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As it’s January, a lot of psychology students and psychology professionals start to think about their psychology careers and career changes. Therefore, in this career-related podcast episode, we’re going to be learning what is a military psychologist and what are the pros and cons of working in the military as a psychologist. This will help you to decide should you be a military psychologist or not. Granted a lot of this information is US-focused because that is the information I could find, but a lot of the points in this podcast episode are universal. If you enjoy learning about mental health, clinical psychology and psychology careers, you’ll enjoy today’s episode. Today’s podcast episode has been sponsored by Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers In Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Business 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley What Is A Military Psychologist? Before we move on to the advantages and disadvantages of being a military psychologist, we first need to know what one is and what they actually do. Therefore, simply put, a military psychologist is a psychologist who works in the military to support soldiers and other active personnel in relation to a wide range of tasks. For example, giving them psychological treatment for mental health conditions, providing counselling and other support the soldier might need. As well as performing psychological assessments on people. What Are The Advantages of Being A Military Psychologist? Now we’ll talk about the three main benefits of being a military psychologist. What Are The Training and Professional Opportunities Of Being A Military Psychologist? Whilst I have to admit that being a military psychologist is probably the last thing I would ever want to do, because this job just isn’t of interest to me in the slightest. I know being a military psychologist would be a great job for some people, and it’s always useful to know about different psychology professions. Hence, why I’m covering this topic today. Firstly, being a military psychologist might be a good job for you because they offer a lot of great benefits to their employees. For example, military psychologist trainees are paid a full salary, which certainly makes it unique because normally trainees get a lot less money than fully qualified professionals. As well as military psychologists get to have the same wages as well as other benefits than other military officers that have the same rank as them. That I think is very interesting and definitely a great benefit. In addition, once you’re a psychologist in the military, you can apply for a wide range of postdoctoral fellowships across a range of subdisciplines. Like clinical psychology, forensic psychology, health psychology, operational psychology and so on. Also, military psychologists get to take advantage of the military’s leadership development courses. All of these opportunities come with a full-time salary for the psychologist. Which is brilliant considering the often rubbish pay that psychologists can face early on in their career. And something that I think is rather brilliant about being a military psychologist is that, if you don’t work in the military, you tend to have to self-fund your Continued Professional Development, but this mostly isn’t the case in the military. And yes, I know the NHS and other organisations have a fund to help pay for CPD but as I learnt on my Learning Disability Work Experience that fund is limited and you can ONLY use the money for something directly related to your job. Anyway, in the military, Command funds your participation in conferences, training, professional organisations and board certification. Since the military recognises that their psychologists are a critical part of significant decisions so it’s important that they provide support to military psychologists so they are well-qualified. Why Being A Military Psychologist Is Rewarding Work? Another benefit of being a military psychologist is that the work is both rewarding and challenging. Since all militaries require their workers to be challenged by their resilience, professional expertise, adaptability and their physical abilities. This is important to note because psychologists are important to the military but psychologists are also leaders, team players and officers in the military. Therefore, these skills are even more important than they normally are in more civilian settings. Due to the military will require you to put together clinical presentations, lead other service members and the decisions you make will have consequences for both the service members themselves and the military’s mission whatever it is. As a result, a military psychologist’s personal and professional skills are constantly being tested and this means the military provides a near endless number of development programmes. So if you want access to that sort of training then maybe being a military psychologist is for you. What Is The Pay And Benefits For Military Psychologists? Now this is definitely the more US-centric part of the podcast episode but I still think that it helps you to understand what being a military psychologist is like as a career. As a result in the US, the salary for military psychologists have improved a lot over the past 15 years so military psychologists are now some of the highest-paid psychologists in the United States. In addition, US military psychologists get access to other benefits as well. For instance, they get free health care, flexible sick leave, housing allowance, a pension, loan forgiveness, tax benefits and generous annual leave. As well as something called the G.I bill, which is very US-centric so I’m not going to be looking it up. Finally, military psychologists in the US, specifically get an accession bonus, a retention bonus, incentive pay and board certification pay. In other words, there are a lot of great benefits and a great salary for being a military psychologist. What Are The Disadvantages Of Being A Military Psychologist? Now we need to look at the various disadvantages of being a military psychologist. Why Is Being A Military Psychologist Stressful For Families? This is definitely one of the reasons why I wouldn’t be a military psychologist. Since it is true that the military has made some gains in making military life easier for families, it is still true that there will never be an optimal situation for a family. Since the thing I really don’t like about working in the military is that parents and spouses are away from home on a regular basis. This means they miss out on their children growing up, they miss key family events and just being a part of a normal family unit. This has a lot of negative outcomes for families because this creates employment challenges for spouses because of the mobile lifestyle. As well as this creates parenting challenges, relationship challenges and other problems for families. Of course I am not saying that having a family member working in the military is all bad because there are some advantages. Like it would be nice to live in another country, there are plenty of health benefits that normal Americans just do not have access to, parents can raise informed and flexible children and so on. There are some good benefits to travelling and working with the military. But these benefits might not be enough to offset the negatives. Personally, if I was with someone who worked in the military, I would seriously need to think about if I could follow my partner round the world. Sure, I can write, podcast and learn psychology from anywhere in the world. Yet I like a routine because of my autism, I like some level of certainty and I would like to see my partner without wondering when the hell they’ll be back from a posting. Why Military Psychologists Have A Lack Of Control? This might be the biggest reason why I wouldn’t become a military psychologist, because the military isn’t for you if you want a 9 til 5 job in the geographical location that you live in. Since as I mentioned in the point above, the military moves a lot so you might be deployed and redeployed depending on what the military needs. As well as just like the rest of the military, military psychologists are not so special that they don’t have to wear a uniform, exercise a lot, meet the military’s fitness and health requirements, do drug tests and on and on and on. Military psychologists still have to do all of those things. Personally, I do not see moving constantly and not settling down in one location for a period of time to be fun. Mainly that is just my autism and honestly, I like exercise but not because I have to do it. Also, I really hate uniforms, orders and I just don’t like the work culture of the military. So no being a military psychologist really isn’t for me. Why You Can’t Be A Specialist In Military Psychology? This next disadvantage is like high treason or heresy for me and I hate this disadvantage. Since if you want to be a military psychologist then you need to be a generalist within clinical psychology and you have to have a lot of knowledge about everything (to over-simplify). You absolutely cannot be an expert in one area and that’s it because you have to be able to do whatever the mission requires. Of course, there are some military psychologists that are specialists, but after you’ve finished training as a military psychologist, you probably will not used full-time in that speciality. You will almost certainly be required to step out of that area for long periods of time if the military mission needs you in other places. For me, this disadvantage is basically heretical because I love the word and I’m studying psychology so I can work with specific groups of clinical populations in specific ways. I want to be able to use systemic approaches and cognitive-behavioural approaches. They are the ways of working that I love and there are certain clinical populations that I love working with because I think it’d be a lot of fun and I find them inspiring. So I hate the idea of having to step away from the populations and methods I love. Of course, I am not deluded, I know in an NHS job or another psychology job I will still have to step away and use different approaches from time to time. But my point still remains, the basic job is still specialist within reason unlike the military psychologist job where you are a generalist. Careers In Psychology Conclusion I think we can all tell by the end of this podcast episode that being a military psychologist isn’t for me. Yet it might be for you because a military psychologist does have a lot of benefits in terms of travel, salary and benefits that a lot of normal citizens don’t get. Especially in the US where they don’t have free healthcare. Yet there are a lot of disadvantages too like the generalist approach, the constant moving and the uncertainty about where you’ll be next. However, the entire point of these career in Psychology podcast episodes is that we are all learning what we can do with our degrees. Some of you might be thinking “that sounds like a cool job but I don’t want it” and that is perfectly okay. That’s actually my own reaction. Or you might be thinking “Oh wow, this job sounds great. Thank you Connor for telling me about it,” That’s okay too. You now have the information about being a military psychologist and you can decide what you want to do with it. And that’s why I like psychology career-related episodes because they get me thinking, me learning and asking myself what do I want with my life? And I hope these episodes inspire you too to question yourself, your career choice and where you want to be in the future. I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers In Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Business 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Careers In Psychology Reference https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/alpha-blog-charlie/202212/thinking-joining-the-military-psychologist 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.