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Whether you’re an aspiring psychologist, psychology student or loved one of a teenager, this podcast episode will be immensely useful to you. Since my audience is mainly psychology students and aspiring and qualified psychologists, I want to mention that depending on the mental health service you work in, there is a chance you’ll encounter a survivor of sexual violence. As well as I’ve already mentioned on the podcast before unfortunately how common sexual assault is for men and women. Yet unfortunately teenagers can be subjected to sexual assault too, and this presents us with an issue because some of the advice about how to help adult survivors doesn’t work for teenagers. As well as because teenagers are still children and as parents or friends or loved ones, we want to protect them at all costs, we aren’t always sure how to help them. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn a range of tips on how to help a teenage sexual assault survivor. If you enjoy learning about mental health, victim support and the healing after sexual assault then this will be a useful, insightful and great episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Breaking The Silence: A Forensic Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Social Psychology Guide To Sexual Violence, Rape and Sexual Assault. 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. Note: nothing on this podcast is ever any sort of official medical, legal, relationship any other type of advice. Introduction To The Heartbreaking Event of Teenage Sexual Assault It’s heartbreaking enough to know that sexual assault exists in the world and I flat out hate that sexual assault happens in the first place. Yet it is even more heartbreaking to know that 44% of sexual assault survivors are under the age of 18, so when we discover that our teenage child, loved one or friend has been sexually assaulted then this is heartbreaking. Your teenager will be in pain, they will be suffering and they will be going through hell and back as they try to process what the hell happened to them and why. Moreover, because 44% of sexual assault survivors are so young, we need to rethink the traditional advice we give people, so we can make sure it’s applicable to the young men and women that experience this awful traumatic event. As well as whilst the research and voices this episode is based on are mainly women-focused, this should apply to all teenage survivors regardless of their gender identity. That’s why I’ll be using gender-neutral language in this episode. When it comes to yourself, you will be angry that some idiot did this to your teenager, you will be scared about the future and you will be scared or terrified for your teenager. As well as you will probably be powerless to help them and it is that sense of powerlessness that I want to talk about in this episode. You might experience grief too. When you feel powerless, please know you are never alone and neither is your teenager. There are rape crisis centres, there are support groups and there are other parents and allies that have been or are where you are right now so you can walk hand-in-hand with them through the healing and recovery process. Also, you can learn from them too because you are all there to support each other. In addition, there are plenty of ways how you can support your teenager compassionately and that’s the focus for the rest of this episode. Also, all the references for today’s episode are at the bottom of the blog post like always. Encourage Your Teenager To Express Themselves Sexual assault survivors are three times more likely to develop depression compared to non-survivors, and psychologist Dana C. Jack refers to depression as a condition that silences a person. This basically means that depression stops the survivor from experiencing, expressing and feeling all the emotions they have as they process the distressing life event. Therefore, one option to help a teenage sexual assault survivor is to find a mental health professional who uses expressive art therapy in their work. Since expressive arts can be very useful for teenagers because it helps them connect with as well as process the truth about the traumatic experience. Personally, even though I’m not a teenager, I think that’s why I’ve thrown myself into my fiction and nonfiction writing. It’s why I’m writing a personal book and then a psychology-focused book based on sexual violence so I can process, reflect and express what I feel about this horrific situation. Yet you might be able to try painting, modelling, clay stuff and a wide range of other creative art forms in a therapeutic setting. Visit the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (RAINN) Website Even though this is a website for the United States, this is still a brilliant website wherever you are in the world. For the past 17 weeks, I’ve been reading a fair amount of different articles, websites and a single academic paper to help me process what on earth happened and the RAINN website is one I have kept coming back to. They have some good statistics and facts that I like, and it’s very useful for finding the location of any local rape crisis centres near you and learning more about sexual assault. As well as your teenager might find their Online Hotline useful, which is an instant messaging section where your teenager will be able to connect with a trained advocate who can answer any questions that they have. In addition, after your teenager has connected with their local crisis centre, you can research recovery groups and ask for referrals. Ultimately, this is about knowing that your teenager is never alone and when they hear the stories of other sexual assault survivors, they can heal and reduce their shame and self-blame. As an adult, I know contacting a support service has been immediately healing, beneficial and it has given me hope for the future. I’m still on the waiting list for rape counselling but making the referral was still one of the best decisions I’ve ever made because in all the dark moments, all the dark times when I am suffering so much and I want it all to end, I know I just need to wait a little longer and I’ll be able to get help as I come off the waiting list. There is hope for a good life after sexual assault. Help Your Teenager Explore Contemplative Practices In case you’re like me and it took you a little longer than it should to remember what a contemplative practice was, it is a practice that quiets the mind so you can cultivate a personal capacity for insight and deep concentration. This can include tai chi, prayer, yoga as well as meditation. Also, these practices can be very helpful in healing any dissociation experienced by your teenager or your client because disassociation is where a trauma survivor disconnects from their experience and sometimes their own body in an effort to survive. In addition, I really shouldn’t need to say this but just in case, I do want to mention it. If your teenager has been sexually abused by a religious figure. Do not push religion as a source of healing or power or light in this dark time. If your teenager is religious then please, give them the space to find their own spiritual or religious path as they process what happened to them. And if they reject religion forever after their sexual assault then that’s okay. Talk About Healthy Relationships with Your Teenager A terribly unfortunate research finding is surviving a teenage sexual assault is one of the greatest predictors of them experiencing some type of relationship violence in the future. Therefore, it’s important to talk with your teenager about the difference between a healthy, respectful relationship and an abusive one, and this is something you should model in your own life. This allows your teenager to actually see it and understand it in the real world. Whilst as an adult, me and my best friend haven’t had too many discussions about this topic, I remember one extremely helpful conversation that we had about consent. Since my best friend took the virginity of their ex-boyfriend and they were using it as an example of how informative consent works. In essence, actual consent isn’t a simple “yes” or “no” at the beginning of sex, it is asking frequently throughout sex if is it okay if they do X then y then z and so on to you and not doing it until you enthusiastically consent to it. And it is that need for enthusiasm that is important because you can say “yes” out of fear, out of concern for your safety and out of terror that the person doing things to you will hurt you badly. Thus, if you give consent with enthusiasm then that means you actually want it and that is the whole point of consent. That’s a relatively cruel explanation of this conversation but it proves the importance of having these honest, open conversations. Honour Your Teenager’s Boundaries Something I cannot stress enough because I understand I am not a teenager but my family did this to me and it really distressed me in secret. But please, ask permission before hugging and touching the teenage survivor, because if you don’t and if you just touch or hug them without permission. It can bring up a lot of distressing memories, a lot of pain and a lot of terror because this is likely exactly what the person did who attacked the teenager in your life. Of course, logically this is very different, but the brain doesn’t work like that and your teenager’s brain will not distinguish between these two types of sudden hugs and touches that happened without permission. Ultimately, the teenager in your life needs to be in control of their body at all times so you can discuss safety planning and ask permission before hugging and touching. Yet make sure you don’t take away their freedoms out of your own fear. For example, I know you can track phones and I know certain communities have safety apps that you can download, so you can talk about these with your teenager. Just make sure they don’t feel restricted or controlled in the process. The reason why I’m mentioning this is because my social environment (the term I use to subtly refer to something) have a Ring doorbell camera and whenever I would go out, leave the house or do something, they would ask me about it later on. They thought it was funny that they could see who was coming or going from the house but it seriously negatively impacted my mental health but I felt so controlled, I lacked all freedom that it was actually something that played a minor role in my sexual assault. Furthermore, after my sexual assault, my social environment was struggling with me telling them what had happened and one day someone was seriously angry with me that I didn’t want to hug them. So I forced myself to and I hated it, I felt so disrespected and that’s one of the main reasons why I don’t consider my social environment a good place for support. Them not caring about my requests not to be touched for a little while whilst I recovered and started healing a little (my sexual assault had only happened three days before), set up the emotional tone in the relationship that they didn’t want to hear me out, respect me or move heaven and earth to help me. Please listen and respect your teenager’s boundaries no matter how hard they are. Never Blame The Teenager In Your Life I’ve already mentioned why you should never ever blame a sexual assault survivor in other chapters. However, you should remind the teenager in your life that their sexual assault was never their fault and all the trauma responses and whatever happened during the sexual assault was what they had to do to survive. Therefore, what you can do as a parent, a friend or loved one is simply to give the teenager in your life the patience and be the empathetic listener they deserve. There are a lot of online resources and books to help you become an empathetic listener in case you need some extra support. For instance, Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. On the whole, as someone who did have their social environment blame them for the sexual assault before claiming a few weeks later this wasn’t true (gaslighting), this is extremely damaging. I cannot stress enough how you should avoid doing this at all costs, because this will place a massive wedge between you and the teenage survivor, and you might not notice, you might think that everything in your relationship is going okay. Yet in my experience, the survivor will remember what you said, what you implied and how you made them feel. I don’t want that for you, because if you’re hunting down information and reading or listening to this chapter. Then you are actually amazing as far as I’m concerned because no one did that for me. No one wanted to support me so badly that they hunted down information in an effort to support you. Just make sure your teenager feels loved, supported and listened to and the road to recovery should be a little easier even if it doesn’t seem like it some days. Clinical Psychology Conclusion I know this chapter was mainly aimed at parents, loved ones and friends of teenage sexual assault survivors whereas my normal audience is aspiring and qualified psychologists and people interested in psychology. Yet here’s the tragic truth about sexual violence, it doesn’t matter who you are, what your job is or what your future or current job is. You yourself or someone you know or someone you love can be a sexual assault survivor. This is critical information to know whoever you are so that’s why I have no issue having this in the book at all. Overall, during this difficult time of recovery, please be kind to yourself and your teenager because self-care is flat out critical for both of you. Definitely reach out to a mental health professional and/ or a rape crisis centre for support as you process what on earth happened to the teenager in your life. There will be dark times, dark moments and you will be terrified for your teenager at times because you love them, you want to support them and you will struggle with how to handle this aftermath. However, whilst sexual assault does devastate lives, there is hope for a better life if you want to heal. There are other survivors, specialist mental health professionals and a lot of other great people that want to help you and your teenager heal and recover. It is possible regardless of how difficult processing sexual assault is on both of you.   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 Breaking The Silence: A Forensic Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Social Psychology Guide To Sexual Violence, Rape and Sexual Assault. 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. Forensic Psychology References and Further Reading Campbell, R., Greeson, M. R., Fehler-Cabral, G., & Kennedy, A. C. (2015). Pathways to help: Adolescent sexual assault victims’ disclosure and help-seeking experiences. Violence against women, 21(7), 824-847. DeSalvo, L. (2000). Writing as a way of healing: How telling our stories transforms our lives. Beacon Press. Feuereisen, P. (2018). Invisible girls: The truth about sexual abuse. Seal Press. https://rainn.org/ https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-new-teen-age/201207/7-ways-to-help-a-teen-survivor-of-sexual-assault Miles, L. W., Valentine, J. L., Mabey, L. J., Hopkins, E. S., Stodtmeister, P. J., Rockwood, R. B., & Moxley, A. N. (2024). A systematic review of evidence-based treatments for adolescent and adult sexual assault victims. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, 30(3), 480-502. Moore, C. L., & Van Vliet, K. J. (2022). Women’s experiences of nature as a pathway to recovery from sexual assault. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 62(1), 123-150. Rosenberg, M. B., & Chopra, D. (2015). Nonviolent communication: A language of life: Life-changing tools for healthy relationships. PuddleDancer Press. Thomas, S. (2021). The Impact of Sexual Assault Disclosure on Mental Health and Recovery (Doctoral dissertation, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology). 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.

Recently, as I continue to search for a mental health-related job to do after my clinical psychology MSc, I came across a job for a Social Prescriber Line Worker. I applied for the job, I got an interview but I have little idea what a social prescriber actually does. Chances are, you don’t either because this is a very new job role in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, but it serves a very interesting, unique and important role in modern mental healthcare. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what is social prescribing, how does social prescribing fit within the larger mental health job market and how can social prescribing improve lives. If you enjoy learning about mental health, careers in psychology and multidisciplinary approaches to therapy. Then this is a brilliant episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Working With Children and Young People: A Guide to Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy and Mental Health . 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 Social Prescribing? Social prescribing, according to the NHS, is a major part of Universal Personalised Care and this is an approach to mental health that seeks to connect people to services, groups and activities in their community. These activities seek to meet the social, emotional as well as practical needs of the person to improve their health and wellbeing. In addition, social prescribing isn’t limited to one clinical population or one age group. Instead social prescribing is an all-age, whole population approach to healthcare that can work even better for people who are lonely or isolated, they have complex social needs that might impact their mental health, they need support with low-level mental health difficulties and they have one or more long-term conditions. The person who does the social prescribing is called a social prescribing line worker and these Line Workers work for local agencies, like social care, local charities and health services. Also, these Line Workers give people time to focus on what matters to them so together the client and the Line Worker can co-produce a simple personalised care and support plan. As well as the Line Worker helps people to take control of their own health and wellbeing. Personally, I flat out love this approach to mental healthcare so far, because it is built on the same reason why I love formulation. We are the experts in psychological theory and research, but the client is always the expert in themselves, their life and their lived experience. This is why we always need to work with  the client to co-produce a care plan, so they feel empowered and like they can take back control. Especially, because in my experience, depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions steal that power from a person. Coproducing care plans can help clients to get that sense of power back. In addition, I really like how Line Workers mean we can reduce waiting lists because instead of clients with low level mental health difficulties being abandoned until their difficulties become severe enough that they need to be added to a waiting list for longer-term, more expensive psychological therapy, we can put them in touch with local services that might help improve their mental health and wellbeing. This is essentially another, less official version of behavioural activation. By helping someone with a mental health condition to take part in and do what they love then it can lead to positive mental health outcomes, to grossly oversimplify. Line workers are a part of Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and the idea behind this is that it allows every person in England to access a social prescribing service through their General Practice. Furthermore, social prescribing line workers support existing community groups to be sustainable as well as accessible for everyone. Equally, they help people to start new groups and line workers work with all local partners, so no one is left out. Essentially, I understand this mentality as a sort of “a rising tide lifts all boats” mentality. In other words if all social groups are thriving then everyone benefits in society. What Difference Does Social Prescribing Make? According to the NHS, there is a growing body of evidence showing the stark positive impact that social prescribing can have on individuals, like the report by Dayson and Batty (2020). Research shows that social prescribing gives people more control over their lives so this improves their mental health, as well as service evaluations show that social prescribing reduces pressure on NHS services. Such as, a reduction in A&E attendance, GP Consultations and hospital bed stays for people. As well as in 2017, the University of Westminster found that social prescribing leads to 28% fewer GP consultations and 24% fewer A&E visits. It's clear that social prescribing  does have a starkly positive impact on people and their mental health, and it has wider benefits for the National Health Service too. What Makes A Good Social Prescribing Scheme? Finally, a good social prescribing scheme is made up of support for community groups, a common outcomes framework, workforce development, easy referral from all local agencies, a co-produced personalised plan that is based on what matters to the client you’re supporting as well as collaborative commissioning and partner working. Also, social prescribing link workers are employed to give time to people to focus on what matters to them. These are the key factors that make a good social prescribing scheme. Clinical Psychology Conclusion Whilst social prescribing is a relatively new form of mental health support, I strongly believe that it’s important for aspiring and qualified psychologists to be aware of. In case you’re like me and you’re close to finishing your time at university, you’ll be looking for mental health-related jobs so we can get the practical work experience we need to be able to apply for the Doctor of Clinical Psychology in a few years. Getting involved in social prescribing work might be a useful first step as we continue our psychology journey. Just a thought. What do you think?   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 Working With Children and Young People: A Guide to Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy and Mental Health . 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 Dayson, C., & Batty, E. (2020). Social prescribing and the value of small providers-evidence from the evaluation of the Rotherham social prescribing service. Evers, S., Husk, K., Napierala, H., Wendt, L., & Gerhardus, A. (2024). Theories used to develop or evaluate social prescribing in studies: a scoping review. BMC Health Services Research, 24(1), 140. Haslam, S. A., Haslam, C., Cruwys, T., Sharman, L. S., Hayes, S., Walter, Z., ... & Young, T. (2024). Tackling loneliness together: A three-tier social identity framework for social prescribing. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 27(5), 1128-1150. https://www.england.nhs.uk/personalisedcare/comprehensive-model/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/personalisedcare/pcsp/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/personalisedcare/social-prescribing/faqs/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/personalisedcare/workforce-and-training/social-prescribing-link-workers/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/primary-care/primary-care-networks/ Sachs, A. L., Kolster, A., Wrigley, J., Papon, V., Opacin, N., Hill, N., ... & Litt, J. (2024). Connecting through nature: A systematic review of the effectiveness of nature-based social prescribing practices to combat loneliness. Landscape and Urban Planning, 248, 105071. Scarpetti, G., Shadowen, H., Williams, G. A., Winkelmann, J., Kroneman, M., Groenewegen, P. P., ... & van Ginneken, E. (2024). A comparison of social prescribing approaches across twelve high-income countries. Health policy, 142, 104992. 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.

