extracts from that previous episode. What's Your Dream Psychology Job and Goal? Firstly, I highly encourage you to think about your goal. You need to understand what you're working towards so you can understand how to get there, what skills you need to develop and what's driving you. Since if you know what's driving you then this will help in the low moments when psychology just feels flat out impossible.  Your psychology goal might be to become a clinical psychologist, forensic psychologist or a CBT therapist. Or you might want to become an academic or psychology researcher as well as you might want to become another type of mental health professional.  After you've figured out what your goal is for your psychology journey and researched what you need to do to become that psychological professional. It can be really useful to break it down into smaller steps on a piece of paper and it can make the process seem a lot more manageable.  On the whole, writing down what you need to achieve to increase your chances of becoming your dream psychology job can make it seem easier, less overwhelming and it allows you to pick what you want to achieve this year so you can develop your skills for your psychology journey. Pick Your Psychology Focus Areas for 2026 After you've done this, I highly recommend that you pick a few areas you want to focus on in 2026, because unfortunately you cannot become your dream psychology job in a single year. Your psychology journey is exactly that, a journey so you can't do everything I just listed above. If you focus on a few things in 2026, then you can develop those skills, learn a lot and become really good at those skills then you can focus on other areas next year and the year after and so on. What Do I Need To Understand In Educational Psychology? Because I'm relatively new to educational psychology at the time of writing and I need to build my knowledge and understanding of psychological concepts, theories and research and how it relates to education. I needed to pick some focus areas to help aim my learning.  This is why I want to learn about the following topics in 2026: ·       theories of learning ·       models of teaching ·       student motivation ·       RE-STAR ·       theories of development ·       organisational factors on learning ·       how parent-teacher relationship impacts learning As a quick note, RE-STAR seems to be something to do with neurodiversity that I saw mentioned on an educational psychology podcast quite a few times, so I thought at some point I better learn about it.  Personally, theories of learning and theories of development I already have a good understanding of, because my undergraduate dissertation required me to look at a lot of learning theories. As well as my undergraduate degree required a lot of lectures, assignments and readings on human development. However, even though I have this knowledge, for one, I haven't looked at it in at least 2 years, and even when I was learning about these theories, I wasn't applying them to education.  Therefore, in 2026, to help develop my educational psychology thinking, I need to revisit these theories of learning, apply them to education and try and link them to different situations that I've experienced. Either as a teaching assistant or as a postgraduate ambassador who created educational content for students.  In addition, I'm really, really interested at the moment in the teacher-school relationship. I find it fascinating because I've seen how it works and how it impacts students. I've seen how a positive teacher-parent relationship improves outcomes for the child and how a negative teacher-parent relationship doesn't lead to as positive outcomes for the child.  Finally, it's all well and good me saying I'll research them, but how will I? Yesterday the book "Key Topics In Educational Psychology" arrived, I started reading it today and it's a very accessible and interesting book. I will create podcast episodes based on these psychology topics from time to time and I'll do online research too.  Listing how you'll research them make these topics seem more accessible, less overwhelming and they become easier to manage. Therefore, these are going to be useful focus areas for me because they will allow me to develop my understanding of educational psychology, increase my knowledge basis and start allowing me to apply these to theories and frameworks to my work as a teaching assistant. All in all this will increase my chances of being a better candidate for the doctorate of educational psychology compared to right now.  In terms of practical tips for you, this section shows you the importance of researching the major topics within your dream psychology job, make a plan to research them and most importantly, apply these topics to your chosen dream psychology job. Since a lot of ideal psychology jobs involve you applying this knowledge to a wide range of different situations. The sooner you start developing this skill the better.  Why Will I Investigate Educational Psychology Doctorate Course Websites?  Personally, I've been rather surprised by just how useful the webpages are for different educational psychology doctorate courses. Some of these websites tell you the topics, skills and experience requirements of their courses. This helps you prepare for your interview and application and this, in turn, helps inform your psychology action plan.  For example, the University of Nottingham website didn't give me much information, and neither did the University of East London. Yet the University College London website was brilliant because it explained (at the time of writing) that candidates for their doctoral course need to understand Bronfenbrenner's Social ecological theory and the legislation impacting special educational needs within the United Kingdom. This was very useful information as someone who is academically "trained" in clinical psychology, but doesn't have the greatest understanding of educational psychology at this moment in time. This knowledge gives me information on my focus areas, what I need to learn and where my focus should be in 2026. Another benefit of investigating University College London was it reminded me I needed to be able to answer the following question, “what is your understanding of the role of an educational psychologist?”. Normally, these questions always stump me in job interviews, but if I want to get onto the doctorate of educational psychology then I cannot afford a silly mistake like this one. I need to learn what educational psychologists do off by heart. This led me to remember the following definition. Educational psychologists are professionals who specialise in applying psychological theories, research and principles to the field of education. They study human behaviour and mental processes related to learning and human development. Also, educational psychologists research the social, physical, psychological, emotional and wellbeing factors that aim to explain the individual differences in academic performance, student motivation and learning styles. In addition, educational psychologists focus on designing and developing informative instructions for a wide range of learners, and they apply their knowledge of human development and learning to create academic programmes, assessments and interventions. As well as educational psychologists evaluate existing academic programmes and recommend improvements based on their research. Finally, educational psychologists conduct research to deepen and advance our understanding of learning and education. For example, they might research the effectiveness of revision strategies, how the teacher-parent relationship is modulated by organisational factors or the relationship between student motivation and trauma. You might think that was a long definition, but in a job interview as I’ve constantly found because I always gave short, vague answers that didn’t demonstrate my true level of understanding. You really need to give detailed answers that demonstrate your understanding of your dream psychology career. On the flip side, the University of Manchester also gave me a lot of information on what they look for in candidates, but the main takeaway for me was I need to be able to discuss verbally and in written form my assimilation of information and how I would use this in an intervention. Now, I know how important this skill is, I can start nurturing this level of understanding. Technically, I am already nurturing these skills because I know how critical they are as an aspiring educational psychologist. For example, as a baby step in the right direction, I really focused on some online training this week on Martyn's Law in the United Kingdom. This is a new law that focuses on terrorism prevention and it means all schools (and other venues) have to legally have a plan in place and staff must be trained on how to respond quickly and effectively in the event of a terrorist attack. Schools come directly under the law so I made sure to focus on this learning so I can nurture my legal understanding of the UK educational system. In addition, I want to mention here that originally on my action plan, I was only going to be looking at 3 websites. Yet when I saw some websites had no information and others had a lot. I decided to adapt my plan and look at a lot of websites to give me as much information as possible. I'm mentioning this, because it highlights the importance of your action plan being flexible.  Why I Wanted To Conduct Two Educational Psychology Research Projects? After my MSc in Clinical Psychology at the University of Kent, my research skills in mental health settings were very good. I had conducted three additional mental health studies that went beyond my course requirements, so I had experience conducting, planning and analysing the results of four mental health studies. As great as this is for a career in clinical psychology, these four mental health studies only go so far in an aspiring educational psychology career. Mainly, because these mental health studies did not take place in educational settings. They technically did because they used a university sample, but the studies didn't focus on educational outcomes at all. Therefore, in 2026, I want to conduct two educational psychology research projects. These would be small-scale, easy-to-run and they would be manageable. Partly, I wanted them to be small-scale because of my limited time, I no longer have access to university resources and I strongly believe that small-scale projects are easy to sell to the management compared to massive, complex and more time-consuming research. Why Did I Want To Run A Staff Confidence Research Project For Educational Psychology? As a result, my first research project that I wrote and submitted a proposal for focused on staff confidence levels. At first, you might not think that this applies to educational psychology, but investigating staff confidence levels about supporting different SEN children involves looking at systems thinking, capacity building as well as evidence-informed improvement. All these concepts sit at the heart of modern educational psychology. Also, a project involving staff confidence would help me understand how an educational psychologist can be an effective agent for change because increasingly educational psychologists aren't only working on their caseload. They are getting involved in supporting strategic planning, staff capability and whole-school development.  Most importantly, SEN support is inconsistent across schools and even within schools depending on staff training, resource allocation and staff confidence. Then this has a knock-on effect for the SEN children's academic performance, learning and motivation.  I am keeping this research-focused section somewhat brief, because in my proposal and my project planning, there are a lot of other reasons why this project is useful to aspiring educational psychologists.  Another benefit of this project is that it gets me thinking about organisation-level factors and it impacts a child's learning and development. For example, the vast majority of schools struggle with SEN funding and resource allocation, so this is probably one of the reasons why SEN training is so bad, ineffective and it doesn't prepare you for the real working environment of a SEN school in the slightest. Yet my project can help the school to deliver a cost-effective Continued Professional Development programme because they will have evidence from the teaching staff about the areas they are least confident in. This means the school can focus on developing training in these areas to improve confidence.  Why Did I Want To Run A Pupil Voice Research Project For My Educational Psychology Journey? Honestly, there are two different research projects that I might do at some point in 2026 to boost my educational psychology application. One investigates the communications between teachers and parents, what they like and don't like and I am really interested in the teacher-parent relationship because of my own experiences. Yet I talk about this more in a future podcast episode. Anyway, the original second research project I was planning is a "Pupil Voice" project that centres on researching on what the SEN children I work with like and dislike about the adult interactions they have. For example, they might like when an adult uses humour, but they might not like when an adult stands over them when they need help, because it might be scary for the SEN child.  