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing and this is a type of psychotherapy that I’ve become more aware of in recent months. Since a close friend of mine mentioned they had EMDR and a good podcast I listened to mentioned that she went for EMDR too. And before this podcast episode, I knew it was an effective psychotherapy but I had no idea what it actually involved and I knew there was a sort of stigma around it within the psychology community. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what is EMDR, how does EMDR work and much more. If you enjoy learning about mental health, clinical psychology and psychotherapy then you will love today’s episode. This 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley What Is EMDR? EMDR isn’t really a psychotherapy in and of itself, it is more of a psychotherapy technique that is designed to relieve the psychological distress associated with a client’s disturbing memories. As well as it involves a client recalling a specific negative experience while following a side-to-side visual stimulus delivered by the therapist. A client needs to do this in EMDR because the lateral eye movements that following this stimulus causes that are thought to help reduce the emotional impact of this memory. This helps the negative experience to become easier to discuss with the therapist as the memory is effectively stripped of its power to trigger avoidance behaviours and anxiety within a client. In addition, there have been a lot of empirical studies that show that EMDR works for some clients, but it is very, very controversial. There are a lot of reasons for this but one of the main reasons is that we just don’t know how it works. There are a lot of theories that try to explain how EMDR works but there isn’t a universally accepted theory. Another reason why EMDR is controversial is because there isn’t much clear evidence that EMDR is better than other forms of exposure therapy. Since EMDR and other exposure therapies are basically the same in terms of you have a client recalling a traumatic memory in the safe environment provided by a therapist. As well as the client repeatedly talks about the event in this safe context and this leads to a decrease in avoidance and fear responses. Personally, when I first learnt those two reasons I wasn’t very surprised, because I completely understand that EMDR is basically the same as other exposure therapies. They all follow the same principles and whilst it is good that we know EMDR works for some clients. Clinical psychology is a science after all, and we need to understand how and why EMDR works. Not just as a whole but why does it work for some clients and not others, and once we understand what are the important elements or components of EMDR then we might be able to distil EMDR and combine it with other treatment models. There is a lot of work to do in EMDR research as you’ll see later on. How Does EMDR Work? Whilst as I mentioned a moment ago, there are no widely accepted theories that explain EMDR, but I’m going to tell you about some of the theories. None of these are conclusive and these are all just theories, but I think having at least a basic understanding of how EMDR might work is more important here. Therefore, EMDR is meant to be based on the so-called Adaptive Information Model and this is meant to target the way a distressing memory is stored in the brain. The idea behind this is that the experience is distressing because of how it’s stored in the brain so if you can change how the memory is stored then you can change how distressing it is to a client. As well as when these memories are triggered in the present they contain all the same emotions, physical feelings and thoughts as the experience did in the past. All because the experience wasn’t processed properly in the first place. I’m just going to say upright that I find this theory very suspect already, but let’s continue. Interestingly, there have been studies that have called into question whether the eye movement part of EMDR is even needed. Due to these studies suggest that EMDR actually works because the desensitisation involves recalling, confronting as well as reprocessing the aversive memories under the careful supervision of a therapist. And you know what that’s called. It’s called exposure therapy. On the other hand, there have been some new theories suggested in recent years to explain how EMDR works. For example, Andrew Huberman of Standford University supports the eye movements as an important part of EMDR because he proposes that the movements seen in EMDR copy optic flow and this decreases a person’s fear system as well as temporarily decreases the sense of threat that the traumatic memory holds. Additionally, the eyes are a part of the central nervous system and research Huberman conducted shows when the eyes are relaxed, a client adjusts their inner state to match. This is supported by additional research, including a study done by Dutch researchers and published in the Journal Of Neuroscience. Also, I want to add in this quote from Huberman that further supports his theory: “It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. We’ve always been confronted with threats—animal threats, interpersonal threats. Forward movement is the way you suppress the fear response.” Then when it comes to the visual system, he says, “is a steering wheel and brake of the nervous system. The brain will follow the visual system in many ways.” Overall, I think this theory makes a lot of sense because it helps to explain how EMDR works, the biological mechanisms behind it and how this has a knock-on effect for our mental processes. However, there are still other questions that have yet to be answered about EMDR’s workings. For example, the interpatient factors that explain the variance in why it works for some and not others, and this almost sounds a little reductionist in a sense. Since this theory only focuses on the biological aspects of the eye movements. It fails to explain how the social factors, like being in a safe environment of the therapist’s office, helps to explain how works. When Is EMDR Used? Whilst originally this therapy technique was developed to treat PTSD, it’s now used for a wide range of conditions. For instance, anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, some personality disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders and a few others. However, it’s important to note that for a client to be a good fit for EMDR, they need to be comfortable with some emotional discomfort. Also, they shouldn’t be too easily overwhelmed by their feelings and not shut down emotionally when they face discomfort. As well as clients should be able to use their emotional and cognitive resources to help them reprocess their memories. I will just add there that I don’t think a single one of those points is actually unique to EMDR. I think they are basic assumptions of all clients going in psychotherapy because you can’t do therapy successfully if you aren’t willing to confront and process the past and you need to have a capacity for change too. What Should Someone Expect In EMDR? Whilst some clients might need fewer sessions, a typical course of EMDR lasts between 6 and 12 sessions that are delivered once or twice a week. With some studies showing that reprocessing a single distressing memory can be processed within three sessions. Then after the client and therapist talk about the client’s history and the therapist explains the procedure, the two work together to decide on which past experiences will be the subject of the treatment. Afterwards, the therapist activates the distressing memory by asking the patient to visualise and/ or experience their thoughts. I find that term “activate” quite funny because it makes it sound like the therapist has a switch into a client’s head. Anyway, once the memory is activated, the therapist assesses the level of negative thoughts and feelings within the client about the event, and the positive beliefs the client wants to increase about themselves. Next, the therapist administers the bilateral visual stimulation. In addition, the client can almost always expect to experience some physical and emotional discomfort here because they’ll be recalling the distressing memories. Then as the procedure continues, new thoughts and feelings will emerge and these are discussed. Also, the therapist samples the nature and level of the client’s emotional and cognitive distress as well as any physical distress. Finally, the session ends when the client feels manageably calm and the therapist gives them instructions about how to handle any disturbing thoughts and feelings in-between their sessions. As well as in the following sessions, these begin with an assessment of the memories that might have emerged since the last treatment. Clinical Psychology Conclusion I have to admit that this has been a rather fun podcast episode for me because we’ve looked at how EMDR works, what EMDR is, what to expect in EMDR and more. And whilst I have made fun of EMDR in at least two sections of this episode, I think this therapy does have a place in clinical psychology. Of course, more research has to be done so we can actually understand how it works because psychology is a science and we have to use empirical tools in therapy. Also, there needs to be more research into how EMDR is different to other forms of exposure therapy because I am personally not convinced it’s as different as it claims to be. However, at the end of the day, there will be clients that need EMDR to improve their lives, decrease their psychological distress and function clinically normally. My friend’s proof of that and so is the podcast host that I listen to from time to time. I think as long as we admit the limitations, we try to fix the limitations and we don’t overstate how effective or great EMDR is compared to other therapies. Then this is a good compromise because EMDR is good for some people, but it isn’t for others. And even for the people who it works for, we just don’t know why. And that little bit of controversy is why psychotherapy can be important, fascinating and seriously fun to think about. 