After subscribing to a few Continued Professional Development newsletters and seeing the option for Single Session Therapy on my university’s counselling form, I finally decided it was time to investigate this type of psychotherapy in more detail. Traditionally, we know that psychological therapy can take months of therapy sessions to be fully effective and to improve a client’s life for the better. Yet some therapists and researchers argue that a single session of psychological therapy is more than enough for some clients. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what is single session therapy, what is the evidence base for single session therapy and how might Single Session Therapy be used in the future. If you enjoy learning about mental health, psychotherapy and psychological treatment 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 Single Session Therapy? The main, basic principle behind Single Session Therapy is that a single session of psychological therapy might be more than enough to support clients with their mental health difficulties. Also, this isn’t a theoretical model nor is it a standalone psychological approach, like cognitive behavioural therapy. Instead Single Session Therapy is a framework that helps therapists to conduct their therapy sessions in a way that maximises the efficacy of every session regardless of the type of therapy. Personally, I think this is an interesting idea because whilst it wouldn’t work for a wide range of mental health conditions. For example, you cannot undo or treat someone’s depression, anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder amongst other mental health conditions in a single therapy session. You might be able to support people with subclinical conditions just enough so their mental health difficulties don’t become more severe where they need longer-term, more expensive psychological support for a longer period of time. That’s actually a really interesting idea. Maybe offering people a single session as a preventative measure so they don’t need to get so severe that they need to be put on a waiting list for longer-term therapy for years. Furthermore. Single Session Therapy isn’t actually about therapy only lasting a single session. Hoyt and Talmon (2014b) argue that one of the massive misconceptions people have about Single Session Therapy is that it means a client only has a single treatment session. In my opinion, I would add if you didn’t want people to have that misconception, then don’t include “single session” in the name. To me, that’s common sense but I didn’t name it. Moreover, this misconception comes from the main idea behind Single Session Therapy. The basic idea is that a therapist works with a client to make sure they get the most out of every session of the therapy with the idea that every single session can potentially be the last one. Maybe this is because of dropout, poor treatment adherence, clients not being ready to start therapy, clients not having the right therapist for them at that moment in time or clients not having a capacity to change at that moment in time. Interestingly, according to Hoyt and Talmon (2014b), the most common number of therapy sessions a client has is 1. I think that’s fascinating because it shows that if most clients do only have a single session then as aspiring and qualified psychologists, we need to move heaven and earth to make sure the client gets the most out of this session. Even if the client never comes back, I would prefer to give my future clients as much knowledge, techniques and support as possible so if they never return. They might be okay in the future, or slightly better off than they would have been otherwise. Is Single Session Therapy Enough for Some People? In my opinion, as someone who has experienced depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia and a bunch of other mental health conditions because of child abuse and rape. I know Single Session Therapy would not be a good fit for me and this would not have been useful in the slightest, but for some people a single session of therapy is enough. Interestingly, when Talmon (1986) noticed a high dropout rate in the psychotherapy service he was working in, he investigated why there was a high dropout and he found that 78% of clients said they had benefited from a single session of therapy so they didn’t feel like they needed to return. Additionally, this idea was later confirmed by Hoyt who conducted the first study into Single Session Therapy and out of 60 clients, 58% of them believed they didn’t need additional therapy sessions after their first session. As well as these findings have been confirmed in additional research studies all over the world. Nonetheless, my issue with Single Session Therapy is it is clear that there is strong potential for Single Session Therapy, especially as a preventative measure. Yet how do we apply this knowledge to the real world? In the United Kingdom, to be able to access psychological support, you essentially need to have two believable suicide attempts otherwise you cannot access therapy. That is how bad and how high the mental health criteria is for public sector mental health support, and this is the biggest employer of psychologists in the United Kingdom. How Could Single Session Therapy Fit into The Public Sector? I spoke about this in my book, Clinical Psychology Reflections Volume 6 , with the Lanson Model in Cornwall. If there is a clinical psychologist in doctors and in primary healthcare then there is a chance, you might be able to book one session of therapy with a psychologist and hopefully that would be enough to help you decrease your psychological distress, and if you needed more then you would be put on the waiting list for longer-term support. However, in my experience, as a rape survivor, I know sexual trauma is on the more extreme end of mental health conditions. Yet if I went for a single session of therapy, I started to feel hopeful about the future and then I was put on a public sector waiting list for years that alone would make my mental health worse. There are no good solutions. Clinical Psychology Conclusion At the end of this podcast episode, whilst I have doubts because of my own mental health experiences about the usefulness of Single Session Therapy in the real world. I strongly believe we should be looking into offering clients one therapy session in primary healthcare to act as a preventative measure. This means there is a good chance people’s mental health might not continue to decline to the point where they have clinically significant levels of distress that meet the criteria for different mental health diagnoses and then they need to be put on waiting lists for years. Our waiting lists for psychological therapies are extremely long, they need to be reduced and the way to reduce the waiting lists is to reduce the need for them in the first place. If we can stop people’s mental health from declining by giving them the therapeutic skills, techniques and self-advocacy to manage their mental health before they get severe enough to need longer-term therapy. Then this could benefit our mental health services in multiple ways. It means we could focus our extremely limited resources on the individuals with the most severe mental health needs, we could give mental health support to everyone regardless of whether they have two believable suicide attempts or not and so on. Single Session Therapy might not be for everyone, but it might be a game changer in primary mental healthcare if we somehow manage to find the funding, implement it and find mental health services willing and able to trial it out. And that’s the hard part. Mental health services are already stretched to breaking point and many will not have the resources to trial this brand-new approach without additional funding and staff. The odds might always be against new ideas, but that’s why we always need to be trying, testing and finding new solutions to old problems. What do you think?     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 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. Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading Bertuzzi, V., Fratini, G., Tarquinio, C., Cannistra, F., Granese, V., Giusti, E. M., ... & Pietrabissa, G. (2021). Single-session therapy by appointment for the treatment of anxiety disorders in youth and adults: a systematic review of the literature. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 721382. Campbell, A. (2012). Single-session approaches to therapy: Time to review. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 33(1), 15-26. Hoyt, M.F. & Talmon, M. (2014b). Editors’ Introduction: Single Session Therapy and Walk-In Services. In M.F. Hoyt & M. Talmon (eds.) (2014a), op. cit., pp. 2-26. Hoyt, M.F. & Talmon, M. (eds.) (2014a). Capturing the Moment. Single Session Therapy and Walk-In Services. Bancyfelin, UK: Crown House. Hoyt, M.F., Talmon, M. & Rosenbaum, R. (1990). Sixty attemps for planned single session therapy, manoscritto non pubblicato. Hymmen, P., Stalker, C. A., & Cait, C. A. (2013). The case for single-session therapy: Does the empirical evidence support the increased prevalence of this service delivery model?. Journal of Mental Health, 22(1), 60-71. Kim, J., Ryu, N., & Chibanda, D. (2023). Effectiveness of single-session therapy for adult common mental disorders: a systematic review. BMC psychology, 11(1), 373. Slive, A., McElheran, N., & Lawson, A. (2008). How brief does it get? Walk-in single session therapy. Journal of Systemic therapies, 27(4), 5-22. Talmon, M. (1990). Single Session Therapy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (Tr. it. Psicoterapia a seduta singola. Milano: Erickson). Weir, S., Wills, M., Young, J. & Perlesz, A. (2008). The implementation of Single Session Work in community healt. Brunswick, Australia: The Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University. Young, J., Weir, S., & Rycroft, P. (2012). Implementing single session therapy. Au stralian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy ,  33 (1), 84-97. 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.

At some point in our lives, we will encounter someone who is being passive-aggressive towards us. Whether this is a friend, loved one or work colleague, people will always be passive-aggressive towards us in some fashion, and this can make work situations uncomfortable and sabotage friendships and other relationships. Therefore, in this social psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what passive aggression is, how to deal with a passive-aggressive person and what causes passive aggression. If you want to learn more about social relationships, relationship conflict and how to manage conflict in relationships, then this will be a brilliant 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. What Is Passive Aggression? Passive-aggressive is when someone doesn’t get visibly angry but they express their hostility in passive-aggressive ways designed to confuse and hurt their target. For example, blanking a person, not wanting to engage in conversation and just ignoring a target are all examples of passive aggression. Other examples of passive aggression include avoiding responsibility for tasks, missing deadlines, withholding critical information, frequently underachieving in contrast to what they are actually capable of, and sabotaging group projects amongst others. For example, a few days ago and what birthed the idea of this psychology podcast episode was that one of my housemates went away back home for a few months and two other housemates without permission turned the missing housemate’s room into a library. They put about sixty books in the housemate’s room without permission and I was texting the housemate and they asked the other housemates to remove the books from their room. A week later the books were still there even though the housemates said they had moved the books, so the missing housemate asked me to remove the books. I did. I put the books into the bedroom of the person who books belonged to and they aren’t using their bedroom, because they sleep with another housemate. That’s a whole different story. Yet one of my housemates was furious that I had moved the books so they barely spoke to me on the Sunday and they blanked me all day on Monday. Regardless of the friendly conversations I tried to engage with them. That’s passive aggression. Even now the housemate hasn’t spoken to me about how furious they were. Anyway, when it comes to dealing with a passive-aggressive person, getting angry or nagging them will only put them on the defensive. This makes them make up excuses and deny responsibility so this isn’t a good way to deal with passive aggression. Thankfully, later in the podcast episode, we’ll learn about some of the healthier ways to confront passive aggression and handle relationship conflict. On the whole, the reason why I’m talking about passive aggression on a psychology podcast besides it being a human behaviour, is because we will all encounter passive aggression in our life. As aspiring or qualified psychologists, it’s important we learn how to deal with passive aggression from our peers, our clients and in the mental health services we work in. Since if we allow passive aggression to impact the therapeutic alliance and our work relationship then this might lead to very negative outcomes for our clients and decrease therapeutic success. This is something we have to avoid at all costs. That’s why this knowledge is critical. What Causes Passive Aggression? Passive aggression comes from a deep-seated anger, frustration and hostility that a person isn’t comfortable expressing directly to the target. This is why when you’re dealing with passive-aggressive behaviour, you should bear in mind that all their behaviour underlies a deep sadness as well as unhappiness. For instance, my housemate was (maybe is still) really angry with me for moving the books they put in the missing housemate’s room without permission. Yet they aren’t comfortable confronting me about it. Partly it is because I know they have avoidant attachment so they will avoid conflict at all costs. Another facet of it is that they probably know they were in the wrong to not remove the books like they told the missing housemate they did. Why Is Passive-Aggression Dangerous? Passive aggression is dangerous because it is very damaging in relationships. The target of the passive aggression typically feels powerless, frustrated and unable to get the passive-aggressive person to cooperate with their conflict management efforts. This could lead the target to enable the passive-aggressive person’s behaviour and assume all the responsibility and taking on a parental role they don’t want. The most damaging aspect of passive aggression is that in the end, all the conflict, anger and resentment will still come to a head and need to be resolved if the relationship is to continue. When my housemate was being really passive-aggressive, I felt powerless, uncomfortable and just awkward. It was so awkward to be in my own home but feeling like I had to be confined to my bedroom so I didn’t have to interact and run into my housemate. Who was just blanking me and radiating anger at me. In addition, passive aggression can be really frustrating to the target because it’s hard to prove its passive aggression or if you’re making it up and overreacting. Or whether this passive aggression is unintentional, so this can lead to more conflict. Especially, if people struggle to have an open and honest conversation about the problem at hand. Personally, when my housemate first started being passive-aggressive to me by not responding when I came home from spending time with my family and offered them to share my caramel-donuts with them. Then when they didn’t respond, I said it again and I got an angry “okay”. I felt really unsure if they were being passive-aggressive or not and this feeling only got worse. I felt a little gaslit by myself, because I didn’t know if I was overreacting, underreacting, if I was in the wrong for moving the books out of the missing housemate’s room and so on. It was just frustrating to me that yet again my housemate’s avoidant attachment was impacting me. I was being punished for helping the missing housemate get the books that didn’t belong to them out of their room. Is The Silent Treatment Passive Aggressive Behaviour? Technically, it depends if the silent treatment is passive-aggressive behaviour, but generally I would say yes. Due to the more extreme forms of the “silent treatment”, like being completely ignored and refusing to respond to the target’s attempts to communicate. These are more direct ways to express anger, frustration and hostility so technically, they don’t count as passive-aggressive behaviour. Yet small versions of the silent treatment like pretending not to hear a friend’s comment or failing to acknowledge a friend in the hallway are signs of passive aggression. In addition, silence can be a very powerful and effective way to passive aggressively shame and hurt a target because the silent treatment can be a quiet form of “verbal” abuse. Even more so when someone in a position of power, like a parent, uses silence to manipulate someone vulnerable. Like a child. Since being ignored by someone you like or love is deeply hurtful and it can cause lasting harm against the target. As a result, you can deal with the silent treatment by using better communication as this can help to change someone’s passive-aggressive behaviour. Due to once you’ve identified the toxic behaviour, you can take a step back, stop participating in the toxic behaviour yourself and affirm the passive-aggressive person’s inner anger. For example, instead of me keep trying to engage with my housemate, which is what I ended up doing because if they were going to completely ignore me, there was no point trying to communicate with them. By taking myself out of the situation, the passive-aggressive person could see that I was no longer being impacted by their behaviour and it wasn’t hurting me anymore. So whatever power they thought they had over me had gone. Afterwards, you can affirm their anger by validating it. Of course, the passive-aggressive person is likely to deny their anger at you because the whole point of passive aggression is so they don’t need to confront their emotions. Anyway, to handle the silent treatment you can compliment their areas of competence, reinforce the behavioural changes you want to see and don’t be afraid to revisit the subject if needed. Personally, I’ll be the first to admit that this is something I need to get better at. Me and my housemates have tried to have calm, validating and supportive conversations so many times and I used to think we would make great progress. We would validate each other, we would compliment each other on what we liked about the others and we would ask for certain areas to be improved but when me and the missing housemates noticed the other two housemates were saying the right things but they weren’t changing or putting in the effort. In fact, they were getting worse, we had a few more meetings but we just gave up trying. Some people will just never change and it’s frustrating. Hopefully, your experiences will be different. How To Deal with Passive-Aggressive People? As mentioned earlier in the episode, passive aggression typically comes from underlying sadness, anger and/ or insecurity, and sometimes the person might not even be aware of these emotions. Therefore, the passive-aggressive behaviour can be an expression of these emotions or an attempt to gain control in a relationship. When it comes to dealing with passive-aggressive people, you need to be mindful about how you respond. You might want to be passive-aggressive yourself but expressing your anger and frustration like this is likely to only encourage the passive-aggressive person to act that way and nothing changes in the relationship. The behaviour inside the relationship only gets more toxic. As a result, it’s useful to show the passive-aggressive person that you respect and value their perspective and this might help to address their underlying sense of insecurity. Just make sure you never apologise for unfounded offences or this means you’re placating the passive behaviour person. For instance, I would never apologise to my housemate about moving all the books out of the missing housemate’s bedroom. My passive-aggressive housemate put over 60 books in their bedroom without permission turning it into a library and when the missing housemate asked to move it, I was simply putting the books where they belonged. If the passive-aggressive housemate wanted to have a conversation with their partner (another housemate) telling them to stop buying books because they have no space for them, then they should do that. They shouldn’t keep putting their rubbish in other people’s bedrooms without permission. However, one of the best solutions and this is not ideal is for you to limit your time with the passive-aggressive person. As well as if you do decide that confrontation is the best path forward, I wouldn’t recommend it but believe me, I know how tempting it is and sometimes confrontation does seem like the best path forward. It’s best not to be accusatory to the passive-aggressive person as you calmly explain how the behaviour makes you feel. Again, in my experience because I know my passive-aggressive housemate has avoidant attachment that just adds another layer of complexity. As well as limiting your time in their presence is not ideal, especially if you live with them. It can make you feel awkward, stressed and like you’re being restricted in your own home, that is not fun. Yet I get more stressed and frustrated being in their presence than being confined to my bedroom so I guess it works in a way. How Do You Respond to Passive Aggressive Behaviour? When you encounter passive-aggressive behaviour, it’s useful to manage your own emotions effectively, so remove yourself from the situation or practice some self-soothing techniques whilst you get your emotions in check. Afterwards, you should try to address the passive-aggressive person’s concerns directly, set clear boundaries and if you think it’s needed, spend less time with the passive-aggressive person. Otherwise, it’s very likely that you will only get hurt and I don’t want that for you. What Can you Say to A Passive-Aggressive Person? When you talk to a passive-aggressive person about their toxic behaviour, it’s important that you never apologise if you’ve done nothing wrong, you hold them accountable for their behaviour and you try putting your needs first. Of course, the passive-aggressive person is likely wanting you to blow up, start shouting or screaming and even start being passive-aggressive yourself. Don’t fall into that trap. Instead the best way to talk to a passive-aggressive person is to be calm and directly address the issue at hand being specific about what upsets you and what behavioural changes you would like to see. In my experience, putting your needs first is a brilliant way to improve your mental health because after I stopped trying to be friends with a housemate that was only taking energy from me. Instead of giving me back anything in return, I felt a lot better even if the housemate thought I was horrible, abusive and “helping doesn’t come naturally to me”. I couldn’t believe they said that and everyone I’ve told has been shocked, because I’m always helping people without a second thought. So when you put your needs first, passive-aggressive people and people who use you will react badly but you are the most important person so you need to do what’s right for you. Social Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, we’ve learnt a lot about passive-aggressive behaviour from what it is, what some examples of passive aggression are, how to deal with passive-aggressive behaviour and so much more. This is important information for all of us to be aware of because whether it’s a friend, a client or a colleague at work, we will encounter a passive-aggressive person at some point in our lives. Yet being able to handle a passive-aggressive person, protect our own mental health and manage the relationship conflict are all critical life skills that will help us thrive in the future. That is all I want for all of you wonderful listeners. I just want you all to thrive. And now you know how to thrive in a passive-aggressive situation.   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 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 Finzi-Dottan, Ricky and Toby Karu, “From Emotional Abuse in Childhood to Psychopathology in Adulthood,” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (August 2006), vol. `94, no.8, 616-622. Goldsmith, Rachel K. and Jennifer J. Freyd,” Effects of Emotional Abuse in Family and Work Environments: Awareness for Emotional Abuse,” Journal of Emotional Abuse (2005), vol. 5 (1), 95-123. Güler, H., Öztay, O. H., & Özkoçak, V. (2022). Evaluation of the relationship between social media addiction and aggression. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, 21(3), 1350-1366. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/passive-aggression Long, N., Long, J. & Whitson, S. (2017). The Angry Smile: The New Psychology of Passive Aggressive Behavior at Home, at School, in Marriages & Close Relationships in the Workplace and Online. Hagerstown, MD: The LSCI Institute. Tronick, Edward Z."Emotions and Emotional Communication in Infants," American Psychologist (1989) 44,112-126. Weinberger, M. Katherine and E.Z. Tronick," Infant Affectivee Reactions to the Resumption of Maternal Interaction After the Still-Face," Child Development (1996), 67, 905-914. 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.