This is a useful project for an educational psychology application because it shows clear commitment to co-production and participation, and this is critical in modern educational psychology and personally, it is a major factor for me. I will always support putting the children themselves in the heart of our decisions and making sure that their voice is heard, because traditionally, SEN children are very underrepresented in decision-making. Moreover, research shows that pupil voice is critical to help us understand lived experience, improved inclusion, design provisions that actually reflect on students' needs, as well as pupil voice challenges the assumptions that adults make about what students want.  As a result of me wanting to keep these research sections on the shorter side, one final reason why this project is useful to an aspiring educational psychologist is because it focuses on communication. Communication is a major focus of educational psychology because communication is fundamental in forming relationships between the child, teachers and peers, and it's important in learning and their behaviour. Especially, because an adult's communication style can either improve independence, support engagement and regulation, or it can trigger distress, anxiety or withdrawal. Also, the project shows how verbal communication, like an adult's pace, tone, use of praise, instructions and clarity, and their non-verbal communication, like body language, gestures, facial expressions and proximity, can make a child feel at ease or distressed.   On a personal note, that's why when I'm having a casual conversation with a SEN child, I tend to do one or two things. If the child is sitting down then I either sit on the chair next to them or if that's occupied then I kneel down a little if the classroom isn't too busy and I wouldn't be in the way. I do this because I think it's friendlier for the child if an adult isn't towering over them. As well as if I'm standing in front of or next to a child when we're talking, I'm mindful of my body language. I make it relaxed, I'm not tense and my knees are slightly bent as part of something I learnt on a training course, and it helps to make me more approachable to the child.  Careers In Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, my main takeaway for you is think about how I’ve researched my focus areas, how I’ve created an action plan and look at everything that I’ve done and pick and choose what you want to adopt into your own action plan. This has actually been a lot of fun to put together, because now I have a visual action plan, the task of developing my educational psychology knowledge is a lot less overwhelming. Here are some questions to help you create your psychology action plan: ·       what is your dream psychology job or goal? ·       What are your focus areas for 2026? ·       What university or professional websites could you look at to further develop your understanding of how to reach your goal? ·       What research projects could you conduct to further develop your skills?   I really hope you enjoyed today’s social psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Applied Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Educational Psychology References and Further Reading Beaver, L. (2016). Inclusion: Using Pupil Voice to Explore and Improve the Experience of Pupils with SEN, University of Reading   Borich, G. D., & Tombari, M. L. (2021). Educational psychology: A contemporary approach. Earl, K. (2025). Neurodiversity: Using Pupil Voice to Explore the Experience of Pupils in a Primary School, University of Winchester   Hockey, A. & Dawkins, D. (2025). Capturing an Authentic Pupil Voice from Pupils with Moderate and Severe SEN, Support for Learning   https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/programmes/list/06781/dedchpsy-educational-and-child-psychology/programme-details/ https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/pgstudy/course/research/psychology-applied-educational-psychology-doctorate-dappedpsy https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate/research-degrees/professional-educational-child-and-adolescent-psychology-dedpsy https://www.uel.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/prof-doc-educational-child-psychology O'Donnell, A. M., Dobozy, E., Nagel, M. C., Bartlett, B., Smala, S., Wormald, C., ... & Smith, J. K. (2024). Educational psychology. John Wiley & Sons. Ormrod, J. E., Anderman, E. M., & Anderman, L. H. (2023). Educational psychology: Developing learners. Pearson. One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458. Pupil Voice: Children with Speech, Language & Communication Needs, InclusiveTeach.com   Santrock, J. W. (2024). Educational psychology.  SEN Support: Findings from a Qualitative Study, GOV.UK    SENCO as a Leader Toolkit: Gathering Voices, SensibleSENCO   Slavin, R. E., Madden, N., & Ross, S. (2025). Educational psychology: Theory and practice. Pearson. One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458.  Teacher Awareness, Teaching Confidence and Facilitation of Learning for Children with SEN, ResearchGate    Vivash & Morgan (2019). The Role of Educational Psychologists in Fuelling the Narrative of the “Velcro TA”, Frontiers in Education    Wang (2026). Socio‑Pedagogical Support for Students with SEN in Inclusive Mainstream Schools: A Systematic Review, PRBM   I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

Whether you’re new or aware of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, behavioural activation is a critical part of this therapeutic approach. It focuses on helping a person to do what they love to improve their mood, their mental health and their life. However, as one of my clinical psychology lecturers once said, this is extremely difficult, a lot of people struggle and even psychology students struggle to do behavioural activation when given it as a fun assignment. Yet it is a lot of fun, it is doable and it really can make the world of difference to your mental health. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what is behavioural activation, how to do behavioural activation and more fun facts. If you enjoy learning about psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and mental health, then this will be a great episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by CBT For Depression: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Depression.  Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. What is Behavioral Activation? Behavioural activation is an evidence-based treatment for depression and low mood, and it’s used to help people overcome the withdrawal from their daily activities. For example, in depression, it is very common for someone to become socially withdrawn, not experience pleasure in activities they used to enjoy and as I’ve spoken about in previous episodes, everything becomes a lot more difficult. Such as, when I had depression in 2024, I couldn’t get out of bed, it took me 5 hours to have a shower and my body felt like lead. Depression made everything feel impossible, so behavioural activation seeks to change the withdrawal symptoms of depression. Behavioural activation works by identifying the activities that we might lack the motivation as well as interest in doing when we feel low, and these activities are reintroduced into a person’s life over time so we can incorporate enjoyment, structure and a sense of achievement into our lives. Personally, I remember in my depression, even though I normally flat out love writing, reading, seeing my friends and talking with them. Depression robbed me of these activities that I enjoyed. Reading, writing and seeing my friends felt too much, it took too much energy and the pleasure simply wasn’t there because of my low mood. Yet now that I’ve reintroduced these critical areas back into my life, I am a lot happier, my mental health is great and I love my life. Of course, I am seriously not saying that it was easy. If you read my book, Healing As A Survivor , then you will see just how hard this was, but it is possible, doable and it is very rewarding in the end. In addition, when we’re experiencing low mood as I mentioned earlier, we tend to stop participating or find it a lot more difficult to take part in everyday activities. This leads us to withdraw and avoid these activities, like washing, paying bills and we avoid seeing our friends. Partly, this is because these activities feel too overwhelming, but it is also because depression and low mood robs us of the motivation to complete these activities. At first, we might put off these activities because we believe avoiding them will be better for us, but overtime, as we continue to avoid these activities, it becomes more difficult to make them a part of our routine again. I like to think of it like a gym membership. During my first year at university when I was living on campus, I bought a gym membership and I went every day I think during the first term. Then it was Christmas break and I just couldn’t reform the habit, so I never ever went again. Furthermore, there is the vicious cycle of low mood because of the interplay between our emotions, physical sensations, behaviours and thoughts. These factors interact and show that the things that we do or don’t do because of our low mood maintain how we’re feeling. Therefore, behavioural activation breaks the vicious cycle by reintroducing the activities overtime and this has a positive impact on how we feel. Finally for this section, before we move on to the four steps of behavioural activation, I want to address a criticism of behavioural activation. Something I have seen in my personal experience as a psychology graduate is that people who pushback against Cognitive Behavioural Therapy flat out hate behavioural activation because it is connected to CBT. I used to have a former friend who absolutely refused to do behavioural activation because it was from CBT. Yet I still notice a lot of anti-CBT people doing behavioural activation, they simply just don’t call it that. They still do the four steps of behavioural activation, their mental health still improves but they are adamant they are not doing behavioural activation. In other words, please consider giving this a try. It might or might not work for you, it is difficult but a lot of people find behavioural activation very rewarding in the end. How To Identify Activities in Behavioral Activation? The first step of behavioural activation is to identify the activities that you’re no longer doing, and these activities are ones that you used to find pleasurable but you’re no longer doing. Either this is because of your low mood or you don’t have time to do them in your week anymore. Also, some mental health professionals recommend you think about activities that you want to do but have never had the motivation to do before as well. Additionally, you can break these activities down into three categories. These categories are pleasurable, routine and necessary. This is important because research shows that for a person to have a healthy balance of mood, we need to include these three main types of activities in our weekly routine. Pleasurable activities are activities that give us a sense of achievement as well as connectedness to other people and our community, and this leads to an increased quality of life. Such as, gardening, singing in a choir, walking the dog, baking a cake, learning a new skill and seeing friends and family. Routine activities are the activities we do day to day to make our lives more comfortable. For instance, exercise, preparing food, hoovering, a regular bedtime, going to the gym, doing the washing, eating a healthy meal amongst others. Necessary activities are essential activities as well as the longer we leave them the worse the negative consequences are. For example, food shopping, paying car tax and car insurance, personal care, booking medical appointments, updating our resumes and applying for jobs. On a personal note, I definitely understand why applying for jobs and updating our resumes go out the window when we’re depressed or experiencing low mood, because when my mental health isn’t great, I find applying for jobs just hell on Earth. Let’s face it, applying for jobs is always soul-crushing, depressing and it is just awful. I feel this way even when my mental health is good, but when my mental health is bad, these feelings just increase and get worse. When you think about it, it makes sense that we need a balance of these activities for a healthy mood. Since if we spend all our time and energy focusing on necessary activities then we wouldn’t get the sense of achievement and connection to others that pleasurable activities give us nor would we do the routine activities that help to make our lives more comfortable. As well as if we focused all our time on pleasurable activities that make us feel connected to others and give us a sense of achievement, then because we are avoiding necessary activities, the negative consequences of not paying bills and doing personal care will only get worse and so on. Building upon this, when a person is feeling low or depressed, it can be difficult for them to remember what they used to enjoy, so it can be helpful to talk with friends, family members and other people that you trust to help remind you. Then typically as part of behavioural activation, you would write these activities down, so if I was doing this during my period of depression in 2024, I would write down the following. My necessary activities would be having a shower, getting changed, going to my Outreach work and other personal care items. My routine activities would be eating three meals a day, having a regular and consistent bedtime, washing up and doing my chores for my shared university house. My pleasurable activities would