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A wide range of negative mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety and increased suicide risk, is associated with unemployment. Also, across the world, unemployment is increasing and this is even more true for young people. Therefore, being able to cope with unemployment so it doesn’t damage your mental health, make you feel hopeless and start a vicious cycle of unemployment leading to negative mental health and then negative mental health impeding your ability to find a job, is vital. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn how to cope with unemployment, what are the tips and techniques we can use to protect our mental health and more great insights. If you enjoy learning about mental health, clinical psychology and unemployment, then this will be a great episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Suicide Psychology . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Introduction To the Mental Health Impact of Unemployment Before we dive into how to cope with unemployment, I want to set the global stage for a few moments. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to let you know that yesterday at the time of writing, I finished my employment at a special educational needs school and whilst I’ve been job hunting for three weeks, I am still unemployed. I want to mention this because I just want to be honest about my perspective and that I am basically one of the statistics that we’re going to be talking about in today’s podcast episode. As well as after the completion of my Clinical Psychology MSc I was unemployed for three months between August and October 2025. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of February 2026, the unemployment rate in the United States of America is 4.4% and this is a slight increase from January 2026, as well as according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2025, the youth unemployment rate was 10.8%. When it comes to the United Kingdom, according to the Office of National Statistics, the overall unemployment rate as of December 2025 was 5.2% and we won’t know the current unemployment rate until later this month, because the Office of National Statistics produces these sort of figures every three months. As well as when it comes to youth unemployment as of December 2025, 16.1% of all young people were unemployed in the UK. That is shocking, scary and when I first read that figure I did feel rather hopeless, shocked and just annoyed. I am in that 16.1% and it isn’t good that young people don’t have the opportunities, skills and experience to get a job. This isn’t a political show but it’s flat out critical that there is more investment and government intervention in this area. Finally, in terms of the European Union, so across its 27 member states, in October 2025, the average unemployment rate is 6% and this is a historical low point because during the 2010s the unemployment rate in the EU was over 10%. The source for this information came from Statista as well as the youth unemployment rate across the European Union is 15.1%. Personally, as a young person, this is disheartening, it does make you feel a little hopeless because it makes you wonder how are you meant to get a job when it’s so common for people your age to be unemployed. As well as for me, it’s even more frustrating that I have two degrees, I have 7 years’ experience working in education and more, but I still cannot find a job. Why Is Unemployment Bad For Our Mental Health? Anyway, in terms of clinical psychology, it’s important to be aware of unemployment because unemployment can have a wide range of negative impacts on our mental health. For example, unemployment causes people a lot of uncertainty and this can lead to anxiety as well as stress. Also, prolonged periods of unemployment can increase the risk of depression and it can lead to social isolation. This makes any existing or other mental health difficulties more severe. Another negative mental health impact of unemployment is self-esteem, because job loss can lower our self-esteem so this can lead us to feel less valued or important. A final negative impact is long-term unemployment can lead to chronic stress because you’re worried about running out of money, never being able to find another job amongst other factors. Therefore, as a society and we’re edging into politics here but I don’t care. I strongly believe we need to invest in opportunities for people to upskill, create more jobs in sustainable sectors as well as we need to invest in our young people so they can get into the workforce and start earning. Also, young people want to work, they want to contribute to society and they want to start developing skills and learn from experiences that are going to serve them for years to come. If we don’t invest in our young people then they aren’t going to find a job, get experience and the longer you’re out of work, the harder it is to find a job. It’s a well-known rule of thumb amongst managers, because my family has spoken to their bosses over the years about this. All their managers confirm that whilst they aren’t opposed to hiring someone who’s unemployed, they prefer people who are already employed. It just goes to show one of the most annoying things about the job market. Everyone wants you to have experience, but how do you get experience without a job? In addition, I understand in clinical psychology, there is the unethical expectation that aspiring psychologists are meant to do years of unpaid work experience and in most cases, they are expected to do the same work as someone who’s fully paid. Yet if you’re too busy dealing with your own mental health struggles, too busy focusing on your degree and you’re too poor to do years of unpaid work. Then how are you meant to get the years of work experience just to get your foot in the door in clinical psychology? How Do You Cope With Unemployment? Now I want to mention numerous tips and tricks to help you cope with being unemployed so hopefully you won’t fall into depression, despair and a sense of hopelessness. Cope with Unemployment by Understanding Unemployment is Normal Whilst I honestly wished that I never had to write that subheading, it is the truth. Unemployment is a sad but normal part of life. Research shows that 41% of people will be unemployed at some point in their life, and if I think about my own family that is definitely true. All of them except my dad has been unemployed at different times of their life. They all found another job, they’re all thriving and enjoying work. Therefore, whilst you might not be happy that you’re unemployed, and I’m certainly not happy about it, please know that you aren’t alone. Being unemployed isn’t strange, abnormal and it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you. As aspiring or qualified psychologists, we can reflect on this tip very well from two angles. Firstly, when it comes to our own profession, in the United Kingdom, there are tens of thousands of psychology graduates that finish university each year, so few of them will ever become practising psychologists or assistant psychologists. As well as I’ve written before about the importance in other places of having a backup plan because the chances of you ever working in psychology is so remote. In addition, I need to write a clinical psychology reflection on this topic later but I firmly believe that psychology has a qualification issue. There are so many degrees in the United Kingdom where an undergraduate comes out a fully qualified professional that is eligible for registration and then they can start practising. Of course, finding a job can still be impossible but if you do a nursing degree, midwifery, podiatry, speech and language therapy and so many other licensing degrees in the UK. You are at least qualified in that profession. A psychology degree doesn’t get you qualified in anything. Therefore, I strongly believe at least some psychology courses should be restructured, made longer and include practical, work experience elements so you can at least finish your undergraduate degree or postgraduate masters with a professional qualification in something. Anyway, I’ll jump off my new soapbox for a moment. Another way how aspiring and qualified psychologists can use this tip is when we’re supporting unemployed clients who might be experiencing clinically significant levels of distress, depression or anxiety because of their employment situation. We can work with them to recognise that unemployment isn’t easy, it’s not a happy place but it is normal. As well as I think we can tap into some negative automatic thoughts here and possible “rules to live by”. This approach might help us to understand why a client could struggle to understand that this is normal, and it could help us understand what is maintaining the depression or other mental health condition. Cope with Unemployment by Not Taking It Personally As I mentioned a moment ago, being unemployed doesn’t mean you’re useless, not good at anything and it doesn’t reflect your worth. So many other people are unemployed for no fault of their own. I have a lot of clinical skills, I have two degrees and 7 years of experience in education settings. I am kind, compassionate and very easy to like according to my peers, but I can’t find a job. Does that make me a failure or a useless person? No. It doesn’t. As a result, a lot of unemployment is simply down to market conditions as well as the problems that an agency or a company might be having and this has nothing to do with you, your skills and your abilities. Also, for a lot of people, there is very little job security and in the United States, there are over 7 million people out of work at any one time every single year. As an aspiring psychologist, if I was trying to use this tip with a client, I might try and do some work on their locus of evaluation or locus of control. Since I would be curious to see if employment is validating for them, if they have any beliefs about them getting their self-worth from their work or their employment status. If this is the case, then I would try and work with the client to restructure these beliefs so they get more of an internal source of evaluation, as this might help them cope with unemployment as their self-worth isn’t tied up to whether they’re employed or not. On the flip side, as an aspiring psychologist, I would add that this is an attitude I always try and adopt. For example, last year when I finished up my Masters and I was going job hunting for a wide range of different mental health roles and the rejections started to pile up. I always had the attitude of “I know that I’m good, I know I want to learn and I want to have a role where I can learn from professionals”. Yet there are always people with more experience than me so the jobs tend to go to them. That isn’t a reflection of me, my ability or my drive to improve. It’s a reflection of the job market not giving me a chance or any space to gain the experience that other people have. That’s one way to look at it. Cope with Unemployment by Validating Yourself Ever since I did a podcast episode before on the importance of validation , I’ve been really hot on wanting to validate myself and others whenever I get a chance, because it can be a communication superpower. Therefore, as we know from the statistics I shared in the opening section, a lot of other people are unemployed and this means that you should validate yourself and respect any feelings or emotions that you’re having. Whatever you’re experiencing it’s okay, it’s normal and it’s understandable for what’s happening to you. For example, it’s okay, understandable and normal that I’m anxious. I still have bills and rent to pay on a house I’m no longer living in because of my abusive housing situation that I escaped last year. I’m anxious about running out of money, possibly having to take money out of my business to cover my living costs and I’m anxious about how this period of unemployment will impact my future. Furthermore, feelings of anxiety and other negative emotions can help you to take a more proactive approach where you commit to taking an action. This can help you tolerate the present situation whilst giving a sense of taking a step forward to improve your current situation. This helps to reduce feelings of helplessness. Personally, every day this week, I’m applying for two jobs a day, or I’m trying to. For instance, yesterday, I spent 40 minutes trying to apply for a job at the UK Home Office for a civil service position, because the pensions are amazing there and it’s a job. I need a job. Yet I failed the civil service judgment “exam” for the second time (the first time was for the Health and Safety Executive), so I still tried. As well as I’ve decided that I will no longer apply for any civil service jobs because I cannot pass that judgement exam. Yet I am still trying, pushing myself forward and I am taking slow steps to improve my employment situation. Cope with Unemployment by Finding a Job and Looking After Yourself Building upon the last point, it’s critical that you start trying to find a new job. If you don’t take any proactive steps to change your employment situation then you will feel hopeless, anxious and your mental health will be harmed. For example, every week I check jobs in the National Health Service, I look for NHS apprenticeships, Indeed and the various political parties and social campaigns that I’m passionate about to see if they have any jobs. I’m a little desperate. As well as every day, I check Health Jobs UK to see if any NHS trust is hiring assistant psychologists or any other mental health jobs. Yet it is the wrong time of year to be honest. However, I am still being proactive, I am searching for a job and I’m trying. This doesn’t make me feel more hopeless and I haven’t been as anxious or concerned about employment this week compared to last week. As a result for aspiring and qualified psychologists, if you find yourself unemployed, and I want to mention here that it isn’t uncommon for fully qualified clinical psychologists to finish the doctorate and be unemployed for a while. It’s important that you do apply for jobs, you keep job hunting and you keep being proactive so you don’t start feeling hopeless and like you’ve wasted for your life studying for a degree that you can’t get a job with. Personally, I will be honest, maybe a little too honest. Sometimes I need to catch myself. Since whilst I flat out love psychology, doing my psychology degree and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Sometimes I think I should have done another degree that would allow me to become qualified in something, because all the jobs I see at the moment require you to be qualified. I am not qualified in anything, because I “only” have two degrees and I’m educated to Masters level. Moreover, whilst you need to keep finding a job, you also need to look after yourself, practice self-care and protect your mental health. As much as you might believe you “need” to look all day for a new job, that will only prolong the unpleasant experience of job hunting that leads to rejection and it’s a constant reminder that you’re out of work. This is why it’s important that you balance your time with pleasurable activities that aren’t related to job hunting or work. This might be one of the reasons why I haven’t written or researched the job hunting topic on how to answer “tell me about yourself” interview questions. I don’t want my entire life to become about job hunting when I’m already trying to do so many things to advance my career and job hunt. Nonetheless, this is why in addition to applying for jobs every day, I make sure that I write, I do business things and I hang out with my friends and family. At the end of the day, I am the most important person to me so I need to look after my needs, my mental health and my emotions, because no one else is going to do it for me. Cope with Unemployment by Planning Activities Every Day As a result of my life, my autism and my business, I have never really had this problem, but a major struggle that the majority of people experience after unemployment is a loss of daily structure. This is why when you’re unemployed it can be important to have daily and weekly plans of rewarding and productive goals that aren’t related to work. You might want to read or listen to my podcast episode, What is Behavioral Activation   for more information, because this episode is packed full of great advice and tips to help you do this. For example, you could write out, keep track and tick off what you achieve this day and week. This can be useful because it will give you a clear direction and help you track your progress, so this can help to reduce feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of being useless and not achieving anything. Also, your list could include activities like volunteering, seeing friends, taking a class or learning new skills. Volunteering and new skills can be particularly useful as they might help you with changing your employment situation. Personally, a very small section of today’s To Do List for me includes writing this blog post, proofing it, editing it, uploading it to Patreon so my patrons can get early access, applying for two jobs amongst other things. All these activities help me to feel useful, like I’m achieving things and it makes me happy. Being positive can be a massive protective factor for your mental health. Cope with Unemployment by Reducing Your Shame When you’re unemployed it’s normal to feel shame and disappointed in yourself, and a lot of people are ashamed of what others must think of them, because they’re unemployed. Some people even try and hide it from their neighbours and friends. However, it’s important to realise that there is nothing immoral or unethical about being unemployed and if you isolate yourself then you’ll fail to take advantage of the social support that your social network can provide you with. As well as you might find that someone in your social support network knows of a great job for you. For aspiring and qualified psychologists, this is why networking is so important. Your network allows you to talk about job hunting, get some empathy and you’ll find like-minded people who are struggling like you, so this can be validating and give you a sense of community. Yet your professional network can also give you job recommendations and they can keep an ear out for jobs in their mental health service for you. Cope with Unemployment by Reframing How You See Unemployment Our next suggestion is utterly fascinating to me because this is so true, so powerful and it can be immensely useful. Instead of seeing your period of unemployment as lonely, hopeless and a time full of concerns, you can think of it as a sabbatical. Since because you’re unemployed you now have the time to do things and activities that you couldn’t do before. For example, take care of your children, learn new skills and connect with new people. Also, some people report that after they find a new job that they miss the free time that they used to have. Personally, this is something that I actually love about being unemployed, because it gives me tons of time to write, work on business projects, focus on the podcast and most importantly, interview new and engaging guests. I really struggle to interview people for The Psychology World Podcast when I’m working because working uses up energy and it’s hard balancing a full-time job, writing and my business without adding the extra task of interviewing. As aspiring and qualified psychologists, we can apply this to ourselves by seeing a period of unemployment as a positive experience. We can use this time to connect with our interests, experience the real world and focus on what truly matters to us. I wrote in Clinical Psychology Reflections Volume 7 , that we need to experience the world, interact with others and learn about how current events impact people because our clients don’t live in a vacuum. One of the best ways to help our clients is to live, understand what impacts them and interact with the real world. The added benefit is that unemployment gives us time to learn new skills, learn about new areas of psychology and read up on different therapies that we simply haven’t had the time for until now. See unemployment as an opportunity not a disaster, as tough as that can be at times. When it comes to our clients, as aspiring and qualified psychologists, this can actually be a major benefit. Since if they’re unemployed then it can make behavioural activation a little easier. Our clients will have the time to focus on activities that they enjoy and find pleasurable as well as they can focus on social activities. They might struggle with the necessary activity