After last week’s podcast episode that focused on my disillusionment with clinical psychology over the unpaid work experience requirements , I wanted to focus on ways how psychology students can get paid work and build up skills for future job applications. I’ve been working as a student ambassador for my university’s Outreach and Widening Participation department for 6 years now and I’ve learnt so many skills, experiences and benefits that I’m able to write about in job applications. Also, all UK universities as far as I know have Outreach departments and need student ambassadors. Therefore, in this psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn how does student ambassador work benefit university psychology students, what skills can you gain as a student ambassador and how can being a student ambassador advance your psychology employability. If you enjoy learning about careers in psychology then this is a brilliant episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers In Clinical Psychology, Business Psychology and More . A brilliant magazine containing two psychology books and five gripping psychology articles per issue for a bargain price. 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. Note: as always nothing on this podcast is ever any sort of official advice and everything in this podcast episode is based on my personal experience over the past six years. Other people’s experiences might vary. How Does Student Ambassador Work Benefit University Psychology Students? The layout of today's episode is that I'm going to talk about a whole bunch of different benefits. I'm going to talk about the benefits themselves, why they're important from an employment perspective, some examples of how outreach work and widening participation work has helped me gain these skills, and then we'll apply these to psychology students, specifically. But first of all, I just want to mention what is outreach work and what is widening participation work. So what my personal definition...which is a much nicer and less formal definition than given by outreach themselves is that student ambassadors, they work with children and young people aged between 12 up to 18 years old, and sometimes adults because we also work in further education colleges and a few other places, and we work with them to show that university is possible regardless of your background, your socio-economic status, whether you're disadvantaged because you're in receipt of free school meals and a whole bunch of different other facets. If you want to go to university, then you can. And, typically, student ambassadors work with schools that have a lower than national average of students that go on to university, so that's what our partner schools do, and I flat out love it. So let's dive into some of the benefits. The Benefit of Work Experience For Psychology Students First of all, and I know this is a really mundane one, but it gives you work experience, and we all know that work experience is really valued by employees because as long as you have some sort of work experience then it's super valuable, and you're much more likely to be unemployed compared to if you've never worked a day in your life. And a lot of this is because of the different skills and the different transferable skills that you pick up, and I'm going to talk about that in the other sections of today's podcast episode, but work experience is super valuable. So I've been working outreach for six years now, which I still think is actually quite amazing, and I flat out loved every minute of it. Of course, there were challenges. What job doesn't have challenges? And there are some days I'm like, "Wow, that was a hard day." But outreach is super supportive. My other ambassadors, they're really supportive. And to be honest, the really funny thing is that I remember in my grandma's eulogy what she said about grandchildren, and I think there were parallels here, to be honest. So she said, "The great thing about grandchildren is that you can give them back at the end of the day," and to be honest, I feel the exact same way about school students at times. Some students are amazing, they're wonderful, and you absolutely love working with them because they're passionate, they're engaged. Other students, you are very happy that you don't have to see. Thankfully, that is so rare, and then 99% of students are absolutely brilliant. But there are some groups you're just like, "Wow, I'm really glad I don't have to see them again." But work experience is really valuable, mainly because of the other benefits that I'm going to talk about in a moment. If we quickly apply this to psychology students, the reason why work experience is important for psychology students is we all know how competitive the job market is when it comes to psychology. So we all know that after you've done your studying, once you've got your master's, your undergrad, or whatever qualification that you're currently on, after that, you need to start getting mental health work experience. So the very fact that you've got some work experience from student ambassador work is already going to make it a little bit easier. Of course, as I spoke about in last week's podcast episode, it's still going to be so difficult to be able to get a mental-health-related job, let alone an assistant psychologist job. But if you've got some working experience at all, then that opens the door slightly, and that really makes a massive difference compared to other psychology students who have never worked a day in their life. That's one way how outreach work can be seriously beneficial. Outreach Work's Fun and You Get to Do Lots of Different Things. Personally, this is my main benefit of outreach work, and this is why I love being a student ambassador, because it is so much fun, and you get to do so many different amazing things that you would never get to do normally. As all of you know, I'm a psychology student. Chances are, you are too, if you're listening to this podcast episode. Normally, I would never have to get involved in that conservation work, a woodland walk, teaching students about liquid nitrogen, even dipping rubber into liquid nitrogen. Or one of my favorite was you drop a cucumber that's still in a plastic wrapping into a tub of liquid nitrogen and it pops, because the water makes it expand. That was amazing fun. I loved that day. Plus, you also don't get to present assembly talks or help students during reading interventions. One of my favorite things was the forensic science day I did last year. That was amazing fun because I got to do fingerprinting. I got to do blood tests. I even got to get dressed up in the little white crime-scene-tech suits, and then what we did was we helped assess a crime scene. That was amazing fun, but if I wasn't a student ambassador, I wouldn't be able to do any of that, which I think is a massive shame because this work is just amazing, I love it. And I've been able to give speeches, presentations. I've also been able to develop my own psychology content. So if I was just a psychology student, I wouldn't be able to do any of that. So why is that important to aspiring psychologists? How could the chance to do lots of different things impact my employability in the future? To be honest, well, having fun is really important life experience. And I think that it's definitely made my university experience a lot richer, a lot thicker, and enjoyable, and because I've done so many different things with outreach, there are a few benefits. So, firstly, it gives me a lot more work experiences to draw on in activities, and I've done that quite a few times. Therefore, I can talk about these experiences in my cover letters, personal statements, and all these fun things have all really benefited me because each of these different situations teaches you different skills and you've got to handle these situations differently. So that can be really helpful in job applications. Also the ability just to have fun, it helps protect you against burnout, fatigue, mental exhaustion, especially if you've got an intense degree. So not a lot of people understand this when I talk about it, but to be honest, outreach is my escape. Outreach is so much fun, and that's why I keep doing it time and time again because it just gives me a break when my degree is really a busy. I really do recommend it for that. Overall, student ambassador work can be a protective factor against mental exhaustion and fatigue, and it gives you lots of different things to talk about on job applications. Meet New People and Make New Friends This is definitely the second major benefit of being a student ambassador and doing outreach work. Because, to be honest, my whole reason why I do outreach is to make friends, to meet new people, and do lots of different things. I've met so many different people all through outreach. I've met different ambassadors, different members of our staff, and all of them do completely different things to do with me. But I've got really good relationships, really good connections. Like some ambassadors, who I was doing summer core with, which is a four-week period of doing outreach work every single day for four weeks, we're doing a barbecue on the 1st of August because we're friends. We want to hang out. We want to be social with each other. Some of them, I'm really good friends with now. All of them I have really good conversations with them. We talk about our lives. We're social, and all of them I never would have met if I had only been a psychology student, because none of them study psychology, which I think is just a really good reminder that university is about meeting new people. And if you're not as social as me I'm an introvert, I do have a bit of social anxiety especially when my mental health is really bad, because of my rape, but outreach gave me a structured, calm, and relaxed way to meet new people. As a result, yes, we're there to do a job, yes, we're there to support students and inspire them and show them that university is possible, but the social side is really beneficial too. Focusing on employability, the ability to meet new people, work with people that you never met before, it's really valued by employers. And constantly on person specifications or job applications, I see that that is a requirement. Which actually leads me on to my next one, which is: Communication, Teamwork, Friendliness and Rapport Being a student ambassador really helps you with all of them, because if we can continue in the current vein when you meet new people and to make new friends, you will need to communicate clearly, you will need to work as a team, you will need to be friendly, and you need to be able to quickly build a rapport with your other ambassadors and the staff members just so you can ensure that the day runs smoothly. You can build relationships with your students just so they're having a nice time, and that they feel comfortable around you so they can ask questions about university life and whatever they want. To be honest, that's really important. And when I started outreach six years ago, I was not good at communication. I wasn't really good at teamwork. I was definitely friendly. My rapport building skills have also dramatically improved over the past six years, and largely, that just comes down to me practicing. Practicing talking to other ambassadors. Me practicing talking to a whole bunch of different students, all of that just comes through practice. And if I was only a psychology student and if I didn't do student ambassador work, I definitely wouldn't be that good at communication, I would not be good at teamwork. Because I don't really interact with many people on my course, and that's definitely a me-thing. And I've just not been able to strike up that many great conversations or that many great connections with psychology students. So there's been a few brilliant exceptions, and I flat out love those people. But for me, interacting with psychology students is quite difficult. So outreach has given me another great way to meet new people and practice communication, teamwork, and other skills. As a result, just to very quickly wrap up this point about employability. All of these key skills that you learn by being a student ambassador is really important in terms of employability because all employers want you to be a good communicator, a good team worker, friendly, and build rapport. Because when it comes to mental health work, we need to be friendly, and we need to quickly be able to build rapport with our future clients and anyone who we're supporting with their mental health. Just something to think about. Interact With People from Different Cultures This is a quicker point that I want to make based on a University College London job application that I applied for recently. Because part of the person specification was that they wanted you to be able to interact with people from different cultures. So this was an important one, and one that I found really easy because a lot of the schools that we work with, because they're from disadvantaged poor areas, the majority of the students who we work and we interact with come from ethnic minorities. As well as a lot of the different ambassadors because at university you get to meet people from different cultures, different races, different countries. And people with different backgrounds and experiences as you, you really do get to listen to other people, talk about their culture, why they believe or why they act the way that they do. In addition, sometimes you do need to have those conversations because sometimes, I think, that ambassadors have acted in ways how I wouldn't act and/or they would approach a life situation not how I would have. But if you listen to them, then it makes complete sense given their life situation, their past, their culture, and their personal experiences. So it teaches you those skills like empathy, listening, and other employment skills, so when it comes to cultural intelligence. As a result, student ambassador work is really important, and this is something else that you can talk about in job applications when it comes to applying for mental health roles. Work With a Wide Range of Populations As aspiring psychologists, we know that we really need to work with a wide range of different clinical populations. For example, we need to work with children and younger people, working-age adults, people with learning difficulties, and older adults. So those are the main four clinical populations that you tend to work in clinical psychology. But there are also other populations too, and student ambassador work really helps you with that. Because my university recently got awarded the sanctuary award, which means that they're really supportive and helpful of asylum seekers. So last year I worked with some asylum seekers, who came to the university because they really wanted to come here. They wanted to do their degrees, and they wanted to work. Now, asylum seekers are some of the loveliest people you will ever meet because they're very understanding, caring, and they're a really nice lot. And they have such a drive to want to study here, work, and pay tax. So those are some of the opportunities that you might be able to do as a student ambassador. Also, I've managed to work with children and young people, obviously. I've also been able to work with students with autism, ADHD, other neuro-developmental conditions, and even some learning difficulties. That's all really helpful experience for me. As well as I've also been able to work with working-age adults at higher education colleges, colleges where people do access courses which helps them be able to go on to university. Therefore, outreach work is really valuable and it gives you access to a wide range of different populations, which you wouldn't be able to do if you were only a psychology student. Or you would have to do lots of unpaid work experience, which as I talked about in a moment, is not ideal. And I had a long rant about this in last week's podcast episode. So this is one of the reasons why student ambassador work is really useful and valuable. Getting Involved in Research and Data Input Another aspect of being an aspiring psychologist is that your research skills and your research experience definitely needs to be top notch, and you should always, you know, throw yourself in active research whenever you can. And being a student ambassador does actually offer some paid research experience opportunities. For example, one of those at my university is that you can be an evaluation ambassador and data input ambassador, which is really useful because it gives you experience of manually typing in data, which as much as you might not like that idea, quite an important role when it comes to being a psychology researcher. Also, my research department at my university is doing a massive research project on reading interventions and their impact on disadvantaged children. So if I really wanted to enter this research project, I could quite easily email them, and say, "Hello, I really want to be a part of this research project. Can I be a part of the data analysis and the write-up team?" And they might say no, but they might say yes. So that might be a really good chance to be able to get involved in education research, and most importantly this is an intervention designed for young people. And whilst this is not a psychological intervention, an intervention is an intervention that you might be able to talk about in future work experience and future job applications. All experience is good experience at the end of the day. That’s something else that you might want to think about when it comes to being a student ambassador. You Get to Work in Education This was actually one of the most surprising benefits that I didn't think about until this year. Because I do not want to be a teacher. I do not want to be a teaching assistant. To be honest, for my long-term career, I'm not sure I want to work in education per se. But the brilliant thing about outreach work and being a student ambassador is that you do get to work in education in a very unique way. Because you're only seeing the students for one session at a time, you get to travel all over the Kent and Medway or whatever your local area is. And the brilliant thing about this is that because you work in education it opens up a lot of psychology job opportunities. So beforehand, I could only apply for the clinical psychology job roles that were not related to schools or education in any way, shape, or form. But because I've been a student ambassador for six years, meaning that I've worked in education for six years, means that I can apply for education roles. For example, because of my experience, I've been able to apply for an assistant educational psychologist, a trainee