be reading, writing, podcasting, seeing friends, learning, Duolingo French and completing my To Do list. You and your clients might have completely different activities to me that you enjoy and that’s okay. Take as long as you need, think about it and identify your activities. For instance, I know some people who would write Minecraft, watching streamers, YouTube videos, cooking, singing, dancing, doing circus activities and more on their list. What is Ranking Activities In Behavioral Activation? The next step in behavioural activation is ranking activities because you need to rank how difficult the activity would be to carry out. This means you need to think about what are the easiest and most difficult activities to complete and then grade them. Behavioural activation relies on this ranking of activities because you should only carry out the activities to begin with that feel the most achievable before you move onto other activities that might be more difficult for you. In addition, what activities are classed as easy, moderate and difficult will be completely unique to you, and sometimes it will be hard to come up with these categories after withdrawing from them for a long time. Therefore, it can be useful to ask a family member or friend to help you, you can break down larger tasks into more manageable steps, you could commit to doing a task for ten minutes instead of committing to all of it and it’s important to remember that no activity is too small. You might think texting a friend is so small that it’s pointless, but you are still doing something and that’s what’s important. Moreover, when ranking your activities it’s important that you try to include at least one routine, necessary and pleasurable activity in each category. This goes back to what I was saying in the last section about ensuring that you have a healthy balance of categories. You might rank finding the gas bill (necessary), calling a friend (pleasurable) and cleaning the bathroom (routine) as easy activities. Then you might rank washing the car (routine), arranging a medical appointment (necessary) and going for lunch with a friend (pleasurable) as moderate activities. Lastly, you might rank going food shopping (necessary) and going to the gym (routine) as difficult activities. Personally, if I was doing this for myself back in 2024 when I was severely depressed for a few months, I would probably rank talking to a housemate (pleasurable), eating food (necessary) and going for a shower (routine) as easy activities in the grand scheme of things. Even though for the first few weeks of being depressed, having a shower was seriously not easy. Afterwards I would probably have ranked reading (pleasurable), writing nonfiction (routine) and going shopping as moderate activities. Then I would have ranked the following as difficult activities writing fiction (routine), going out with friends (pleasurable) and going to work (necessary). Now, I will fully admit that it was difficult coming up with these ideas and ranking what I found the most difficult during that time, and this is when my mental health is good. Therefore, if my mental health was as severe as it was back then this would have seemed like an impossible task. As a result, if ranking your activities or doing any part of behavioural activation feels impossible, too much and overwhelming, then it’s okay, it’s normal and it’s completely understandable given what you’re going through at the moment. This is why it can be a great idea to talk to other people in your life and get help. What is Scheduling Activities in Behavioral Activation? The third step in behavioural activation is to actually plan and schedule the activities in your diary or calendar so you do them. You are more likely to do these activities if they’re scheduled in your life and by planning a range of activities from all three categories, you are more likely to experience a sense of achievement as well as pleasure as you reintroduce them over time. Nonetheless, when it comes to scheduling your activities, you need to bear some factors in mind. Firstly, your activities must be balanced because research shows that a balance of different activities (necessary, routine and pleasurable) is best for our mood, so when we schedule our activities, we need to make sure that we’re doing a mixture of them. For instance, make sure that all your time isn’t focused on routine or necessary activities and leave room for pleasurable activities too, and vice versa. This is another benefit of writing and scheduling these activities in your diary because it ensures that you prioritise the most essential activities whilst leaving room for pleasurable activities too. Personally, when I was severely depressed, I had to make sure that I showered, ate and I went to work. Yet I also made sure that I did some business work and some writing, because these activities make me happy. Secondly, your activities must be graded in your schedule because it’s really difficult to be motivated to carry out activities after a long break. Like, I am sure all of us remember how hard it is to go back to the gym after a long break. This is why it’s useful to start with “Easy” activities as you wrote down in the last step before you tackle moderate and difficult activities. Thirdly, you need to be specific with your scheduling of activities because you’re more likely to complete them with them specifically in your calendar. As a result, when you’re scheduling your activities, you need to consider what specific activity you’ll be carrying out, when are you're going to do it, where and who with. It is completely okay to do these activities alone. For example, you might write down “I will clean the countertops at 5:00 pm in the kitchen by myself.” This is definitely a step that I would have found useful during my 2024 depression, and it might have encouraged me to do my activities more. However, one of the factors that keeps my mental health good at the moment is a routine. I have my hour-long sessions of doing my writing, business, podcasting and any other activities that I need to do. Then in between these sessions I do routine and necessary activities, like doing the dishwasher, putting the washing on the airers and so on. Please learn from my mistake of not scheduling. Please schedule your activities. What Is Implementation and Monitoring in Behavioral Activation? The final part of behavioural activation is to actually complete the activities that you’ve identified, scheduled and ranked in the other stages. Also, it’s important to monitor your mood as you carry out these activities so you can see the benefits that carrying out these activities bring you. Of course, no schedule will ever be perfect and life will throw you curve balls that means you cannot stick to your schedule as much as you would love to, so flexibility is needed. This is why you might benefit from reviewing the schedule weekly so you can identify and plan how to overcome any obstacles, then you can highlight your achievements too. When it comes to monitoring your mood, it can be helpful to allow some space in your diary to record the intensity of your mood before and after carrying out the activity using a scale of 0 to 100. As well as after you’ve completed the first week of behavioural activation you might want to add in more activities over time at your own pace. It’s brilliant that you feel that way and you definitely can do that, but please bear in mind that behavioural activation is a gradual process and you shouldn’t rush it. It might be more useful in the longer term to complete a small number of easier activities for a few weeks before moving onto the more moderate activities and then difficult activities. Finally, here are some common obstacles and solutions that you might face when completing behavioural activation. You might feel that the tasks are too large so you can break down the task further. You might not have enough time to complete the activity, so you can prioritise your activities and ensure you have a balance. If you lack the motivation or energy then be time-specific in your schedule instead of task specific. If a task is too difficult to get started then try to do the activity for only five minutes. If you see no improvement in mood then still complete the activity. I would add onto the “do a task for only five minutes” solution that this is a brilliant solution, because I can normally “con” myself. I can be firm and say I will only do this for five minutes, but when the five minutes is up I am happy, I am in the zone and I want to continue because it improves my mood, so I continue and my mood continues to improve as well. Clinical Psychology Conclusion Originally, the notes and information came from a behavioural activation workbook that an old friend sent me when they refused to do behavioural activation because it was from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I was excited by the idea of a workbook so they were lovely and sent it to me. Honestly, even though I don’t see them anymore, I really do hope they’re doing better now. Anyway, I’m really happy that I did this episode because it was a lot of fun to explore behavioural activation in a lot more depth. We got to see how behavioural activation works, how to identify, rank and schedule our activities that make us happy. As well as we got to learn about how to monitor our mood and implement behavioural activation into our lives. Therefore, even if your mental health is fine and you’re happy, I still think it’s important that we think about behavioural activation. It is a valuable reminder to make sure we do necessary, routine and pleasurable activities and ensure that we strike a balance. If we don’t strike a balance and do these activities then our mental health will suffer, our mood will decrease and we will suffer for it. I don’t want that for any of you. Therefore, I want to wrap up this podcast episode with the following questions to get you thinking: ·       What activities make you happy? ·       What would your routine and necessary activities be? ·       How good is the balance of activities in your life and how could you improve it? ·       How could you use behavioural activation to improve your life, your mental health and your wellbeing?   I hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET CBT For Depression: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Depression.  Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Cognitive Psychology References and Further Reading Beck, J. S. (2020). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond. Guilford Publications. Ciharova, M., Furukawa, T. A., Efthimiou, O., Karyotaki, E., Miguel, C., Noma, H., ... & Cuijpers, P. (2021). Cognitive restructuring, behavioral activation and cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of adult depression: A network meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 89(6), 563. Cuijpers, P., Quero, S., Noma, H., Ciharova, M., Miguel, C., Karyotaki, E., ... & Furukawa, T. A. (2021). Psychotherapies for depression: a network meta‐analysis covering efficacy, acceptability and long‐term outcomes of all main treatment types. World Psychiatry, 20(2), 283-293. de Abreu Costa, M., & Moreira-Almeida, A. (2022). Religion-adapted cognitive behavioral therapy: A review and description of techniques. Journal of religion and health, 61(1), 443-466. Janssen, N. P., Hendriks, G. J., Baranelli, C. T., Lucassen, P., Oude Voshaar, R., Spijker, J., & Huibers, M. J. (2021). How does behavioural activation work? A systematic review of the evidence on potential mediators. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 90(2), 85-93. Martell, C. R., Dimidjian, S., & Herman-Dunn, R. (2021). Behavioral activation for depression: A clinician's guide. Guilford Publications. Muyambi, K., Dennis, S., Parange, N., Walsh, S. M., Gray, R., Martinez, L., ... & Jones, M. (2022). Rural health workers' perspectives and experience with an online educational program in behavioural activation: A thematic analysis. Health & Social Care in the Community, 30(6), e5539-e5548. Whiteley, C. (2025) CBT For Anxiety: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Anxiety. CGD Publishing. England. Whiteley, C. (2025) CBT For Depression: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Depression.  CGD Publishing. England. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