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 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References Balban, Melis, Erin Cafaro, Lauren Fletcher, Marlon Washington, Maryam Bijanzadeh, A. Lee, Edward Chang, and Andrew Huberman. “Human Responses to Visually Evoked Threat.” Current Biology, 31, no. 3 (November 25, 2020): 601-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.11.035 Davidson, P. R., & Parker, K. C. (2001). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): a meta-analysis. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 69(2), 305. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, American Psychological Association, https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/treatments/eye-movement-reprocessing Ironson, G., Freund, B., Strauss, J. L., & Williams, J. (2002). Comparison of two treatments for traumatic stress: A community‐based study of EMDR and prolonged exposure. Journal of clinical psychology, 58(1), 113-128. Lycia D. de Voogd, Jonathan W. Kanen, David A. Neville, Karin Roelofs, Guillén Fernández and Erno J. Hermans. “Eye-Movement Intervention Enhances Extinction via Amygdala Deactivation.” Journal of Neuroscience 3 October 2018, 38 (40) 8694-8706. https://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/40/8694 Oren, E. M. D. R., & Solomon, R. (2012). EMDR therapy: An overview of its development and mechanisms of action. European Review of Applied Psychology, 62(4), 197-203. Rodenburg, R., Benjamin, A., de Roos, C., Meijer, A. M., & Stams, G. J. (2009). Efficacy of EMDR in children: A meta-analysis. Clinical psychology review, 29(7), 599-606. Seidler, G. H., & Wagner, F. E. (2006). Comparing the efficacy of EMDR and trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of PTSD: a meta-analytic study. Psychological medicine, 36(11), 1515-1522. 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.

To kick off 2024 with a big, let’s kick off the year with this great topic from clinical psychology about family therapy for children and parents. In this podcast episode, you’ll learn about 5 different ways how family therapy can be useful for adult children and parents so they can have healthy, loving relationships. If you enjoy learning about psychotherapy, family relationships and clinical psychology then you’re going to love today’s episode. This episode has been sponsored by Psychology Worlds Magazine. 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley How Can Family Therapy Help Adult Children And Parents? A lot of psychology students and some psychology professionals might not believe that family therapy could be useful for adult children and parents. This is mainly because whenever we think about family therapy, we all imagine parents trying and struggling to raise young children, control their behaviour and they want some sort of normalcy in their family relationships. Whilst this be true to some extent, family therapy still has a lot to offer parents and children in adulthood because family therapy works within the family system. Something that still exists in adulthood, as well as the longest period of parenthood is actually parenting an adult child that wants a close, loving relationship with their parents so family therapy can make perfect sense for adult children. Family Therapy Can Break Old Cycles One of the major benefits of family therapy for adult children and parents is that both of them can hit the same pain points and have the exact same arguments time and time again. For example, if an adult child and their parents used to fight about their fashion sense as a teenager and they’re still having the same arguments now. Also, if a parent knows that their child gets hurt by talk of a passed away pet and they always use that to shut them down and vice versa about a parent’s pain point. If this happens then the adult child and parent offer feel like they have to try to solve everything on their own, but this is next to impossible because most of the time the adult child and parent won’t see their own faulty communication patterns. As well as any other maladaptive patterns of behaviour. Therefore, family therapy can be really useful for identifying these old cycles of behaviour and find new ways to respond. This helps the adult child and parent to resolve any issues and the therapy gives clients new tools for addressing any future arguments that will inevitably pop up. Family Therapy Helps To Manage Stressors Some families that go to family therapy are the sort of families that work together well together until something new happens. For example, a loss of a loved one, a loss of a job or an injury or something else that’s brand new. This can even include a new romantic partner entering the adult child’s life or a parent dating for that matter. As a result, when these changes happen some families struggle to adapt to these changes and this is where conflict occurs. Therefore, family therapy can be very useful in helping both the parents and the adult child to manage their pitfalls and these new dynamics so the chance of conflict is greatly reduced. And if we connect to the last point, then family therapy is useful here because the clients will still have new tools to address these issues. Family Therapy Helps Recreate Outdated Family Roles This is something I think all families have to do because we’re aware that a parent’s role changes throughout the lifespan of their child. For example, when they’re really young the parent has to control all aspects of the baby or toddler’s life for their own safety (a simplified example but I think it’s largely true). Then in adolescence, the parents start worrying even more because their child is more independent as they go to secondary school and start dating and start exploring what being a young person means to them. And then the parent’s role shifts yet again in adulthood when the child becomes their own person living their own life. In addition, some families struggle to deal with this change in roles during these transitions, and this leaves everyone acting out in unhelpful, outdated family roles. And an easy example of this is in situations when adult children have struggled to launch into their adult life or they’re struggling to fly the nest because they still have the family role as the young child that needs to be protected and smothered. Also, there are times when the parent won’t let go of their child so they can’t fly off into adulthood. As a result, family therapy is useful here because it helps families to change and shift into these family roles that reflect what the family actually needs and the norms of their culture. For example, a child moving out and being an adult as well as a parent letting their child do that. Family Therapy Helps Adult Children And Parents Work Through Past Hurt I’m no stranger to families causing each other emotional pain because this is where family therapy can be useful. Due to family therapy allows families to work through the pain they’ve caused each other. Also, adult children tend to find it difficult to talk about negative childhood experiences with their parents, which is extremely true from my personal experience. And even when children do talk with their parents about past hurt the parents tend to invalidate it all, by shutting it down, insisting they did their best, asking the child to be more grateful and on and on and on. That is extremely true and I hate it when parents do that but I understand it because everyone has to maintain a positive self-image. Anyway, the problem is if adult children and parents don’t resolve these issues then children can get angry, resentful and hurt by their parents even more. Therefore, family therapy allows adult children and parents to have these conversations in a controlled environment where the adult children is allowed to be heard and understood. All whilst the family therapist gives both the adult child and parents tools and skills to address any issues that come up in the future. Family Therapy Allows Families To Navigate Estrangement Whenever one family member chooses estrangement, it is often after months or years of that person attempting to resolve these family issues. Most people describe estrangement as a last resort and it is something that they only do when there is no other choice and I can understand this. Therefore, family therapy can be really useful for adult children and their parents to process estrangement as well as form goals for the ideal outcome that they both want and family therapy means they can navigate this messy and very emotional process. And when I talk about ideal outcomes, this can include them talking a little more and their communication increasing over time, it can be working towards having Christmas together or them working towards having a relationship where they get on and the parent can see their grandchildren, for example. Social Psychology Conclusion As we’ve seen in this podcast episode, family therapy isn’t just for families with young children because family therapy can help parents and adult children overcome a lot. For instance, it can help them overcome estrangement, manage new stressors, break old cycles, deal with past hurt and it can help to recreate outdated family roles. And if 2023 has taught me anything, it is how important and amazing families can be when adult children and parents work together and support each other. So everyone can live a better life with less psychological distress, less emotional pain and a lot more joy. 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 Psychology Worlds Magazine. 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/between-the-generations/202301/6-ways-family-therapy-can-help-adult-children-and-parents Dallos, R., & Draper, R. (2015). Ebook: An introduction to family therapy: Systemic theory and practice. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Qualls, S. H. (1999). Family therapy with older adult clients. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55(8), 977-990. Gower, M., & Dowling, E. (2008). Parenting adult children–invisible ties that bind?. Journal of Family Therapy, 30(4), 425-437. Goglia, L. R., Jurkovic, G. J., Burt, A. M., & Burge-Callaway, K. G. (1992). Generational boundary distortions by adult children of alcoholics: Child-as-parent and child-as-mate. American Journal of Family Therapy, 20(4), 291-299. 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.