education mental health practitioner. In the future, I can continue to apply for roles in schools and other education-based roles, which is going to be super useful. Also, as part of the research assistant jobs that I’ve applied for. Some of them want experience in schools. But that's really good because I've actually got that experience. I've been able to talk about that in my applications. I guess what I'm trying to say, as we get towards the end of this podcast episode, is being actually an ambassador, working in outreach and widening participation really does open so many doors to you more than you might ever think is actually possible. Lead Ambassador: Leadership, Organization and Time Management One of my favorite roles in outreach is I absolutely love being a Lead Ambassador. To some extent, I'm better suited to being a Lead Ambassador than a supporting ambassador. One, because I love the money. I think the money's amazing. However, I love, love, love organization, time management, managing people, managing sessions, and I love the organization side of it. Because when you're a Lead Ambassador, you're the link between your supporting ambassadors and the outreach member of staff, you need to manage the day, you need to manage timings, sessions, you need to address their problems. Furthermore, to be honest, that is what I love. I flat out love the time management aspect and the organization aspect and just project management. Like, I could be an amazing manager in the future because that's what I love. It's what I thrive off. Put me in a situation where I've got to manage something, I am in my element. And it's amazing fun. There are lots of different examples that I could give you about being a Lead Ambassador and solving problems, but I'm going to try and keep it relatively short. For example, when I was lead ambassador for the conservation week that happened the other week. The first day, which was the only day that I was Lead Ambassador for, was where I had to manage a situation. Because we were in a really narrow corridor, all of the rooms were in the same corridor. So when we transferred and when we swapped students between sessions, it was going to be quite a nightmare, and there was going to be a lot of chaos. So I managed it by moving certain rooms first, or by making certain groups standing certain areas etc. It ran really smoothly. And then because I'm such a versatile and adaptable ambassador, I was able to observe a session such as so I could be an outreach tutor the next day. So unless you were there, you might not be able to fully understand it or explain it. But these skills like leadership, organization, project management, and time management are super useful to aspiring psychologists. Because you need to show leadership both in terms of yourself, your clients, and maybe your team, at times, because if you're a mental health service is experiencing a difficulty, then you might need to step up, take leadership of the situation, and try and help the service solve this problem. Also, organization, when you're a mental health worker or whenever you work in any mental health role, you're going to need to organize your caseload, your clients, your time. And that's where time management comes in because you need to manage your time between your clients and your paperwork, planning sessions, and everything else that someone in a mental health role has to do. And it is difficult enough without poor time management skills. It's just something to think about for the future. Outreach Tutor: Presenting, Teaching, Communication To be honest, if you had asked me, even two months ago, whether I would enjoy being an outreach tutor, I would have said begrudgingly perhaps, but it was not my favorite thing. It really wasn’t. To stand in front of a class, presenting a session, talking, and making it come alive, that was not my thing. Because I would stutter, I would be nervous, and I was always a little anxious about what if a kid makes fun of my stuttering, what if I don't do well, what if outreach thinks that I'm a really bad presenter? And then they don't want me to present anymore, and so many other questions like that. These are all very normal experiences. And I remember sometimes, I would just get really nervous before presenting, but after I got the lesson plan, after I looked through the slides, I would be a lot more relaxed and I would just really enjoy it. And because I've been doing so much outreach tutoring over the past few weeks, I really enjoy it. It's amazing. It's just so much fun to present sessions, make it come alive, just add your list of details about your personal life, about your degree, what you think about this session. For example, one of my favorite ones, or one of the ones I always remember... And this connects to the great thing about meeting new people and making new friends, because as you meet new people and you make new friends, you learn stuff about them, you learn about their past, their degree, how they're finding stuff, and other little tad bits of information, which you can add to your presentation. For example, I always remember during the year 8 housing challenge. This is when year 8 students, so 12 and 13-year-olds, they come out to the university, and what happens is that they design some brand new university accommodation for university students. It's an amazing day. I had a tree house student village as one of my groups. That was amazing, and I flat out loved the ideas behind that group. It was just amazing fun, but there's a research session during that. I was talking about students preferring self-catered accommodation compared to a catered accommodation, and just to bring that section alive, I actually counted that above that point slightly. Because the whole point of that day is that they need to think about the student group that they're designing it for. So what I mentioned was that sometimes catered accommodation is brilliant especially if you've got chronic illness, or other needs which makes cooking and managing food very difficult for you. I mentioned for example my ex has chronic illness. They're bed bound, and they have chronic pain, though. And so sometimes they just can't cook, and them needing to go back to the shops, plan their meals, cook their meals, etc., can be a major stressor. But because they have catered accommodation, that's one less stressor that they have to think about. So it's just using those small tab bits and the small life experiences, which help you to bring your session and your content alive. And, now, sure I stutter from time to time, but that's just me. But I love my job. I love outreach tutoring, and I make it quite performative. Well, I don't mean like dancing, jazz hands, and everything. I mean that I make it interesting, and that's why I can find presenting a little bit draining because, for me, it is quite performative. Because I want it to be engaging, I want to be more extroverted, so that's why I need to manage my energy levels more carefully. But it's flat out brilliant, and I love it. The reason why I want to talk about this as an aspiring clinical psychologist is because on my job applications and person specifications, I constantly see that employers that want you to be good at communicating, good at presenting, good at writing about research ideas and communicating them to the public, policymakers, and your intended audience, which might not be other psychology people. And this is what being an outreach tutor is really good for. Because you work with so many different age groups and so many different sessions, it really does make you think about, "Right, how do I need to present a session to 17 and 18-year-olds differently compared to how I would present a session to 12 and 13-year-olds?" Because, yeah, technically, there's only three years between them, but in reality it's a lot more, because of the development going on and where they are in their education journey. So some of them will be thinking about university, a lot of the 12 and 13-year-olds will not. Most of them will have no idea what university is. So it's about changing your vocabulary, changing your knowledge, and just changing how you present information. Also, a really good experience that I had recently, as an outreach tutor, was that there was a visually impaired girl, who I was working with. So I needed to adapt my session, and I needed to adapt my presenting to suit her needs. So normally when my students are on a task, I play some background music. I play some "Demon Slayer Lo-fi," more for me than for them. But having some background music helps them to focus, and it's something that a lot of us outreach students have found as really critical to think about. So overall as a student ambassador, being an outreach tutor is really important and really helpful because it gives you a lot of our key skills that future employers are really crazy for. Makes You Aware of Inequality and Barriers to Education This is the penultimate point. One reason why I love being an outreach ambassador is that I get to work with our students from different backgrounds, different types of disadvantage, and different types of barriers impact them in their life and their education. And that's very eye-opening. Because I come from a lower middle-class family in a very poor area. So, yes, I am aware of quite a lot of barriers already. But there are other barriers I'm not... But some barriers, I'm completely invisible to because they don't impact me. Such as, racism, certain forms discrimination, physical disabilities, having parents with mental health difficulties, etc.. As well as a whole bunch of other barriers, which I can't talk about publicly on the podcast. So there are lots of different barriers to education and in their daily lives, which continues the cycle of poverty. And some of it is just heartbreaking, but that's why being a student ambassador is important. It's valuable. And this is why I'm so sad, to be honest, I'm going to be leaving this work in a few months' time. Because I won't be able to help these students anymore, I won't be able to inspire, educate these students in the same way. Therefore, I do want to do it in a different way. But because I'm not aware of the stark inequalities and the barriers that people face, as well as it makes me feel grateful for what I have. It makes me feel really privileged at times, but also it makes me want to help people. It makes me more compassionate, more knowledgeable just so I'm able to challenge people. I'm able to challenge society. When society turns round and says, "Well, if you're poor, and it's your fault, being poor is a choice," that's absolutely rubbish. And I hate it when people say that with an utter passion. But being a student ambassador helps to give you the experiences, the knowledge, to be able to counter that and to counter those silly ideas. Money I couldn't really do a psychology podcast episode and talk about working, as a student ambassador, without talking about money. This has been a major benefit of me being a student ambassador for the last few years. Especially during the final year of my part-time masters, when I've had rent to pay, when I found that my university was charging me £2,000 extra, because they charged me full-time rates my first term before I switched part-time, and it's only then that they would charge me part-time rates, which was a major issue for me because it meant that I'm £2,000 worst off. So without my outreach work and without doing lots of it and outreach having shockingly good pay that actually makes my mum quite jealous, I would not be able to afford my rent, my food, do my car, to live a little. I do not spend a lot of money, but outreach work has been a lifeline for me. And part of me does think that if I didn't have my outreach money or, to be honest, if I didn't have my outreach job, I would be a lot worse off, I would be very nervous about my financial situation. Because postgraduate loans in the UK are horrific. They're really bad. They are not ideal in the slightest. And, yeah, I do not want to think about how stressed I've been over the past year about money issues and me just not having enough money to live, pay my bills, and eat. So that's been something I've had to think about quite a lot. But it's one of the reasons why I've been so grateful for outreach because I've been able to work a lot, I've been able to apply for a lot of work opportunities, and because I've networked and because so many members of staff know that I'm good, I'm able to get a lot of hours. Plus, I also drive, which is really beneficial in terms of getting work. It's just a good tool to think about. If you're concerned about money, definitely look at being a student ambassador because, in my experience, it can be really well paid. Careers In Psychology Conclusion Therefore, to wrap up this psychology podcast episode, and because this is definitely a longer one than normal, I just want to quickly run through the benefits again of being a student ambassador and undertaking outreach and widening participation work: ·       Communication, Teamwork, Friendliness, Rapport ·       You will get to have fun, and you get to do a lot of different things that you wouldn't be able to do as a psychology student. ·       Gives you work experience. ·       Meet new people. Make new friends. ·       Money. ·       Getting involved in research and data input. ·       Work with a wide range of populations working-age adults, children, and young people, adolescents, people with learning difficulties, and asylum seekers. ·       Interact with people from different cultures. ·       Lead ambassador: leadership, organization, and time management. ·       Get to work in education. ·       Outreach tutor: presenting, teaching, communication. ·       Makes you more aware of inequalities and barriers to education. My final note that I would just say is being a student ambassador, working with amazing other ambassadors, working with wonderful outreach members of staff, has been an amazing privilege over the past few years. I've loved it. I've just loved interacting with everyone, and I'm so passionate about this work because I get to do stuff I never would have done before. I've grown so much as a person over the past few years, and I love it. I really want every single student to do it because it really does make you grow, it makes you have so many transferable skills, and it helps you so much for the future. Of course, it's just my experience, and other people might have better or worse experiences than me depending on your university and who you are as a person. However, try it, have fun, and just think about it. You might change so many lives, and you might have more of an impact on these young people than you ever thought possible.   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 Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers In Clinical Psychology, Business Psychology and More . A brilliant magazine containing two psychology books and five gripping psychology articles per issue for a bargain price. 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. 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 near the end of my Clinical Psychology MSc and look towards the future of working in mental health, I am increasingly being concerned, disillusioned and unsure about any sort of future employment. Not because I am a bad candidate, a bad student or someone who doesn’t care about psychology. I seriously love and care about clinical psychology. Yet there are massive barriers and silly experience requirements baked into clinical psychology that mean the less privileged are less likely to be able to work in mental health than their richer peers. Therefore, in this careers in psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn about why am I disillusioned with clinical psychology, how my inability to take unpaid work has limited my career options and how am I dealing with the impracticality of working in clinical psychology. If you want to learn more about working in mental health and finishing a Masters degree 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, Business Psychology and More . A brilliant magazine containing two psychology books and five gripping psychology articles per issue for a bargain price. 