Violence against women is sadly nothing new. If you look at social media, the news or talk to women, the threat of violence, being attacked and sexually assaulted is forever present. This leads to a wide range of mental health difficulties, stress and it only makes women feel unsafe in society. Therefore, in this social psychology podcast episode, you'll learn about what causes violence against women, how to reduce gender-based violence and more. If you enjoy learning about social psychology, forensic psychology and how gender bias leads to violence, then this will be a great episode for you.  Today's psychology podcast episode is sponsored by Forensic Psychology . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Why Am I Talking About Violence Against Women? I wanted to talk about violence against women in this psychology podcast episode because over the Christmas break in 2025, I learnt some surprising truths. To any woman and female listeners of this podcast, these will not surprise you and looking back at my own life when I had a very femme-focused dating profile, because I'm transgender non-binary, I experienced a lot of disgusting comments too.  Yet I do understand that this surprise is a reflection of my privilege in society of looking like a straight white male, and so, people treat me as such.  However, I was watching the brilliant Sarah Macmillan's comedy show Late Bloomer via a streaming service over Christmas and she explained that once she was told off in a shop by an elderly woman for wearing high heels. The elderly woman thought Sarah should only be wearing flat trainers because they're easier to run in and get away from men. As well as Sarah was making a joke about how a friend of hers only had one key and it was useless to put a single key in-between your knuckles to use as a weapon if a man wanted to rape you.  After the comedy show I went downstairs, I already understood that this was the heart-breaking truth of being a woman and I still asked my mum about her experience of this. She completely agreed and she had been taught from a young age the importance of having keys on you so you can use them as weapons. As well as flat shoes are best because it allows you to run away from men as quickly as possible.  Personally, I could drone on about how disgusting, heartbreaking and awful this is, and it is true. Absolutely no woman should ever have to feel scared walking down a street. All women have the right to feel safe, secure and protected in their own communities.  No woman should have to learn from an early age how to protect themselves from men who want to rape them, beat them and hurt them. Everyone regardless of their gender should experience the same level of danger. Which is hopefully none.  Therefore, I want to do something however small to help protect women and girls. I want to do something to stop gender-based violence and I want to stop sexual violence, women being objectified and I want women to be safe in society.  I will repeat what I always say. Women are not weak. I know so many clever, intelligent and amazing women who are the furthest thing from weak. Yet they are still in danger, they are still at threat of sexual violence and as a rape survivor myself, I understand how terrifying that is.  As a result, in the rest of this podcast episode, you'll learn what causes violence against women, how we can reduce this and how we can support women.  It will take a society to stop violence against women and it all starts with awareness. Hence, why I'm writing this episode. What is Violence Against Women? The vast majority of the information for this podcast episode will come from Kumari et al. (2009), because trying to find accessible information on how to reduce violence against women from a psychological viewpoint is surprisingly hard given how violence is a behaviour. Therefore, violence against women is any act of gender-based violence that leads to women being sexually, physically or mentally hurt as well as suffer. For example, depriving women freedom, sexual assault, beating and threatening women are all examples of violence against women. In addition, from a human rights point of view, violence against women is unfortunately the most common human rights violation. Since it denies women the security, equal rights, positive self-worth and rights to dignity that so many men have without a second thought. Men easily take their rights for granted, and women cannot afford the same luxury. At the time of writing this episode, there are massive protests in Iran over the government, the human rights violations and how they treat women. Yet it’s important to remember that violence against women happens in every country, in every city and in every place where humans exist. Violence against women isn’t limited to the Middle East and other cultures that traditionally or overtly see women as second-class citizens. Why Does Violence Against Women Matter? Before I dive into the types of violence against women, the causes and how to reduce it, I want to explain the consequences of violence against women. Firstly, there are sexual consequences because women who have been through violence are more likely to experience unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, low birth weight babies and miscarriages. Secondly, women who experienced violence are likely to have physical consequences. For instance, women experience fractures, concussions, poor health, permanent disabilities, death because they were murdered or suicide. Thirdly, after violence, women can experience economic consequences because they have to work fewer hours because of illness or injury, their family’s income reduces because the cost of treatment and their economic productivity decreases. Fourthly, after violence, women experience emotional consequences. For instance, they become emotionally distant and mistrusted by their children, they develop stress, hopelessness, depression, panic disorders, low self-esteem, drug and alcohol abuse and they’re in unhappy relationships with their partner. All of these take a massive toll on their mental health. Finally, violence against women and girls has a massive negative impact on children. Since after experiencing violence, children have low self-esteem, they live in fear all the time, sleep difficulties, violent behaviour, difficulties in school and this includes poor academic performance, and they’re very sensitive. What Are The Types of Violence Against Women? Moreover, violence against women can include four main types of violence. Firstly, you have physical violence where women are slapped, punched, kicked, hit, burnt, cut amongst other methods designed to hurt the body. Secondly, you have economic violence where a woman is overworked, denied her inheritance, cannot own property, her earnings are stolen or reduced, she is denied an education, she isn’t allowed to work and she doesn’t have equal pay. Thirdly, women can experience sexual violence where women are raped, sexually assaulted, they experience incest, female genital mutilation, unwanted touching, forced prostitution as well as sexual harassment. As a rape survivor, these are some of the most horrific, outrageous and soul-destroying things that you can do to a person for a wide range of reasons that I’ve discussed previously on the podcast. Or in my book Breaking The Silence . Finally, you have emotional violence where a woman is threatened, insulted, experiences verbal abuse, constant criticism, humiliation, intimidation and control. I’ll be talking more about emotional abuse in the far future of the podcast, but I’ve also had to deal with that and it is awful. It makes you question your own reality, you feel insane and you feel like your life is falling a part at no fault of your own.   On the whole, all women are vulnerable to violence based on their gender. Women, all around the world, are at risk of being murdered, raped, tortured and physically and psychologically beaten as well as being economically deprived. All because they’re a woman. That is wrong on so many levels and this is one of the things that this podcast hopes to address. What Causes Violence Against Women? Like most behaviours, there is no single reason or cause for violence against women. This is why I strongly believe it’s important for us to consider a wide range of factors that cause this behaviour, so we can be holistic in our understanding and any interventions we create to decrease gender-based violence. I’ll talk about the wide range of factors that cause violence against women in a moment, but first, I want to take this opportunity to explain that whilst poverty and alcohol are often identified as factors causing violence. It is true that these can be triggers or contributing factors towards violence, but it is wrong to say these are the root causes. One set of factors that can cause violence against women are economic factors that focus on controlling and restricting women’s freedom as a method of domestic violence. For example, one way to abuse a woman is to make her economically dependent on a man, limit her access to credit and cash, create discriminatory laws that mean she cannot own property, have inheritance and limit her access to formal as well as informal education and employment. These factors connect to economic abuse that I mentioned a moment ago. Personally, I think it’s sickening to imagine a world where women do not have the freedom to live their life with independence, they cannot handle their own money and they’re likely to be very scared to “act out” or “stand up” to their abuser in case they take away access to any money at all. An abuser might give the woman a tiny allowance each week, but if she doesn’t behave exactly how he wants, he might take that away from her and leave her with nothing at all. That is terrifying and abusive for anyone. In addition, when I was reading the section above, my mind drifted off towards people with special educational needs. As part of safeguarding, you always need to be aware of financial abuse, because it happens, it is common and we always need to be vigilant against it. Especially, because SEN children and elderly people are more vulnerable, they might be dismissed and they might not feel empowered enough to stand up, self-advocate and challenge the injustice that has happened to them. For example, someone steals their money, misuses it or the management of these establishments don’t care about the financial abuse. Another set of factors that leads to violence against women can be cultural factors because all of us, regardless of our country and culture of origin, are exposed to gender-specific socialisation, expectations of gender roles as well as cultural definitions of what is appropriate gender roles. For example, in the Middle East, the expectation for a woman is to always listen to the male members of the family, if she wants to go outside then she needs to ask permission and she must always wear the hijab. I understand this is a generalisation but I want to make a point in a moment. Whereas in Western culture, women are strongly portrayed to be needy, weak and emotional wrecks that couldn’t possibly function without the guiding hand of men. The West see an emotional strong, intelligent woman as strange, weird and we need to get rid of her as soon as possible. These are just two examples of cultural ideas about women that we are exposed to in different parts of the world. This is even more important when we consider that some gender-specific socialisations towards men paint men as superior, intelligent and better than women in every way. This leads to men believing that they have the right to control women, keep women under their control at all costs and it makes men see violence as an appropriate means of resolving conflict. A final set of factors that cause violence against women are legal and political factors. For example, in most legal systems around the world, women are a lesser legal status than men. Whether this is in the written law, legal practice or laws regarding divorce, child custody, legal definitions of rape and domestic abuse, inheritance laws as well as how women are treated by the criminal justice system. In my book   Breaking The Silence , I discuss how the criminal justice system treats men and women survivors of sexual violence really badly for different reasons because of their gender identity. Therefore, the immense issues with the legal system is one of the ways how women can be traumatised, hurt and emotionally abused. Building upon this, political factors can cause violence against women too. For instance, in most political systems around the world, even when a woman is technically in charge, women are underrepresented in positions of political power, the media, in the medical and legal profession. This means that violence against women are not taken seriously and it increases the idea that gender-based violence is beyond the control of the state and it is a massive risk to the government and political forces to challenge the status quo and religious laws. This is even more important in countries where religion itself is linked to violence against women. Like honour killings. Personally, regardless of your political opinions, I want to indulge you for a moment. A few years ago in the United Kingdom, I remember watching the news during a massive Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) shortage. The UK couldn’t get enough HRT to give to all the women who were struggling whilst they went through the menopause and women were really suffering because of it. And our Parliament was having a debate and a female Member of Parliament pointed out that if HRT was something men needed, the government would move heaven and earth to resolve it. Instead of dragging its heels and doing nothing to solve the shortage, because the HRT shortage wasn’t negatively impacting men. I completely agreed with her. Therefore, when you have that sort of institutionalized sexism baked into our political system that treats male problems as more important than female problems, then of course violence against women isn’t going to be treated as seriously, a culture of permission towards violence against women gets reinforced and the lack of convictions in cases involving sexual violence against women only makes the situation worse. How Do We Reduce Violence Against Women? When it comes to reducing violence against women, it's critical that we don't just focus on one group of people. We need to create a strategy that impacts everyone across society and most importantly, at every level of society. Everyone, regardless of their age, position and social class, must understand that violence against women is not okay in the slightest.  