2023 might have been my best year ever in terms of my future career in clinical psychology, my mental health and my overall quality of life. And as we start to think about 2024 and what we can do to make that year the best year ever, I want to share my lessons learnt from 2023. There'll be a lot of lessons about degrees, aspiring psychologist tips and more. I have 6 areas of 2023 to share with you and I'll do 5 tips that apply to you and your new year for each section. If you're interested in psychology careers, mental health and wanting tips to have a great 2024 then you'll love this podcast episode. This podcast episode has been sponsored by Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers In Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Business 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Overview Of 2023 As I write this podcast episode on 20th December 2023, I have to admit that I have flat out loved this year because it has been incredible and I have loved it. In terms of my personal life, it’s wonderful for a bunch of reasons that I’ll talk about later in the episode, and even as a psychology student I have achieved so much that I never thought would have been possible. Again, I talk more about that later on to. Also, I have had one of my most productive years ever in terms of writing, podcasting and doing what I love. In fact, I got the Spotify Wrapped report for this podcast earlier in the month and I was very impressed to know we’ve experienced 10% growth in listenership in a single year and there was an extra 500 minutes of content this year compared to 2022. I am really happy with that. Therefore, in this little overview, I want to take a few minutes to thank all of you wonderful listeners. Because sure, there are times when I think I should just give up the podcast, that thought happens every few months and I do flat out researching and writing up these blog posts. But in all honesty, if you wonderful people didn’t keep listening, didn’t keep sharing the podcast and if you didn’t keep buying my books and support me. Then I would end this podcast because it wouldn’t be a useful way for me to spend my time. So thank you so much for supporting and listening to the podcast. In addition, we’ve actually hit a few podcasting miles this year with some landmark episodes. We reached episode 200 of the podcast called Hope. Passion. Wonder. My Psychology Journey So Far. That was a brilliant episode that I loved doing because it was a real landmark one for the podcast considering most podcasts don’t reach 30 episodes. And there were a lot of other landmark podcast episodes that I loved doing but I’m talking about most of them at different things in the episode. As a result, one thing I will say as a little tip for all of you as we start thinking about 2024, is do what you love. If there is an activity that you would love to do and you haven’t done it, then do it and try it out in 2024. Just make sure what you’re doing with your life is what you want to do and if you’re unhappy about something, then change it in 2024. As always a massive thank you to you wonderful listeners. I finished My Undergraduate Psychology Degree Wow. Me finishing my undergraduate degree was definitely a highlight of 2023 because it is so nice to get everything done, to graduate and just enjoy being a postgraduate student now. I loved my time at university because it was fun, I met some of the most incredible people in my life and it taught me a lot about myself and the type of person I want to be. If you want to hear more about my graduation and my university journey then you check out episode 200 again or my graduation-focused podcast episode. It’s called Graduation. A Psychology Ending. A Psychology Beginning. I’ll admit that I have written in a lot of places about my third year in books that are coming out next year. Yet I will share that I did find submitting my dissertation a little surprising because I was left with a sense of emptiness, because this massive project that I’ve been working on was now done. That was a surprising but great feeling too. And I think the main reason why my undergraduate was such a highlight of 2023 was because it meant that I had a degree. It meant all the years of hard work and tears meant something and I successfully got a degree. As well as it’s the people I met, the people I forged friendships with and all the different little things these people taught me. It is those things that I love about my degree. It wasn’t really the education side that I loved, it was the people and how amazing they were. Therefore, the tips for this section and you’re planning for 2024 includes ·       Make the most of your time at university ·       Be as social and try to make as many friends as possible at university ·       Use the university’s resources because they’re free. This includes learning support services, mental health services, whatever. ·       Don’t be scared of academics. Talk to them and forge professional relationships with them. ·       Take all the opportunities going to university presents you with. Be them research opportunities or social opportunities. Started My Masters Another amazing highlight of 2023 was I started my Masters in clinical psychology at the same university where I did my undergraduate at. This was exactly what I needed because of mental health stuff and I have loved it. Sure, we have had a nightmare with our stats lecturers but the university has been brilliant in sorting him out so we actually get good teaching nowadays. The reason why my Masters has been a highlight is because it reminds me how much I love clinical psychology. I love the theories, I love interacting with other students and I love the university environment. Be it going into a lecture theatre and taking advantage of university Wi-Fi for certain tasks that my home Wi-Fi is too slow for. Or helping out a PhD friend of mine with his research and catching up with him afterwards. Or just enjoying the societies that UK universities offer. I really, really love university because it is incredible and I know my 2023 wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good if I wasn’t at university. As well as I have made some great friends during my Masters too which I am really grateful for, of course none of them are Masters students themselves or even psychology students but I was only really able to be friends with them because I was at university. Therefore, my tips in terms of university again for planning your 2024 includes: ·       Enjoy your degree whatever it is as much as you can. ·       Get stuck into discussions as much as you can. ·       Talk and socialise with your fellow Masters’ students. ·       Get work experience on the side (more on that later) ·       Listen to your fellow Masters students because most of them will be filled with interesting stories. And the discussion tip is actually rather funny because I’m fairly sure I have a reputation in my Masters cohort as the person that is always on their laptop and looking like they aren’t paying attention whatsoever. Then the lecturer will ask a question and I give out a perfect answer that everyone is rather impressed with. I did enjoy those moments. And actually, I will miss the social psychology Masters lot because I did have some good discussions with them personally and they are just such nice people. So I will miss them a lot. Psychology Work Experience Some more psychology podcast episodes that proved to be landmark episodes were career-focused because 2023 was definitely a year where I wanted to improve my career in psychology prospects. Since just as a very quick recap, we know you can have all the degrees you want in psychology but without any work experience your ability to get a job is basically 0. As a result, I did the following podcast episodes and I’ll explain why made 2023 a great year for me: ·       Why Are Careers In Psychology Important To Investigate? ·       How To Find Work Experience For Psychology Students? ·       Lessons Learnt From Working In A Learning Disability Team So getting work experience was a major highlight of 2023 because I got to work with a learning disability team in September and then in October I got to work in a Gender Identity Clinic. You can see my thoughts and feelings and everything I learnt about learning disabilities in the above podcast episode. As well as I do have a lessons learnt post from my Gender Identity Clinic work experience written up but I haven’t produced it. However, both of these work experiences gave me a lot of wonderful and really useful skills that should definitely help with job applications in the future. For example, these experiences show that I am familiar with the NHS works, that I have experience working with people with a range of mental health conditions and I have multi-disciplinary team Meeting experience. Which I talk a lot more about in my Gender Identity Clinic experience post but I love MDT meetings and experiences. You hear so much about them, you know they’re critical to have experience in because of job descriptions and they are really interesting when you actually participate in one. You get to hear about cases, hear different professionals talk about each case and it is a great learning opportunity. Therefore, these pieces of work experience will definitely be useful in my future clinical psychology career. And I am really grateful to all the services that allowed me to do this work experience opportunities and it’s great to know that 2023 was the year that I took practical steps to help improve my career prospectus within psychology. As a result, when it comes to planning for 2024, if you’re interested in work experience then I recommend you: ·       Investigate the job descriptions in your country for the role you want so you can understand what you need to have experience