part of behavioural activation but I would focus on the positive aspect of unemployment. A client can custom design their entire week around the three types of activities that behavioural activation shows is critical to our mental health. Of course, some clients will struggle to plan an entire week of activities but it’s always about being positive, taking baby steps and slowly ramping up activity levels over time. Cope with Unemployment by Give Yourself Time To Find A Job I am definitely guilty of this from time to time, because after we lose our jobs or enter unemployment, we typically feel a sense of urgency. For example, we have to find a job immediately or it will be a complete disaster and it will ruin your life. That isn’t true. Therefore, it’s important that you give yourself time to find a job so you don’t make it an emergency, and you should be flexible. As well as, if you focus on balancing your job hunt with activities that you enjoy then it helps to turn off the “emergency thinking” that’s driving your panicked sense of urgency. Personally, even though I gave myself three weeks, because I was being paid to relax, focus on my writing, business and other activities that I enjoy. I still panicked after those weeks. I was concerned that I had wasted time, that I hadn’t used my time as effectively as I should have and so on. Yet looking back, I am really grateful that I gave myself that time to relax, to refocus and see what I actually wanted to achieve. It was useful and I know mentally I am in a stronger position because I took time away, compared to if I had always panicked from the beginning. Nowadays, I just need to keep reminding myself that it’s okay to take time and as long as I keep taking steps forward, then I will be okay in the end. That’s also my unofficial tip for aspiring and qualified psychologists. You might have just finished your doctorate or Masters and you’re panicking that you need  a job, but please relax. Finding a job takes time and your mental health will only decrease if you maintain your sense of urgency. Moreover, when it comes to reflecting on this tip with our clients. It will be difficult and no one can realise any of these tips for themselves until they’re ready, and there are no therapeutic techniques that spring to mind about how to help a client realise this isn’t a “now” problem or something they need to be anxious about. Normally, my mind would jump to a behavioural experiment, but you can’t do that in this case. You might be able to have a deep, honest and open conversation with the client with some psychoeducation about how giving the task of finding a job a sense of urgency is harming their mental health. Then you could work with a client to get them to do thought records so they can see and reflect on these thoughts and how it makes their body feel. Then in future sessions, you could work with the client on self-soothing techniques so they can relax themselves whenever they have a sense of urgency flooding through them. Just some thoughts. Cope with Unemployment by Being Flexible In Your Job Search I understand that this next tip is difficult but I firmly believe it’s important and it is something I have had to change my thinking on in recent months. People tend to get tethered to what we’re used to and where we are. Be it in our careers, the industry we work in or even our neighbourhood and our physical location. Therefore, when you’re unemployed, it can be useful to think about expanding our search for a new job to include different levels of work, a different industry, compensation as well as a different location altogether. This might not always be possible but it can help you find more alternatives so you can change your employment status. Personally, this is something that I am slowly starting to consider more and more. For example, I never would have looked at the Civil Service before in the United Kingdom, because there are no civil service jobs that directly relate to psychology. Equally, two days ago, I applied for a dental nurse apprenticeship so I could become a fully qualified dental nurse. It has nothing to do with psychology but I need a job. And what I’ve found is after you open your mind to other possible career options, there are a lot of fun and interesting jobs out there. As a result, if you’ve finished your undergraduate or postgraduate psychology degree and are struggling to find a psychology job, maybe look at other locations or jobs. Sometimes it seems like there’s a lot of psychology jobs in the north of England, but I can’t move there because I cannot afford it and I don’t think that would be a good move for me at this moment in time. You could look at other healthcare jobs or statistics or data science jobs. Psychology really does open a lot more doors to you than you realise. Additionally, when it comes to supporting a client with mental health difficulties after unemployment, I would suggest this tip and there might be a chance that the client is resistant to this expanding of options. If this happens, I would be very interested in why and I would want to explore this resistance. It could be because of a mental block, a self-limiting belief or another maladaptive factor that is holding the client back. For me, one maladaptive belief that I have is, I could try hard for an apprenticeship, I could do a licensing degree or I could do a whole host of other options, but my annoyance comes back to I’ve already done 6 years at university. I already have an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree and I’ve already done 6 academic research studies. I’ve worked really hard, I’ve had to deal with a lot of mental health difficulties and 3 suicide attempts after my rape. Haven’t I given university and my career enough? Haven’t I done enough university learning to get ahead in life? And so on. Clearly I just lack any sort of work experience after working 7 years in education. It isn’t right, just or fair but I need to keep going, developing my skills and expanding my options. Cope with Unemployment by Giving Yourself Credit Our final tip is possibly the most important because every day is a time for you to balance practising self-care with finding a new job. You could focus on ruminating why you are where you are, but it’s healthier, better and more adaptive for you to focus on validating, accepting, normalising as well as taking action daily to help you look for a new job and take care of yourself. You should always give yourself credit because you’re trying, you’re moving forward and you haven’t given up. You haven’t failed. You only fail when you give up. Use this example of self-compassion with yourself, your friends and your clients. Help everyone to realise just how amazing they are. Clinical Psychology Conclusion As I continue to look for a new job in this period of unemployment, I am really happy that we looked into the mental health impacts of unemployment and how to manage it. This was fun, insightful and I certainly learnt a lot that I can use with myself and hopefully future clients. Therefore, as a brief recap of how to cope with unemployment because after I finish this podcast episode, I’ll be returning to the job hunt, here’s a list of ways to cope: ·       Normalise the fact you’re unemployed ·       Reduce the shame of unemployment ·       Don’t take it personally ·       Validate your feelings ·       Practise self-care ·       Plan pleasurable activities every day ·       Increase your social support ·       Reach out to your social network ·       Give yourself time to find a new job ·       Reframe your unemployment as a sabbatical ·       Expand your job search ·       Give yourself credit I know how tough finding a job can be. It can be soul-crushing, depressing and it can really mess with your mental health, but it will pass. This doesn’t represent the rest of your life and there is support for you out there. So please, follow some of the advice in this episode, keep moving forward and hopefully you’ll find a job sooner or later. I believe in 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 Suicide 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 References and Further Reading American Psychological Association. (2020). Unemployment and mental health. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/unemployment-mental-health Blustein, D. L., et al. (2020). Unemployment in the time of COVID-19: A research agenda. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 119, 103436. Brenner, M. H. (2021). Will there be an epidemic of corollary illnesses linked to a COVID-19–related recession? American Journal of Public Health, 111(4), 625-627. Buffel, V., et al. (2017). The mental health consequences of the economic crisis in Europe among the employed, the unemployed, and the non-employed. Social Science Research, 64, 263-288. Farré, L., et al. (2020). How the COVID-19 lockdown affected gender inequality in paid and unpaid work in Spain. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13434. Ganson, K. T., et al. (2021). Job insecurity and symptoms of anxiety and depression among U.S. young adults during COVID-19. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(1), 53-56. https://usafacts.org/answers/what-is-the-unemployment-rate/country/united-states/ https://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm https://www.health.org.uk/evidence-hub/work/how-employment-status-affects-our-health https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgwy/lms https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115276/unemployment-in-europe-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266228/youth-unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/ Kawohl, W., & Nordt, C. (2020). COVID-19, unemployment, and suicide. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(5), 389-390. Leahy, R.L. (2013) Keeping Your Head after Losing Your Job: How to Cope with Unemployment. Coraopolis, PA: Behler. Paul, K. I., & Moser, K. (2009). Unemployment impairs mental health: Meta-analyses. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74(3), 264-282. Wanberg, C. R. (2012). The individual experience of unemployment. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 369-396. World Health Organization. (2020). Mental health and psychosocial considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/mental-health-considerations.pdf 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.

If you’ve been a long-term listener of The Psychology World Podcast then you might be aware that I am a massive fan of The Handsome Podcast. It’s a fun comedy podcast with three of my favourite comedians, including the brilliant Mae Martin. On the podcast, Mae recently spoke about passing their driving test, they were feeling more confident and their behaviour had changed since they passed their test. Therefore, in this cognitive psychology podcast episode, you’re going to learn about the complex interaction of social processes, emotional processes and mental processes that influence our driving behaviour. If you enjoy learning about cognitive psychology, social psychology and what happens behind the wheel, then this will be a great episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Personality Psychology and Individual Differences . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Why Is Understanding Driving Behaviour Important? Psychologists, policy makers and other professionals need to understand what drives our behaviour behind the wheel, because if we could understand the minds of drivers and understand why road rage happens, why we don’t remember certain parts of journeys and what happens when we’re distracted. Then this can help us to create safer, more efficient roads that can save lives, decrease stress and make our lives easier. In addition, driving psychology isn’t a brand-new subdiscipline of psychology. Instead, we can trace the roots of driving psychology back to the earliest days of the automobile because ever since we started travelling in horseless carriages, psychologists have been interested in the mental processes occurring when we drive. This changed and became more important in the 1920s when researchers shifted their focus towards understanding what happens in the driver’s seat. They wanted to make sense of the cognitive processes that happen when humans meet machines. Personally, I really wanted to learn about the psychology of driving because I understand what Mae Martin was talking about after they passed their test. Being able to drive is a lot more freeing, it builds your confidence and it does open up a lot of opportunities for you. I never ever thought I would be able to drive, because of my at-the-time undiagnosed dyspraxia that impairs driving. It took me four times to pass my test, I couldn’t understand the clutch and I was not a bad driver or learner by any stretch, but for me, driving was immensely stressful. Nonetheless, over time, as I practised more, I relaxed and finally passed, I would actually say that my mental health also experienced a positive increase. I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I didn’t need to be dependent on parents for lifts, I could go out with my friends and family whenever and driving is just a lot easier for everyone. But what are the social, emotional and cognitive processes that happen behind the wheel? That’s the focus of the rest of this podcast episode. How Do Emotions Impact Driving? To help us start diving into the psychology of driving, I think we should start with emotions, because driving is a very emotional experience. Not only because of the anxiety, the frustration of traffic and the stress of being late to work. Yet road rage, honking horns and people swearing at each other on the road are very common, and we always tend to think about the emotional side of driving.  There's always one or two stories a week from my dad about some "idiot" on the road. Anyway, to ease us into looking at how our emotions impact driving, anxiety as well as stress impact our driving behaviour because these heightened emotional states can cause poor decision-making, panic reactions and aggressive driving. This increases the risk of accidents and crashes because our cognitive processes are not as effective as usual. More on cognition and driving in the next section. This is one of the reasons why, even though holy Google Maps says my journey to work is only 25-minutes in the morning, I always leave an hour or an hour-and-a-quarter before work starts. This means I can just relax, listen to my music and decrease the pressure on myself when driving. In terms of driving risk, one of the reasons why I enjoy having a small car is because it allows me to fit through small gaps. Therefore, our sense of risk can impact our driving behaviour because when a person is confident as well as happy, they are more likely to take chances on the road and/ or speed. On the other hand, when a person is feeling sad or anxious, they are less likely to do this. Instead, an anxious and sad person is likely to be hesitant and overly cautious on the road. It reminds me when I was in sixth form (this is one of our 16–18-year-old education options in the United Kingdom), me and my psychology class were talking with our teacher, someone in the class had just passed their test and she was saying that she was really anxious on the roads. Granted, this was only because she was a new driver. My psychology teacher explained that that's good, because her anxiety about driving would make her more cautious, so she'd be less likely to have an accident.  I'm not sure I agree with that 100%, but it is a kind thing to say, because I sometimes think overly cautious driving can be just as dangerous as speeding based on some of the situations I've seen in my experience. When it comes to road rage, this is the psychological state where our driving frustration boils over into aggression. Road Rage is a complex interplay of factors, like a sense of anonymity, perceived slights and stress. And the interesting thing about road rage, it only really happens in a car or other form of vehicle. If someone steps in front of you when you're walking, you might roll your eyes, sigh or tut, but if someone slips into the lane in front of you in a car, then you're more likely to experience rage. Maybe it's something to do with the increased perceived danger of driving, accidents and the sheer amount of money damage might cost you.  On the whole, I've mentioned this a lot in the clinical psychology focused episodes, but developing emotional regulation techniques can be a useful tool to help you drive safely. For example, positive self-talk, breathing and listening to calming music can help you to keep your emotions regulated and focus on the road.  On a final personal note for this section, even though no one would ever agree with me that this is relaxing music. It's one of the reasons why I have a playlist full of Demonslayer music. In fact, as I write this section, I've been listening to a song called "Demon Slayer: Rengoku Theme | EPIC VERSION (Rengoku 9th Form)". It's just music that relaxes me, gives me background noise and helps me to focus on the road and whatever else I am doing. This is even more important if I've had a difficult day at work, I've got a lot on my mind and I simply need the drive to and from work to relax me.  I would link the importance of knowing about how emotions impact driving with clinical and educational psychology, but they are very similar to the applications I give in the next section. How Do Our Brains Navigate The Road? Whenever you get into a car for the first time, I think we can all admit that driving in an urban area is just scary. There are so many cars, people and bumps in the road that we are scared to hit. We are panicking about not hitting them, controlling our speed and focusing on the other ten thousand things that we need to do as drivers. Yet how do our brains navigate the road? When it comes to navigating the road, our perception and attention of our environment is flat out critical for safe driving. If you have bad perception or poor attention, then honestly you are a danger on the road. Since good perception and attention allows our brains to focus on the critical details when driving, like when a car in front suddenly brakes for no reason or when a seagull suddenly lands in the middle of the road and there are no cars behind you so you brake. Although, our brains need to strike a careful balance because if our brains focus too much on the details, then we can easily become overwhelmed and distracted by the sheer amount of things to focus on. This is where “autopilot” comes in, because if you’re a driver then you must have had moments that you suddenly realise that you’ve been driving without being consciously thinking about it. Autopilot is a phenomenon that highlights the potential dangers and efficiency of our cognitive processes. Personally, when it comes to autopilot, motorways (or highways for you Americans) is a major area for me. I can be driving down the M2, listening to my Demonslayer music and suddenly realise I have not been paying attention for a good five or ten minutes because driving on a motorway is so easy. Yet I would add that one place I have and hopefully will not be on autopilot is on country lanes near where I used to work, because you really need to pay attention to make sure a car isn’t6 going to fly round a blind corner, crash into you and injure you. Another cognitive process involved in driving is our memory because this allows us to recall routes, the meaning of traffic signs, road rules and we can draw on our past experiences to help our current driving. A general example of this is our procedural memory allows us to drive to a familiar place without consciously thinking about it.  Our brain does this to free up cognitive resources. Personally, an example of me using past knowledge to inform current driving is on the way to the place I used to work, at our finish time, there was always an annoying van parked outside the village shop. And because it was a village, this was the only main road so all the traffic in the village would stop because of this one silly van on a corner. I needed to use my memory either to make sure I slowed down earlier because of the van and traffic. Or I remembered to turn left at the roundabout outside work to avoid the van and traffic. Sadly I sometimes forgot to turn left.  Another cognitive process involved in driving is decision-making, because whenever we're driving we're making hundreds of little decisions in the blink of an eye. From predicting the movement of other drivers, calculating vehicle distance and doing a pros and cons analysis before we take an action.  