This includes the individuals, like the local shopkeeper and your peers at work. Organisations must take a tough stance against gender-based violence so it doesn't become a part of their organisational culture. As well as I would add organisations need to be reflective about their own history of violence against women. Especially, when it comes to the economic abuse against women. For instance, they should reflect on the gender pay gap, need to correct it and reflect on how women are silenced or badly treated across all levels of the organisation.  Another factor to consider when creating strategies to end violence against women is everyone must be a part of its co-production and everyone must be taught themselves strategies. Women should always be at the heart and centre of these strategies, but men's groups cannot be ignored either.  This is because men cause the vast majority of violence against women, we need to create, frame and teach these strategies in a way that will make men listen, adopt and change their behaviour.  We can have the best intentions in the world, but if our strategies don't lead to men changing their behaviour to improve the lives of women. Then they are useless.  On the whole, this is why raising awareness and advocacy across all levels of society is flat out critical for ending gender-based violence. As well as we need to train healthcare professionals to recognise and identify women who are experiencing violence by giving them the resources they need. Building upon this, more generally, if we're better able to identify "at risk" families, groups, individuals and communities early on then this can be really helpful in preventing violence against women. Personally, I think the healthcare point is an important one because when I went for a wide range of education-based job roles, I was always asked at interview about the signs of abuse. I asked them correctly with a rough idea and even the training that I received when I started the job didn't go into much more depth. This means that a lot of people who work with vulnerable children, men and women aren't fully educated on the signs of abuse.  This leads to the scary question of how many survivors of abuse have all of us met in our lives and not realised because we don't know the signs.  In addition, to end violence against women, we need to be teaching our children and young people about healthy relationships, the importance of nonviolence, human rights and gender issues. These lessons need to be embedded throughout the entire school curriculum from primary school to 6th form to universities and other training settings.  Personally, ever since my rape, I've long been an advocate for teaching children what healthy relationships are, what informed consent is and a whole bunch of other relationship skills because research shows it would solve a lot of issues in the world as I've spoken about in other books. And this does get me reflecting as someone who works in education and as an aspiring educational psychologist about how I can teach children these things in the future.  I understand that it will be difficult to find the right time, to get organisational support and to find good resources because even though these ideas have been around for ages, the resources and the practical side of these suggestions are still relatively new and in development.  However, there's one girl in a class at my school who only shows affection by hitting, punching, pushing and doing other forms of violence against her boyfriends. To her, this is what love looks like because of her own trauma background. Therefore, it's clear there is a massive need for this education and in the future, I will want and have to find a way to incorporate it into my practice.  Another way to reduce violence against women is focusing on community-level awareness and mobilising the entire community. Since when an entire community is behind and action, policy or movement then it ensures that it is done and it makes women and girls feel supported. As well as it makes men question their actions and makes them think twice before committing any form of abuse.  Building upon this, if we look at society-level ways to reduce violence against women besides awareness and public education, then legal reforms are critical. Every country needs laws that uphold the rights of women and give them equal protection under the law, so the law specifically forbids violence against women. In my opinion, this need for legal reform doesn’t only go for countries or regions, like the Middle East, but so-called progressive countries like the United Kingdom, United States and other Western nations could benefit from this too. There are multiple loopholes, flaws and ways in which the law fails to protect women from different forms of violence.   For example, The equality and Human Rights Commission notes that the UK still receives criticism and concerns from various United Nations bodies because the UK fails to adequately prevent, investigate and remedy violence against women despite the laws being on the books. As well as the UK has a lot of laws to stop violence against women, like Domestic Abuse Act (2021), but official statistics shows that domestic violence is common, but there is a tiny, tiny number of convictions. This suggests that the Domestic Abuse Act doesn’t translate into effective protection for women. A penultimate way to protect women from violence is the need for reliable data collection as well as analysis. This helps us to understand the magnitude, economic and health costs of violence and its consequences. This is important because the only way to get politicians, policy-makers and those in government interested is to make it about money. For instance, in the UK, all I have heard over the past few years from different governments is the dire need to grow the economy after Brexit and COVID-19. Therefore, if we show the government how violence against women is costing the UK millions of pounds each year, it is decreasing our economic productivity and it is harming economic growth, then I have a suspicion the government would suddenly become a lot more interested. Finally, we direct service provisions as well as interventions that help survivors of gender-based violence to rebuild their lives. Overall, when it comes to creating a strategy to reducing violence against women, it should always address prevention, protection, early intervention and rebuilding the lives of the victims and survivors. Social Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, I’m really happy that we’ve learnt more about violence against women. It goes without saying that I shouldn’t have to do a podcast episode on this topic. Violence against women shouldn’t be a thing and it’s awful, sickening and outrageous. Yet here we are, and it is possible to stop violence against women if we continue raising awareness, take a holistic approach and we create interventions that target all levels and factions within society. On the whole, violence against women is an extremely common issue that is typically hidden and ignored by the majority of people. This is something that has to change and I hope that podcast episodes like this one and our own actions can help with that. Since violence against women is an issue that covers so many areas. It is physical, legal, economical, psychological, developmental, educational and most importantly, violence against women is a human rights issue. This is why we need coordinated responses, policies and interventions that are implemented across all levels of society, so we can stamp out violence against women once and for all. Yet some people argue that women need to learn how to be more assertive as well as accept new roles for themselves, so they can live hopefully and optimistically about their future. This means women need to be empowered through their employment, education and we need to tell them that any form of gender-based violence is flat out wrong. Therefore, my parting message for today will be, ask yourself each morning the following question: What small or large act could I take today to end violence against women? If every one of us does a small or large act every day then by the end of the week, month or year, we would have had a massive positive impact on this pressing issue.   I hope you enjoyed today’s social psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Forensic Psychology . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Social Psychology References and Further Reading Bacchus, L. J., Colombini, M., Pearson, I., Gevers, A., Stöckl, H., & Guedes, A. C. (2024). Interventions that prevent or respond to intimate partner violence against women and violence against children: a systematic review. The Lancet Public Health, 9(5), e326-e338. Barlow, C., Johnson, K., Walklate, S., & Humphreys, L. (2020). Putting coercive control into practice: Problems and possibilities. The British Journal of Criminology, 60(1), 160-179. Bochenkova, A., Buonanno, P., & Galletta, S. (2023). Fighting violence against women: The role of female political representation. Journal of Development Economics, 164, 103140. Hatcher, A. M., Page, S., Aletta van Eck, L., Pearson, I., Fielding-Miller, R., Mazars, C., & Stöckl, H. (2022). Systematic review of food insecurity and violence against women and girls: mixed methods findings from low-and middle-income settings. PLOS global public health, 2(9), e0000479. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-tracker/violence-against-women-and-girls-uk-government-action Kumari, S., Priyamvada, R., Chaudhury, S., Singh, A. R., Verma, A. N., & Prakash, J. (2009). Possible psychosocial strategies for controlling violence against women. Industrial psychiatry journal, 18(2), 132–134. https://doi.org/10.4103/0972-6748.62275 Office for National Statistics. (November, 2025). Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview. Piper, A. (2019). Understanding economic abuse as domestic violence. Gender Violence in Australia: Historical Perspectives, 1st ed. Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 34-48. Sharp-Jeffs, N. (2021). Understanding the economics of abuse: an assessment of the economic abuse definition within the Domestic Abuse Bill. Journal of gender-based violence, 5(1), 163-173. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

A lot of people wonder "how does wealth change behaviour?", and there are a lot of sayings that can be used to partially explain how wealth changes our behaviour. For example, some people think money changes everything, money can change our emotions and more. Therefore, in this cognitive psychology podcast episode, you'll learn about the psychology of money, how wealth changes our behaviour and how wealth decreases our empathy. If you enjoy learning about money, cognitive psychology and social psychology then this will be a great episode for you.  Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Cognitive Psychology: A Guide To Neuropsychology, Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Introduction To How Does Wealth Change Behaviour At first, you might think that the topic of behaviour change after becoming wealthy isn't a real psychology topic, and it's best left to the gossip columns and tabloids. Yet people have always been interested in how wealth changes behaviour, because lavish lifestyles, having high-powered jobs and a lot of financial security must impact us in different ways. Exactly how being poor impacts our behaviour.  This has led a lot of academics to realise that there's a complex interplay between human behaviour as well as money that leads to different behavioural outcomes.  Also, I would note here that these behaviours aren't only cognitive and social in nature, but emotional and mental health is immensely shaped by money. Especially, when we consider the vast literature demonstrating the negative impact of poverty on mental health. As well as we typically find that people living in poverty have higher rates of mental health conditions compared to wealthier people. In addition, the interest in "how the other half live" so to speak isn't just a modern phenomenon that's driven by our celebrity-obsessed culture. Even though I have to admit it seems these days anyone and everyone can be a celebrity if their bank account is large enough. Yet people have always been interested in the wealthy throughout history. From the royal courts of ancient monarchs to the robber barons of the industrial revolution to the aristocracy to the tech billionaires of the modern world. We've always been fascinated by them. This interest comes from the realisation and finding that wealth has always been a powerful force that shapes our societal norms and behaviour. Since the rich have always had the power to influence our politics, our way of life and entire cultural movements, instead of only individuals. And this understanding is even more important today when we consider that the rich-poor divide is only growing, we have our first trillionaire and the number of people in poverty is only growing. This means our ability to understand the rich is more important than ever. On the whole, this is why we need to investigate the impact of wealth on people's decisions, attitudes, emotions and actions towards themselves and others. As well as understanding wealth has a wide range of implications for sociology, economics, even policy and, of course, psychology. Since wealth can impact power dynamics, success, behaviour and all levels of society. How Does Wealth Impact Decision-Making? The first cognitive process that wealth impacts is decision-making, because research shows that having significant wealth changes a person's decision-making processes. Especially, when it comes to risk behaviour.  