in. This will help you plot your work experience path. ·       Create a list of companies or placements you would like to gain work experience from. ·       Network in case you can get future opportunities from them. ·       Listen or read the podcast episodes above so you can see how work experience opportunities work and how you can get them. ·       Enjoy the work experience and use them as taster sessions for your future psychology career. If you don’t like them, it is better to know now than when you have a job with bills to pay. Made A Life-Changing Friendship, My Mental Breakdown and Recovery So far in this podcast episode, we’re focused on the celebration and joy parts of the episode title and to be honest, we are continuing with this theme slightly. Yet we are focusing on the hurt aspect too. And I cannot help but smile at the fact that I am including my mental breakdown, my trauma and abuse recovery and a life-changing friendship I made this year as reasons why 2023 was possibly the best year of my life. In addition, to save me rehashing a lot of stuff that I’ve already spoken about on the podcast, if you aren’t entirely clear what my mental breakdown and mental health stuff was about. Then please check out these podcast episodes: ·       What Is Person-Centred Therapy? ·       What Is Emotional Dependency And Locus Of Evaluation? ·       How Life Rolls Impact Your Psychology Journey? ·       How Activity Scheduling Improves Depressed Mood? Anyway, I’m including my mental breakdown and the long mental health road to recovery from a decade of abuse and trauma as reasons why 2023 was amazing, was because of what it led to. Which I focus more on in the next section. Yet when I made that friendship in July/ August 2023 and this former friend convinced (more like begged) me to get professional help for my mental health and my past, I didn’t listen. I just kept using the same strategies as before and when that friendship exploded because of my emotional dependency, it was a brilliant wake-up call. Of course, I hated my life at the time, I was in so much emotional pain and I was in an extremely dark place. But I will always have a lot of “love” for that friend because even though that friendship ended spectacularly. I know if I hadn’t had made that friendship and enjoyed a brilliant month when we both had a lot of fun and we laughed tons. My life would be just as bad, painful and controlled by my trauma and abuse as it had been for the past decade. And that friendship meant I needed to effectively take responsibility for my past and I needed to conquer it or change it. Since nowadays I sort of say that you can allow your past to control you, or you can control your past. Like nothing can take away the pain, the trauma and the sheer abuse that I have received for the past decade, but it doesn’t have to control me or define me anymore. I no longer have to feel unsafe in my life and I no longer have to live in fear for my life. I don’t have to do any of those things anymore. That is why my mental breakdown, that amazing friendship that ended so badly, and my horrific journey of mental health recovery has made 2023 a brilliant year that I wouldn’t change for the world. Then to keep in theme with the rest of the podcast episode, my tips or lessons learnt from all this mental health stuff is: ·       Make sure you appreciate people with lived experience because they learn a lot of stuff during their difficulties that apply to clinical psychology. ·       Give yourself time to recover because it always takes longer than you imagine. ·       Do activities that you love and this goes back to activity scheduling. ·       Realise that some friendships and maybe even romantic relationships are “transitional” friendships to get you from one point to another. ·       Be kind to yourself regardless of what happens to you. Coming Out And Living Authentically A final group of reasons why 2023 was so amazing and it is worth celebrating was because of the consequences of my mental breakdown. Since the biggest factor was that it made my entire family rally around me, I told them everything about what they had done to me by accident with their homophobia and now everything is a lot, lot better. We can have conversations that we never would have been able to have before August, we can laugh and joke about things that we never would have laughed at before. And I have never felt so much love, support and acceptance in my life and that is an amazing feeling to have. Of course, there are still family members that don’t accept me but that’s okay because the important family members do. When I came out as gay on Facebook just so the whole family and my friends knew, I got a lot of love and support. It was great to feel that after the past decade and it meant that I could start to live more authentically and actually find out who I am. In addition, this year my university’s Outreach department started an LGBT+ Mythbusters programme that involves busting myths about the LGBT+ community and that work I have loved. It gave me a brilliant space to be me, tell other people about my experience in humorous and funny ways that were useful to them and I know a lot of people found hearing about my experiences and how I coped helpful. In addition, I actually asked out someone for the first time ever and this goes back to the podcast episode I did back in June called How Can LGBT+ Youth Learn To Heal and Thrive? Because in this episode I talk about the second adolescence which is basically when queer adults get a chance to recapture and redo their adolescence. And this was a very important moment for me personally because I am 22 years old and I have never asked someone out, a girl did ask me out in secondary school but I said no for obvious reasons. So the very fact that I felt safe, loved and supported enough in my own life to feel like I could invite someone else into that was absolutely massive. The friend I asked out said no because I wasn’t their type, which is fine. As we’re still great friends and we’re both accepted that me liking them a lot will just be part of our friendship and it isn’t a problem. But I am still really happy that I was able to ask out someone. Also, as a quick little side note, someone actually flirted with me for the first year in 2023. That was a major moment for me and I actually do want to find that guy again just in case I was a bit judgemental in not thinking about him. Overall, this is the main reason why I have loved 2023 because it has been the year where after everything I have been through I have finally been able to me, discover who I actually am and just enjoy life a million times more than before. Therefore, some tips for your 2024 might be: ·       Are you living authentically? ·       If there are any personal goals you want to achieve then try to do them. ·       If there are any personal things you’re been scared about exploring because of the judgement of your family, then explore it yourself. ·       Just live your life in a way that will make you happy. ·       Find social groups and other like-minded people that will accept you without question. And that last point I do like because that has definitely been a highlight too. I have a good number of social groups filled with other people like me that reflect different aspects of myself and my interests and those people are amazing. I wouldn’t be as great as I am now without the support and social contact that these groups provide. Conclusion: What Are My Future Plans In 2024? I’ve given you a lot to think about in 2024 and I know I have a lot of business, writing and podcasting plans for 2024. Yet this is a personal podcast episode, so I suppose I would talk about my personal plans for 2024 including my psychology-related intentions. In terms of psychology, I really want to get more psychology work experience. I want to work with children and adolescent and I might try to work with Older Adults, but I’m not sure about that. Also, I want to get a part-time psychology-related job or volunteering position in July/ August of 2024 so I can start to build up my clinical experience for the long term. In addition, because I’m shifting to a part-time Masters degree, which I will talk more about in the future, I want to do more psychology research. I already have a few exciting ideas that I am very passionate about so I am looking forward to them. As well as I know it’s a pipedream but I would love to get an academic publication very late next year. In terms of my personal life, well I am still going to keep exploring who I really am, I’m going to be building more friendships, continue to be more social and going to more queer events at my university and my other social groups. I’m going to continue to build my social network with a wide range of people and I am just going to be enjoying life. And I will admit I do want to start dating next year. I want to have a boyfriend or partner by the end of next year because I am in a position in my life where I am safe enough to do that and I think it would be a lot of fun. So that will be interesting. However, whatever happens I will still be here writing and podcasting and having a lot of fun along the way. Because 2023 really was a defining year in my life. It truly was the year of celebrations, hurt and joy and I love it. It’s given me 99% of the stuff I have wanted ever since I was a little kid and I am looking forward to continuing the great work I’ve started in this year. So 2023 was brilliant, my life is brilliant and I cannot wait to see what fun things 2024 brings and I hope all you wonderful listeners join me for the ride. I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers In Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Business 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley 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.