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 Disillusioned With Clinical Psychology? Moving on to the content part of today's episode. So like I probably mentioned in the introduction, I decided to just put on the microphone, literally, just to talk about the disillusionment that I have with clinical psychology. You must take note, I didn't really want to talk about this, and this isn't scripted. This is very much me just talking about how I'm feeling because I'm feeling exhausted, to be honest, very disillusioned, and just quite, I don't know, burned out. I don't think that’s the right word because sure, I'm tired, but I really have been managing my energy levels recently because of my outreach work. And because I've been doing so much outreach tutoring, so I've been presenting in the sessions. I know that because that's very performative for me, I really have had to think about my energy levels and just be very mindful of it. And I really am managing. But at the end of this, I'm just so disillusioned with clinical psychology. I will talk about that after a bit of context. My Psychology Journey and Context Some bit of light context, why am I talking about this? So at the time of recording, it is July 2025, and I'm just about to finish my clinical psychology master's. And I've done my master's for the past two years because I did it part-time. I've had an amazing time. I've learnt so much about clinical psychology, so much more about therapy models, psychological assessments, formulation. One of my favorite modules was the neuropsychology of aging, which is something I thought I was absolutely going to hate, and I thought it would be the worst thing ever for me. However, it was actually brilliant. It was one of my favorite modules. I learned so much about cognitive behavioral therapy and adapting it for older adults. I learned about the mental health needs and the suicide risk of older adults. And I learned how the aging brain and the aging process impacts our behavior in so many brilliant, fascinating ways that I flat out love. And it was such a fun modules.Even the statistics, even though I still hate statistics with an utter passion, it was amazing fun. I learned stuff. I definitely learned some stuff for sure. I can name none of it, none of it off the top of my head, but it was still quite life-changing. And it certainly gave me a lot of gossip because of how bad the lecture was. So I've loved my master's for the past two years. Also, my undergraduate, which I started at my same university in 2019... I did a 4-year undergraduate where I made so many valuable connections, and I've spoken a lot about my psychology journey in the past.And I did a year's research placement at my university, where I took part in some major research projects which, again, taught me so many valuable skills, and even now at Open Days at my university, I still reference those valuable experiences. It taught me how to improve my academic writing, the valuable connections that I made, and those connections are still serving me today. And it was only the other day earlier that I had an email from someone who I used to work with, and we had a really good conversation about one of the papers that we were going to publish. So, again though, those connections are really helpful, and I've loved my undergrad, but I've spoken about all of this before on the podcast. So I've done six years of study. I have worked so hard. I've written so many essays. I've cried. I've done so much to pass my degree and make sure that it's a good pass. Also, in the aims of becoming a clinical psychologist, I've started this podcast. Every week, without fail, sometimes twice a week, I bring you a psychology podcast episode just so I can keep learning, keep enjoying, keep being inspired by this amazing profession that we get to work in. Whether it's therapy, whether it's an aspect of clinical psychology, whether it's an aspect of mental health, I love it. I explore it. And none of this was taught to me in my lecture theatres. This is always me going above and beyond. In addition, I've written my books. I've researched them. I've created my books. I've had a brilliant time doing all of this in the hopes of becoming an aspiring clinical psychologist, and I think I do want to be a clinical psychologist to some extent. However, I will mention why I'm starting to doubt this in a little bit. My Mental Health And Everything I’ve Had To Deal With Moreover, something else is that I've had to deal with so much over the past few years, like child abuse, my intensely homophobic, hateful relationships. And with my family, my social environment, they hated me being gay. I was in fear for my life. I thought that if they found out I was gay, I would be beaten, killed, and made homeless. And, of course, if they didn't kill me at that point...which I was certain they would because of the stuff that my social environment would say to me, would say about gay people, etc. So that was really scary for me. Also, I've had to deal with my rape. I was raped in April 2024. And as all of you know from the podcast, especially if you listened in 2024, I was depressed. I had massive social anxiety. I had PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). My mental health was horrific most days. I couldn't get out of bed. I could barely do anything. I had to skip lectures, to be honest, just so I could work, one to get money. And it's just all of those sort of factors. I get money, keep my mind busy and just try and escape the rape memories, the rape thoughts, the flashbacks, for just a little while longer. That was hard. That was next to impossible to deal with at times, and hell, I tried to kill myself three times last year because it was so traumatic being raped. Then I also had to deal with anorexia, and the horrific toll that took on my health, like not wanting to eat, having panic attacks about the smell of food, so I didn't want to get fat. I wanted to control an aspect of my life that my rapist couldn't touch. So those are the mental health aspects. So as you can see, mental health has taken up a massive bit of my time, as has the counseling. Like, I've been through counseling three times now. And, thankfully, I'm finally at a place in my life where it's really worked for me. It's helpful. It's inspiring, and I've learnt so much about myself. My mental health is brilliant. However, because of my mental health, because of the really bad state of postgraduate loans here in the UK, I've had to really focus on getting money. Now, personally, I have not minded that. I've actually had amazing fun collecting money, for example, my outreach work. Because I had to get money to survive, I really had to do a lot of outreach work, which was why me doing a part-time degree was super valuable. I've made so many good connections. I've made friends. I've gained so many experiences. For example, because I was able to do so much outreach work, I was able to do Breakfast Club, which meant I got to interact and work with autistic kids, kids with social anxiety, other neurodivergent kids. And it was only, like, yesterday, for example, I was working with a visually impaired student. So I was able to interact and work with her and change my presentation style to match her needs just so she could thrive. And it was fascinating talking to her teacher, just brilliant. Why Am I Starting To Doubt My Future Clinical Psychology Career? I've learned a lot from my experiences but this is why I'm starting to doubt why I want to be a clinical psychologist. Because I've had to work so much, I'm not able to get the volunteering experience that you need to be able to be a clinical psychologist. So let me explain that in a little more detail, or where this doubt started to come from. So, recently, I've been starting to read the amazing book "The Clinical Psychologist Collective" by Dr. Marianne Trent. It's a brilliant book. I highly, highly recommend it. Now, the thing about that book is that it's a massive collection of about, I don't know, 20 or 30 clinical psychologists talking about how they got onto the clinical psychology doctorate. Now, there were a few things about this book. So there were some common themes. Of course, everyone's journey onto the clinical doctorate is very different, but there were some common themes. And there are two themes I want to address here. Firstly, you've got to make clinical psychology your entire life. You've got to live, breathe, and eat clinical psychology and mental health. Also, you need to be able to get experience. Now, those two things actually don't align with me anymore, and that I found quite surprising and quite shocking. Because, yes, I live and I breathe psychology. I do this podcast. I do my psychology books. I do my lectures. I do my degree, but in reality, that is not enough to be a clinical psychologist. And also, I like hanging out with my friends. I like writing my fiction. I like running my publishing business. I like doing my outreach work. I like doing stuff that isn't psychology-related. In fact, I can't function if I'm only doing psychology. If I only did psychology and if I only did mental health, that would be my idea of hell, to be honest. Because as much as I love this amazing profession, I need other stuff in my life. But these people who got onto the clinical psychology doctorate actually don't tend to do that, which for me is quite heartbreaking because I love this profession, but I don't want it to be my life. I have met amazing students that were the most lovely, most kindest people who have ever lived, and their entire life is psychology. I've seen their life, that is not me. I don't want to be like them. And if that means I don't get to be a clinical psychologist, that's okay, because this also connects with a lot of other things. Because if your entire life is clinical psychology, then you hunt those work experience opportunities. You look at everything that you possibly can. You will look at extra schemes, extra volunteering opportunities, etc. You move heaven and earth, and you sacrifice so much to become a clinical psychologist, which if that is you, more power to you. I think you are amazing if you want to do that. But me, I have already sacrificed so much to get where I am. I've sacrificed so much just to still be alive, to be honest. After my rape, my child abuse, my anorexia, everything, I've had to deal with, I have had to make sacrifices for. And I think I'm at the end of my tether about what I am willing to sacrifice. Because after my anorexia counseling, I really did focus on my values, my ideal life, and what I want. And I'm just starting to build and recover my life from the hell of 2024. The year where everything in my life burned to the ground because of how bad my trauma was, how my PTSD was. I lost friends. I had to reset relationships. There's everything in books coming out about it because I just had to write, I had to process it. It was hell. So I have had to sacrifice so much through 2024. So this leads me on to another bit, because of my mental health, because of me wanting to do other things with my life, I have not had the time or the energy to pursue the volunteering opportunities that you need to do in clinical psychology to be able to get a foot in the door. But this is the thing, you need experience to be able to get a job in mental health or, to be honest, any job. But if you can't get a job, how are you meant to get the mental health experience? And, yes, there are some amazing students who were able to juggle stuff. I'm not one of them. I am human. I have my difficulties. I have my struggles. I have my energy levels, like being autistic, neurodivergent, an introvert, a business owner, writer, psychologist, an outreach tutor, lead ambassador, etc., they all take their toll on me. I don't have time. I do not have a single day where I could volunteer without having massive implications for my own health, and I can't do that to myself anymore. I have tried so much to grind myself into dirt, working, trying to survive, trying to get where I want to be. I just can't do it anymore because that work-life balance, basically, makes my mental health really bad. It means I can't function for days, it means I just lie in bed just trying to feel better and recover. That is me. And the very idea that because of my mental health, because of how bad my physical health has been because of my anorexia and just how I'm trying to survive and cope, and because I need the money so I cannot take unpaid work, all of that means I cannot be a clinical psychologist. That is disgusting. That is why I'm so disillusioned with our profession, because I'm passionate. I love this profession. I want to help people. I have been trying to validate people more to try and be better, try to be more welcoming to our future clients. To some extent, it almost seems like none of that matters. Because as much as I love this profession, as much as I do, or as much as I do these podcasts, as much as I love talking about psychology with people, it doesn't matter. That's how I feel at this point. Because I've not been able to get this work experience because I cannot afford to get the volunteering, I cannot afford to do unpaid work. And there was this quote in "The Clinical Psychologist Collective" that really stuck with me. "I had the financial backing of my parents." My parents are not poor. But they could not support me financially for a year and pay my bills for me, and for me to do a year full-time unpaid work experience and unpaid work. They couldn't. And that's literally what some people have had to do to be able to become a clinical psychologist, and that's disgusting. That is why psychology is such a White, middle-class female profession. And it's starting to hit me now, just how hard that is to change. These are massive societal forces that we just can't change, basically, unless something major happens. So as difficult as it is, I'm thinking, will I be able to do any role in mental health because I have stepped back and I have gone right: Clinical psychology might not be for me, okay. What other mental health roles could I look at? And I've looked. I've looked because I worked at a careers fair and there was an NHS stand, and there was a massive booklet on psychological therapies, so I looked. A psychological well-being practitioner, brilliant. And I've applied for some jobs. I'm really looking forward to that if it ever happens. I don't think it would. Those trainee roles, again, super competitive, and you need mental health experience. Hey, it's a brilliant role. I would love to be a psychological well-being practitioner. Also, an education mental health practitioner, brilliant role. I've applied for some, and it sounds really exciting. It sounds right up my street, working in schools, working with children, sounds brilliant. Again, you suddenly need mental health experience even though I've worked six years with children. I've looked into being a therapist, and, like, not a clinical psychologist but a therapist. Issue with that is you need mental health experience, and you need another postgraduate qualification in a specific form of therapy. I've already done a master's. I've already done an undergrad. I don't really want to do yet another master's or postgraduate qualification at this time. If it was for a training position, like training psychological well-being practitioner or another apprenticeship, I wouldn't mind that. Because I would be working, and I would have a full-time job, and I would have a job on the side. I don't mind that. A therapist, no. Because you need a lot of experience, and you need another postgraduate qualification that isn't an apprenticeship. I've looked at being a counselor because someone from outreach is a counselor, and she's amazing. I'm, hopefully, going to work with her tomorrow. I've looked, and you need your level two, three, and four qualification to be able to be a therapist. No, to be able to be a counselor. Again, I've already done a master's and an undergrad. I don't really want to do yet another three years of study just to get another qualification. Well, yes, by the end of it, if I'm able to get on it, if I'm able to do my 100 hours, I would be a fully qualified counselor. Then there's still the issue of finding a job at the end.And I think the reason why I feel like this is just because it's like, "What's the point?" And I know this is a very depressing episode. I think we all feel like this. Thankfully, I have sort of got a plan. There are backup options. I am going to still keep applying for mental health professions. I'm still going to keep applying for mental health roles. Whether it's pastoral, whether it's mental health, whether it's an assistant psychologist position, whether it's so many other connected roles when it comes to mental health, I'm still going to keep trying, keep applying. Because one day, I might get there. I might get someone who wants to take a chance on me. And I really hope that someone does because I am caring. I care about people so much. I want people to be okay. Because, as I literally said on my supporting letter, because I thought, right? I'm just going to be authentically me. I talk about this stuff enough, and if any employee looked at the podcast, looked at my books they would know I was raped. So I literally said in one of my statements I have been raped, I have been through anorexia, I've been through PTSD, I've been through child abuse, and I know how valuable counseling, therapy, psychology is. Psychology changes lives. I want to do that for other people. But because I've got to work, because I've had to take time out for myself, because I've got to focus on my own mental health, I've not been able to get this mythical, magical volunteering experience that this profession needs. And because I can't do that, because I'm not privileged enough, the doors are, basically, shut to me after six years of study. That is outrageous. That is disgusting. And I think that is why this is sort of turned into a small rant. I'm gonna keep trying. I'm not gonna shut the door, but I am going to focus on other careers at times. Because I know come September, come two months' time, I am not going to be able to have a mental health job. And part of me really hopes this episode is completely no-void come September. But part of me doesn't think it will, and that's a shame because I love mental health. I'm so glad to want to work in this profession. I've been so privileged the past six years to work with, to be taught by, and to be able just to discuss their research, their lives, with so many amazing clinical psychologists. And I would love to be one of them. I would love to inspire the next generation. And I think I will through this podcast and my books. But me being a mental health practitioner, I don't know if that's going to be me in the future, just because of my life situations, because I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Yes, I know that's hyperbole. And, yes, I know that's probably annoying to some people. That's how I'm feeling. Clinical Psychology Conclusion So at the end of this podcast episode, I want to say to you dear listener, if you've just finished your degree and if you're feeling disillusioned, concerned, and nervous about your future working in mental health, I'd say just check in with yourself, make sure you're okay, practice self-care, and really think about what you want from now on. Because this is something that I did based on a line in "The Clinical Psychologist Collective." I focused on, "What do you really want to do with your life, and is clinical psychology the best way to do it?" My why boils down to something very simple, I want to help people. There are other ways to help people with their mental health than clinical psychology. Those clinical psychologists are clinicians, practitioners, advocates, researchers, policy writers, and so many more other roles. They are a supervisor. They are a paper pusher at times. That's what some of the stories are that I hear from my lecturers. That is not what I want to do. As a result, that's something that I'm thinking about, and I don't know what I'm going to decide, besides from just keep applying to lots of roles and just hope beyond hope I get a job at some point. Because, yeah, in an ideal fantasy world, I would say, "Right, I'm going to finish my master's, then I'm going to take a year out doing nothing but volunteering." I don't have that option. I don't want that option at this point because I'm like if this profession requires me to do a year's unpaid work experience, which is what it feels like at this point, then I'm okay not working in it. I'm very upset. I'm really tired. I'm very disillusioned. So if you're feeling this, just know you're not alone. Turns out I've been looking at stuff online, this is a very common feeling amongst graduates, especially mental health graduates, like clinical psychology.   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 Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers In Clinical Psychology, Business Psychology and More . A brilliant magazine containing two psychology books and five gripping psychology articles per issue for a bargain price. 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. 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.