An action where a single mistake could be fatal, or cost us a lot of money to repair. Finally, I want to wrap up this cognitive section on driving by mentioning that I understand a lot of people think we can multitask, but in reality, humans cannot multitask. When we "multitask" what is actually happening is our brain is switching our cognitive processes and redirecting them towards different tasks. This is why when we're on the phone and driving (something you should never ever do), our performance suffers, because instead of focusing on the road, our cognitive processes are directed towards talking on the phone. Linking these cognitive processes to clinical psychology, I would argue whilst there are not a lot of direct applications between treating a client and driving behaviour, it is still important to have an awareness of. Of course, the major exception is unless you're supporting a client who has severe driving anxiety or driving is somehow involved in their mental health difficulties. Like, if they have depression after a bereavement caused by a driving accident. I think being aware of cognitive processes in driving can be useful for psychoeducation in therapy. If a client is struggling to understand the importance of our thoughts, emotions and our mental processes, then using driving (especially if it's a passion for the client) might be a useful reframe.  In addition, when thinking about this from an educational psychology viewpoint, being aware of driving cognition can be useful. One of the jobs of an educational psychologist is to create educational resources and improve student motivation as well as engagement. If I was creating psychology content, I would be linking to these real-world examples that are tangible and relatable to my students. This will also allow them to see the value of their learning as this can improve engagement too.  How Do Social Processes Impact Driving Behaviour? Some people believe that driving is a very lonely activity, and I understand why. When I'm behind the wheel, it's just me, my overly dramatic music and my car. I drive alone, minding my own business and I get from point A to B. Yet in reality, driving might be one of the most socially demanding activities we do, and driving draws on a lot more social psychology than you would think. Especially, as whenever we go on the road, we are constantly interacting with other drivers, laws and regulations and pedestrians.  All these people and social interactions impact our driving behaviour.  However, the first social process I want to draw on comes from cultural psychology. The cultural differences in our driving norms as well as behaviours are rather interesting, because what's polite and acceptable in one country can be deeply offensive and dangerous in another country.  I remember a few years ago me and my former best friend were talking about the difference between flashing your lights in the UK and France. In the UK, we flash our headlights at people to thank them or to tell them they can come through, and we're happy to wait for them. Yet in France, if you flash your headlights, you're telling the other driver that you're coming through.  Another personal example is back in 2007 and my family went to Florida for Christmas and Disneyland. My dad got a rental and we didn't know that in the US, there's a driving rule that goes something along the lines of, if a traffic light is red, you can still turn right. So my dad was waiting because the light was red and all the Americans behind him were honking, getting frustrated and annoyed that he was just sitting there. It's a good example of how waiting at a red light is acceptable in the UK, but in the US, it isn't acceptable when you can turn right.  On the whole, the cultural nuances of driving help to show the social nature of driving and why you need to understand the local norms when driving in a new place.  Another social process involved in driving is our social identity, because everything down to the car we drive, our car accessories and our driving style are all expressions of our social identity. As well as for some drivers, they see their vehicle as an extension of their personality and this can lead to more performative and aggressive driving.  My mind goes towards an old family friend who put things on his exhaust to make his car louder, and he would rev his engine so everyone would know he had an expensive, showy car. As you can tell, I know next to nothing about cars and the names of their equipment that makes them louder, but some people are somewhat desperate to show off their status, money and their car by making it as loud as possible so it draws attention.  Whereas for me, my car definitely reflects my more laid-back and maybe practical approach to life. I enjoy that my car is small, affordable and about 12 years old. I don't want a massive status car, I don't want the latest expensive model and I certainly don't want something overly complicated. I honestly just want something practical, reliable and gets me from point A to B.  And affordability is a good point as well.  The penultimate social process involved in driving is obedience and conformity. I'll be the first to admit that it seems whenever social psychology is mentioned obedience and conformity are never too far behind. And this is even more true for driving because as drivers we need to conform to traffic laws, regulations and the highway code. Since we're more likely to follow these rules when we see other people follow these rules too. Yet we are more willing to break these rules when we see others breaking them. This is why understanding the role of social influence is critical when we look at the psychology behind driving and safety.  Personally, I always try to be conscious of my speed, my driving and how I'm impacting others. Of course, I'm human, I make mistakes and on occasion, I've sped. Yet I always remain mindful of sticking to the speed limit and other rules even when it annoys other drivers.  It's good to know that by sticking to the rules myself, I might be influencing other people to drive safely too.  Finally, intergroup dynamics is a major role in driving, and this is even more true if you have passengers in the car. Since peer pressure can influence our driving, and sometimes this is for the worse. For instance, young drivers are more likely to engage in risky behaviours when they're driving their friends.  I remember a few years ago in the news, in the UK, the government was thinking about banning new drivers from driving passengers for the first year after they passed their test because of an increase in deaths of passengers in new driver's cars. It was something like that. It never happened but it shows how driving with our friends can be fatal.  Personally, I do notice I drive differently depending on who's in the car with me. When I was driving my exes around, I was always extra careful, I made sure I made as few mistakes as possible and I was the best driver I could be. I wanted them to feel relaxed, good and I wanted them to enjoy driving with me. Whereas when I'm by myself, I am still the safest possible driver I can be, but I am less militant about it. On the other hand, I have no problem making myself look bad here because as a teenager learning to drive, I was a terrible passenger. I would gently point out the mistakes until my parents lovingly told me to shut up. It's another example how people's opinions or being annoying could have a potential impact on our driving.  How Do External Factors Impact Driving Behaviour? Before we dive into the role of personality and individual differences in driving, I want to explore the role that our environment and external factors have on our driving behaviour. Since the world around us impacts our behaviours without us realising. For instance, the weather impacts driving behaviour because bright sunlight, fog, snow and rain can increase our stress levels, and changes our risk perception. Since some drivers become overly cautious when the weather turns bad, and other drivers do not change their driving to match the weather condition. I fully admit that this is something I need to get better at, because I do slightly change my driving to the weather, but I feel like I should be doing more. Granted, if it's raining badly then I don't really allow myself to go over 60 mph on the motorway instead of my normal 70 mph. This is something I need to work on. Therefore, this shows how understanding the weather affects our mental state and our driving behaviour. In other words, please adjust your driving to the conditions. Your driving will hopefully be safer. Another external factor that impacts driving behaviour is time pressure. We've all been in situations where we've been running late for something, we've been feeling anxious and stressed and even though this is a perfectly normal response. It can and does increase the likelihood that we would take risks on the road, make poor decisions and drive more aggressively. This highlights the importance of monitoring our emotions and how they will impact our driving, giving ourselves plenty of time for journeys, but also, just take a breath. I understand how annoying, frustrating and how much you might want to swear when you suddenly get stuck in traffic on the way to something important. Definitely swear as a way to release your frustration, but also take a breath, untense your body and focus on safe driving.  In the longer term, you'll be more grateful for arriving late than injured, your car got written off or worse. A penultimate external factor that impacts driving behaviour is technology, because technology is constantly changing how we interact with the road and our vehicles. For example, GPS, the advanced safety features and reversing cameras are all common in modern cars. My car is old enough that it doesn't have any of these features, and as an interesting side note, I was watching a crime drama once and a computer hacker mentioned how cars built after 2010 were just a hack waiting to happen. Of course, I do not know if it's true because it was a crime drama, so fiction, but it highlights how advanced the technology in our cars has become.  In terms of psychology, increased use of technology in our vehicles can reduce cognitive load and improve road safety, yet technology can also lead to distraction and overreliance. This might decrease safety. Personally, this is why I am a little curious and unsure about using mobile phones as GPSs. I used to always use a SAT-NAV religiously as my GPS, because I didn't want to use my phone. When I was using this, there were no real distractions, but then my SAT-NAV broke. I switched to my phone as a GPS and it is amazing how tempting it is to look at emails, change your music and look at notifications when you're stuck in traffic or driving along on a calm road. I might have done this once, but then I reminded myself how dangerous forming that habit would be.  Yet it is so, so easy to fall into that trap when driving. The final environmental factor that impacts driving behaviour is the design of our roads and infrastructure, because if roads are well-designed, clearly signed and they have a logical traffic flow then this can reduce stress and increase safe driving. Whereas poorly designed intersections and confusing road layouts then lead to driving errors, frustration and decreased safe driving.  Tapping into the real world, we've all seen drivers that have changed lanes coming up to a turning or roundabout, indicated at the last moment and perhaps made a poor decision to get into the correct lane, because they don't know the correct layout of the road. I made this mistake a few years ago near where I lived, because in the UK, coming up to a roundabout, the left-hand lane is for turning left or going straight ahead at the roundabout. The other or right-hand lane is for going right. Yet near where I live, if you want to go straight ahead, you have to go in the right-hand lane which is very confusing and difficult when the right-hand lane is full of traffic because everyone thinks you're turning left.  It's an innocent mistake but it can show how easily this can happen in the real world and on a busy roundabout with a lot of tense, stressed and frustrated drivers, I can see how this leads to a decrease in safe driving.  How Do Personality Factors Impact Driving Behaviour? The final area of behaviour that we need to look at is our personality and individual differences impact our driving because no two drivers are the same. I think you only need to look at families to see the differences in drivers. I would protest that I am a great driver but my parents think that I brake too early. My defence is braking slower and for longer improves fuel economy. I would argue that some people in my family should indicate more, but they are a great driver. This goes to show differences between drivers. Therefore, if we look at the Big Five personality traits we can see the impact these have on driving. For example, extraversion relates to how outgoing you are and introversion focuses on how you need your own company to recharge your social battery. I tend to remember introversion as you get energy from being alone and extraversion is when you get energy from being around others. This is not a personality psychology podcast episode so that is the extent of the definition I will give.  Anyway, people higher in extraversion might be more likely to engage in sensation-seeking behaviours whilst driving. For example, extroverted people are naturally more likely to take risks, like speeding, weaving in between traffic and tailgating. To me, there is nothing more annoying than people weaving through traffic and cutting in way too close for comfort. So a person's likelihood to take risks is influenced by their personality traits and past experiences.  Building upon this, sensation-seeking behaviour has a strong connection to speeding and risk-taking, because risk takers could see the road as their own personal racetrack so they push the limits of speed and safety in pursuit of their own excitement. Of course, this is dangerous to themselves, their friends and other road users. I hope I never forget this moment but I was working an Open Evening event years ago and it was a great night, but I was stuck with a very rich student. We clearly came from very different backgrounds, because his student apartment had private parking in a gated driveway, induction hobs and more advanced features that most students could only dream of. His opinion was "it's okay. It's not bad". I would love to have those things as a student. Anyway, he was telling me how he drove down a high-speed road near the university at 140 mph for fun. Not only is that very illegal because the speed limit was 70 mph, but there are cameras and that is dangerous to his life, his passenger's life and the other cars on the road. It was such a shocking moment that I was just surprised at. If we look at conscientiousness, individuals high in this personality trait tend to be more cautious drivers as well as rule-abiding people. For example, conscientious drivers tend to be more organised, attentive to details as well as responsible compared to drivers lower in the personality trait. This means they tend to make safer drivers, because they are more likely to maintain their vehicle properly, follow traffic rules and avoid risky behaviours.  Cognitive Psychology Conclusion When I originally planned this podcast episode, I didn’t really know what I was going to find about the psychology of driving. At best, I thought I was going to find a lot of pop psychology articles and opinions, and at worst, I thought I would find nothing at all. Yet a lot of brilliant researchers, writers and other people have created a wealth of information on what impacts our driving behaviour over the years, so I am very grateful. Not only because it makes my life as a writer easier, but also because I got to learn a lot of fascinating pieces of information. We learnt about how our cognitive processes help us navigate the road, our emotions can make our driving safer or more dangerous, how our personality can endanger ourselves on the road by impacting our choices, and how our social interactions on the road can help us to obey or break traffic laws amongst other findings. This has been a fascinating episode. I would like to wrap up the episode by focusing on the three most important factors that I believe we can take away from this episode and apply to our own lives. Hopefully, these three factors will help us to become safer or even safer drivers: ·       Learn self-soothing techniques to help you destress when driving, so your negative emotions do not make your driving unsafe. I talk more about self-soothing in my book, Healing As A Survivor . ·       Check in with your emotions before and during your drive, so you can destress if needed to help you keep you and your passengers safe. ·       Think about your personality, consider how it impacts your driving and try to accommodate for your personality traits if needed. As I mentioned at the start of the episode, driving is very freeing, it’s brilliant and it can be a real confidence boost. Yet it has to be done safely so you can protect yourself, your passengers and everyone else using the road.   I hope you enjoyed today’s cognitive psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Personality Psychology and Individual Differences . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Cognitive Psychology References and Further Reading Broadbent, D. P., D'Innocenzo, G., Ellmers, T. J., Parsler, J., Szameitat, A. J., & Bishop, D. T. (2023). Cognitive load, working memory capacity and driving performance: A preliminary fNIRS and eye tracking study. Transportation research part F: traffic psychology and behaviour, 92, 121-132. Chai, C., Zhou, Z., Yan, Y., Chen, C., & Yang, L. (2020, September). Assessing the relationship between self-reported driving behavior, psychology and risky driving based on GPS trajectory data from car-hailing apps. In 2020 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC) (pp. 1-7). IEEE. Dula, C. S., & Geller, E. S. (2003). Risky, aggressive, or emotional driving: Addressing the need for consistent communication in research. Journal of Safety Research, 34(5), 559-566. Fan, Y. (2022). Detection of driver fatigue driving behaviour based on deep learning algorithm from the perspective of traffic psychology. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 32(3), 303-309. https://neurolaunch.com/psychology-of-driving/ Özkan, T., & Lajunen, T. (2011). Person and environment: Traffic culture. In Handbook of traffic psychology (pp. 179-192). Academic Press. Scheiber, N. (2022). How Uber uses psychological tricks to push its drivers' buttons. In Ethics of data and analytics (pp. 362-371). Auerbach Publications. Smorti, M., Andrei, F., & Trombini, E. (2018). Trait emotional intelligence, personality traits and social desirability in dangerous driving. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 58, 115-124. Song, H., Qu, D., Hu, C., Wang, T., & Ji, L. (2024). Psychological field effect analysis and car-following behavior modeling based on driving style. International Journal of Automotive Technology, 25(5), 1065-1076. Tao, P., Ren, X., Wu, C., Zhang, C., & Li, H. (2024). Lane-changing decision intention prediction of surrounding drivers for intelligent driving. IEEE Access, 12, 42834-42848. Taubman-Ben-Ari, O., Mikulincer, M., & Gillath, O. (2004). The multidimensional driving style inventory—scale construct and validation. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 36(3), 323-332. Thøgersen, J., Vatn, A., Aasen, M., Dunlap, R. E., Fisher, D. R., Hellevik, O., & Stern, P. (2021). Why do people continue driving conventional cars despite climate change? Social-psychological and institutional insights from a survey of Norwegian commuters. Energy Research & Social Science, 79, 102168. Ulleberg, P., & Rundmo, T. (2003). Personality, attitudes and risk perception as predictors of risky driving behaviour among young drivers. Safety Science, 41(5), 427-443. Wickens, C. M., Mann, R. E., Stoduto, G., Butters, J. E., Ialomiteanu, A., & Smart, R. G. (2012). Does gender moderate the relationship between driver aggression and its risk factors? Accident Analysis & Prevention, 45, 10-18. World Health Organization. (2018). Global status report on road safety 2018. Geneva: World Health Organization. Yagil, D. (1998). Gender and age-related differences in attitudes toward traffic laws and traffic violations. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 1(2), 123-135. Zhang, T., Chan, A. H., & Zhang, W. (2015). Dimensions of driving anger and their relationships with aberrant driving. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 81, 124-133. 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.