Given how this podcast episode comes out on Christmas Day, I wanted to do a really fun podcast episode that covered social psychology and relationships for a chance. As Christmas is meant to be about happiness, laughter and even seasonal romances, I thought looking at first dates would always be a fun topic to investigate. Therefore, if you plan on doing much dating in 2024 then you want to bear these in mind so you can have a more successful first date. If you enjoy learning about social psychology, dating and psychology research then you’ll love today’s episode. Note: as always nothing on this podcast is ever any sort of official advice. Today’s podcast episode has been sponsored by Psychology Of Relationships: The Social Psychology Of Friendships, Romantic Relationships 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley 3 Red Flags To Avoid On A First Date I know in society there is a lot of pressure put on the first date and I originally saved a whole bunch of this research because I was going to ask out a friend of mine, and me being the upbeat person I am thought they were going to say yes. They didn’t but we’re still great friends. But as it’s the holiday season I wanted to use this research because the first date is very important. Since the first date allows you to explore any attraction you both feel, what sort of romantic connection you have and you get to see if you like each other as much as you think you do. Therefore, it’s important to look at these red flags that you should avoid on a first date because the first date is important. And you don’t want to put up any obstacles in your way to finding that connection and romantic spark so to speak. Also, if a romantic partner does do these things then these behaviours can create anxiety, discomfort and insecurity. Which let’s face it, is a great way to kill a perfectly romantic date. Beware A Project Developer I really didn’t understand this type of person when I first came across it but after looking into it more, I seriously understand why you don’t want to date these people. A project developer is when someone sees you as a project and they want to help you develop yourself to your full potential. For example, your partner might make a compliment about your potential that makes you feel great. This could be about your appearance and your date then starts talking about how you can modify and upgrade and update your appearance so you look even younger and more professional. The problem with these compliments is that they can old because people want to feel like an equal and something that is liked and valued for being themselves. And even if a person was a project, no one wants to feel like a fixer-upper because that just makes people feel awful about themselves. In addition, if you’re with a date that has a “build your own partner” mentality then this is a waste of time because you should be appreciated for you. Of course no one is perfect and I am seriously not myself, but even I wouldn’t want to be seen as a project that needs fixing. I want someone to value me for me, help me work on the stuff I want to work on and I just want to have fun with them. To me, a relationship is about love, being an equal and just having fun. Not about fixing problems. Don’t Live In The Past Now this is a very interesting one I think because I do think a lot of people live in the past and up until recently I was the same. Anyway, Cohen (2016) got 390 mainly heterosexual participants to fill out a survey to shed some light on people’s perceptions of first dates. Cohen found that when women saw their date talking about a past relationship then this was a sign of disinterest and this reinforces another finding of Cohen’s research. That women prefer date conversations to be focused on themselves. Additionally, this finding wasn’t just exclusive for women because men didn’t like their dates talking about past dates either. This is important to realise because we all need to remember that first dates are not rebound counselling sessions. As well as if you wear or model your appearance after what an ex gave you, why would you point this out to your date? That is hardly going to signal to them that you’re over them, you’re ready to move on and you’re hardly interested in your current date. I just don’t think you should mention this whatsoever because if you talk about your exes then two things happen. It tells your date that you aren’t interested in them but it also implies that you might still be involved with them to some extent. And even worse, you’re just insensitive to their feelings and that could make you a horrible person in their eyes. No one wants that for you. Don’t Cross Boundaries Nor Invade Their Space I admit that even I have never been on a date this question of boundaries is always a fun topic for me because there are times when I can be seriously bad at them. As well as I think for certain people that boundaries can be massive learning curves, but saying that, everyone needs to learn each other’s boundaries after a while. Anyway, one of the aims of first dates are to create and foster a sense of chemistry between the two dates and this is partly done through selecting the right setting. Therefore, if a date chooses a wrong setting that is more formal and business-like will definitely send the wrong signals. As a formal setting implies a professional meeting, not a fun romantic date. Also, the setting of a first date is meant to allow the date to feel comfortable and you two to have an easy conversation without being too overfamiliar. Personally, this is why I flat out hate pubs with a passion and clubs I hate too, because they are so loud and they aren’t the sort of place where you can have easy conversations. This is why I prefer restaurants and other quitter places. On the whole, when it comes to choosing a place for a first date, make sure you choose somewhere that has a lot of personal space. Since you don’t want to choose somewhere that will invade the personal space between you and your date because they won’t appreciate that at all. You don’t want to be crammed next to each other or in a booth that is way too small because you’re both just exploring your new relationship and if you actually have a connection. If this does happen then invading each other’s space will create a lot of anxiety and discomfort for both of you which definitely won’t help you create a sense of connectedness. Social Psychology Conclusion At the end of this podcast episode, first dates are always portrayed as fun, magical and really exciting things that can open the doors to love, magic and having a lot of fun and they can be. Yet there are plenty of errors and mistakes you can make on the first date that could affect your chances of getting a sense of connectedness. Sometimes you will go on dates that end awfully because you and the date just weren’t right for each other, but other times you will go on dates with great people. Just avoid these red flags to prevent your first date going wrong for no reason, because 2024 might be your year for dating and exploring and having romantic fun. So I hope this podcast episode helped you learn a little more about the wonderfully fun, chaotic and even harsh world of dating. 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 Psychology Of Relationships: The Social Psychology Of Friendships, Romantic Relationships 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Social Psychology References https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/why-bad-looks-good/201708/danger-zones-3-red-flags-avoid-first-date Cohen, M. T. (2016). An exploratory study of individuals in non-traditional, alternative relationships: How “open” are we?. Sexuality & Culture, 20, 295-315. Cohen, M. T. (2016). The perceived satisfaction derived from various relationship configurations. Journal of Relationships Research, 7, e10. 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.