After a recent experience of a friend invalidating me, it got me thinking about the importance of validation in social relationships. Then I started thinking about validation in mental health because often my mental health has gotten worse after someone invalidated me, my feelings and my experiences. Also, I’ve been running a little experiment this week when I try to be more mindfully validating of others and it has led to more rewarding, deeper conversations and connections with others. Therefore, in this social psychology podcast episode with some clinical psychology implications, you’ll learn about what is validation, why is validation a social superpower and how to validate other people more often. If you enjoy learning about social relationships, validation and psychotherapy then this is a brilliant episode for you. Today’s social psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by The Psychology Worlds Magazine . A brilliant magazine containing two psychology books and five gripping psychology articles per issue for a bargain price. 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 Validation? Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, proposed that validation is to communicate with someone that their responses are understandable and make sense for their current situation or life context. As well as Linehan argued that experiencing little validation as a child is what makes us emotionally dysregulated adults. Of course, there will be times when we don’t agree and we don’t want to validate someone’s experiences, because we believe their actions are wrong. Yet Linehan isn’t suggesting validation is the same as agreeing, instead validation is just legitimising, signalling and telling the person that it is okay to feel how they do given everything they have been through. This is very different to saying they were right to act this way. Personally, I do agree with Linehan to a large extent because my needs weren’t always met as a child, I was abused and the sexuality part of me was always invalidated and hated on. This led me to develop a disorganised attachment style as a child and this led to a lot of emotional dysregulation as an adult. My social environment not understanding my autism, my needs and the emotional safe space I needed as a child really didn’t help my emotional regulation. However, I think validation is more than what Linehan originally described because invalidation can happen to you at any age. As well as whenever you’ve been through trauma as an adult, like I was with my rape, invalidation is still like a stab wound. Why Is Validation Powerful? In my experience, validation is amazing because often whenever you’re experiencing a mental health difficulty. Be it depression, anxiety or a trauma-based difficulty like hypervigilance or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You feel nervous, anxious and scared to tell someone else what happened to you and what you’re feeling. I always felt like I was stabbed, punched and kicked whenever someone would invalidate me over my mental health and my rape. It was psychologically painful and whenever someone does validate you, your feelings and your experiences. It makes you relax, smile and trust that person a lot more. It was only the other day during a conversation when I wasn’t proud to admit that after my rape, I became fully dependent on my best-friend (at the time) to do a lot more for me because my mental health was so bad. I didn’t know if this friend would judge me, hate me or criticise me when I told her this story but she validated me and said it was understandable. That made me relax and we continued the wonderful conversation. Validation really can be a social superpower that improves friendships. Greville-Harris et al. (2016) conducted a study where participants completed a nearly impossible maths test and afterwards, they needed to share their feelings with an experimenter. The experimenter was either validating and supported the participant by saying that lots of people felt the same as them, or they were invalidating. The experimenter wasn’t sure why the participant was stressed. The study found that invalidated participants felt worse and had higher heartbeats than validated participants. Also, the invalidated participants felt less safe in the social interaction as well as they showed less eye contact, smiling and they frowned more. This shows the invalidated participants were less engaged. On the other hand, validation is healing, makes us stronger and more resilient. For example, Kim and Kim (2013) found that when participants were validated about their experience of being excluded in a lab, the participants reported less aggression, negative mood and higher self-esteem. As well as Linton et al. (2012) found that validated participants could hold a bucket of water at arm’s length for longer than invalidated participants. The task was physically painful but the validated participants who were told things like “it’s painful, isn’t it?”, didn’t find the task took as much of a toll on their mood. In addition, validation can be a form of emotional regulation and it can be used to de-escalate conflict. Since you’re acknowledging a loved one’s or friend’s pain, distress and you are telling them that you understand. This makes your friend or loved one feel supported so over time this can led to increased feelings of trust, intimacy and the feeling of a safe relationship. Thankfully, you can learn validation and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy gives us six tools we can use to become better at validation. On the whole, validation is important because if we validate our friends, our peers and our loved ones then we can help everyone feel happier, safer and better about themselves. As well as our friends and loved ones will be more engaged with us and less aggressive during conflict. 6 Ways To Validate Others According To Dialectical Behavioural Therapy Firstly, according to DBT, paying attention is important in validation because you need to be fully present with the other person. This is because paying attention is important to making someone feel seen and heard. As well as when you give someone your full attention by turning off your phone, not multi-tasking, actively listening and communicate you’re listening by using non-verbal body language, you are telling the other person that they matter to you. Secondly, you can validate someone by “read minds”. In this technique, even if the other person hasn’t told you, you want to guess what you think the other person might be feeling. For example, when I was raped, I was feeling anxious all the time, I was having panic attacks and I was in fear for my life. If I was the one telling you what happened to me and my rape, you might guess that I was anxious, so you might affirm that that’s really scary.  This type of validation might allow me to slow down, be vulnerable and receive emotional support from you. Although, I will admit when it comes to “Reading Minds”, you need to be careful because if you incorrectly guess what emotion the other person is experiencing then it might make the other person feel worse. And if you don’t know the other person well or you’re not sure what they’re feeling then it might be a good idea to form your suggestion in terms of a question. Like, were you scared?  This gives the other person the freedom to correct you and perhaps talk about their emotions. Personally, I might call this a more advanced skill and this is something that I try from time to time, but I am not always sure what someone is feeling. Part of that is just autism and this is a skill that I need to practise more. Thirdly, you can validate someone by repeating back what someone has said because this shows them that you’re listening. It’s useful here to use the same exact words that the other person has been using and that you talk in a way that’s comfortable for you so it sounds natural. For instance, yesterday in the car driving back from an ambassador event me and another psychology student were talking to another ambassador who might have been depressed. He was saying how he couldn’t feel happiness, it didn’t enjoy anything and he had been struggling with this feeling for months. We validated him by repeating back what he said, making small suggestions and drawing on our own examples that show what he’s feeling is completely normal. The next two go together, because validation is all about understanding. When you validate someone, you are showing them that what they’re feeling is okay and understandable based on their experiences and given everything that you know about them. For instance, after my sexual trauma, experiencing social anxiety, depression, flashbacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and more is understandable given that I was raped. Moreover, there is always a reason why someone is feeling how they are. It might be because of a trigger, a situation or another cause. I had so many triggers after my rape that would make me be fine one second then another second I would be absolutely terrified and in fear for my life that I was going to be raped again. Therefore, when it comes to understanding someone and validating them, it’s useful to remember that there are lots of things that can trigger someone. Like bodily sensations, emotions, events, thoughts amongst others. Chances are, you will not feel the same way as the person you are trying to validate. For instance, if your best friend hates going home for the holidays and you love going home. You are not feeling the same emotion, but you can still validate them and tell them that their emotions are understandable. Such as “of course you hate going home to your family, they’re always given you a hard time about your grades, your sexuality and your job,” Building upon this idea of understanding, it’s useful to acknowledge the valid too by mentioning how anyone else in their shoes would feel the same. Like “of course you hate going home to your family, anyone else would because they’re always given you a hard time about your grades, your sexuality and your job,” Another example if we apply this to dating is “of course you’re upset, you’re going through a breakup,” In this example, you’re validating the other person by showing how their emotions make sense given the situation instead of their thoughts or other vulnerability factors. You’re highlighting and validating the toughness of their situation. Finally, the sixth technique is validation by showing equality. Whenever you’re validating someone, you are showing them that they are an equal to you. You are not better, superior or stronger than them because you aren’t experiencing a given emotion or thought or feeling. Validating someone by reacting naturally and genuine to whatever they’re sharing with you is great, and showing them compassion and taking their emotions seriously without making them sound fragile and weak is great. Also, what I do find interesting is a massive part of validation is never treating the other person or yourself worse because of their emotions. Validating the other person is also about validating yourself at the same time. I find this interesting because this is what I see in toxic relationships. One partner can become so fixated on validating and calming down the other partner and they don’t understand, they aren’t aware and they don’t validate their own feelings. They think they’re overreacting, not doing enough and they treat themselves worse for validating the other partner. Do not do this. You are always valid as is the other person you are supporting. Validation Phrases In addition to the six techniques I mentioned above from DBT, I wanted to share with you the following validation statements that you can use in your personal and maybe professional life. I’ve been trying out these statements all week and as I mentioned earlier, using these statements really have led to some wonderful conversations. Conversations were the other person has trusted me more, become more open and just wanted to talk to me longer. You don’t have to use these statements exclusively in a mental health context, I’ve used them when a friend was hinting about concerns with their job, concerns about their future and any other time when my friends might have needed a little bit of support. Here are the validation statements: ·       I think your feelings are valid ·       Your views are understandable ·       I get what you’re saying ·       It makes sense that you feel that way ·       I get what you’re saying and I understand why you feel this way. Here’s what I would add based on how I see the situation… The last one is a good way to validate someone else whilst disagreeing with them. Social Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, you now know that validation is different from agreeing with the other person. Since even when you disagree with what someone is saying about the same situation, you can and probably should validate them and understand why they are feeling how they do. This is difficult, especially when you don’t really understand why the person is feeling what they’re feeling and this is why practice is important. I mentioned earlier that I have had a lot of great conversations over text and in-person this week because I have been mindfully practising validation whenever I can. I have had more relaxed, deeper and more enjoyable conversations and it’s felt great. Ultimately, the six keys to validation are understanding, repeating back what the other person has said, be fully present, read minds, show equality and acknowledge the valid. As well as I would say as a final point make sure you speak in a way that is natural and comfortable for you given everything you know about the other person’s history, experiences, personality and more. This all helps to make your validation sound real and less hollow. Validation is a brilliant, compassionate and amazing superpower. So let’s get practising and start reaping the rewards.   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 The Psychology Worlds Magazine . A brilliant magazine containing two psychology books and five gripping psychology articles per issue for a bargain price. 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 and Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading Carson-Wong, A., & Rizvi, S. (2016). Reliability and validity of the DBT-VLCS: A measure to code validation strategies in dialectical behavior therapy sessions. Psychotherapy Research, 26(3), 332-341. Carson-Wong, A., Hughes, C. D., & Rizvi, S. L. (2018). The effect of therapist use of validation strategies on change in client emotion in individual dbt treatment sessions. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 9(2), 165. Fasulo, S. J., Ball, J. M., Jurkovic, G. J., & Miller, A. L. (2015). Towards the development of an effective working alliance: The application of DBT validation and stylistic strategies in the adaptation of a manualized complex trauma group treatment program for adolescents in long-term detention. American journal of psychotherapy, 69(2), 219-239. Greville-Harris, M., Hempel, R., Karl, A., Dieppe, P., & Lynch, T. R. (2016). The power of invalidating communication: Receiving invalidating feedback predicts threat-related emotional, physiological, and social responses. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 35(6), 471-493. Kim, E., & Kim, C. (2013). Comparative effects of empathic verbal responses: Reflection versus validation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60(3), 439–444.  https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032786 Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. Guilford Press. Linton, S. J., Boersma, K., Vangronsveld, K., & Fruzzetti, A. (2012). Painfully reassuring? The effects of validation on emotions and adherence in a pain test. European journal of pain, 16(4), 592-599. Neacsiu, A. D., Rizvi, S. L., Vitaliano, P. P., Lynch, T. R., & Linehan, M. M. (2010). The dialectical behavior therapy ways of coping checklist: development and psychometric properties. Journal of clinical psychology, 66(6), 563-582. 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.

Unless you’ve accessed mental health support before, you might not even know there’s such thing as a psychological or counselling assessment. And even if you’re aware of it, in my experience, it isn’t really until your postgraduate qualification that you learn about the role of a clinical psychologist in a psychological assessment. In an effort to breach this gap and help raise awareness of assessments, I want to share and reflect on my experiences of the counselling assessment I had for my specialist rape counselling. By the end of this brilliant and fascinating clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll understand what happens during a counselling assessment, what makes a good assessment versus a bad one and how you might want to use this knowledge in your own clinical practice in the future. If you enjoy learning about mental health, psychotherapy and counselling psychology then this will be a great episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Clinical Psychology Collection Volume 6: Thoughts On Mental Health, Psychotherapy and Abnormal 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. What Happens During A Counselling Assessment? Extract from Clinical Psychology Reflections Volume 6 (COPYRIGHT 2025 Connor Whiteley) In the last reflection, I told you (rather passionately) why I love evening appointments in mental health services, and in this reflection, I want to talk about what actually happens in a counselling assessment. I want to do this because I’ve had two now and they are very similar, and these are very standard within mental health services. Therefore, in case you ever have to do one or to give you a little bit of extra knowledge, I want to explain how counselling assessments work. Of course, every mental health service will have slight differences, but this is for information purposes only based on my own experience as a client (and a clinical psychology Masters student at the time of writing). What Happens During A Counselling Assessment? My counselling assessment for the sexual assault counselling was done over Zoom at 7:30 in the evening (again it was very suitable and a great time for me) and I always have a problem getting onto Zoom, but I managed it. As I mentioned in few reflections ago, being a well-rounded person is critical within clinical psychology, because the lovely lady who was doing my assessment told me something. She told me about her dogs and that she was working at home and a takeaway person was going to ring the doorbell at some point during our call for other people in the house. This wasn’t her being unprofessional but it was her making it clear that her dogs would probably bark and she didn’t want to alarm me. And honestly, I found this short conversation very reassuring because it showed to me that she was a kind, normal person and she was a person who I could get along with. As well as it showed me that even though I had literally only said “hello” that she already had my best interests at heart. I appreciated that fact a lot considering how nervous I had been about this counselling assessment. Next she explained how the counselling assessment was going to work and how long it would last, and she asked me some questions about myself. For example, what Doctors am I registered at, am I living in Canterbury and just some more information about me. Afterwards, we spoke about the counselling itself. This included information on what I was hoping to gain out of this counselling, my physiological and psychological symptoms and what my availability was. Now as a client, this shows the power of being a well-rounded and likeable clinical psychologist. Since in my last counselling assessment for the university, when the woman doing it asked me questions I would give her the answer but I wouldn’t add context or additional information. I didn’t want to do this because I didn’t like her. She was way too smiley, she interrupted and I didn’t have a natural rapport with her. However, the lovely lady at the charity, I was very open with so I told her about the physiological symptoms, me being suicidal the other week and I gave her more context than I normally would. She appreciated this and as an aspiring clinical psychologist, I think this goes to show how important it is to just be friendly, respectful and open with the client. And try to build that therapeutic alliance or those interpersonal skills as soon as possible. Especially, because the lady was able to add information to my assessment forms that would help the counsellor in the future. I think one of the “extra” notes was something in the next section about “have I ever thought that being dead would be easier”. Now she asked on a Likert scale that I’ll talk about in a moment and because it was “only” for one day, on the scale, it wouldn’t be a lot but because I was honest and open with her she was able to add a note that would be useful for my future counsellor. Furthermore, in this section, the lady asked me about past mental health, am I on any medication and those sort of general mental health questions. I am not on any medication but I do have past mental health and past trauma. Leading to an interesting discussion about why if I ever requested my notes, I would see “Not For A Placement Counsellor” written on them. Since the charity has a handful of placement counsellors who want experience with sexual violence survivors, but the charity doesn’t allow these placement counsellors to help survivors with additional trauma. This might sound harsh but I seriously understand it. Due to, I am only speaking for myself here, but my child abuse and trauma directly impacted my sexual assault. And to be honest, if I wasn’t abused as kid then I never would have been sexually assaulted so they’re connected in that way. Yet they are connected through the mental health impact after the sexual assault too. For example, the same sort of abusive and negative thoughts that popped up in my childhood popped up after my sexual assault. My mind tried to use my sexual assault as proof that everything my abusers “taught” me in my childhood was true and so on. There is a massive connection and overlap, and as a client, I would prefer a fully-qualified counsellor with a LOT of experience to help me. Even as an aspiring clinical psychologist, I seriously wouldn’t want someone like me as my first few cases. Moving onto the final section of the counselling assessment, this is the section reserved for the mental health questionnaire. Now as psychology is a science, I am no stranger to questionnaires and I have made some questionnaires myself. However, even I have to admit mental health questionnaires are almost funny at times because they are so cold and calculating that they miss so much nuance. Although, my counselling assessment was a little messed up in this section because this week had been extremely weird in terms of my mental health. I wasn’t dealing with rape or sexual assault stuff this week because I was spending so much time dealing with being publicly and privately attacked by someone I know who has Dissociative Identity Disorder with psychotic features. Even though I will admit that as soon as all that was dealt with the sexual violence stuff returned with a vengeance. Unfortunately, this was after my assessment was done. Anyway, there were 34 questions in total and some of them she didn’t ask because I had already answered them in the other sections in response to other questions. As well as these were done as a Likert Scale ranging from “None Of The Time” to “Most of The Time” with “Often” and “Some of The Time” and “Occasionally” being in the middle. In addition, the actual questionnaire has a timeframe of the past 7 days, but because of the weirdness of my week, the lady proposed the past 7 to 10 days which I wasn’t going to reject.  I need the counselling way too much to not help myself. For the rest of the counselling assessment, we went through the questions that asked how happiness, social functioning, suicidality, anxiety and a bunch of other domains of functioning too. It was a good set of questions I admit and the lady did something I did appreciate. She kept it fun. She didn’t make it seem like a deep, depressing task that would ultimately decide my future, and if I didn’t answer something right it would be the end of the world. No, instead she kept it light and fun and she worked with me as well. Due to let’s face it, in my mind, there is very little difference between “Often” and “Some of The Time” so sometimes me and her did need to think about certain answers because the “real” answer was between those two points but I needed to put something as my official answer. And that ability and patience to work with me was important. I am really grateful that she wanted to do that with me because she could have easily made me feel uncomfortable and awkward so I could say random answers to get it over and done with. Yet she didn’t. She made me feel listened too, respected and she actually did some empowerment stuff without me or her even realising even now. She waited for me to give a response so I could make a real choice for the first time since my sexual assault. And that feels amazing. Now I’m realising that I actually made a choice for myself, that feels incredible and wonderful and I know for a precious few minutes, I don’t feel like a weak, pathetic victim (yes I realise that self-perception is something I need to work on in counselling). Then we wrapped up with whether I had any questions for her now, next steps and she spoke about how if I needed support or had a major meltdown I could reach out to the helpline or the woman at the charity who referred me to the counselling department because she is my dedicated sexual violence worker. Personally, I still think I should have been given some kind of resource or a Brief Psychological Intervention, especially as the waiting list could be three months long. But the charity is brilliant and I am happy with my experience. On the whole, when it comes to counselling assessment, as an aspiring clinical psychologist, I’ve learnt that you need to be kind, respectful and patient with the client. Since they will be nervous, they will be scared and they will probably be feeling so disempowered about the world around them. Therefore, if you can give them a positive experience using your good interpersonal skills that make them feel respected, listened to and cared about. Then even though this is not a counselling session, you are going to have an insanely positive impact on them. I’ve had a good and a bad counselling assessment and after comparing the two in my head, I know the main difference is the person performing the assessment. You are the main factor that will impact the client’s experience. Of course, the client has to want therapy, they want to have to change and improve their lives, and they have to want to work with  the therapist. I know that. However, if you don’t treat the client with respect, patience and you don’t empower them, like the first woman at my university. Then you might make them have a negative experience and that isn’t what we want. It will happen at some point in your career, that’s normal and you can learn from the experience, but if you can nail it and make a client feel great and hopeful about the future. Then you already might have helped a client more than you could ever realise and it isn’t even the first counselling session yet. I know it can happen from my own experience, so I have no doubt it can happen again and again and again.   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 Clinical Psychology Collection Volume 6: Thoughts On Mental Health, Psychotherapy and Abnormal 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. Clinical Psychology Reference and Further Reading Whiteley, C. (2025) Clinical Psychology Collection Volume 6: Thoughts On Mental Health, Psychotherapy and Abnormal 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.