Today on The Psychology World Podcast, I’m joined by Doctor Lisa Riegel talking about using neuroscience in education settings to help students thrive. It’s a brilliant, wide-ranging discussion that helps us to create a calm, intellectually safe environment where children feel safe, secure and motivated to learn. Whether you work in education or you’re an aspiring or qualified psychologist, you’ll learn tons in this fascinating, engaging and insightful episode. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Cognitive Psychology: A Guide To Neuroscience, Neuropsychology and Cognitive Psychology . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Who is Dr Lisa Riegel? Dr Lisa A. Riegel holds a Ph.D. in Education Policy and Leadership from The Ohio State University. She created the NeuroWell Framework, a brain-based approach to engagement and change. Lisa helps leaders, schools and organisations use neuroscience to create cultures of engagement, fulfilment and sustainable growth. With over two decades of experience in education, leadership and organisational strategy, Lisa bridges brain science and human systems to help people think better, connect better and perform better- so change actually lasts. How Can Neuroscience Help Students Thrive? Connor: So, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of "The Psychology World Podcast." And in the content part of today's episode, I have a brilliant and very impressive guest, who manages to blend neuroscience and education, and as you all know, as an aspiring educational psychologist, education is something that I'm really passionate about. Hi, Lisa. So, can you please introduce yourself, what you do, and how you got into the line of work? Lisa: Sure. Thanks for having me. My name is Lisa Riegel, and I am kind of a transformation change specialist in schools. And I focus on bringing neuroscience to schools to help them understand how to set up culture, and also how to work with behavior in students, and also with their staff, so that teachers are not burned out. And I started my journey...I was a teacher for nine years, and then I was an administrator. And then I had the opportunity to do my doctoral work at Ohio State, and I studied leadership, but what I was really interested in was the human system as opposed to policy. So I studied social sciences and psychology around motivation and engagement and behavior. And then about five or six years ago, I really dug into the brain science with the idea that real change starts in the brain, and unfortunately, educators are not trained very well, or at all really, on how the brain works. And so it's become kind of my mission to help people understand...when we understand that any behavior, academic, social, or, you know, work behaviors for the adults in the system, is the intersection of our biology and our context. And so if we understand the biology, then we reframe the problems that we see, and then ultimately, we can control the context. And so how do we set up a safe, supportive, proactive context to help reduce the biological reactions that we're having to our environment? Connor: Definitely. And I thank you for that. Because I used to work in special education, and one of the biggest bugbears is that we aren't trained, we aren't taught. And it was only because of my psychology background that I was able to apply different bits of understanding and different theories and concepts, but so many people are just thrown in it, or you don't know. And teacher burnout and staff burnout is so high. Like, I think the school that I used to work for, they had like a 50% staff turnover rate because it was so hard to cope. So I thank you for the brilliant work that you're trying to do, and I just wanted to, like, say that just so we can affirm the podcast episode in terms of why this is so badly needed. Why is Brain Science Needed In Education? Lisa: Well, I think that people are unhappy. We have a global mental health crisis, and you can't learn when your brain's dysregulated, and so we have sort of two main problems that our schools are facing. One is mental health problems that they are not equipped to deal with, and the second is that we have reduced executive function in the kids that are coming to us, and so when you think about biology and context, there's a lot of contextual factors that have impacted our executive function development. So, for example, you know, I used to memorize phone numbers. I used to memorize addresses. You know, just the way I lived my life as a child, you had to use your working memory a lot. And in today's world, we don't have to do that because our phone does that for us. And scientists call that cognitive offloading. And so we are offloading the executive function to a device. And as AI comes into our lives in so many different ways, it's exacerbating that problem. And I love technology, but the problem that I see is that educators haven't recognized that the way that we live our life is changing our executive functioning, and we're not really putting anything in place to strategically help build that in students, and it's causing academic problems, which then cause emotional and behavioral problems. The other piece with context is, like, our media that we consume really portrays the world as a dangerous and chaotic place, positions people as mean. You know, when I was a kid, I watched, like, "Little House on the Prairie" and "Saved by the Bell," and shows that were very family-oriented. They were about, like, owning your mistakes, and that people were generally kind, and that you could pull together. And in today's media landscape, it's about, like, you know, "Hey, Connor, you and I are gonna manipulate that person and vote him off the island." You know, it's about power and deceit, and so that helps shape a worldview for people. And it impacts the way we perceive our reality and the way that we respond. And then we have social media. You know, social media is the devil. We all know that. But the other thing I think with social media that we don't think about is the decline of altruism. Because if I'm online, I can put, you know, a flag or a ribbon or something in my profile, and I can get 4,000 likes. So very low-risk, very high reward. Where if I'm in a real brick-and-mortar space and I help somebody, and they say, "Thank you," I get one dopamine hit. So it's a much higher risk and a much smaller reward. So one of the things I try to talk to schools about is, can we create this protective bubble when kids come into school that this is a place where you can get dopamine hits, where we can have low-risk, high-reward interactions between students and between students and teachers so that we are incentivizing altruistic behavior? Connor: Wow, that was brilliant. And there's certainly a lot to unpack there, because when you were talking there I was thinking that for technology. To some extent, I think the schools, they are trying because we all see, like, these policies. But I don't think that... I think that there's a policy gap between what the policy says and what's actually happening. Because at the school that I used to work for, and in lots of other educational settings that I've worked in, we happily let the students go on, like, their Chromebooks or their technology, but there's always an AI summary, right? There's always AI trying to interfere with their independent research skills. That policy says that we've got to allow it. So, how do we actually make this into actionable steps to protect the children? Lisa: Right. And, you know, it's not about just getting phones out of schools or just using technology, it's really about... You know, even when I grew up, I had family dinners with my parents, and they were boring. You know, you had to listen to your parents, and you weren't interested in a lot of things, but what you learned in those family dinners... Because in my day, you weren't allowed to get up until dinner was over, and so I learned the rhythm of conversation. I learned how to read non-verbal signals. I learned how to be curious and ask questions, so I could find things interesting. And from thousands of experiences, that became natural. And in today's world, kids are not getting those experiences because people are either on their devices or, you know, not together at all, and doing family conversations, playing family games. And so when they come to school, they don't they don't have those social engagement skills. So then their anxiety ramps up because it's uncomfortable, and then you end up with...you know, the biology takes over. And now, we're in anxiety, and now we can't think. And so we just have a lot of contextual factors in the world. The other one that really upsets me is the over-identification of mental health disorders, and, you know, I think that... And I have two kids. I have a 20 and a 23-year-old, and both of them have come to me and been, like, "Oh, I have such social anxiety." And I'm like, "Everyone is uncomfortable in a novel social setting, everyone." But the key is your body has kind of four states of awake. So you can either be calm, you can be alert. And alert's actually good. Alert's when you're focused, and you get just a little hit of stress chemicals to help, really, you know, get you ready to perform. Kids today don't understand how that phase feels, and so they move right into the third stage, which is alarm. An alarm is when the limbic brain has taken over, and the part that makes you is no longer operating, and so that's why, like, if you get super upset and then you calm down, you're like, "Why did I say that? That's not even who I am. Like, what was I even thinking?" And the reality was you weren't. In fact, 80% of the traffic in our brain is below our nose. So there's a whole lot of thinking going on in the unconscious part of our brain, and my big push is that if we can be self-aware by understanding our biology and understanding what are the things that dysregulate our body, then we can have self-regulation techniques, and then we can have self-control. But I think there's a lot of people walking around feeling very out of control because they don't understand how to live in that alert phase, and so a little bit of sadness is depression, a little bit of nervousness is anxiety. And the medical field is in the business to sell pills, and so they diagnose us. And we had a report from our National Institute of Health that said social anxiety is misdiagnosed 98% of the time. That is a lot. Yes. And, like, bipolar is up in the 60s. Depression. I mean, really high numbers of misdiagnoses, and I think, you know, when we diagnose kids with a mental health disease, then that creates a confirmation bias in them that they're sick. And so when you think of how our brain forms perceptions... And this is one of the things that I try to teach everybody that will listen to me is that the way our brain creates a perception is we have the limbic part of our brain, which does not know time and can't tell a story, and we have kind of a data manager there. It's our thalamus. And our data manager's job, who I call Harold... So Harold's job is to take in all the information from the environment and to collect information from our vagus nerve about whether our body's operating well, and then write up a report. Before he writes that report, he goes into our sensory memory bank, which is also in that limbic system, doesn't know time, can't tell a story. So he looks for associations between what's going on now and what's happened to us in the past. If every single situation was a brand-new situation, our brain would explode. So we have to put kind of patterns together. But the problem is those patterns are formed through our context, and so if our context is that the world is safe and supportive and people are kind, then our thalamus, our data manager, is going to look for examples that confirm that. And so we have all of these negative sort of filters in our brain, and I use the example of, like, a colander or a spaghetti strainer. You know, if you have a banana and you shove it through a colander, on the other end, it doesn't look like a banana anymore. It's still a banana, but it doesn't look that way. So our perception is the smushed-up banana. The reality is the banana, and how that messed-up banana comes to be is through our personal experiences and how our brain has coupled emotional responses to certain stimuli. And so when we understand that, we can understand that this is not that. Like, what I'm experiencing right now, my brain may be making a faulty association. So I'll give you an example. I hate to be late. When I was a child, my parents got divorced, and so when my dad would have, like, his night with me, he was always late. So I spent a lot of time sitting on my front stoop waiting for my dad. My little 8-year-old brain associated negative feelings of being worthless or unloved or things like that with time, and it's a faulty association, but throughout much of my early life, before I really gained self-awareness about all of this, I would become really uncomfortable when I was running late. And sometimes it would cause anxiety or anger, where it was like I couldn't even have fun. I was so mad. Like, if my husband was running late, it just dysregulated my body, and then I had a hard time calming myself down. Well, once I recognized that that's a faulty association, then I, the smart part of my brain, was able to tell Harold, my data manager, "Hey, don't make that association because it's not true." And I was able to change the way that my brain reacts when I'm late, and I still don't like it, but it doesn't ruin my day. It doesn't dysregulate me to the point where I'm just angry. It's just I don't like being late. And I'm able to be proactive and leave earlier so that I don't run into a situation where I'm going to have to face being late. And I think we have a lot of kids and teachers and people, in general, who are living with Harold, right? Harold is deciding how they live their life because he is making these associations, and we're not aware of them. So I think that self-awareness starts by understanding how we are perceiving our reality, and then having some self-awareness and self-control to say, "Hey, I'm the boss of the brain, and I get to tell you how to respond, not the other way around." Connor: Yeah, definitely. And one of my biggest bugbears or problems with the education system is that we don't teach kids these vital life skills about their mental health, about their psychology. And, like, I've been through lots of that stuff long time ago, and my mental health and my trauma recovery only got better when I started to learn these skills. So I think that if it took me so long and if I went through lots of pain, before I learned that what other kids are going through. So I think that's one change we've got to do. Lisa: Yeah. And it's interesting because I've been doing professional development for teachers and working in schools for 25 years, and so you get a lot when you're doing trainings, you get a lot of teachers that kind of look above their glasses at you, or they're like on their computers half listening. But when I go in and actually teach them about the brain and how it works, they close their computers, and they lean in. Like, they are interested in this stuff, and I just think it's a real tragedy that we're not teaching a deep neuroscience pathway, not one class in a teacher prep program or a principal prep program. But really infusing this because at the end of the day, it's a people-based system. And we know very little about the people. We just know a whole bunch of tactics about how to structure things or how to do a routine or... You know, I always hate the term classroom management. It's not about managing a classroom. It's about building a community and teaching kids how to be a member in that community. And so even the words we use are about control and compliance, and kids feel that. And so it's not a happy place. And so trying to build, I call it, a NeuroWell culture. It's a culture that's about, you know, neurowellness. It's about knowing your brain. It's about knowing how to take control of your brain so that we're not running around bottoms up, we're running around with the thinking part of our brain deciding how we want to respond to situations. How has the ownership of schools by private business impacted education? Connor: Yeah. So we will move on to the neuroculture in a moment. But so in the UK, something that I would really appreciate your thoughts on is that a lot of our schools that used to be very much public-owned, they were very much schools, but over time they've shifted more towards private businesses. How much do you think that's possibly impacted the change of a focus from management, sort of just, like, focusing on, like, grades, getting money, sponsorship, those sort of stuff? I'm not sure if I've made my question clear. Lisa: Yeah. Well, I think the big problem that I see in the United States is that we measure what matters, and what we end up measuring is what matters. And when we moved into this high-stakes testing... And I have no problem with accountability. I have no problem with doing tests for kids every so often. But when we connected it to teacher quality, that was the real key problem. Because now, when a student isn't progressing the way that I want them to, now I'm mad at them because they're impacting my data and my teacher-quality data. As opposed to before, that was such high stakes, we were able to look at that child and say, "Okay, this is a puzzle to solve. I'm going to help this child figure things out." And it was about more than just their math score. So I think that this overreliance on test scores has shifted the system away from I teach kids to I teach content. And the kids are no longer the center, even though we say they are sometimes. The way that we behave doesn't reinforce that. And then even at the leadership level, when principals just are railing on data all day long, and then they are annoyed that teachers aren't forming relationships with their kids. It's like, well, you're not celebrating that. You're not reinforcing or supporting that kind of development. And so some of what I do with schools, too, you know, I work with... Like, I think we have a purpose problem. Because originally, education was about learning a little bit about a lot of things, because information wasn't available. So once the internet and AI came, like, information's available to anybody, in any form, all the time, so that purpose doesn't really matter as much anymore. I mean, you need to know some things, but that shouldn't be the end goal. Then we move to career development. So, we said, "Okay, well, information's democratized now, so we don't need to focus on that even though our assessments still do. And then we move to career readiness, and we started building all these career pathways and credentialing routes. And the problem now is that with AI the workflow is so disrupted and nobody knows what it's going to look like. So, now, we've got this whole structure in place that we can be creating pathways to nowhere for kids. So, now, we're sitting around going, "What's the purpose?" And people keep talking about, like, the purpose we need them to be critical thinkers and problem solvers and leaders of the future. And I'm like, "What we do...but we're not doing anything strategically. We're not measuring that along the way." So, I was at a school a few weeks ago, and the task for the teachers was define critical thinking and start to put together some actual observable criteria of what you see when a student is using critical thinking. And in two hours, they couldn't even come up with a definition that they agreed on. And so we've got, like, this word salad of what we want to see kids become, but we haven't operationalized it, and actually, said, "Okay, so what's the strategy for developing a scope and sequence to teaching critical thinking, and how do we align that with their developmental capacity at different ages?" Because I think sometimes we expect kids who are 6 to be way beyond what they are, and even high school students, we think they should be adults when we know their brains are not developed yet. So how do we become part of that? So I think we need to shift to a purpose that's really about how do we prepare kids for a post-AI world, and what I would argue is we have to be really intentional about building those executive functions and those, you know, people skills, thinking skills, problem-solving skills, the ability to discriminate information as useful or not useful. Because if we lose this, we lose what makes us unique as humans. I mean, this is the part that makes us human, the rest of us is just, you know, an animal brain to keep us alive. Connor: Yeah, wow. And I'm truly... Like, the reason I was smiling so much when you were talking about that was because I was like, "That's mind-blowing." Because it's so true, and it's just like, yeah, like, I'm definitely after this episode gonna have to reflect on it. Because what you've said is just so true. Like, our school assistants, though, are just based on, like, words of salads, and, like, we have no idea how to actually make a staff. And I'm sure we get into a whole political conversation about it, but we're not going to. This is not a political show, but it really is something that all of us can think about. So, what is a NeuroWell culture? What is a NeuroWell Culture? Lisa: So, a NeuroWell culture is a culture where the people in the culture, students and teachers and principals, understand the brain, understand how it works, and then create a context that is safe, supportive, and proactive. So, the safety piece, though, is not just physical safety. And I think schools spend a lot of time on the physical-safety piece, but it's also intellectual safety and emotional safety. So, you know, what are routines and practices that we have in place to help students understand their emotional brain and regulate when they're out of sorts? Like, do we have routines in place? Do we build a sense of agency and power for the kids so that they feel like they can control their brains and their emotions? The intellectual-safety piece is really around, you know, are we meeting kids where they are? And again, going back to testing, it's like, right now, even though we talk about differentiation, we've talked about it for 20 years, I don't see a whole lot of it going on in the classroom. And I'll hear teachers saying things like, "Well, I just got to get through this curriculum," and I'm like, "You're talking, not teaching," right? Because if nobody's learning, you're not teaching. You're just talking. So it has become very teacher-centered, around, "I just have to deliver this to you, and then I've done my job." That's not intellectually safe for kids who aren't ready for the information you're