Personally, because I am not extremely wealthy I am rather risk-averse when it comes to investments and money. I prefer small investments, savings and to focus on smaller, more secure returns then stock market investments that are risky and are more likely to fail. This is how not having a lot of money impacts my choice.  Equally, because I am not in poverty and I have an upper working class/ low middle class living at the moment. I can easily afford to save a lot of money at the moment. As well as I live with my parents, my bills and rent aren't too expensive and besides petrol once every two weeks, my outgoings aren't too high at this moment in time. Whereas a family living in poverty wouldn't have the money to save, they might be living paycheck to paycheck and they might barely be at or above the breadline.  My point is all these different levels of income and wealth lead to different mindsets and attitudes towards money.  Building upon this, wealth can lead to changes in risk behaviour and attitudes towards innovation. Since people with a lot of wealth typically are more comfortable taking risks that could lead to massive failures or massive successes. For example, billionaires are happier putting lots of money into a risky investment because they still have lots of wealth in their bank account. Whereas a person with no or moderate wealth might be more cautious before taking a risky investment.  Personally, I just wouldn't do this at this moment in time. I cannot afford and I am not comfortable taking massive risks with my money. This is largely because I don't have a massive amount of wealth to fall back on.  Nonetheless, something that is interesting about this is that high-risk behaviour can be very rewarding but it can be very destabilising too. For instance, a millionaire could put millions into a new dating app that promises to make the wealthy investors billions within three years. If it works, the wealthy investor is in for immense success. If it fails the millionaire has lost millions and might cause them to lose all their wealth.  This is why it's important to research because as a middle-class person I cannot imagine for the life of me why someone would risk millions on a bad investment. I value my money way too much for that, but some people take these risky investments without a second thought. How Does Wealth Impact Entitlement?  On the other hand, wealth isn't all about risk behaviour and investments, wealth can impact our sense of entitlement and this is one of my pet hates. I despise entitled people with an utter passion, because they are horrible to be around and talk to.  A sense of entitlement is the psychological state where people believe they deserve special treatment because of their financial status. This is always something I've been flat out against because it is disgusting that people expect to be treated better, get special access or certain rules don't apply to them just because they're rich.  Everyone is the same regardless of the size of their bank account. All laws, social norms and social rules should apply to everyone equally.  On the whole, wealth can impact behaviour because as their wealth increases as does their sense of entitlement.  How Does Wealth Change Social Behaviours? Whenever we think of riches, wealth and people being famous, we tend to imagine that they have massive houses, multiple sports cars and they fly around on private jets. To be honest, this is how a lot of wealthy people live and these are examples of conspicuous consumption. In other words, buying all of these products, show off your riches at expensive and exclusive parties and so on is all about making sure your wealth is clearly visible, noticeable and everyone can see your rich. In fact, this actually reminds me of an observation that a very wealthy American writer friend of mine mentioned once. Him and his wife who are millionaires, USA Today and New York Times bestsellers, dress in normal clothes, eat at normal places and yet they do live in a penthouse condo in Las Vegas. Anyway, they mentioned that people who are actually rich dress normally and don’t feel the need to look the part, but people who aren’t wealthy, feel the need to look the part. It’s just something to bear in mind. Anyway, when it comes to conspicuous consumption, it’s about signalling to everyone around you that you’re rich and you belong to an exclusive social group. Nonetheless, this isn’t always the case because throughout history, there’s been a long-standing history of the wealthy giving to the poor and supporting charitable projects. For example, Bill Gates makes massive investments and global health programmes, my American friends they donate to local school reading programmes and more. It is this aspect of wealth that can have immensely positive impacts on society by supporting vital causes and addressing critical social and health issues. Another way how wealth can impact behaviour is wealth can impact social relationships. Since whilst the financial security that wealth provides increases opportunities for shared experiences and reduces stress, it can create barriers to genuine connection. It isn’t rare for us to see on crime dramas, other types of programmes and in other entertainment that billionaires feel that everyone is only after their money, what doors they can open for them and no one actually cares about the billionaire as a person. This happens in real life so a lot of the social relationships that wealthy people experience can have ulterior motives and lack authenticity. Finally for this section, wealth can impact social networks and communities because for wealthy people, their social world tends to revolve around exclusive networks and communities. For example, we often hear in the media and entertainment how a particular country club, golf club or racing club is only for the super-rich and they don’t want to be associated with anyone else. In behavioural terms, this means that these exclusive communities as well as networks provide opportunities for the rich to share information, connect with their peers and consolidate their influence. Yet the downside of these exclusive networks is that they can lead to social stratification and a concentration of power. How Does Wealth Impact Empathy? As someone who works with children and did their Masters in clinical psychology, one of the most concerning findings is how wealth relates to empathy. Since a wide range of research shows that as people increase their wealth, their ability to tune into the emotions of others decrease. This is even more true for people from different socio-economic backgrounds.  As you can imagine, this is a massive problem because this "empathy gap" can have massively negative impacts on social cohesion and policymaking. Personally, whilst I don't want to get into politics at the moment, I think this is a massive issue in the world. We have the richest, the top 1% and the ruling elite, whatever you want to call them. These wealthy people are the ones in power, they have no idea what it's like to be from a different socio-economic background and so their policies aren't effective at supporting others because they don't have the emotional attunement needed to understand others. This is why generally speaking it seems the government's decisions are designed to make them richer and keep us poorer.  Thankfully, it's important to note that this empathy gap isn't inevitable or universal because there are lots of wealthy people who actively work on maintaining their connection to others, their empathy and they're aware of the potential issues of their privileged position.  One example I know of is an American writer friend of mine. Him and his wife are in their 60s and 70s, they're millionaires and yet, they're brilliant people. They're very connected to others, they're always wanting to help those with less money and they are just some of the most normal rich people I've ever met.  On the flip side because the various charity work I've done over the years and the wide range of people I've met at university, there are some rich people who you talk to and you're just like "yeah, you've always had a silver spoon in your mouth, you have no idea what it's like to be poor or working class and talking to you is really awkward," How Does Wealth Impact Cultural Perceptions? If you’ve been a listener of The Psychology World Podcast for a while, then you know that I flat out love culture, as seen in the podcast episode, How Do Different Cultures Perceive Learning Disabilities.  I enjoy seeing how our culture, our social norms and our lifestyles impact our behaviour, and wealth is no different. The culture we live in can impact our attitudes towards the wealth and how we spend our wealth as a result. On the most basic level, how a given culture portrays the rich impacts our understanding of what it means to be rich. For example, in the Western world, we imagine wealth and “richness” as the ability to buy a private island, have massive houses, not have a “proper” job, have multiple sports cars and be able to go to faraway countries for a holiday on a whim. And I would rather controversially add the ability to get away with crime and breaking the law is the meaning of being rich. A very interesting way how wealth and culture impact our behaviour is how wealth impacts our personal ethics and values. This is critical to understand because some people would say that wealth corrupts, but other people argue that wealth amplifies existing personality traits. Personally, and this doesn’t make me correct, I tend to believe wealth corrupts instead of amplifying personality traits. Since I believe no one is born wanting to harm others, screw over other socioeconomic groups and putting themselves ahead of others for their own personal gains. That is all taught by people, living in a capitalist culture and that I can see this attitude being bred in the exclusive communities and networks that I spoke about earlier. Therefore, I think wealth does corrupt the majority of people. In reality, the true impact of wealth on ethics and personal values is likely to be in the middle. Somewhere in between amplifying their already existing personality traits and corrupting their personal ethics and values. Another way how wealth and culture impact our behaviour is our attitudes towards expressions of wealth. For instance, in some cultures, like a lot of Western cultures, it is perfectly okay and even celebrated to have massive “flashy” expressions of wealth. It is okay in England and the United States to show off your expensive necklaces, your endless amounts of sports cars and talk about your various holiday homes (even I am personally against holiday homes because of what they do to local communities) and you will not be judged negatively for these expressions of wealth. That is just a part of Western culture. On the other hand, there are cultures that do not appreciate loud, flashy expressions of wealth. In these cultures, they prize more modest and discrete expressions of wealth. Understanding these cultural differences are important because it can decrease conflict and misunderstandings when different cultures mix. Thankfully, there seems to be a generational shift in how people perceive and use their wealth. For instance, younger wealthy people are tending to place a greater emphasis on using their wealth with social responsibility, sustainability as well as impact investing. In case you’re like me and had no idea what impact investing is, it is an investment strategy that seeks to generate positive environment and/ or social effects alongside financial returns. Personally, I think this sounds flat out brilliant. Instead of wealth being used to screw over others, fund fossil fuels and harm communities in other cultures. Wealth can be used to transition towards green energy, create more green jobs in communities and help other people thrive instead of only the wealthy people benefiting. How Can We Address The Challenges and Opportunities of Wealthy Behaviour? As a teaching assistant at a special education needs school and as an aspiring educational psychologist, as I’ve been writing this podcast episode, I’ve been struggling to come up with ways to reflect and consider how I would bring this knowledge into the classroom. Also, I struggle to bring this knowledge into clinical practice as I’m a clinical psychology person first and foremost. I’m mentioning this fact because the wealthy do have a massive, massive impact on people and society as a whole, so we absolutely need to address the opportunities that wealth presents us with, but also the challenges. Mainly, this is by promoting social responsibility amongst the wealthy as well as responsible wealth management. One method of promoting social responsibility and wealth management is by awareness programmes and education. These programmes would help to encourage positive wealth behaviours and it helps wealthy people to understand the broader impact that they have on the world because of their decisions and actions. You could argue this helps to create a more socially conscious approach to wealth. Personally, I would argue that these aren’t likely to be effective unless there is effective government will to punish the wealthy if they don’t do something right. For example, if we look at the United States, there is a billionaire who owns a social media platform (if there are multiple), they have to know the devastating impact that they’re having on US politics, the negative mental health impact of social media, a certain AI chatbot that creates nudified photos of people without permission and so on. Yet these billionaires don’t care because no one, no government, no organisation is actually prepared to hold them to account. Anyway, on the other hand, you might argue that there needs to be questions raised about how do we balance the individual rights of the wealthy to decide what to do with their  money and what society expects of them. Since whilst the majority of people would want more responsible behaviour from the wealthy, we have to consider the limits of social pressure as well as the role of personal choice in a free society. Granted, I did an entire undergraduate module on why free will doesn’t exist, so I have a few issues with the paragraph above but that is the general consensus on the topic. On the whole, from impact investing to philanthropy, there is a lot of brilliant potential for wealthy people to change the world for the better and address global challenges and push humanity forward. If only they have their hearts in the right place, they are grounded in their empathy and understanding of other social groups and arguably, they are held to account. Social Psychology Conclusion I have to admit that this psychology podcast episode has been a lot of fun, because we've seen how wealth changes attitudes, empathy and behaviour. And in a few weird ways, we can apply this knowledge in the real world to help make it a better place for everyone regardless of wealth.  