Clinical psychologists work with a lot of clinical populations from retired people to working aged adults all the way down to children and adolescents. The last clinical population presents a lot of fascinating challenges for clinical psychologists because of their development, the school environment and so many facets of life that are unique to children and young people. That’s why it’s critical to know and understand how to work with this population, and most importantly what work do clinical psychologists actually do with children and young people? That’s one of the questions we’ll start answering in today’s podcast episode. If you enjoy learning about mental health, child psychology and clinical psychology, then you’ll love today’s episode. 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley What Are CAMHS? (Extract From Working With Children and Young People. COPYRIGHT 2023 CONNOR WHITELEY) We already know from the last chapter that Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are a UK service and they are the service that children and young people will go to for psychological treatment. Building upon this further, CAMHS are mainly run by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and local government services with the NHS services in England being commissioned by Clinical Commission Groups (CCGs) and if you wanted some more information about the CCGs then you can go to this website page but I do explain a lot more in a moment: https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/who-commissions-nhs-services/ccgs/ Therefore, these CCGs are in charge of deciding what services are needed and then they commission them, with some of the services they’re in charge of commissioning including mental health services, elective hospital services, urgent and emergency care as well as community care. This is basically an internal market inside the NHS and there is always, always tension between these commissioning groups and the healthcare providers because these CCGs can need to use third-part healthcare providers (like private hospitals) for waiting list initiatives. Personally, and from what I understand from listening to other clinical psychologists, this situation isn’t ideal but it’s needed, it’s the world we live in and it flat out will not change. Since it would be nice if the NHS could be self-reliant and use all its money on itself and the clients, but because of staffing shortages (including their rubbish pay), the inherent problems with the NHS’s structure and everything else that is chaotic about the public sector. It's a shame the NHS has to shell out large sums of money to these third-party providers to make sure their clients get seen. Anyway, CCGS are membership bodies with local doctors being their members. Also these groups are led by an elected governing body made up of medical doctors, other clinicians, like nurses and secondary care consultants as well as lay members. In addition, these CCGs are responsible for about two-thirds of NHS England’s total budget that was £79.9 billion in 2019/20  (as supported by NHS England and NHS Improvement funding and resource 2019/20: supporting ‘The NHS Long Term Plan’). Whilst these CCGs are technically independent of the government, they are accountable to the UK’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care through NHS England. Which is important when we consider they’re responsible for the health of populations ranging from under 100,000 to over a million people but the average population is about a quarter of a million people. Going Back To CAMHS We needed to take that little detour so you know how CAMHS are set up in the first place, but anybody who has professional contact with children can be considered to be a part of CAMHS services (this is potentially in addition to the list of workers I give you in the next chapter). However, more often than not these days, CAMH services are being provided by other agencies that aren’t the NHS, like local councils. I think whether this is a good or bad thing really depends on the local council and the individual provider. Since I can easily imagine how local authorities with big budgets and access to great professionals will be great at this, but others that have small budgets and don’t have access to the best professionals, they will certainly struggle to provide the best care possible. Furthermore, when it comes to these extra providers that are outside the NHS, these have to be qualified providers of course, and there’s a contractual system within the NHS internal market made up of the English NHS. This internal market was introduced by the Labour government in 2009/10 when it was called "Any Willing Provider". This policy has never been repealed and the policy has continued and was accelerated under the newly formed coalition Government that rose to power in 2011. Then that government changed its name to "Any Qualified Provider." The implementation of the policy was achieved through the NHS operating framework as well as by having a strong central team based in the Department of Health that oversaw and supported its implementation at a local level. Yet it was bad that it didn’t require any statutory instrument to achieve its aims and even worse, this policy was often wrongly considered to be part of the reforms associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2012. An Example Of A Provider And Wrap Up It truly seems the Virgin Group is involved in everything from planes to space to technology, but it’s also involved in healthcare settings. And I want to say upfront that I have no problem with massive companies and in this case, Virgin is very good news for a lot of people. As a result of Virgin Care has a total of 400 services in total across England from way down in the South West in Wiltshire right up to Teeside in the North East and Virgin Care has a lot of children and young people mental health services as well. To start wrapping up the chapter, the entire point of Any Qualified Provider was to improve the number of choices that patients have in England, because there used to only be the NHS and I suppose some people wanted other choices. Also, CAMHS provisions are varied and it’s rare that two are ever exactly the same, and this can be seen in independent for-profit counselling services and Virgin Care when compared to each other let alone the NHS. CAMHS are services for children and young people from birth up to the age of 18 or up to 25 for young people and children as part of a wider network of support for Looked After Children (for example children leaving the foster system) or Special Education Needs. With these services being based anywhere that children are. Such as, medical practices, child development centres (a lot more on that later in the book), clinics, hospitals and children’s centres. And the aim of these services are to provide assessment and treatment for young people and children who have behavioural, emotional and developmental difficulties. But now we know what CAMHS are, but what evidence is there they’re actually needed? I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Working With Children and Young People: A Guide To Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology Reference Whiteley, C. (2023) Working With Children and Young People: A Guide To Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy. 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.