delivering. So, that's kind of the safety piece. The supportive piece is really about power sharing and building agency. And what I see in schools is that the policies and the practices are so much about control, compliance, completion, credentialing. And what it needs to be about is building agency and independence and adaptability and giving kids voice in their education, and that's not really happening in a lot of the settings that I'm in. And it causes a lot of behavior problems. You know, especially kids who have dysregulated systems or kids who come from trauma, they need some power and some sense of self. And then the third is proactive, and I've said to teachers so many times... So, like, to teachers of little ones, "So can you predict they're going to roll around on the carpet and poke each other?" And they laugh, and they say, "Yeah." And I said, "Then why are you angry when they do it, right?" Put things in place proactively that give them spaces to move or that teach them how to appropriately socially engage with other people when they want attention, and then now, you don't have to be angry when they're rolling around the carpet, poking each other. And so it's that safe, supportive, and proactive with the goal of doing what you need to do to help students and teachers become self-aware, self-regulated, and in self-control. Connor: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, because I know that...so the school that I used to work in was a special educational needs school. So we were very much small and low classrooms. We had different things in place, and we were sort of encouraged to do that. When I reflect on my mainstream school work, none of that was in place. This was never a conversation. It was very much a case of were just meant to sit quietly, listen to the teacher talk, and you could have those conversations when I was in sixth form. Yes, that's the 16 to 18 education here in, like, the UK. But when you were in, like, younger years, you couldn't do that at all, and that was not very stimulating. It definitely wasn't safe. But I remember being quite anxious and nervous about wanting to raise a point because I didn't want to draw attention. I didn't know if that teacher would like what I've got to say. Lisa: Right. Right. Yeah. And I think, you know, just recognizing, and I hear teachers say this all the time, that, you know, kids are so much harder today. They're so much more difficult to work with. And, you know, really I think what they're saying is that they're less willing to sit. They're less willing to sit and get... You know, and there's biology to that. I mean, our attention span as a species has declined, and yet we're still doing big long lectures. I've watched, you know, in first grade classrooms, teachers that are doing direct instruction for 25 or 30 minutes. And I'm like, "Kids cannot focus that long. They can't." And so one of the things when I...like, in NeuroWell culture, I talk about doing learning sprints. So a learning sprint is basically take your learning and chunk it. So you might say, "Okay, we're going to do a 10-minute learning sprint," and you put a timer up on the board so that the students can see 10 minutes. And you say, "During this, I'm going to give you some instructions, and so I expect everybody to be quiet and listen to me when I'm giving you the instructions. And then you're going to be working independently for the rest of that 10 minutes. And so during that time, I need you to be quiet." And so you do that 10 minutes, and you put the timer on, and it teaches kids how long is 10 minutes, when I focus, what can I accomplish in 10 minutes. And then at the end of that 10 minutes, when the timer goes off, no matter where you are, you know, if I've taken too long and I'm still talking at that 10 minutes, I stop. And we take a two-minute break, and that break is maybe turn to your neighbor and tell them one good thing that happened today, or what's one thing you love about yourself that other people don't know, or, you know, would you rather this or that? Just little conversation pieces so that you teach the kids how to focus, and then how to shift focus, and then how to come back and focus again on the academics. And it's been such a successful program for people. So teachers that are using it... I had a kindergarten teacher who was like, "I cannot believe how much more work they're getting done," and I'm like, "Yeah, because it's the same thing as rolling around, poking each other." We know they don't have the attention span we're asking of them. When we alter the way that we chunk our day to honor that, then we get more out of them. Because instead of fighting all of them for 20 minutes, you've got them focused for 10, you give them a little bit of, you know, free-time brain time, and then focus for another 10 or 15. You know, you can alter the time, but learning sprints is one of the most powerful strategies that I've seen that has helped increase the productivity and engagement in students. Connor: And I really agree with you about that. Because when I was at the university, and I did some student ambassador work, so I would create content, and I would present it to classes, and a lecture was the worst thing ever. And you never give the kids a lecture. So you would do a shorter quiz. You would do something interactive. You would do something, like movement-based, and you make it engaging for them. And that's why we always had such positive feedback. Compared to be on a boring, normal lessons because the teachers just want to go through the content, make sure the students get their work done, get that class out, so they can get another classroom in. And when you really think about it, the education system is so strange, and it's not built for kids. You really do need to update it. Lisa: Right. And, you know, I like lectures because I am in auditory learning, and I can enjoy a lecture, but I am in the minority. And I also think that even if you...you know, there's a place to just talk to kids, but it's got to be short doses. And you think about the media we're competing with. I mean, media is designed to be short and highly, highly interactive, highly like, you know, images and graphics and all kinds of things that keep our attention. And when you go from this is my lived experience of all of the stuff I do outside of school, and then I come sit in school, it's like going from digital to analog, right? And so you're sitting in the classroom then, and you're just like, "Oh my gosh." And then if you don't have, like, a timer or... I always liken it to if you go on a treadmill, and you say, "I'm gonna run for 30 minutes," and then you're running and you're like, "Oh, I've got to be close." And you look down, and it's only been like seven minutes. And you're like, "I'm never gonna make it." If you chunk it and do sort of intervals, and you say, "Okay, I'm gonna do 5 minutes this way, and then I'm gonna maybe slow down for 2 minutes, and then I'm gonna run for 3 minutes," you can chunk it, and you can actually achieve your goal to be on there for 30 minutes. And it goes a lot faster. So when kids come to school, it's eight hours of just never-ending time, and that's just way too long. And so figuring out ways that we can not only address the emotional pieces that we need to address with kids, but also this kind of structure and routines that can help kids feel more success. Connor: Yeah, thank you. So, if there are any teachers or teaching assistants, and anyone who actually works in education, listening to the episode, what actionable steps can they take to create a NeuroWell culture in their school? What Actionable Steps Can People Take To Create A Neurowell Culture In Their School? Lisa: So one thing is start the learning sprints. It's super easy, and literally, all you need is a timer, and you will find that it only takes like... And I've done this with incarcerated youth and teenagers. And so you think those kids are definitely disruptive. It works with them, and they appreciate it because they have that quiet space. So it's super easy to implement. The other thing that I tell teachers that's super easy to implement is something called fizzy or flat. And so I take a can of soda, and I shake it up, and I take the kids outside, and I open the can, and then the pop explodes everywhere, right? So, I tell them, "We are like a can of soda. We're carbonated, and just like if you drink, you know, a Coke that's too carbonated, it's gross, or if it's flat, it's gross, you want it just right, you need to be just right as well in order to learn. So if you are feeling fizzy or feeling flat, I can't see that. So, you need to let me know." Because what I also see in classrooms is we don't mean to but we elevate stress, and we actually exacerbate problems because we don't know that a kid is having a stress reaction. We just think that they're just not engaged, or they're tuned out, or they put their head down, or they're acting out. So, I give kids the opportunity when they come in the classroom, if they're feeling fizzy or feeling flat, they just say, "Fizzy or flat." And then I know that I need to give them a little grace and space, and I teach them how to calm their body down when they're feeling that way, or we have some type of intervention for them so that they can come back to feeling, you know, just right. And it's been amazing because it gives kids a voice. It honors the fact that, hey, everybody's not okay all day. That's all right. Like, it happens. We have ups and downs all the way through our day, and you have a right to ask me to show you some grace and space while you calm down. And then you can keep data on that. If there's a kid who, you know, is fizzy all the time, then you say, "Okay, well, maybe we need to have a meeting with a counselor or with the parents to talk about what's going on." But I had a young woman who I worked with. She was in elementary school, and she had a very tough life. She was in a foster family, and there were like nine kids. And she would come in, I mean, and her behavior was, like, crazy. I mean, she was, like, under desks and just completely out of control. And, you know, there were four or five adults that were literally just trying to harangue her all day long. So, what we did was we said, "Okay, can we recognize that this is out of our control. That she is coming to school already dysregulated. So how do we help her regulate before she, you know, make that transition, before she goes to class?" So, we started having her eat her breakfast in the sensory room, and she would sit in a swing and just kind of swing back and forth. And there was an aid in there, and became kind of her person. And just, "Hey, how you doing today? What's new? What do you like to do?" You know, just chit-chatted with her. And it had a two-and-a-half-hour impact on her behavior, and then she would start to dysregulate. And then we had to put another intervention in place. But the reality is, you know, these kids are dealing with stuff that's pretty heavy, and so we can't expect them when they walk in the school doors, "Well, you're not at home anymore, so why are you acting like this?" You know, it's again, that way our brain perceives has everything to do with our past and how we're associating present to past, and so just simple things like that can make a huge difference, but it requires that we understand the brain. Connor: So, I completely agree on what you said that people and teachers really do think that that issue was your home life. You're at school now, it doesn't impact you. Does Large Classroom Size Impact Student Behaviour? Do you think that one problem could be class size and the lack of teachers, because in the UK in a mainstream school you would tend to have like 30 kids, 1 teacher? That teacher cannot be a counselor, a support worker, everything. They've just got to try and do their job, and if a kid's having a bad day, they are going to try, but they can't do that much because they've got 30 kids to try and help support and teach. Lisa: Yeah. And, you know, class size comes up a lot, and it is hard when you have a lot of kids in the classroom. However, that's where that NeuroWell culture... That is a culture routine. This is how we do business in the school. So, if we start to set up those routines where we have...you know, if we do the learning sprint with the brain break, we can use that brain break strategically to teach them a relaxation technique, or to teach them... You know, so what happens is the number of students who need additional interventions is reduced, and so it's just a healthy classroom in general. And it also gives you a chance to develop some relationships with students because you can say... You know, one of the other things I tell teachers is play memory games. Build that working memory. So, you know, what's your favorite ice cream? What's your dog's name? What's your whatever...? You know, it gives you a chance to make some connections with the student and their interest so that you can then refer to them while you're teaching. So, there's a lot you can do even if you have a large class size, if you're setting the culture up to build those things in. As opposed to thinking, "Okay, I'm just going to teach as usual, and then now, I'm going to have to intervene with all these various kids you saw." And then the other thing, too, is if you're teaching them about their brain and you're putting those routines in place, then you're giving the kid the power to control themselves. If they don't have any self-awareness and they don't have any regulation skills, then it falls to you to intervene when they're having a problem. But if you build those skills in them, they can do it themselves, and then it reduces the amount of interruption for a teacher, whether you have 15 kids or 30 kids. Because I've seen classrooms, too, with 15 kids that are way harder than some of the classrooms with 30 kids. So, I think that we think that class size plays a big role, but it's interesting because the studies they've done over here on class size have really not shown that the class size is a huge variable for student success, which it seems counterintuitive, but that's what the research is saying. Connor: Okay. Thank you. And that's one of the reasons why I asked it. Because it's such a common thing that you were able to say that. So, I just thought or I wanted to know the truth on it. Because sometimes I think, "Oh, well, the solution is simply smaller class size." For starters, that is so impractical, but also is the solution really as easy as that? So, thank you for that. Are There Any Other Sort Of Tips And Tricks That You Can Help Us With? Lisa: I think one of the other things I would say is that teachers need to take care of themselves. I've never been in a classroom that's functioning well when the teacher is not regulated. So, a couple things that I talk to teachers about is, like, when you are feeling stress and, you know, that you're starting to have your limbic brain take over, and you're reacting instead of being strategic about what you're doing, just tell the class, "Hey, I need a brain break. I'm feeling a lot of stress." Turn the light out. Sit down. Do some breathing. Model for them that people get stressed. It's okay, and that we can take control of that, and we can calm ourselves down. And it's interesting because it builds empathy with the kids as well. Because the kids look at the teacher, and go, "Oh, wow, she's human, and she's feeling stressed right now." And then they'll be supportive to the teacher. So, super easy to do. Just turn the lights out, sit down, and just say, "Okay, I'm going to take a couple deep breaths because I'm feeling a little bit anxious right now." The other thing is having the teachers... So I call it the purple folder, but I pair teachers up based on, like, whose classroom is right next to theirs. And I get a purple folder, and if the teacher's starting to escalate... Because remember, behavior is biology and context. So sometimes we just got to get out of the context in order to calm ourselves down. So if I'm starting to feel stressed, I might be like, "Hey, Connor, can you run this purple folder next door?" And the other teacher, when they see the purple folder, immediately switch. And so the two teachers switch classrooms. And, you know, the other teacher can be in a different context and kind of calm down. And the kids, you know, they know, like, "Okay, I'm gonna read or just keep working on what I'm working on." Or the teacher says, "I'll be right back." And then once I've calmed down, then I send the purple folder back, and we switch back. And that's been a really effective way to help teachers manage through the day. Because you think about in other jobs, like, if you're having a minute, you can be like, "You know what? I am just going to take 10 minutes, and go have a cup of coffee, and, like, think about something happy." But when you're teaching, you can't do that. Like, you're on all day long, and so it gives you kind of a exit ramp or, you know, relief valve that you can use when you're really feeling stressed, and sometimes, even just knowing it's there reduces your stress and helps you stay in control. Connor: That is brilliant, and that's really insightful. And I definitely know that if I was a teacher and if I was delivering some of my outreach content, I would be at first very nervous about doing that and modeling it for the kids. Because I would be scared about them, like, mocking me, judging me, and thinking less of me. But that's just a short-term impact. What you might be doing after the long term is like how you were saying, modeling, inspiring them, teaching really critical skills, well, which just isn't covered in education at the moment. So, thank you so much for that. Lisa: Yeah. Well, and I think also, you know, it's great for the kids because you can even say, "You know what? I'm starting to feel stressed. Is anybody else feeling stressed in here? Let's just take a minute, and let's all breathe together. Let's take a couple breaths." And then you can teach them a breathing technique. And, you know, what I see in schools a lot is that, at least over here, they'll do movement breaks because, you know, they know that kids need to move. So, they'll have, like... You know, the kids are getting out of control, and they'll be like, "Okay, we're gonna do a wiggle break," or something, and then they put on a video. And the kids dance or things like that. But two things. One is they wait until things are out of control. So it's a reactive approach versus a proactive approach. Like, the learning sprints create a proactive approach of little doses of this throughout the day. And the other piece is that when you have the whole group, like, "I might not want to dance. Like, I might not be somebody who enjoys that." Some kids do. Some kids don't. So, creating ways that there's a little break, but maybe kids have choices in what they want to do. Maybe some kids just want to focus and draw. Maybe some kids do want to get up and move. Maybe other kids just want to chat with their neighbor. Like, it's okay to give kids a little bit of unstructured time. I think that teachers have had this pressure that bell to bell, they have to be on, on, on. And that's just not how our brain learns. We need a couple minutes of downtime to sort what we've just heard, and just kind of, you know, shift our focus somewhere else, and so, you know, that can have a big impact on helping the kids to be able to be calm throughout the day instead of being reactive and waiting until they're out of control. Connor: Brilliant. So, I could definitely talk to you all day, but we're almost out of time. So, is there anything else that you also wanted to cover on the podcast? Do you think that we've missed anything? A Tip For Aspiring Educational Psychologists Lisa: The only other thing I would say is for folks who are listening, who are going into the ed psych route, if they are doing any kind of counseling with students, I think it's really important that they ask the administration to share some of the strategies that they use with students. Because, you know, you come in and you get counseling, and the whole point of counseling is skill building, right? Like, figuring that self-awareness, self-regulation, self-control. So, you know, kids have great sessions with those counselors, and then they go back into a classroom that they try something that they've been told to do, the teacher doesn't recognize that this is a strategy, and then they say, "No." And now, the kid's doubly mad And so I worked with a school once where there was real animosity between the people who were providing counseling and the teachers, because the teachers saw their methods as, you know, this kid who's always in trouble, always disruptive. And you're down there playing basketball with them, or you're down there doing this with them. I don't understand, and so we actually have the therapist do a little professional development with the teachers to say, "This is what therapy looks like. These are the things that we say to kids and build that bridge. Because if we give kids the chance to practice those skills in all these different contexts, they will be able to make them automatic. But when we have, like, a great experience in counseling and then send them into a polluted context, it unravels those...and it actually makes them put their feet in the sand, and say, 'I'm not trying this because it doesn't work.'" Connor: I will definitely be trying that in the future. This is really insightful. So, if everyone wanted to connect with you, where can they find you online? Lisa: So, I'm on LinkedIn, just Lisa Riegel on LinkedIn. I also have a website lisariegel.com , and then I have my other website is ep, like, education partnerships, epinstitute.net . And that's the website that's more school-focused, because I work in the private sector as well. And then if they go to Amazon and type in my name, they can see the books that I have. I have "NeuroWell." I also have a book about parent engagement called "Stop Doing What Doesn't Work," and then I have a book for leaders that's called "Aspirations to Operations" that helps them move from their theory of change to actually implement and sustain it. Connor: Brilliant, Lisa. So, I really wish you the best of luck with the future, and a massive thank you for coming on the podcast. Lisa: Thank you for having me. Dr Lisa Riegel’s Links www.lisariegel.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisariegel/ www.epinstitute.net   https://calendly.com/lisariegel/60min   I really hope you enjoyed today’s social psychology  podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Cognitive Psychology: A Guide To Neuroscience, Neuropsychology and Cognitive Psychology . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. 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.