In recent years, DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) Initiatives have become a very hot political issue with certain groups suggesting DEI practices discriminate against straight white people by making it harder for them to thrive. In reality, this isn’t the truth because DEI practices help everyone regardless of your sexuality and race. This means that DEI initiatives also help straight white men unlike certain groups and political figures claim. Therefore, in this social psychology podcast episode, you’re going to learn about why do DEI initiatives help everyone, what are DEI initiatives and most importantly, why DEI initiatives are worth protecting. If you enjoy learning about social psychology and discrimination then this is a brilliant 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 Do DEI Initiatives Help Everyone? Unfortunately, in recent years, there has been an increase in people thinking that DEI initiatives mean that certain people benefit from them (these are social others) and it doesn’t help them as an individual. This leads some people to believe that DEI initiatives eat up organisational opportunities and resources that are limited, so once these opportunities and resources are gone then there is nothing left for anyone else. At first, I understand this sort of thinking because we are often led to believe that opportunities and resources are finite and really hard to get a hold of, but the people telling us this are the people in power. It is in their interest to make us believe this idea. These are the same people who have far more opportunity, wealth and power than most of us can even imagine. In addition, this kind of fixed pie or zero-sum belief creates backlash and resistance to DEI initiatives but this thinking doesn’t reflect the reality. In reality, good, well-thought-out DEI initiatives are designed to expand the opportunities and resources within an organisation so there is enough for everyone. There is no fixed pie. There are no limited resources and no one is going to be disadvantaged by DEI initiatives. Moreover, diversity and inclusion apply to everyone because it encompasses everything. Including your sexuality, sexual orientation, gender, race, socioeconomic status, mental health experiences and any other meaningful characteristics. This means that straight white men and women are a part of diversity and inclusion. Another way to think about DEI initiatives is that as of 2024, there were over 340 million people living in the United States and 50% of them were aged over 40 and 59% of them were white and 41% of them were non-white. This means that good DEI initiatives are designed to make sure that there are just as many resources for white people than non-white people. The same goes for the 7% of LGBT+ people in the United States compared to the 93% of heterosexual people. Good DEI initiatives are designed to make sure everyone benefits and everyone is supported. No one is left behind regardless of whether you’re white, black, straight, gay, whatever. Typically, whenever people think about DEI initiatives, we tend to think about hiring policies and admission policies. However, DEI initiatives are actually a lot broader than that because similar to curb cuts (or dropped kerbs if you’re in the United Kingdom like me), these allow and help everyone to cross the street and get back up onto the pavement (or sidewalk for you Americans). These dropped kerbs are helpful for people with mobility challenges, people in wheelchairs, children riding bikes, people pushing push chairs and delivery people pushing round large carts for deliveries. These dropped kerbs help everyone who uses them. DEI initiatives are the exact same. As a result, people who have had positive and negative mental health experiences, they both benefit from the DEI initiatives of increasing natural lighting in the workplace. We know that natural lighting increases mental health, so this is one example of a DEI initiative helping everyone else. Another example is reducing speeded tests in jobs where speed isn’t needed. This makes it so much easier for neurodiverse people and better yet, it means it reduces stress for neurotypical people. Is a DEI initiative that reduces stress for everyone, a bad thing? Of course not. A final example of a DEI initiative that benefits everyone is gender-neutral bathrooms. It means everyone has the choice and comfort to use whatever bathroom they want. And as a personal example, once I really needed a toilet in the psychology building at my university but all the male toilets were either being cleaned or Out of Order and I seriously did not want to go to another building. I don’t think I would have lasted that long. Thankfully, I knew where the Gender-Neutral bathrooms were so I was saved. Social Psychology Conclusion Ultimately, there are a lot of benefits to DEI initiatives because they truly do help everyone, regardless of your sexuality, gender, race, etc. These DEI initiatives help to improve productivity and the mental health of all workers and at worst, these DEI initiatives help some people and harm no one. This is why DEI efforts will never be a zero-sum game and there will always be enough resources and opportunities for everyone. Therefore, at the end of this podcast episode, I would suggest that whenever you hear someone, be it a friend, a family member or a politician, saying that DEI initiatives are threatening your community and they are making you worse off. Critically think about their so-called claim. Question whether they’re telling the truth or not because if DEI initiatives are cut back and if you get rid-off then everyone will be impacted negatively. There are no ifs, buts, maybes about this. DEI initiatives help everyone so they have to be protected. Otherwise, everyone gets harmed.     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 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 https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/working-together/202403/dei-initiatives-include-you-whoever-you-are Iyer, A. (2022). Understanding advantaged groups' opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies: The role of perceived threat. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 16(5), e12666. Legate, N., & Weinstein, N. (2024). Motivation science can improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) trainings. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17456916231186410. Martinez, L. R., Smith, N. A., Ortiz, S. D., Korsak, M., & Day, T. (2024). Minding the gap: Mindful inclusion of opposing perspectives to protect DEI initiatives. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 17(4), 490-494. Roberson, Q. (2025). How Integrating DEI Into Strategy Lifts Performance. MIT Sloan Management Review, 66(2), 62-65. Rosa, J. M. The Critical Importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the Detrimental Impact of Anti-DEI Policies. Stille, G., & Simon, T. (2023). Make DEI part of your employee benefits DNA.  Benefits Quarterly ,  39 (1), 47-51. United States Census Bureau (2024). Quick facts.  https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045223 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.

Whenever we think about professional lie detectors, we tend to think about the “experts” we see in crime dramas. The sort of people who can expertly and instantly tell if a person is telling or not, and some people claim to be able to do this in real life. Is there any truth in this claim? In this forensic psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn about the forensic psychology of deception, how lie detection works and why psychology is interested in lie detection and more. If you enjoy learning about criminal behaviour, deception and applied psychology then this is a brilliant episode for you. Today’s criminal psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Forensic Psychology of Deception: A Criminal Psychology Guide To Deceit, Lying and Criminal Deception . 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 Forensic Psychology Of Deception (Extract from Forensic Psychology of Lie Detection COPYRIGHT 2025 CONNOR WHITELEY) To kick off this fascinating book, we need to understand what actually deception is, why psychologists are interested in the area and what are some of the theories around lie detection that the literature is built on, at least in the early days. Ekman’s Theory of Lying As a result, our first theory that is critical in the development of lie detection as a field of study comes from Ekman and his theory of lying. Since the modern study of lie detection can be traced back to Paul Ekman’s book Emotions Revealed  and whilst it is largely outdated by modern standards, especially in 2024. The book was very useful in generating ideas, interest and studies as different researchers wanted to explore the ideas written in this book. In addition, Ekman believed that because of his academic work published in 1992 and 1996, that lies have to involve a person intending to mislead a victim and a victim that is unaware of that intention. For example, if a friend asked me to post an anniversary card at 7 am in the morning because I was going to work but I didn’t post it until 4 pm that day but I said that I had posted it at 7 am because I didn’t want them to know the truth then that is a lie. I misled my friend and they didn’t know I was misleading them. An oddly specific example I know but I might  have lied because I didn’t want them getting distressed that it wasn’t done exactly as they instructed. Anyway, Ekman’s ideas follow the concept that not all forms of deception or misleading information can be considered a lie. At first, I didn’t really understand this idea because surely every type of deception involves a lie to someone or you convincing someone of something that isn’t true. Yet when we think about it, there are types of deception that don’t involve lies. For instance, magicians are very open about their deception, as well as a secret isn’t lying if other people know that it’s a secret. A final example is that false memories of sexual abuse aren’t technically lies according to Ekman, because the intention isn’t to mislead. Therefore, current academic research focuses on developing a set of interviews and procedures that make it more difficult for people to hide cues of their lying from police officers and other people. This is a large focus of the book and we get to cover some of my favourite interview sets that are absolutely fascinating and I’m excited to share them with you. Why Is Lie Detection Difficult? In addition, Ekman laid out some basics about lying that we need to take a moment to appreciate because they help people to understand why lie detection is so difficult and it isn’t as easy as laypeople imagine. One of the first problems that make lie detection hard is that more often than not, we don’t have baseline measurements for the interviewee for their “manipulation”. For instance, we don’t actually know how their touch, stroking and other small ways how a person manipulates their body is normal for them. One person might naturally blink a lot and someone else might blink rarely because that is normal for them. The problem with this is that it makes lie detection very difficult because when someone lies they typically have lying cues but if we don’t know how these cues cause changes to a person’s body, we cannot be sure if a body manipulation is a cue or something that is normal to that person. This first problem is made even more difficult when we consider that body manipulations are related to strong emotions, not always if someone is lying as well as you cannot make lie detection judgements on emotions alone because they are often misleading signs of deception. Secondly, the lying contexts can make lie detection difficult because lying contexts vary wildly. For example, it is easier to tell a lie if you have time to prepare for it compared to when you have to lie on the spot. Personally, I was very, very good at telling lies about certain topics as a child because I had to to survive, so in certain contexts around my sexuality, I was an expert liar. Yet if I stole something or if I had to lie about something that didn’t directly impact on my survival chances then I was a worse liar, so context can be everything in lying. We explore this in a lot more depth later on. Thirdly, assessing a person for lying is very complex because we need to monitor everything in a person from their facial features to changes in their voice. Therefore, one of the biggest mistakes that someone trying to detect lies can do is to only focus on the voice and facial aspects. These might be the easiest parts of a liar to focus on because these can be useful lying cues. Yet equally, these are the easiest cues for a liar to change, monitor and manipulate so it is critical that lie detectors focus on more cues too. As a result, Ekman suggested in his 1992 paper that it is important to look out for “leakages” in the way how the liar’s strong emotions manifest themselves. His ideas included looking for faster breathing, an increase in sweating and swallowing amongst others. As well as Ekman suggested looking out for negative emotions like fear that might manifest as louder speech because that is associated with anger and speech pauses and errors. Also, if an interviewee has a whitening of the face then this suggests fear and a lack of a story’s preparation too. “Leakages” and lying cues play a major part in this book. Building upon this further, Ekman proposed that facial features are key to telling if someone is lying or not. Since if someone is actually happy then this real emotion involves facial movements as well as real sadness and fear requires forehead expression. Whereas anger, according to Ekman, is very difficult to fake based on his 1985 theory. Furthermore, the muscles involved in anger are very hard to control so an innocent person might struggle to control their anger, but a liar might struggle to make their anger look real. Then being able to tell whether these muscles are being used could be a reliable and important indicator of lying behaviour. Throughout the book, we’ll see how reliable these facial markers are for lie detection. In terms of research support, Hatz and Bourgoeus (2010) tested these cues by getting college students to cheat on an experiment in a both real transgression scenario and a fake one that involved them being secretly filmed and confronted about their behaviour causing them to tell a lie, afterwards a panel of judges looked at their behaviour. The researchers demonstrated that the judges found that the truth-tellers were angry and used more angry words in the film compared to the liars. How Good Are People At Lie Detection? To wrap up this first chapter, we need to know a critical fact about people’s ability to detect lies because this forms a core part of the book. We need to understand that generally speaking people are little better than chance in their ability to detect lies, regardless of the fact that some people are better than others at detecting these forms of deception (Ekman et al., 1999). We need to understand this fact because one of the main purposes of creating procedures and interview sets that maximise lying cues is so we can give interviewers the most chances to tell if someone is lying or not. People need these increased chances because people are naturally bad at telling if others are lying. Also, Ekman believed that a person could be trained to better detect lies and I think there is some truth in that. As we explore this subfield in more detail in the other chapters, I think there are valid and somewhat reliable ways to improve lie detection abilities but you need very specific techniques that a lot of laypeople wouldn’t use or even know about unless they research the area in-depth. Ultimately, the bottom line is that there is no single simple indicator that instantly reveals who’s lying. Now that we understand some basics about lying behaviour, we need to explore whether so-called professional lie detectors are actually any better than laypeople? This is going to be fun.   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 Forensic Psychology of Deception: A Criminal Psychology Guide To Deceit, Lying and Criminal Deception . 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. Forensic Psychology Reference and Further Reading Whiteley, C. (2025) Forensic Psychology of Deception: A Criminal Psychology Guide To Deceit, Lying and Criminal Deception. 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.

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of books being banned in the United States for having LGBT+ themes and characters. Yet books are also being banned for teaching Critical Race Theory, having black characters and a whole host of other reasons. In this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn why do book bans harm mental health, why book bans harm our children and what groups are most impacted by book bans. This includes straight white authors who are trying to make a living. By the end of this podcast episode, you’ll understand the issue of book bans in a lot more depth. If you enjoy learning about discrimination, mental health and social psychology then you’ll enjoy this episode for sure. 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. Why Do Book Bans Harm Mental Health? In 2023 alone, according to the American Library Association, there was a 65% increase in title challenges as compared to the previous year. As well as nearly half of all these challenges were made by patrons, parents or political or religious groups and at the time of writing in 2025, this number has only increased. These pressure groups focus on public and school libraries and they typically challenge dozens, if not hundreds of titles at a single time. And 47% of these books that they challenged were about the lived experiences and voices of black and LGBT+ people. This includes books about black history and black main characters and stories that spoke about teen pregnancy and puberty (Haupt, 2022). In addition, I saw a newspaper headline recently about the trend of book bans in the United States is spreading over to the UK and other Western countries. I was talking to a local librarian the other month who I talk to regularly during Student Ambassador work and she’s under a lot of pressure to ban certain books. For no other reason than they contain black and LGBT characters. The books are perfectly fine, enjoyable and children love them, but parents want them gone for no good reason. Yet when a certain big name author is accused of rape and sexual violence against women, the same parents don’t want his books removed. That’s odd in my opinion. Anyway, the reason why these book bans are harmful to society is because they don’t protect society, they don’t protect children and they don’t protect people’s mental health as shown in the following research. How Do Book Bans Harm The Mental Health of Children and Teenagers? Firstly, book bans harm the mental health of children and teenagers, the very people who these pressure groups claim to protect. Children as well as teenagers need diverse books during this developmental period of their identity formation because these diverse books help them to have the opportunity to have an open dialogue and use critical thinking in a safe and supportive environment (Pfiefer and Berkman, 2018). Also, book bans don’t solve this so-called problem because children and young people will still find out this information but they might find it from worse sources. A school and public library offer children and teenagers a safe and monitored place to find good sources of information for their identity and trusted adults can support this. Keeping these books in libraries keep children and teenagers safe, not book bans. Personally, even without talking about LGBT+ fiction, I flat out loved books and the library as a kid. It was a brilliant place to find fun books I could escape into for a few hours. I could solve an impossible mystery, I could travel to a magical place or I could travel the stars with amazing characters. Books are such a powerful and amazing thing for children and they really help shape me into the person I am today. So the very idea that we would rob our children of books is horrible. How Do Book Bans Harm The Mental Health of Authors? Secondly, book bans harm the mental health of authors because these brilliant people are just trying to make a living from selling books. Therefore, book bans harm the author’s income and might make them feel isolated and excluded. We know from research that social isolation and marginalisation harms mental health, so book bans do not protect authors. As well as book bans mean authors can’t get invited to school or library visits so readers and authors miss out on chances to understand each other’s perspectives and to connect. Social media is another critical aspect because book bans increase online hate towards authors and we know that cyberbullying is associated with an increase in anxiety and depression for the victim (Hu et al., 2021). It was only the other week that I was reading an Instagram post from an author saying how much stress and anxiety he got from school visits because he didn’t know how badly he was going to be attacked and hated on by students and teachers alike. Book bans only increase this awful behaviour. Personally, as an author myself, I flat out love connecting with readers and it really makes my day when a reader says they enjoyed my story, my characters and some aspect of my work. I love connecting with readers because I find it interesting to hear what they have to say and what they enjoyed most. Sometimes it isn’t what I enjoyed most and that’s the best bit about these interactions. Yet book bans would rob me of these wonderful interactions. And if I’m having a bad day then these interactions can make a world of difference. It is wrong to steal these interactions from authors. How Do Book Bans Harm The Mental Health of School Staff and Librarians? Book bans harm the mental health of librarians and school staff because it adds anxiety and stress to their already massive workload. It creates an atmosphere of censorship and this is one of the reasons behind the increase in mental health difficulties amongst teaching staff in recent years (Shahzad, 2024). As well as a lot of libraries are having to use their already strained budgets to hire people, like security and