On the whole, we've seen how wealth is a complex process that impacts a wide range of human behaviours with far-reaching consequences for society as well as the wealthy themselves. By understanding how wealth impacts our behaviours, we can promote positive wealth behaviour by encouraging the wealthy to show social responsibility and sustainability. This helps us all to create a world that is empathetic, socially responsible and increase economic justice. In turn, this helps us to decrease the negative impacts of wealth.  Personally, I still think that this is true even when some would argue wealth itself isn't good or bad. The impact of wealth always depends on how the individual uses it. We still need to strive to create a world where wealth is used for positive change. In the future, wealth-based behaviour research could investigate topics like the long-term approaches to different forms of wealth management, how technology could democratise some of the benefits normally associated with wealth, as well as the neurological effects of wealth. Some of these sound really interesting to me and I would enjoy learning more about the neurological impacts of wealth.  Nonetheless, at the end of the day, this podcast episode wasn't about seeing or treating wealthy people as completely different from you and me. Even though, the wealthy have significantly more money in their bank account compared to me. This episode was actually about our shared humanity because regardless of your wealth, we all face the same challenges because we're all human. We all struggle to find meaning, leave a positive legacy on the world, build relationships and more. Therefore, some people argue that understanding the wealthy is less about understanding the impact of bank balances, and it's more about understanding ourselves.     I really hope you enjoyed today’s social psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Cognitive Psychology: A Guide To Neuropsychology, Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Cognitive Psychology and Social Psychology References and Further Reading Andreoni, J., & Vesterlund, L. (2001). Which is the fair sex? Gender differences in altruism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(1), 293-312. Buldova, K., & Chernyak, D. (2024). The psychology of poverty and wealth. Carr, P. (2023). ‘How the other half lives’?: Taking a critical approach to the social psychology of economic inequality and extreme wealth. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 17(5), e12743. Cote, S., House, J., & Willer, R. (2015). High economic inequality leads higher-income individuals to be less generous. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(52), 15838-15843. Davidai, S. (2022). How do people make sense of wealth and poverty?. Current opinion in psychology, 43, 42-47. Housel, M. (2020). The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness. Harriman House Limited. https://neurolaunch.com/rich-behavior/ Kasser, T., & Ryan, R. M. (1993). A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(2), 410. Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., Mendoza-Denton, R., Rheinschmidt, M. L., & Keltner, D. (2012). Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: how the rich are different from the poor. Psychological Review, 119(3), 546. Norton, M. I., & Ariely, D. (2011). Building a better America—One wealth quintile at a time. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 9-12. Piff, P. K., Stancato, D. M., Côté, S., Mendoza-Denton, R., & Keltner, D. (2012). Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(11), 4086-4091. Piketty, T., & Saez, E. (2014). Inequality in the long run. Science, 344(6186), 838-843. Rourke, N. J. (2025). The Entrepreneur Mindset Blueprint: Master the Psychology of Success, Build Resilience, and Think Like a Millionaire to Grow Wealth and Win in Business. Benjamin Bautista. Shariff, A. F., Wiwad, D., & Aknin, L. B. (2016). Income mobility breeds tolerance for income inequality: Cross-national and experimental evidence. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(3), 373-380. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

As we enter the new year, let's start thinking about how we can make 2026 a productive year that sets us up for the future and enhances our psychology journey. Whether it's big steps towards your dream psychology role or small steps, it's still important, valid and a useful step towards you becoming a fully qualified psychologist or mental health professional. Therefore, in this careers in psychology podcast episode, you'll learn how to plan your year to enhance your resume, how to develop your psychological skills in big and small ways and this episode includes lots of thought-provoking questions to make 2026 a great year for you. If you want to make 2026 a successful year that takes you further towards your dream psychology job, then this will be a great episode for you.  Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers in Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology and More . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. What's Your Dream Psychology Job and Goal? Firstly, I highly encourage you to think about your goal. You need to understand what you're working towards so you can understand how to get there, what skills you need to develop and what's driving you. Since if you know what's driving you then this will help in the low moments when psychology just feels flat out impossible.  Your psychology goal might be to become a clinical psychologist, forensic psychologist or a CBT therapist. Or you might want to become an academic or psychology researcher as well as you might want to become another type of mental health professional.  Psychology opens so many doors to you, so you need to research psychology careers, understand what each psychology profession involves and what suits you best. You can research this online, listen to podcasts like this one or read my book " Careers In Psychology " for more information.  Also, it's okay if this changes over time.  For instance, when I first started my psychology journey, I was dead set on becoming a clinical psychologist, because that's all I knew. I wanted to work with clients, improve lives and I just flat out loved clinical psychology. Yet now, I'm starting to consider a career in educational psychology because I'm very knowledgeable about the UK education system, I've been working in education for 7 years and you can still use clinical psychology knowledge in education settings.  It's a big change but I'm excited.  After you've figured out what your goal is for your psychology journey and researched what you need to do to become that psychological professional. It can be really useful to break it down into smaller steps on a piece of paper and it can make the process seem a lot more manageable.  For example, instead of just saying, I want to become a clinical psychologist that's a lot to achieve in a single year, so you need to break it down first. Therefore, you can write down the following: I want to become a clinical psychologist so I need to: ·       Develop my clinical and academic skills and experience so I can get onto the Doctorate of Clinical Psychology.  ·       Get clinical experience in special educational needs and learning disabilities. ·       Get clinical experience in working-aged adults ·       Get experience supporting older adults ·       Get experience working in a child and adolescent mental health service. Then clinical experience is only one part of the doctorate, you also need to show that you have the academic skills to complete the Doctorate to become a clinical psychologist. ·       Achieve as best I can on a BPS-accredited undergraduate degree.   ·       Complete a masters ·       Get involved in research projects to improve my research skills On the whole, writing down what you need to achieve to increase your chances of becoming your dream psychology job can make it seem easier, less overwhelming and it allows you to pick what you want to achieve this year so you can develop your skills for your psychology journey. Questions to consider at the end of this section: ·       What is your psychology goal? ·       What skills and experience do you need to get to that psychology goal? ·       How can you break these down into more manageable chunks? Pick Your Psychology Focus Areas for 2026 After you've done this, I highly recommend that you pick a few areas you want to focus on in 2026, because unfortunately you cannot become your dream psychology job in a single year. Your psychology journey is exactly that, a journey so you can't do everything I just listed above. If you focus on a few things in 2026, then you can develop those skills, learn a lot and become really good at those skills then you can focus on other areas next year and the year after and so on. Therefore, if you want to become a clinical psychologist then maybe in 2026, you could focus on developing your communication skills, experience with children and young people and your research skills. That's it. You can leave learning disabilities, older adults and working-aged adults for other years.  If you want to become a psychology researcher then in 2026, focus on your research skills so get involved in as many research projects as you can. Then leave your conferencing skills, scientific communication and journal publications until next year.  Finally, for this section, if you want to become a business psychologist, then perhaps focus on developing your business experience in 2026. Maybe leave your business psychology learning until next year and so on.  Overall, by focusing on a few areas in 2026, you're increasing your chances of becoming really good at those skills and decreasing the risk of you becoming burnt out, overwhelmed and stressed that you'll never reach your dream psychology job. If you're stressed, you can take a breather and remind yourself, "I know I have a lot of other skills to develop, but by the end of this year, I'll be great at x, y and z and this will allow me to be closer to my goal,". Questions to consider at the end of this section: ·       What psychology areas do you want to focus on in 2026? ·       How will you achieve these areas? ·       How will these areas benefit your psychology journey? Consider Applying for the Doctorate We all understand that it is extremely rare to get onto a doctorate course first time, because these courses are so competitive and last time I heard, for every one single space on the Doctorate of Clinical Psychology course in the United Kingdom, there are 4 people applying for it. I imagine that it's very similar for the doctorate of educational psychology amongst the others.  However, it can be a good idea that you apply for a doctorate in 2026 just to familiarise yourself with the application process. If you get onto the Doctorate of your psychology career first time then that's amazing, brilliant and I wish you the best of luck. Yet if you don't, that's okay, normal and your feelings of sadness are understandable. Nonetheless, because of you understand the application process, you'll be better prepared for next year and the year after. As well as the application process will reveal your gaps. You might think you're a brilliant reflective practitioner but in reality, you might struggle to explain your reflection verbally or in written form. That's a skill you can practice next year.  Applying for the clinical, educational psychology or whatever doctorate course you might be a powerful step forward in your psychology journey even if you don't get in.  Personally, in 2026, I'm planning to apply for the doctorate of educational psychology for the first time. I don't intend to get onto the doctorate but by that time I'll have a year's experience in special educational needs and I would have had 6 years of part-time experience in mainstream schools. As well as both types of employment have given me a lot of knowledge and experiences within education.  Also, this goal has given me motivation to look more into educational psychology and develop skills that I know I'm going to need in the application process. For example, how to write professional reflections, a deep understanding of applying psychological concepts and theories to the classroom amongst others.  My attitude is apply for the doctorate as best as I can, but if I "fail". I'll be a lot more knowledgeable about the process and I'll have a greater awareness of my weak areas so I can focus on them in 2027.  