From artificial intelligence to chatbots to apps, technology is everywhere and it impacts every single aspect of our lives. Also, if you watch YouTube, the TV or see any ads, you are bound to see or hear about apps that are meant to support your mental health. Yet what are mobile mental health apps? Do they work? Can apps actually improve our mental health? In this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what are mobile mental health apps, why might they work to improve our mental health and so much more. If you enjoy learning about psychotherapy, how technology impacts behaviour and how clinical psychology works in the real world, then this will be a perfect episode for you. Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Could Apps Improve Our 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 Are Mobile Mental Health Apps? Extract from Could Apps Improve Our Mental Health? COPYRIGHT 2025 CONNOR WHITELEY. Something I have started to become more and more aware of in the past few years is how technology is going to impact mental health treatment, because as I mentioned in the general introduction, whenever there is a technological change this provides us with new ways of delivering psychological therapy. For example, the rise and increased access to the internet has meant therapists can deliver therapeutic interventions online. Therefore, it’s going to be great fun sharing a lot of fascinating information with you about mental health apps, as well as sharing my own thoughts and feelings on these different topics. Especially, as the majority of the information in this book is based on came from a literature review I did during my placement year in my undergraduate degree. Then I’ve added and updated information too. The only real problem with a literature review is that you cannot add in your own thoughts and feelings based on other psychological concepts and topics that you’ve learnt. This is why I flat out love sharing information through books because I can share these evidence-based facts to bring the material alive. This book is going to be a lot of fun. Introduction To Mental Health Apps It turns out that I’m not the only person in mental health who’s excited about the opportunities that online interventions provide us with, because in recent years, there’s been an overall increased reliance on digital platforms to mental health services, like mobile applications (which from this point forward I’m going to be referring to as apps). This is similar to telemedicine, the form of providing healthcare services through means like videoconferencing, internet and wireless communications (like phones). In my opinion, this is a very useful way to increase access to services, because it means you can decrease barriers to accessing healthcare. For example, me and my housemates at the time of writing are all university students (I’m Masters and they are all undergraduate). Also, one of our housemates has mental health difficulties so their sleeping is terrible and in the UK if you want any hope of getting a doctor’s appointment, you NEED to be awake at 8 am and call your doctor. Otherwise you miss out. Yet our university schedules and work commitment make attending doctor’s appointments very difficult, including traveling to the doctor’s. Therefore, sparing five, ten minutes is a lot easier on the phone to the doctor. When it comes to mobile mental health (in the literature this is referred to as mHealth, but in this book, I focus on mental health apps ) refers to the use of mobile phones and wireless devices for psychiatric and mental health practice. For example, this can include online formats that range from online therapy, “eHealth”, health information technology amongst others (Chan et al., 2014). This has led app developers as well as mental health professionals to realise that there is a massive potential for delivering health interventions through a client’s mobile device. A potential that as you’re going to see throughout the book could be flat out critical and very useful to a lot of clients despite the challenges these mental health apps face. Again, we’ll look at these challenges throughout the book too. As a result, in this book, you’re going to be learning about mental health apps, how they perform as behavioural interventions when used to treat mental health conditions, and how they could be improved. Thankfully, there is a lot of research conducted on these apps so over the decades, we’ve been able to understand and get a lot of insight into how effective mental health apps are, and this research helps us to isolate areas that require improvement. In addition, this book focuses on mental health apps with a basis of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) as CBT is the most common and widely accessible method of behavioural interventions. In the next chapter, you’ll learn why CBT is used and why I flat out love CBT as a method of therapy, especially when it comes to behavioural experiments amongst other cognitive interventions. Moreover, the vast majority of reviewed and researched mental health apps are CBT-based (Marciniak et al., 2020). Although, it isn’t the only basis because there are behavioural interventions that we’ll look at in the later chapters of the book that translate well into CBT-based and other forms of mental health apps. Nonetheless, there are some forms of behavioural interventions that do not translate very well into mental health apps. For example, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Systemic Therapy would not be translated well to mHealth apps because MBCT relies on weekly sessions and guided mediations (Batink et al., 2013) as well as systemic therapy involves working with a family system (Pinsoff et al., 2018). Although, I will admit that even though these general models do not translate well, especially systemic therapy (one of my favourite models), there are elements of these therapeutic approaches that can be translated well into these apps. In particular, you’ll learn about how mediation and mindfulness are incorporated into these apps. Furthermore, the current state of technology dictates that other popular rising interventions, such as virtual reality or brain stimulation, simply cannot be adapted to mobile apps without further technological advancements. Also, an important distinction that we need to make so we’re clear is that these apps are considered “CBT-based”. This means that while they are steeped in the same principles as traditional CBT and have shown high efficacy as mental health interventions (Chandrashekar, 2018), there are doubts over their ability to address anything more than just the symptomology of depression. Personally, I think this is a very interesting and critical argument, because this is largely the focus of this book. Questions around effectiveness and engagement are critical to the driving question of this book, could apps improve our mental health.   Since the problem is that if we find out through empirical research that mental health apps only address symptoms without bringing round therapeutic change that will not only decrease psychological distress but teach the clients more adaptive coping mechanisms for the long-term so their life can improve. Then unfortunately, this will mean in comparison to traditional Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, apps will be largely useless. Although, the unfortunate state of the world with the underfunding, the understaffing and the extreme demand for mental health services means that mental health apps are needed so badly. I explain why in future chapters but mental health apps could prove to be critical in filling this demand and helping support clients given the shortage of mental health professionals for traditional CBT. In other words, mental health apps could be capable of providing widespread mental health treatments (Messner et al., 2019), and to see whether this is true, we need to really dig down into a lot of fascinating facets of these behavioural interventions. Another reason why mental health apps are important to investigate is because there’s been a notable global increase in cases related to mental health. Especially, when it comes to adolescents and young adults, because these age groups are commonly attributed to a peak in the onset of mental health difficulties (Ridout & Campbell, 2018). For example, a systematic review by McCloud et al. (2020) revealed that depression has a 30.6% prevalence amongst university students worldwide. As well as mental health difficulties have been intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, with people experiencing elevated levels of stress or anxiety, as well as feelings of loneliness and hopelessness. All of these mental health difficulties have been exacerbated by quarantine and lockdown measures (Brooks et al., 2020). I learnt about this sharp increase in mental health difficulties first-hand through my work at my university doing Outreach and Widening Participation work. Since I wanted to create a session on a given mental health condition to give students a taste of what life as a psychology student was like. I wanted to focus on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because at the time I was dealing with this chronically because of my sexual trauma. Yet I wasn’t allowed to by my university because they were concerned any session on mental health conditions would be too triggering for students, because so many students were experiencing intense mental health difficulties. This is even more likely because Outreach works with students from disadvantaged and poor backgrounds that traditionally do not go on to university. And there is a lot of research evidence on the link between poverty, financial stress and mental health conditions. An additional reason why mental health apps are important to investigate is because they help to reduce barriers to mental health treatment. Since receiving face-to-face treatments for some clients is very problematic and it adds additional cultural, geographical as well as physical barriers to treatment. Therefore, mental health apps might be a useful way to overcome these challenges (Chan et al., 2014). Essentially, this is why I am very excited about mental health apps, because if they work, if we can refine them and if we can make them as effective as possible using the features discussed in this book. Then we have a great way to bring round therapeutic change and improving lives for a whole group of clinical individuals that may never have been able to be helped before. That is amazing and that is why I love clinical psychology. As a result, the ability of mental health apps to overcome barriers to treatment is of particular importance. Since research has shown that people with mental health conditions are often stigmatised so these individuals are more likely to use online health information (An & Lee, 2020) and that online mental health interventions can benefit clients from traditionally oppressed groups, who are typically less likely to adhere to and receive treatment than their middle-class counterparts (Alegria et al., 2008). In addition, these individuals are less likely to adhere to treatment over time despite believing that treatment is beneficial (Kinzie et al., 1987). Yet because of its mobile nature, mental health apps have a great potential to overcome barriers that interfere with treatment adherence (Chan et al., 2014) such as low-paying jobs, jobs without health benefits, family care obligations, and inadequate transportation. This challenge of engagement treatment adherence is a core part of the next few chapters because it so interesting and so important to the effectiveness of mental health apps. Moreover, research has proven that online mental health interventions are just as effective as traditional face-to-face treatments (Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al., 2018) and so this can help institutions to cope with growing demand for mental health services. This is highlighted by an increase in diversity of mobile mental health apps currently available, ranging from online therapy, mood trackers, self-help, and chatbots (Bharti et al., 2020). Finally, there are several literature reviews that provide recommendations targeted towards app developers to ensure up-to-date and medically accurate advice and tips, cross-app compatibility, as well as features integral to typical self-management and symptoms/physiological levels monitoring (Brzan et al., 2016; Paratore, 2020; Pham et al., 2019). Also, while there is a large volume of mental health apps on the market, the psychological foundation of these apps is very questionable. One of the reasons I wrote this book in the first place. With the psychological foundation of these apps being questionable, we absolutely have to ensure that these apps do actually have a clear and empirical psychological foundation because it is only by having a clear psychological foundation that these apps can ever hope to be effective (Paratore, 2020). Then there’s a darker side. If mental health apps are used incorrectly by the app recommending wrong or unfit interventions to clients that are already struggling with their mental health, or worse if an app recommends dangerous advice (there’s an anorexia example later in the book) then this can be devastating for already-vulnerable individuals (Dimidjian & Hollon, 2010). Ultimately, in this book, we’re going to be investigating the effectiveness of mental health apps as behavioural interventions, exploring different aspects. For example, CBT implementation, engagement, app related features, and user-related features. We’re doing this because if we examine these factors, we can effectively understand how these apps implement CBT principles as well as how they keep users engaged and prevent dropout. As well as we’re looking at the app and user related features so we can consider how these features impact the efficacy and effectiveness of mental health apps. Let’s kick off the next great part of this book with an interesting look at how exactly CBT is actually used in these mental health apps. Is CBT actually used effectively in these apps or is it more CBT-lite? Find out next.     I hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology  podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Could Apps Improve Our 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 and Cyberpsychology Reference Whiteley, C. (2025) Could Apps Improve Our Mental Health ? 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.