social workers, to respond to the rise of confrontational patrons who are becoming more and more aggressive towards librarians. All because they believe certain events and books should be banned, so they get aggressive about it. I know how stretched and underappreciated librarians already are without the added stress and anxiety of censorship being added to their workload. Librarians are some of the most amazing, kindest and most brilliant people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting so it makes me sad that they are being abused for doing nothing wrong. Book bans should never happen because they harm the mental health of these brilliant librarians and school staff. How Do Book Bans Harm The Mental Health of Marginalised Individuals? I left my main community until last because I wanted to show you first of all that book bans have further reaching implications beyond marginalised individuals. Therefore, it is books that are written by and include characters of marginalised individuals that are most often challenged in these book bans. And this is bad because LGBT+ individuals are nearly three times more likely than heterosexual people to develop a mental health condition, like depression, anxiety and some studies say that nearly 45% of LGBT+ youth seriously consider attempting suicide (The Trevor Project, 2022). Also, we know from research, like Williams (2018) that people of colour experience higher rates of mental health difficulties in addition to experiencing increased barriers to mental health treatment. Largely because of socioeconomic barriers, stigma and discrimination. Ultimately, if you ban books about the history and lived experiences of marginalised people then this only increases feelings of exclusion and invisibility and intensifies the risk of them developing mental health difficulties (Pickering, 2023). Book bans do not protect children, they do not protect mental health and book bans risk increasing the suicide rate of marginalised children. Personally, reading gay romance as a late teenager, certainly didn’t make me gay and it saved me, it helped me and it showed me that no matter how dark and horrific my life seemed there was hope. It might have only been a sliver of light and hope at the end of a very abusive, twisted and terrifying tunnel where I was in fear for my life every second of every day, but gay romance books gave me a moment of peace. And maybe those precious moments of peace were why I didn’t end up being just another gay suicide statistic. Books really can save lives. Clinical Psychology Conclusion At the end of this psychology podcast episode, we all need to know that when books are banned, nobody wins and everyone is harmed. Not only because of it decreases reading but because it turns out attention towards social media, television and doom scrolling on the internet. According to Firth et al. (2018) this negatively impacts the brain’s ability to sustain attention for longer periods of time, discourages analytic thinking and it reduces long-term memory formation. In addition, book bans and the associated censorship increases discrimination as readers get the message that certain topics and groups are “bad” so this closes off our minds towards reading, understanding and learning what these topics and groups are actually about (Vogels et al., 2021) and often why these topics and groups are amazing. A final negative impact of book bans is that it reduces the most important benefit of reading. It reduces our empathy. Research, like Kucirkova (2019), shows us that reading books with characters that aren’t like you is the best way to build empathy. Do we really want to live in a world with reduced empathy? I don’t, and chances are neither do you. Of course, I won’t deny that parents have the right to influence  (not dictate) what their child reads, but banning books is detrimental to their mental health. As a result, you could argue that maybe the best thing to do is to have open, honest conversations with our children and other people about the topic or characters that people want to ban instead of banning the books themselves. This way we can all learn from each other’s perspectives and this means we can show our children that we trust them to make choices guided by their values regardless of what’s written on a page. Making decisions based on your values is one of the most important gifts and skills you could teach children. And this way, if we don’t ban books then we help to protect the mental health of our school staff, librarians, marginalised people, children and teenagers and the authors themselves. When books are banned, no one wins. When books are kept, everyone wins.   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 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. Social Psychology References and Further Reading Bailey, J. L. (2024). To Read or Not to Read: How Book Censorship Affects Students and Undermines Different Worldviews. Book Ban Data | Banned Books. (n.d.). www.ala.org. https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data CUPE Research. “TURNING THE PAGE: Library Workplace Violence and Harassment Survey Report.” March 2023. ‌ Firth J, Torous J, Stubbs B, Firth JA, Steiner GZ, Smith L, Alvarez-Jimenez M, Gleeson J, Vancampfort D, Armitage CJ, Sarris J. The "online brain": how the Internet may be changing our cognition. World Psychiatry. 2019 Jun;18(2):119-129. doi: 10.1002/wps.20617. PMID: 31059635; PMCID: PMC6502424. Hammer, K. A. (2024). Book Banning in the United States: A Call for Multigenerational Activism. In Queering Desire (pp. 112-125). Routledge. Haupt A. The rise in book bans, explained. Washington Post. June 9, 2022. Accessed June 2, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/06/09/rise-book-bans-explained/ https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/well-read/202405/why-book-bans-are-bad-for-mental-health Hu, Y., Bai, Y., Pan, Y., & Li, S. (2021). Cyberbullying Victimization and Depression among Adolescents: A Meta-analysis. Psychiatry Research, 305, 114198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2021.114198 Kucirkova N. (2019). How Could Children's Storybooks Promote Empathy? A Conceptual Framework Based on Developmental Psychology and Literary Theory. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 121. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00121 LGBTQ+. (n.d.). NAMI. https://www.nami.org/your-journey/identity-and-cultural-dimensions/lgbt… McCluskey, T. Rippling Effects of Censorship and Book Bans in Education. Gleanings: A Journal of First-Year Student Writing, 35. Pfeifer JH, Berkman ET. The Development of Self and Identity in Adolescence: Neural Evidence and Implications for a Value-Based Choice Perspective on Motivated Behavior. Child Dev Perspect. 2018 Sep;12(3):158-164. doi: 10.1111/cdep.12279. Epub 2018 Feb 8. PMID: 31363361; PMCID: PMC6667174. ‌ Pickering, G. (2023). “Harmful to Minors”: How Book Bans Hurt Adolescent Development. The Serials Librarian, 84(1–4), 32–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2023.2245843 Ross, C. J. (2024). Are" Book Bans" Unconstitutional? Reflections on Public School Libraries and the Limits of Law. Stan. L. Rev., 76, 1675. ‌ Schwering SC, Ghaffari-Nikou NM, Zhao F, Niedenthal PM, MacDonald MC. Exploring the Relationship Between Fiction Reading and Emotion Recognition. Affect Sci. 2021 Apr 20;2(2):178-186. doi: 10.1007/s42761-021-00034-0. PMID: 36043173; PMCID: PMC9382981. Shahzad, K., Khan, S.A. and Iqbal, A. (2024), "Mental health issues of university librarians: a systematic literature review", Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-07-2023-0261 The Trevor Project. (2022). 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health. The Trevor Project. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2022/ Vogels, E., Anderson, M., Porteus, M., Baronavski, C., Atske, S., Mcclain, C., Auxier, B., Perrin, A., & Ramshankar, M. (2021, May 19). Americans and “Cancel Culture”: Where Some See Calls for Accountability, Others See Censorship, Punishment. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/05/19/americans-and-cancel-cu… Williams DR. Stress and the Mental Health of Populations of Color: Advancing Our Understanding of Race-related Stressors. J Health Soc Behav. 2018 Dec;59(4):466-485. doi: 10.1177/0022146518814251. PMID: 30484715; PMCID: PMC6532404. ‌ Woodward Jr, M. A. (2024). Burnout, Banned Books, and Incivility: A Mixed Methods Study on South Florida Librarians (Doctoral dissertation, Barry University). 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.

The majority of listeners of The Psychology World Podcast are between 40 and 50 years old and from conversations I’ve had with listeners, a lot of them have children or younger family members. As a parent, they want to protect, love and make sure their child is okay and happy whatever their age. No one wants their adult child to be suffering in silence and feel like they have no place to go, but for a wide range of reasons, sometimes an adult child doesn’t want to open up despite their suffering. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn about the phrases adult children might use to subtly communicate or hint that there is something wrong and they’re hurting and suffering. These phrases offer us a chance to explore and help them open up so we can discover why our adult child is suffering and most importantly, how to help them. By the end of this psychology podcast episode, you’ll understand how to tell if your adult child is hurting by listening to them, how to help an adult child and more. If you enjoy learning about parenting, developmental psychology and mental health then this is a great episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Introduction To Psychotherapies: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Types of Different Psychological Therapies.  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. How To Tell if Your Adult Child Is Hurting By Listening To Them? A lot of adult children will never come to their parents and simply say that they’re struggling. Partly, I think this is a cultural thing because in Western culture, we’re told that we need to be strong, independent and we need to be able to solve our own difficulties no matter what. Also, on a personal level, there might be some kind of fear of judgement and fear of failure. We don’t want to admit to our parents that we’re struggling because, what will they think of us? How will they react? And so on. Therefore, adult children are more likely to subtly drop clues about their struggles, whether they mean to or not. This is where the 7 phrases that we’re going to talk about in today’s podcast episode are critical. In addition, as aspiring or qualified psychologists, this is an important topic to talk about because at some point in our clinical psychology career, we will have to support and work with a parent. This adult might have adult children, the client might be worried about them and their adult children might be a large or small maintaining factor in their mental health difficulties. As a result, if you are aware of these phrases and the true meaning behind them then maybe we can use this knowledge to help our clients understand what’s happening in their own lives and how to rectify it if appropriate. Personally, I never wanted to open up to my parents because they were invalidating and they never really supported me in my mental health up until the past few years. I know a lot of parents aren’t like this but sometimes adult children don’t want to open up because they don’t want to be emotionally hurt by their parents’ reactions, responses or invalidation. What Are the 7 Phrases That Reveal Your Adult Child Is Hurting? Firstly, an adult child might simply say “I don’t want to talk about it” and I think we can all remember instances where we have heard this or we have said it to someone. it was only the other week where I said it to my friends and housemates, because I didn’t want them judging me for this particular thing that was normal to a lot of people, but they would have disapproved. As a result, when someone says “I don’t want to talk about it”, you could take this as a sign of rebellion or avoidance. In reality, this is actually a sign of fear of being misunderstood and/ or a protective shield against the vulnerability of opening up. I’ll explain more about what parents can do later in the episode but for me, I always find it easier to open up and overcome this “I don’t want to talk about it” after the person has shown me that they will respect, listen and even if they don’t agree with what happened, they won’t invalidate me. Secondly, an adult child might say “I’m just tired all the time,” and normally you might brush this off as them not sleeping very well. This might be a cause for concern all by itself because you might wonder why aren’t they sleeping, what’s on their mind and so on. Yet feeling tired could be more than a lack of physical rest and sleep, it could be chronic emotional fatigue and anxiety, depression, burnout as well as trauma can be the cause of this fatigue too. Personally, during the worst of my mental health caused by my rape trauma, I was constantly fatigued. Yes, it was partly because of the lack of sleep because I couldn’t sleep very well with the constant PTSD, flashbacks and nightmares. Another aspect of the constant emotional fatigue of having to relive the trauma over and over and the constant panic and anxiety attacks and so on. Thirdly, an adult child might say “you wouldn’t understand,”. For a parent or friend, this might be very hurtful to hear and whilst, I have never said this directly, I often think it. This is often why I refuse to open up about a lot of different things to friends and parents and other family members. When I say “you wouldn’t understand” this isn’t rejecting them. It is me focusing on my fear of judgement and me not wanting the past pain that this person has caused me to repeat. I really want to be understood but I have no idea whether I should even let you in or not. And actually, this is something I really struggled with when my partner broke up with me because they had a lot on their plate, their chronic health was getting worse and they didn’t have time to date me despite how really sweet and lovely I am (I know it sounds like an excuse from them but I know it wasn’t and this isn’t the point of this episode). Yet I was very reluctant to tell my friends and housemates when they asked me “how was your day” because I didn’t want them judging me or blaming me again. There’s a lot of past pain that they’ve caused me because they would blame me when my social relationships went wrong. Sometimes they were completely right and sometimes they were seriously wrong too and they caused me a lot of pain. I didn’t want that to happen again but I eventually told them briefly and it was okay. Then I told one of my good friends about it and they were lovely and sweet about it. Fourthly, an adult child might say “I feel like I’m falling behind,”. This might sound like a strange one at first because a parent might not understand why an adult child feels like they’re falling behind. Or if they’re a university student or adjusting to a new job then we might normalise this behaviour and dismiss it as a normal part of life. Although, in reality, this simple phrase might reveal a deeper sense of inner shame and a lot of young adults feel they’re failing because of unfair, invisible standards about their life milestones, relationships as well as careers. I remember my brother mentioning this in passing once and this is one of the reasons why he didn’t go on social media a few years ago. His mental health wasn’t great because on Facebook he saw how all his childhood friends were getting married, having kids, buying houses, etc. He wasn’t and he didn’t have any of that so he was struggling and really felt like he was falling behind. Thankfully, he’s doing a lot better now. A fifth phrase that an adult child might say is “I’m just trying to get through the day,”. This is a phrase that I used so much in 2024 when I was dealing with the fallout of my rape. Of course, a lot of people use this phrase without having to deal with trauma but this is survival mode in a sentence. This simple phrase means that someone is experiencing overwhelm, hopelessness and/ or anxiety and your child might feel like they’re drowning in silence. Personally, my entire 2024 and even some of my 2025 when I was dealing with my anorexia, I constantly felt like I was drowning, I was struggling and I was being forced to take it just one day at a time. Thinking about anything more was just too much and my physical and mental health would change too much day-to-day to possibly plan anything more than that. It was awful and I didn’t want to open up about it because I didn’t want my friends and my parents to know just how much I was struggling or how I was dealing with it. Also, I didn’t want their invalidation, I didn’t want them to say stupid things that wouldn’t support me and so on. Penultimately, an adult child might say “what’s even the point,”. This is something I have said or at least thought a lot over the past year. Especially, around the time I did my three suicide attempts, because “what’s even the point” is a major sign of hopelessness. This means that an adult child might be questioning their purpose or their will to even keep going and this phrase needs to be heard with deep care. I don’t mean you immediately need to be concerned about them being suicidal, but you need to listen to them without judgment and with compassion and empathy. Listen to why your adult child doesn’t see the point and just create a safe space for them to talk about what’s troubling them. It could make the world of difference, and this is something that I really appreciate about my family now. When my parents ask me how I am, there is a safe space where I can talk about the truth, what little things are annoying me and more. Sometimes it is nice just to have a space where I can talk about the small annoying things as well as all the great and wonderful things happening in my life. I think it’s better to let the small annoyances out and use them as bonding moments with family and friends before they morph into something larger that drains your mental health. Finally, an adult child might say “I’m fine,”. This is definitely something all of us have done a hundred times in our life. Most of the time, if we’re close with the person or we know them very well, we can tell when this is a lie. For example, when my housemates say “I’m fine,” most of the time I know they’re lying and they’re putting up this emotional armour to deflect my question. Sometimes when adult children say this, they are genuinely fine. Yet when it is overused or delivered too quickly or with a flat tone, it is often hiding the fact that the other person simply doesn’t feel safe enough to tell you the truth. What Can Parents Do to Help Adult Children? I think the most important thing when you hear your adult child use one of these phrases is to approach this with a sense of openness and curiosity. In other words, don’t take it personally because the emotional pain your adult child is already experiencing will make them withdraw because they are overwhelmed. Yet if you get annoyed, angry and if you push them to open up then they will only withdraw even more because they won’t see you as a safe space. As well as parents should listen to what’s beneath the surface because when adult children use these phrases, they are giving you clues to their real emotions and experiences so listen to their timing, repetition and tone. A personal example is that my family got really angry at me after I was raped because they were saying how they were going to drag me down to the police station and more. That was terrifying for me and that anger, that annoyance and that invalidation of me and my  emotions was the last thing I needed given how much I was struggling. In addition, it’s a good idea that parents model openness by sharing their feelings and doubts so you can invite more honesty from them. This is something I like to do and why I don’t think it’s bad to share small annoyances and small things you don’t like. This creates a space where you can be honest with each other about your lives and you can drop the pretence that you and your lives are perfect and fine. Also, it’s useful for parents to validate your adult child’s experiences because instead of automatically offering solutions, just try and validate them. For example, it can be really meaningful to hear something like “That sounds really hard. I’m here if you want to talk,” Finally, parents can offer their adult child steady support because changing relationships, getting through to a withdrawn adult child and creating a safe space will take time. It took me and my family months of work on both sides to have the great relationship that we have today. Yet a simple, repeated message like “I love you no matter what” can slowly help to break through the defensive walls your adult child has put in place. Clinical Psychology Conclusion Ultimately, at the end of this psychology podcast episode, it’s important to be aware that no adult child will ever say “help me” (and if they do that is amazing). I couldn’t think of saying anything worse. But if you truly listen to what your adult child is saying, how they are saying it and how often they say it, then parents really can become a safe haven for adult children no matter what they’re dealing with. And that is a lovely and powerful feeling for both a parent and an adult child to have.     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 Different Psychological Therapies.  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 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/liking-the-child-you-love/202505/7-phrases-that-quietly-reveal-your-adult-child-is-hurting Kamis, C. (2021). The long-term impact of parental mental health on children’s distress trajectories in adulthood. Society and mental health, 11(1), 54-68. Pan, Y., Chen, R., & Yang, D. (2022). The relationship between filial piety and caregiver burden among adult children: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Geriatric Nursing, 43, 113-123. Risi, A., Pickard, J. A., & Bird, A. L. (2021). The implications of parent mental health and wellbeing for parent-child attachment: A systematic review. Plos one, 16(12), e0260891. 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.