Questions to consider at the end of this section: ·       What’s stopping you applying for the doctorate? ·       What doctorate courses do you want to apply for? ·       What can you do between now and when the doctorate courses open to give yourself the best possible chance of success? Commit to One Act of Psychology Learning Every Week Another useful tip is to carve out one hour a week or simply commit to learning one new thing a week for the entire year. It could be as small as watching a single YouTube video a week on a particular psychology skill you want to become better in, reading a single chapter of a psychology textbook or you spend some time every week researching a psychology topic. The entire point of this tip is that you are learning every single week in small chunks, and some weeks, you might have some extra time to learn a big chunk of a topic. Other weeks, you might be really pressed for time so a small chunk is all you can achieve.  That's fine, because you're learning, you're moving forward and over time, you will learn so much more than you realise.  A lot of people think in psychology that if you want to move forward in your career, you need to do massive acts. Like studying an entire Masters, doing other postgraduate courses and more. These options are obviously still important but if you learn a single thing a week for 52 weeks by the end of 2026, you would have learnt 52 things.  You would know 52 more things than you did at the start of 2026. That's really valuable. Towards the end of this podcast episode, I’ll talk about my “fail to success” mindset and this can be a critical mindset shift to develop in 2026 to help you succeed. Personally, on my weekly To Do List which is always massive, I specifically include “nonfiction learning sessions” and I typically give it a weighting of 4 Major Things. Essentially, this means I need to spend about an hour a week learning different nonfiction things. Originally, these were reading sessions and I would try to read 50 pages of a nonfiction book every week, but as my psychology journey has changed I’ve had to make these learning sessions more flexible. For example, the other week, I used them to research “ending clinical work with an autistic person” because I really needed that for my job. This week I’ve been learning about how to shape some future psychology content for the podcast with your interests based on my Spotify Unwrapped this year for the podcast. In addition, I count listening to podcasts as nonfiction learning, because I enjoy podcasts, I can learn a lot from them and sometimes I listen to an interview and it gives me a brilliant insight that I can use in the future going forward. As well as on my YouTube watch later list, I have a tips video on how to write a good personal statement for the Doctorate of Educational Psychology courses in the UK. I need to watch that. Finally, for this section, whilst it isn’t psychology-related, these nonfiction learning sessions allowed me to learn about the Irish Free State, Irish War of Independence, their isolationist economy and more. Therefore, you can see that just by learning one thing a week, over time you can learn a lot of valuable skills that will benefit your psychology journey. On the whole, in 2026, every single week, I will push my knowledge forward, I will be learning more about different areas of psychology and I will be developing my knowledge to enhance my psychology journey and hopefully give me extra knowledge that I can use in job applications, interviews and as an aspiring practitioner. Questions to consider at the end of this section: ·       How much time could you dedicate a week to learning about psychology? ·       Be honest with yourself, why can’t it be more time? ·       How are you going to use this focused time to learn about psychology? Are you going to listen to podcasts, read books or watch courses and videos? The Importance of Job-Crafting In Your Psychology Journey This is a perfect idea if you're in a non-psychology job and like most people you can't afford to do years of unpaid work experience that clinical psychology requires. And this is where I will admit I am extremely lucky because I'm a teaching assistant in a SEN school, this is giving me a lot of experience with children with learning disabilities. Yet one of the reasons why I switched from clinical psychology to educational psychology is because I just cannot get enough clinical experience at the moment. Since I cannot afford to do years of unpaid work in mental health services.  Anyway, if you can't do honorary work or volunteering in mental health wards, then you can do something called Job-Crafting. This is where you tailor your job and use your current job to develop your psychology skills and move you further along on your psychology journey.  For example, you might be an office worker in an insurance company. You're already developing communication skills, interpersonal skills and perhaps "dealing with resistant people" skills. All of those are very important skills to a psychologist. However, you could see if your insurance company has any research projects going on, and if they do, you could get involved in them to develop your research and academic writing skills. You could see if your insurance company has a mental health program and get involved in that to develop your skills, and you could take the lead in group projects for leadership skills.  However, if your workplace doesn't have these opportunities available to you. Then you can try and make these opportunities for yourself. For instance, talk to your boss or manager about running a mental health activity once or twice a week for 8 weeks. Then you could do a mini-research project as part of it. You could give your fellow employees an anonymised mental health scale before, midway and after your intervention and see if it's helped anyone.  Sometimes you need to get creative with your Job-Crafting and these don't need to be massive, life-changing steps that will jump you to getting onto the doctorate of psychology training course of your dreams. Instead, it can simply be about improving your skill set and experience so you can get a more psychology-based job in the future. For instance, originally, I became a teaching assistant at a special needs school to develop my clinical experience, so I'm more likely to be able to get an assistant psychologist role instead of jumping straight from the teaching assistant to doctorate of clinical psychology. This realisation is useful because it helps you break down your goal into even easier-to-manage bits. For example, instead of wanting to get an assistant psychologist role straight out of university, which is next to impossible to achieve then feeling like a failure. You can think about what psychological skills you need to be an assistant psychologist and how you can develop those skills in your current job. My practical tip for you would be write down the skills and experiences you need for your dream psychology job, and write down how you can develop those skills in your current job or current life situations. For instance, something I read constantly in assistant psychologist job descriptions is something along the lines of "an ability to share psychological information with sensitivity and compassionately to distressed family members". This is one of the reasons why I went on The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast and wrote for the British Psychological Society on male sexual violence, because I had to discuss rape (a highly sensitive and emotionally distressing topic) in an easy-to-understand and compassionate way.  I can mention these experiences in future job interviews and applications.  Just think about it. It won’t be easy but it will be worth it. Questions to ask yourself at the end of this section: ·       What skills do you need to develop on your psychology journey? ·       How can you use your current job to develop these skills? ·       What opportunities can you try to create for yourself to develop your psychology skills? Take Risks in Your Psychology Journey The final tip I have for you to help advance your psychology career in 2026 is to take risks. If you always play it safe then you aren’t going to progress very much in your psychology career, if at all in 2026. You should always weigh up the advantages and disadvantages before you make a decision when it comes to your career, but sometimes you just need to take a few risks and see how it works out. If you’ve been considering applying for a job, then just apply. If you’ve been thinking about getting involved in a research project at your university or your workplace then just do it. If you’ve been thinking about talking to a psychologist to help you understand a particular career in more depth, then just talk to them. Even if they say no, at least you actually did something. Instead of you just being a wannabe mental health professional or psychologist who says they want to do something and be a psychologist, but they don’t actually take steps towards it. Don’t be a wannabe, actually take steps to become a psychologist. In addition, one of my mindsets is “fail to success”. If in 2026, you want to learn 52 new things in a year, because that’s one thing a week, but by the end of the year, you’ve still learnt 30 new things about psychology. That is still amazing. That’s 30 more things than you knew compared to the beginning of the year. That is great and that means you’re thirty steps closer towards your psychology goal. Another example is even if you applied for 30 assistant psychologist positions and you didn’t get any of them. You failed to become an assistant psychologist, but you still did it. And hopefully, you would have been given some feedback, areas to improve on and it’s all experience for the future. That is what you need to focus on. Just because you failed at something, it doesn’t mean it was wasted. Take risks, or you will never achieve anything in your psychology journey. Personally, in 2025, I’ve taken a few different risks. I started being podcast interviews again and this is a risk, because they used to make me anxious, nervous and I used to be a terrible interviewer. Yet that risk really did pay off because I got to catch up with my friends again, I got to learn more about psychology and you, wonderful listeners and readers have also enjoyed the episodes a lot. Of course, I “failed” some of my risks. I finally plucked up the courage to contact an educational psychologist, I invited him on the podcast and he apologised but declined because he was too busy. That’s okay. I still took a risk and I’ve learnt that I have the professionalism and the courage to contact psychology professionals I don’t know and invite them onto the podcast. Additionally, I took the risk of going on The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast this year with Doctor Marianne Trent to talk about male sexual violence. That was nerve-racking, scary and I was anxious about the interview but it went really well, and I want to do more guest appearances in the future. The same goes for my article for The Psychologist magazine. If I didn’t take the risk then none of these great opportunities would have happened. Questions to think about at the end of this section: ·       What psychology opportunities are you scared of accepting or taking? ·       How could you overcome these fears? ·       What’s holding you back in your psychology journey? Careers In Psychology Conclusion I have to admit that I am really happy with this psychology podcast episode because it really got me thinking, it’s gotten me excited for 2026 and it makes me want to be a psychologist even more. And even though I won’t be a psychologist by the end of 2026 (if ever), I’m going to have learnt a lot of brilliant, fascinating and exciting facts and other things along the way. Therefore, at the end of this episode, I would recommend that you go through the questions, think about your personal answers and action them into your own life. To wrap up, just as a little recap, here are the ways how you can advance your psychology career in 2026 (and all the years afterwards): ·       What’s your dream psychology job and goal? ·       Pick your psychology focus areas for 2026 ·       Consider applying for the doctorate ·       Commit to learning one small thing every week for the year ·       The importance of job-crafting in your psychology journey ·       Take risks     I really hope you enjoyed today’s business psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers in Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology and More . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Business Psychology Further Reading Blustein, D. L., Ali, S. R., & Flores, L. Y. (2019). Vocational psychology: Expanding the vision and enhancing the impact. The Counseling Psychologist, 47(2), 166-221. Demerouti, E. (2014). Design your own job through job crafting. European psychologist. Devotto, R. P. D., & Wechsler, S. M. (2019). Job crafting interventions: Systematic review. Trends in Psychology, 27(2), 371-383. Lent, R. W., & Brown, S. D. (2020). Career decision making, fast and slow: Toward an integrative model of intervention for sustainable career choice. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 120, 103448. Robertson, P. J. (2018). Positive psychology and career development. British journal of guidance & counselling, 46(2), 241-254. Whiteley, C. (2021) Careers in Psychology. CGD Publishing. England. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.