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

We know from social and cultural psychology that our attitudes and opinions towards different topics are largely informed by the world we live in. Everything from our culture of origin, our family, our friends and more can influence our attitudes. This extends into our beliefs and attitudes surrounding mental health conditions and the lived experience of others. For example, hearing voices is heavily stigmatised in the West but in certain cultures, hearing voices is often celebrated and seen as a sign of the gods. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you're going to learn how culture impacts attitudes towards learning disabilities across the world, why this is important and more. Whether you're an aspiring or qualified psychologist, a teaching assistant or a mental health professional, this will be a great episode for you.  Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Gamification of Autism: A Guide to Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. What Are Learning Disabilities? To ensure that we’re all on the same page about learning disabilities, we need to define the range of conditions. Therefore, learning disabilities can be neurological, neurodevelopmental or mental health conditions that negatively impact a person’s ability to pay attention, coordinate their movement, perform maths calculations or it can impact their spoken or written language abilities. As well as whilst we mainly talk about children and learning disabilities because they typically aren’t recognised until the child reaches school age. They can impact a person at any age of their life and learning disabilities can be lifelong. Why Is Learning about How Culture Impacts Attitudes Towards Learning Disabilities Important? Even if you never ever intend to work outside your country of origin, like the United Kingdom for me, it is still flat out critical that you learn how different cultures see the mental health condition that you support in your clinical setting. Since we never know who is going to come through our therapy doors and into our service. They might be white, black, be a second or third generation immigrant or they might have another ethnic or cultural background that is different from our own. And when this happens, because it probably will during our psychology career and that flat out isn’t a bad thing. We must never assume that their experience and social network will be the same as our other clients.  The cultural beliefs, attitudes and opinions of their culture of origin will impact how they see their own mental health experiences. As a result, we will need to bear this in mind when it comes to our psychological interventions.  In addition, I wanted to research this podcast episode because in episode 353 of the podcast I discussed in the psychology news section that different cultural beliefs about thinness and body image impact eating disorders in ethnic minorities. Therefore, by learning about how their families might see their learning disabilities and other conditions, it might help us to better support them.  On the whole, the entire point of this psychology podcast episode is to enlighten you about what those cultural beliefs and attitudes might be towards learning disabilities. As well as I’ll suggest some ways how these beliefs might impact our clients and therapeutic work. What are Western Attitudes Towards Learning Disabilities? The first type of culture we need to understand is how the Western world generally perceives learning disabilities. Now, the main research is typically done in the United States of America and given how there are cultural differences between how the “West” and Europe see learning disabilities. This section might as well be termed how does the United States see learning disabilities. Yet I think a fair comparison would be to say that this first section covers how countries with a very, very strong American link perceives learning disabilities. Thankfully, over the decades, there has been a real shift in how the West sees learning disabilities. Instead of a lot of countries like the United States and some parts of Europe seeing learning disabilities as a range of conditions that need to be treated as diseases as dictated by the biomedical model. There has been a real shift in recent decades to move towards seeing learning disabilities through a lens of human rights as well as inclusivity. The focus in these cultures is to provide people with learning disabilities equal opportunities and access to learning, daily activities and society as much as possible, regardless of their condition and the severity of their condition. For instance, in the United States in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities in all areas of public life. Such as, transportation, school, jobs and all private and public places that are open to the general public. In other words, you cannot legally treat two people differently just because one person has a disability and the other person hasn’t. Furthermore, in Western cultures, there is a strong focus on enabling people with learning disabilities to participate fully in society. This can be achieved through technological assistive devices, legislation and an inclusive education system. Since the overall goal in Western Cultures is to minimise the barriers that people with learning disabilities face, whether they’re social or physical barriers and empower these individuals to live more independently. As a result, whether you’re a mental health professional or anyone who works with people with learning disabilities. It can be very useful to think about the benefits of the Western view of learning disabilities, and please rest assured this isn’t intentionally going to be cultural imperialism. I will point out the benefits of the other perspectives on learning disabilities too throughout the episode. Since the Western perspective stresses that we should be empowering people and this comes back to a very important fact about clinical psychology. We should never ever believe someone cannot do something just because of their mental health condition, until proven otherwise. Ultimately, the Western view of learning disabilities can be boiled down to having a strong focus on equal access as well as non-discrimination and this can be achieved through legislation. Like the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990). These cultures make use of technology to support independent living and inclusive education models. How Does The Middle East Perceive Learning Disabilities? Given how much the Middle East is on the news, I’m surprised that I very, very rarely cover it on the podcast because the Middle East does have some fascinating cultures, history and opinions. Therefore, the Middle East has a relatively different view of learning disabilities compared to the West because their perspectives on disability are complex as well as they are typically influenced by traditional values and religious beliefs. Traditionally, learning disabilities would have been viewed through a charity model where the person with the learning disability would have often relied on family support. That was it. Yet, there have been modern shifts in recent years in this geographical region because there are countries, like the United Arab Emirates, where governments and social groups are seeing learning disabilities as a social issue that needs government support and systemic intervention. Moreover, if we look at the United Arab Emirates in more depth then we can see that the country has been proactive in creating accessible environments and promoting awareness through dedicated policies, like the “National Policy for Empowering People with Disabilities”, as well as campaigns. What I find really interesting about these efforts is that the country actively wants to make Dubai a disability-friendly city. This is brilliant because it strikes a good balance between embracing modern inclusive practices and respecting traditions. Personally, what I think is flat out brilliant about the Middle-Eastern perspective on learning disabilities is that they’re trying to make their major cities disability-friendly. This I think is a great idea because in my batch of podcast episode ideas, I have something along the lines of ways to make society more autism friendly.  Also, sometimes I feel like in the West, there is such a strong resistance to making major changes because people do not want to change the way they live their lives, the way their cities run and they want to protect their traditions as much as possible. In other words, I cannot imagine Western cities wanting to become more disability friendly. Because whilst we have things like dropped curbs, lifts and accessible entrances, as a number of conversations that I have had had with people in wheelchairs amongst other disabilities have proved to me, Western cities and life is nowhere near as disability friendly as the general public believes. Therefore, it might be extremely useful for Western cultures to learn from Middle Eastern cultures about how to make disability friendly cities. Moreover, as an aspiring or qualified psychologist or another type of mental health professional, understanding how the Middle East sees disabilities can be very useful. If you have a client from the Middle East then understanding that traditionally learning disabilities are seen to rely on family support can be useful. It might explain why the parents or social support network of a child or even an adult with learning disabilities are resistant to the idea of getting governmental support. They might not understand that in the West, families get more support and the accessing of government support is emphasized. In addition, if you’re working with a client from the Middle East then you might want to bear in mind that you might have to do more signposting and explaining of how government support works for learning disabilities than you normally would. Middle Eastern families might be brand-new to the idea of government support or specialist support for learning disabilities, so you might need to explain everything from scratch. Ultimately, the Middle Eastern perspective on learning disabilities can be boiled down to influences of tradition and religion, but there is a trend towards governmental policies and support for those with learning disabilities and an effort to create accessible urban environments. Also, the government is helping to raise awareness and conduct inclusion campaigns. How Does Asia View Learning Disabilities? There are parallels between how the Middle East and Asia view disabilities more generally, because in several Asian countries, traditional attitudes towards disabilities are heavily influenced by historical contexts as well as religious beliefs. Yet more recently, these traditional attitudes have started to become more balanced with inclusivity but these traditional attitudes are still very much present. For example, in India, if someone has a learning disability or any disability for that matter then it links to karma and it is believed to be a punishment for their negative actions in a past life. Whereas in Japan, a learning disability brings a lot of shame on the family. Both of these cultural beliefs are rooted in certain historical and cultural narratives that are still present to this day. Nonetheless, it should be mentioned that Japan, whilst having stigmatising cultural traditions towards learning disabilities, it is making great strides towards becoming more inclusive. For example, Japan is developing accessible public transport as well as there are media campaigns to promote disability awareness. Furthermore, even in India where their traditional views stigmatise disabilities, there’s a growing movement in the country to empower and legally protect people with learning disabilities. For example, in 2016, India passed the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act and this legislation aims to protect people with disabilities against discrimination and give them equality. As well as the legalisation supports India’s advancement of various support systems and educational reforms and seeks to change how Indian society perceives learning disabilities and ultimately dismantles outdated stigma. Personally, whilst I do admit, it is good that the Asian perspective on learning disabilities aims to balance modern inclusion efforts with people’s right to follow a religion. A lot of the religious and historical contexts that influence public attitudes are harmful and negatively impact the lives of people with learning disabilities. Since if you grow up in Japan, for example, and society teaches you that you, the person with the learning disability, is bringing shame to your family. As well as if you can see your family being treated badly because of you, then that is definitely going to impact your self-esteem, your wellbeing and your mental health. Also, this cultural shame and people treating your child differently and the rest of your family differently because your child has a disability is going to take its toll. The parents might blame the child for having a disability and that will impact the parent-child relationship that we know from developmental psychology is so critical to outcomes in adulthood. I hope over time that these traditional views that stigmatise people and families with disabilities continue to change. On a more practical note, as an aspiring or qualified psychologist or another mental health professional, understanding how Asian culture impacts learning disabilities can be immensely useful. If you’re supporting a client from an Asian country with a learning disability and they’re experiencing a lot of shame then this might be an explanation. Then in your therapeutic work, you can explore, rewrite and challenge these cultural beliefs. As well as if you’re supporting a child with a learning disability and the parents from an Asian background are blaming the child, wanting to keep the therapy a secret or their engagement isn’t what you would expect. Maybe these traditional attitudes rooted in cultural and historical narratives might provide an explanation for you. Just some thoughts. On the whole, when it comes to how learning disabilities are perceived in Asia, attitudes coexist between inclusion and traditional beliefs, there are efforts to increase accessibility in urban planning and there is a growing legislative framework to support equality. Also, the media has a big role to play in changing the public’s perceptions of learning disabilities. What Are African Perspectives on Learning Disabilities? African perspectives on learning disabilities and disabilities are generally some of the most varied and diverse in the world. Sometimes this is a good thing because some countries and regions focus on the empowerment and supporting people with learning disabilities to become more independent. Whereas other regions do not work towards inclusivity in the slightest.  As a result, in many African countries, how cultures perceive disabilities can vary wildly from one region to the other. Yet generally speaking, the community plays the most important supporting role because the majority of African countries lack formal infrastructure for people with learning disabilities. Even though this is thankfully starting to change.  For instance, there are several grassroot organizations throughout Africa. Like in Uganda, there is the National Union of Women with Disabilities of Uganda (NUWODU) and this organisation works towards empowering women with disabilities, as well as advocating for their rights and fostering community support. Nonetheless, even though these countries are starting to develop more support, these African communities still face immense barriers on several fronts. For instance, these communities lack good quality healthcare, have limited access to education and there are low economic opportunities for people with disabilities.  These are major problems because you need good healthcare in place to give people with learning disabilities the support they need. Learning disabilities don't only impact a person's speech, reading and mental abilities. They also negatively impact their ability to walk, communicate and swallow. You need the expertise of healthcare professionals to recommend treatments, ideas on how to overcome the language and swallowing difficulties and more. Therefore, if you lack healthcare services then your ability to care and support the person with learning disabilities is greatly reduced.  Similar to limited access to education, if you're a parent or supporter of someone with a given condition you need to be able to learn how best to support them. You need to learn a lot yourself about the condition, how it impacts a child and how best to support them at different stages of their life. If you don't have the local resources or ability to educate yourself then you will struggle to support a person with learning disabilities.  When I want to learn something as an aspiring psychologist, I go online, look at websites and watch videos. If you don't have access to the internet, or if you don't have the technological skills to do research. Then again, you can't effectively support someone with a learning disability. Additionally, there are a wide range of cultural beliefs in African regions that sometimes hinder progress towards inclusion. Since in Africa, disabilities can be viewed as divine punishments or curses placed on individuals. This is a problem because no one wants to be associated or support someone punished by the gods and interfere with curses because it might negatively impact them too.  This is why it's important to focus on educating people as well as continue to challenge misconceptions about learning disabilities. Over time, this leads to African regions becoming more understanding and accepting. An aspiring or qualified psychologist, knowing about African perspectives on learning disabilities are useful because these cultural beliefs might explain treatment resistance, why the client might be all for the treatment but their social support network is resistant and the negative treatment from others might explain the low self-esteem and other negative mental health outcomes for the client.  On the whole, African perspectives to learning disabilities can be boiled down to there are strong community networks that support people with disabilities. And even though there are brilliant grassroot organizations that advocate for change, there are challenges and cultural beliefs that negatively impact perceptions. What Are Latin American Perceptions of Learning Disabilities? Now, the Latin America perspective on learning disabilities, and disabilities more generally, is something I really want to learn about. As a result, the main difficulty for Latin American countries when it comes to addressing disabilities is the immense struggle to overcome socioeconomic barriers. For instance, it is true that Brazil has passed several progressive laws that aim to support people with physical and learning disabilities. This is known as the Brazilian Law of Inclusion, or the LBI for short. This law aims to promote the fundamental freedoms and rights of people with disabilities in the country. As well as it encourages people with disabilities to get involved in society and social activities by making them more accessible. Nonetheless, part of me feels like this is a great example of a law being beyond brilliant in theory, but in practice, it isn't as effective as intended. This is because of the economic disparities as well as the different levels of implementation across different regions of Brazil. Since we know making places more accessible, giving people wheelchairs, talkers and other communication aids, all cost money. Money that is very hard to get in Brazil. Also, people with physical and learning disabilities experience a lot of barriers in employment and education in Brazil.  Again, as I spoke about in the above section, if you can't have an education then you cannot learn the skills you need to become independent and empowered. As well as your parents, family and other supporters cannot learn how best to help you. Also, they cannot get an education, get a good job and earn the money needed to support those with learning disabilities. Thankfully, there are signs that advocacy groups and social movements across Brazil, and the rest of Latin America, are becoming increasingly active in pushing for policy changes and raising awareness about disabilities. Therefore, they can make Latin America more inclusive.  Personally, similar to what I've mentioned before, being aware of the Latin American perspective is useful because whether or not if you have a client who directly comes from Latin America or has strong family connections to the continent. These can be useful explanations and social factors that can maintain psychological distress, or explain treatment resistance. For instance, parents of your client might not have the education level needed to fully understand how to support their child's learning, they might have a very, very low income and struggle to earn enough to support themselves and their child. As someone living in the United Kingdom, we have a good welfare system, so support is available. Not all countries have this level of support.  Additionally, another reason why learning the Latin American perspective is useful is because your client might not be from Latin America. Yet they could live in an area with a high Latin American population and the comments, discrimination and negative attitudes from other people might decrease the mental health of your client. For example, other people in the community might be bullying your client with a learning disability because they lack the education and therefore, understanding that they have a learning disability, it isn't their fault and they need support.  Just a thought. The final fact for this section is that the Latin American perspective is a healthy reminder for all of us that all physical health and mental health conditions are holistic in nature. You can try to support people with learning disabilities legally, but your support means little if you don't have the education, healthcare and accessibility plans in place to support them. This is why it's flat out critical that we always remember to work with other disciplines, other professionals and with the community and social support networks. We'll only be able to support a client with the best support if we work together. Ultimately, the Latin America perspective on learning disabilities can be summarized as varied with different levels of success. There are countries like Brazil that have the legal framework to protect people with disabilities from discrimination and empower them. Yet economic disparities impact their implementation. Then there are challenges for people in Latin America to have access to an education and employment. Yet there are increasing advocacy groups and social movements fighting for positive change.  What are the Scandinavian Perceptions of Learning Disabilities? I’ve saved my favourite perspective until last because I am so excited to share the Scandinavian perceptions on learning disabilities, and disabilities more generally. I enjoy a lot of Scandinavian ideas on topics ranging from mental health to offender rehabilitation and a whole host of other brilliant topics. Now, I get to learn even more about their perceptions about disabilities and I get to share it with all of you. This is going to be a lot of fun. As a result, Sweden, Norway, Denmark amongst other Scandinavian countries are often seen as the best in the world when it comes to their approach to disability. Since Scandinavian countries have robust welfare systems as well as inclusive policies in place, because for Scandinavian countries, it isn’t about just empowerment or giving disabled people equal rights to able people. In Scandinavia, people with disabilities, whether they’re physical or learning disabilities, are integrated into all facets of public life. I just want to stop there for a moment because that very basic idea is fascinating to me, and it shows a massive difference between the Scandinavian and the Western view on disabilities. The West might focus on inclusion and empowerment, but this is always thought about after the fact. For example, after a building was built and designed, after a school was created and after a housing project was designed. In the Western world, it is always Able People first and disabled people are always an afterthought. Therefore, the very idea that disabled people are thought about in the first place, I think it is amazing, positive and it’s actually heartwarming. In addition, Scandinavian countries focus on universal design principles so these environments as well as products are accessible to everyone, regardless of whether they have a disability or not, to the greatest possible extent. And this is what I want to focus on for a moment. Some critics would argue that there is no point thinking about disabled people from the start of a project because it is impossible to make it completely equal for them. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps that is false. Yet the entire point of becoming more inclusive and supporting people with disabilities is that we are trying. We are trying to make their lives better, empower them and we are trying to make them capable of participating and contributing to society as much as possible. If we can only get a little closer towards equality in a given project, then that is still fantastic. As long as we try to give people with disabilities the same opportunities as people without disabilities. Then that is okay. We have to try, and Scandinavian people understand this idea. This is something we should all be trying to understand better. Furthermore, in Sweden, there is the Swedish Discrimination Act and this includes direct support measures for people with disabilities and this ensures they have equal opportunities. Also, Sweden has a massive emphasis on educational inclusion so students with disabilities are integrated into regular classrooms and they’re supported by specialised staff as needed. That is mind-blowing to me as someone in the United Kingdom. I am speaking very generally here, but generally speaking in the United Kingdom, when we have someone with a learning disability, we rarely admit them to a mainstream school, or a “regular” classroom. Anyway, the very idea that we would keep students with learning disabilities in a regular classroom is rather insane or flat out weird in the United Kingdom. We just wouldn’t do it, and I do feel like this creates a lot of spare room for misconceptions, lies and even misinformation to be spread about people with learning disabilities. Therefore, I certainly think we can learn from Scandinavian countries about integrating people with disabilities in the education system, all aspects of society and make them just a normal part of society. A group of people without shame, without separation and without exclusion. On the whole, Scandinavian perceptions of learning disabilities highlight the importance of systemic support and these ensure practical inclusion at all levels of society. Also, Scandinavian countries focus on universal design principles so they are accessible to everyone, they have a strong welfare system to support individuals with disabilities, they focus on integration in education, as well as there is legislation to promote inclusion and equality. Clinical Psychology Conclusion As you’ve seen throughout today’s psychology podcast episode, across the world and its different cultures, there are a lot of different thoughts and feelings towards physical and learning disabilities. These cultural attitudes are influenced by historical, social and religious contexts, but despite these differences, there is, thankfully, a positive global trend towards fostering equality and inclusion for people with disabilities. Largely, this is because there is greater awareness and this increased awareness grows support for policies, wider social acceptance as well as community-based programmes. Personally, I’ve really enjoyed learning about different cultures, their contexts and how they perceive learning disabilities, amongst disabilities more generally for my own awareness as an aspiring psychologist. It’s given me new ideas, new perspectives and a greater understanding of the potential challenges and benefits that clients face in their wide social support networks. In addition, it is flat out critical that we learn about these global perspectives because to be able to be global citizens, it is important that all of us as aspiring or qualified psychologists or mental health professionals are able to recognise and respect cultural differences when working with people with disabilities. This understanding can lead to greater and more effective strategies in promoting mental health, physical health and any other therapeutic interventions we are doing with the client. As a result, an additional takeaway that all listeners and readers of the podcast can do is to start or continue to advocate for inclusive policies, support your local grassroot organisations and engage in cross-cultural dialogue and understanding so all of us can work towards improving the lives of people with disabilities everywhere. Also, I would add make sure you share your knowledge about disabilities with people, because knowledge empowers all of us to take active steps towards advocating for change within our local communities and beyond. For example, you could see what your mental health service, your employer or your local community is doing to support those with physical or learning disabilities. If you find something you like then support it, get involved and if there isn’t anything locally, make something. In my opinion, I understand that I have just asked a massive thing of all of you and you might be wondering what I’m doing. My job allows me to empower and educate people with learning disabilities every working day. Yet I am doing podcast episodes and sharing my knowledge and experience with other people too. Even if you learn one thing about a learning disability and share it with someone every week for 52 weeks (one year), you would have made a massive positive impact compared to doing nothing at all. Just a thought. What small action could you take today to improve the life of someone with a learning disability?   I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Gamification of Autism: A Guide to Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading Alnahdi, G. H., Saloviita, T., & Elhadi, A. (2019). Inclusive education in Saudi Arabia and Finland: pre‐service teachers’ attitudes. Support for learning, 34(1), 71-85. Artiles, A. J. (2023). Beyond responsiveness to identity badges: Future research on culture in disability and implications for response to intervention. In Mapping the field (pp. 310-331). Routledge. Grigorenko, E. L., Compton, D. L., Fuchs, L. S., Wagner, R. K., Willcutt, E. G., & Fletcher, J. M. (2020). Understanding, educating, and supporting children with specific learning disabilities: 50 years of science and practice. American psychologist, 75(1), 37. https://know-the-ada.com/cultural-perspectives-on-disability-from-various-countries/ Jansen-van Vuuren, J., & Aldersey, H. M. (2020). Stigma, acceptance and belonging for people with IDD across cultures. Current developmental disorders reports, 7(3), 163-172. Lipka, O., Khouri, M., & Shecter-Lerner, M. (2020). University faculty attitudes and knowledge about learning disabilities. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(5), 982-996. Moberg, S., Muta, E., Korenaga, K., Kuorelahti, M., & Savolainen, H. (2020). Struggling for inclusive education in Japan and Finland: teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education. European journal of special needs education, 35(1), 100-114. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

A lot of us think about career transitions and career changes during our working lives and especially towards the end and start of a new year. We consider what we want for the year ahead, where we want to be and what changes we want to make to our careers. This isn’t unique to psychology careers because everyone considers changes. Yet career changes are scary, intimidating and this fear can stop us from taking good opportunities and exploring what the job market has to offer us. Therefore, in this business psychology podcast episode, you’ll understand why is career change scary, what are the benefits of career transitioning with others and why social groups are critical during career changes. If you enjoy learning about careers, organisational psychology and social psychology, then you’ll love today’s episode. Today’s psychology podcast has been sponsored by Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers in Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology and More . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Brief Introduction To Career Changes I haven’t met a single person who hasn’t transitioned or changed career at some point in their life. My mum was a dental nurse for a few years and she loved it, then she changed her career when the rules changed and she’s been working in insurance for decades. My older brother started off in carpentry then he changed to something in construction and now he works for Southern Water maintaining the water system. Career change is simply part of life and that is hardly a bad thing. This is even more common and important for aspiring and qualified psychologists, because we all know the all-important assistant psychologist roles are next to impossible to get. This means the majority of aspiring psychologists need to start in a different career, build up their experience and then hopefully transition to the psychology career they’ve always wanted. I recently went to my graduation for my MSc in clinical psychology and from the conversations I had with other graduates, I am not alone in starting in non-psychology careers and hoping to transition over time. However, when we’re in the middle of a career change, it can be really disorienting, confusing and it can feel like we’re wandering through a dense forest without a map. This has a wide range of negative impacts on us that I’ll talk about later in this podcast episode. Yet it doesn’t matter if you’re switching industries, returning to the workforce after a long break or you’re stepping into an entirely new role. You are probably going to feel alone or doubt yourself. I was talking to a brilliant young woman who was working construction with her dad and brother. Another woman was working as a wellbeing practitioner and someone else was working as a neuro-something trainer. Some people are doing very well and other people are still struggling to find a psychology-related job, and that’s okay. Building upon this, when we’re in the middle of a career change, we tend to question and ask ourselves whether we’re the only person who feels unsure of their career change and whether we actually have the ability to make it to the other side. As an aspiring psychologist, this is definitely something that I’m concerned about. I really, really want a psychology job in the future because I love clinical psychology, I want to help people and I want to work in this amazing profession. And yes, I do acknowledge the profession has a lot of flaws but I want to work in clinical psychology regardless. Yet I do question whether I have the skills, the ability and the experience to ever break into this guarded profession that seems to be reserved for middle-class women. However, I know a lot of people can experience fear of failure, fear of judgment and fear of the unknown when it comes to a career change. This is normal, understandable and it’s okay that someone is feeling like this. On the whole, considering that our workplace culture celebrates self-reliance, we typically feel like we need to have all the answers. This is even more true if you come from a toxic workplace where any workplace mistake is seen as incompetence and you’re berated for it. I’ve heard a few horror stories like that over the years, especially from women. Therefore, one solution found by researchers is that we all might benefit from being able to ask for help as well as navigating career changes with other people. Why Do Career Changes Make Us Uncertain of Who We Are? Whenever we normally think about the challenges of career changes, we typically think about how they’ll impact our routines. I know as an author, podcaster and a million other things, any sort of career change will challenge my time and organisation even more. This is also true if you’re a parent, a carer or you do additional things outside of work (which I highly recommend you do. Your work being your life isn’t healthy). Yet career changes can also challenge our sense of self because according to Bridges’ model of transition published in 1991, career changes make it difficult to distinguish between internal transitions and external change. This means the “neutral zone” is psychologically challenging for us. This is the psychologically vulnerable period where our old identity has been removed and our new identity has yet to fully emerge. This is something I experienced shortly after leaving university and being a student ambassador. For six brilliant years, my identity was being a psychology student, researcher and a student ambassador. That identity got shredded after my last Outreach shift and because I was unemployed and didn’t have a clue what job I was going to get, my mental health dipped a little. I was unsure of who I was and what my identity would morph into because my new identity in my new job hadn’t emerged yet. In addition, during this psychologically vulnerable time, we can experience self-doubt, symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as uncertainty according to Goodman et al. (2006). This is even more common for people who experience layoffs, unemployment or they need to undergo a career change because of caring responsibilities. Also, according to Ibarra and Barbulescu (2010) identity discontinuity, when your current role doesn’t align with your sense of self, can continue to negatively impact your motivation and self-esteem. This is why group support can be so important during career changes. Why Can Groups Improve Your Confidence During Career Changes? Building upon what I mentioned earlier in the episode, one reason why I feel more confident about undergoing a career change in future is because I know how natural they are, a lot of people are interested in them and there is no shame in a career change. My point is that social groups give us a sense of normalisation, and this is especially true when it comes to career changes. In many healthy workplace environments, there is already a sense of “we’re in this together” and this can be applied to career changes too. I know that I am not the only teaching assistant wanting an out, looking for another job and will jump ship in the future. This helps to lessen my feeling of fear, like I am making a massive mistake and people will think less of me because of it. In addition, because social groups provide us with a sense of “we’re in this together”, this potentially creates a safe space for us to express the same fears about a career change that all of us have been secretly holding onto. For example, fears about whether we’re good enough, whether artificial intelligence will replace our skills so they aren’t relevant anymore, and whether you should go back to what you were doing before or try something new. We all have these fears and it is perfectly okay, understandable and healthy to express them. This is why undergoing a career change with other people can be useful because you can undergo this journey together. Building upon this, this is where co-regulation can come in because you and your fellow career-changers can create a safe, supportive group that allows you all to co-regulate. This is when your nervous system can stay calm because you’re with other people according to Porges (2011). Also, co-regulation allows you to stop only seeing yourself through the lens of self-doubt but through the strengths, insights as well as potential that other people see in you. Personally, I remember when I was feeling lost between me finishing my Masters and me finding my job. I was filled with self-doubt because I was getting assistant psychologist interviews, I was getting great feedback and lots of job rejections. I thought I couldn’t do this, I was a failure and I was never going to get a job. Yet everyone kept saying that I was good, I was kind, compassionate and clearly loved psychology. So I kept talking with university friends and family members, I focused and eventually I thankfully found a job. Forming supportive groups with other psychologists, graduates and friends can be a great idea. Especially, because you and your friends and peers can hype up each other and when someone has confidence in us, it’s so much easier for us to have confidence in ourselves. Why is Group Support A Protective Factor During A Career Change? A protective factor is something that acts as a buffer against stress as well as it helps us to cope more effectively, and research shows that group support is an effective protective factor during disruptive times (Cohen & Wills, 1985). I definitely think a career change, finishing university or becoming unemployed counts as a life disruption. This is why social groups are so important. Also, research, like Taylor (2011), shows that when people have supportive communities to rely on during major life changes, they report less psychological distress as well as greater wellbeing. This is why peer mentoring can be so effective, because Ensher et al. (2001) found that peer monitoring increases self-efficacy, opens more opportunities and provides emotional validation to employees. And being a part of a group with shared intentions can increase collective resilience and momentum. For example, Moen et al. (2008) found during a longitudinal study that women who were returning to work after caregiving and when they took part in a group-based re-entry programme reported stronger career identities and higher confidence compared to women who didn’t have these programmes. This applies to career changes because if you undergo a career change alone then your bouts of self-doubt, negative thoughts and fear will likely increase. Since you won’t have anyone to hype you up, no one to believe in you and no one will be able to spur you into action. Yet if you, your friends and maybe your peers want to undergo a career change at the same time then you can form a supportive group that can hype you up, inspire confidence when you have none and you can hold each other accountable. Personally, I definitely find the idea of being accountable to be flat out critical through the job hunt. When I was applying for jobs after my Masters, I will fully admit that I didn’t want to do it. I might have had rent, council tax and bills to pay on a house I wasn’t even living in (that’s a whole other story) so I needed the money, but the job hunt was just depressing. It was draining, I hated the job rejections and I hated feeling like I was nothing but a failure. Yet because my parents occasionally asked about jobs and they held me accountable because I lovingly wanted them off my back, they gave me the momentum to apply for jobs. If you and your friends form a supportive group, you can do the same for each other. And considering how hard finding a job is after university, I would really recommend towards the end of your BSc or MSc that you sit down with your friends, talk about wanting to form a supportive job-hunting group and you do it. I think this would have improved my mental health, my outlook and my confidence during my job hunt because I would have known I wasn’t alone. What Kinds of Groups Work To Support A Career Change? Throughout this podcast episode, I’ve mainly focused on the idea of a group of friends or peers coming together and forming a supportive community where they can support you, increase your confidence and you can check in with them from time to time. Yet there are other social groups too that might be useful during a career change. For example, a parent re-entry group so you can support each other in your return to work after caregiving, a one-off therapy support group, class or a focused retreat as well as a career transition circle for people changing careers. The most important things when it comes to social support during a career change are that the people come together with shared intentions, mutual respect and consistency. Since when we know we aren’t alone, it makes the prospect of finding a new job or changing careers a lot less scary. Business Psychology Conclusion As I mentioned near the beginning of the psychology podcast episode, at some point in our lives, all of us will want to change careers. Whilst traditional wisdom in the Western world would tell us to do everything by ourselves because the job market is competitive and by helping others we might allow them to succeed at the cost of our own, this isn’t true. We can only really change once we realise we need help and support from other people and that’s okay. Massive changes, like changing careers, are not meant to be done alone. This is why regardless of whether you’re changing careers, you’re re-entering the workforce after some timeout for whatever reason or if you’re starting up your own business, joining a group of likeminded people might be more useful, valuable and insightful than you could ever think of. Not only because you’re receiving support but because you’re supporting others too and that is wonderfully rewarding in its own right. I know sometimes in the race to become an assistant psychologist, a mental health professional or whatever psychology-related career we’re all striving for, we sometimes forget why we want it in the first place. We’re all so busy trying to write perfect cover letters, practice for interviews and more that we forget. However, seeing someone else, like a peer or friend, follow us in our psychology journey and see their excitement and delight when they get some success and they explain why they love clinical psychology or whatever area of psychology in a mock interview, it can be a powerful reminder of why we, ourselves, love this amazing, infuriating and sometimes elitist profession. And why we work hard every day to make our dreams of becoming a psychologist, a reality.   I really hope you enjoyed today’s business psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers in Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology and More . Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca. Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Business Psychology References and Further Reading Applegate, J. M., & Janssen, M. A. (2022). Job mobility and wealth inequality. Computational Economics, 59(1), 1-25. Bhargava, A., Bester, M., & Bolton, L. (2021). Employees’ perceptions of the implementation of robotics, artificial intelligence, and automation (RAIA) on job satisfaction, job security, and employability. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 6(1), 106-113. Bridges, W. (1991). Managing transitions: Making the most of change. Perseus Books. Chao, G. T. (2009). Formal mentoring: Lessons learned from past practice. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40(3), 314–320. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012658 Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2), 310–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.98.2.310 Ensher, E. A., Thomas, C., & Murphy, S. E. (2001). Comparison of traditional, step-ahead, and peer mentoring on protégés’ support, satisfaction, and perceptions of career success. Journal of Business and Psychology, 15(3), 419–438. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007870600459 Ghosh, R., & Reio, T. G. (2013). Career benefits associated with mentoring for mentors: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83(1), 106–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.03.011 Goodman, J., Schlossberg, N. K., & Anderson, M. L. (2006). Counseling adults in transition: Linking practice with theory (3rd ed.). Springer. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/upward-spiral/202504/career-in-transition-heres-why-not-to-go-it-alone Ibarra, H. (2023). Working identity, updated edition, with a new preface: Unconventional strategies for reinventing your career. Harvard Business Press. Ibarra, H., & Barbulescu, R. (2010). Identity as narrative: Prevalence, effectiveness, and consequences of narrative identity work in macro work role transitions. Academy of Management Review, 35(1), 135–154. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.35.1.zok135 Moen, P., Kelly, E. L., & Huang, R. (2008). Fit inside the work–family black box: An ecology of the life course, cycles of control reframing. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81(3), 411–433. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317908X325450 Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company. Rachmad, Y. E. (2022). Career Development Theory. Taylor, S. E. (2011). Social support: A review. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of health psychology (pp. 189–214). Oxford University Press. van Hooft, E. A., Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D., Wanberg, C. R., Kanfer, R., & Basbug, G. (2021). Job search and employment success: A quantitative review and future research agenda. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106(5), 674. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon  page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley  for a one-time bit of support.

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

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

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

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

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