For people with mental health difficulties, the Holiday season and the month of December can be an extremely difficult and distressing time of year for a wide range of reasons. For example, it can be difficult to feel great and enjoy the holiday season when you're depressed and you feel judged for not enjoying the season. Also, maybe the holidays are difficult for people who have lost a loved one, and maybe people with mood disorders don't have the schedule and routine they need for their mood stability. Those are only a mere fraction of the reasons why the holidays can be difficult for people with mental health difficulties. Therefore, in this clinical podcast episode, we'll investigate how people with mental health difficulties can cope this December and how you can support people at this time of year. If you enjoy learning about mental health, clinical psychology and psychotherapy then you'll love today's episode. Today's 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Note: NOTHING on this podcast is any sort of official information or advice. 3 Reasons Why People With Mental Health Difficulties Struggle During December Before I talk about my own fears and anxieties surrounding this December, I wanted to approach the topic more broadly and then I'll talk about the different ways to support people. Firstly, there are a lot of social pressures at this time of year and this affects people in different ways. For instance, there are always Christmas and family parties to go to, university socials to attend and everyone basically implies you need to be happy and joyous or just stay away from Christmas. Since in my experience, no one is interested in dealing with a depressed or non-joyous person during the holiday season. As a result, this could place a lot of stress and only amplifies an anxious or depressed person's negative automatic thoughts and only make them "worse". Since they might believe they will be judged even more than usual during this time of year. Meaning that it is the social pressure of the holiday season that can negatively impact the mental health of depressed and anxious people. A second reason why the holidays might be difficult for people is because someone isn’t with them this year. I mean this in terms of a passed away loved one, but actually, this could be the first Christmas after a divorce, a bad breakup with a long-term partner or something else happening in someone’s life. When this happens then Christmas could be a painful reminder of that loss and it could trigger a lot of unwanted memories or it could be an awful reminder of the world they lived in. For example, a world without a parent or a partner. This is even more painful for the person if they don’t have any or many ways to help deal with their feelings. For instance, I know the year my paternal grandmother died, there weren’t a lot of options for me or most of our family to grieve or know how to react at Christmas time. Since we didn’t want to bring down anyone else in the family and friends that don’t know the person only go so far. Thankfully, in the end we did all talk about it and it was okay, but even three years later, Christmas is a reminder of her loss. A final reason that I’ll mention in this podcast episode is domestic violence, abuse and neglect. There are a hundred other reasons but these reasons aren’t the focus of the podcast episode. Since with children and family members being off school and work during the Holidays and most of December, this can be a nightmare for people in abusive relationships and families because they are home more often. They cannot escape off to work or school to get away from it, and because of the stresses of creating the “perfect” Christmas that everyone tries to do, this could lead to abusers snapping and lashing out. Overall, there are a lot of reasons why Christmas is triggering for a lot of people and the entire month of December can cause people to feel extremely anxious and concerned. Thankfully, there are a lot of things people can do to support each other during this month. Why Was I Scared and Anxious About December? Before I talk about the 5 ways how you can support people with mental health difficulties during the holiday season, I want to briefly explain why I was (past tense) flat out terrified for December and the holiday season. As well as this podcast episode was mainly inspired by my own struggles with this upcoming time of year. So I won’t repeat the whole history of mental health again because at this point, it is very well-documented on the podcast, but I noticed a very scary pattern for when I had my meltdowns and awful mental health. My meltdowns tended to happen when I was out of my routine and structure that kept me grounded. For example, I had a meltdown in Newcastle because I was away from university, my friends, my family and my therapy stuff and that pattern has largely stuck ever since. As a result, when I started to think about December and how all my friends were going away back to their homes, the university was closing for the Winter Break and there would be a lot of other changes because of the social side of Christmas. I was flat out terrified of having another meltdown and experiencing a lot of bad mental health, and this time I didn’t think it was avoidable simply because these changes were happening no matter what I did. The month of December was completely out of my control and that scared me. This led me to get very anxious, a little depressed and I was constantly walking around with this lump of fear in the back of my mind, sort of like a countdown clock until the next meltdown. Yet thankfully, I spoke to my university counsellor about this and he gave me a lot of ideas that I’ve expanded upon and I find them really helpful. I hope you find them useful too. Make Sure You Know Where To Get Help One of the most useful things my university counsellor helped with me during my final session was making sure that I knew where to get support if I needed it. I think this is flat out critical for someone with mental health difficulties because as we all know, us and our clients get mental health “flare-ups” outside of the therapy office and we might not have anyone around us who can help us when we need it. Therefore, it is really useful to know who to turn to when we need some help, support and guidance. So I’m going to share an extract from a random therapy reflection that will appear in a future book because it explains how my university counsellor helped me. “As my therapist could see that I was genuinely concerned about December, his main focus was making sure that I had the information I needed to reach out to other mental health support services in case I was having a very intense moment where I needed support. As well as he gave me a lot of other pieces of support that would be useful to me. For example, because I’m awaiting an autism diagnosis, my therapist told me how the university recently changed its policy so people with suspected mental health conditions and people awaiting diagnosis could get support. So he advised me to go to reception and book an appointment with a Disability Advisor. Personally, I flat out hate the term “disability” because I refuse to see my autism as a disability as it has helped me so much in my life except to make friends. But I took the advice anyway. In addition, he told me how there is urgent mental health support available at the university Monday to Friday in the afternoon. Therefore, if there is a crisis then I can email or just come in to get access to this urgent support. That is very useful to know because you never know what the future will bring. Something else my university offers is in the evenings (but I forget which evenings) there are out-of-hours mental health practitioners available. This isn’t too helpful because I’m not on campus in the evenings because I live so far away, but it was still good to know and be aware of just in case. In addition, in the UK, we have something called Samaritans, this is a mental health support charity that my therapist told me how to use. Since these people aren’t trained professionals, they aren’t counsellors and they aren’t therapists. Instead the Samaritans are people to call and basically “sit with” whilst you have your mental health difficulty so they can make sure you’re okay and don’t do anything to yourself or others. And they allow you to talk and they guide you through this difficult time. Also, I still have access to my old private therapist from August so I do have her as an option too. Finally, he advised me to sign up for Canterbury Community Counselling Service. This is meant to be a great service that provides free or low-cost ongoing counselling options for people, and because of this, they have long waiting lists as no one really tends to come off them. Now I haven’t signed up for this yet because I just haven’t, but this is a great resource that my counsellor highly recommends. Overall, when it comes to fear and anxiety, knowing what support you can get is critical and having these sort of conversations was really useful in understanding how there was a lot more support available to me than I thought.” As a result, if you’re a person who experiences negative mental health, then make sure that you know how to get support over the holiday season, because most mental health services like the NHS are closed over Christmas. As well as if you’re a current or future clinical psychologist, then it might be an idea to double-check that your clients know what support is available for them during the month of December. Sometimes you won’t be able to support them but there are plenty of services that might be able to over the festive period. Make Sure You Have A Plan For Bad Mental Health Something I really liked that my private therapist suggested when I popped in to see her the other week was that she stressed the importance of having a plan that was written down. Of course, I refused to do this at first because I “Know” what makes me feel good, I know how to feel better but I knew the problem with this. She mentioned that when we get depressed or have bad mental health we forget these things that make us feel good. She was right of course because I can know everything I want about mental health, but it’s only useful if I can use it when I’m feeling bad. As a result, my point here is if you believe this would be helpful (and I don’t think it hurts to try this) then make sure you or your client writes down a list of things they enjoy. This means when they have negative mental health they can look at the list, remember that they enjoy it and try to motivate themselves to do it so they can get pleasure from the activity and start to feel good again. That is flat out critical. For example, these are the activities listed on my list: ·       Fiction writing ·       Podcasting ·       Writing blog posts ·       Learning copyright ·       Talking to friends Of course, I think only the last one is relatable to any of you, but the point still remains. If I’m feeling bad then I can look at the list and make myself do an activity because it gives me pleasure. And as I mentioned in last week’s podcast episode, activities help you to improve your mood. A Self-Passionate Advent Calendar And Activity Scheduling Speaking of last week’s podcast episode, I want to remind you that Activity Scheduling is flat out critical at all times of the year for mental health. So definitely make sure that yourself, your clients and anyone you love has a lot of fun activities planned for the month of December. This means they’ll be doing behavioural activation and this benefits their mood as they’ll be doing pleasurable activities. In addition, you can do the normal activity scheduling idea I mentioned last week by scheduling these activities in a normal online or paper calendar. Or you can do something a lot more fun because it is the holiday season, and I flat out love this idea. My university counsellor mentioned that I should do myself a self-compassionate advent calendar and I decided to take this idea one step further. I wrote down all the days in December and I made sure I had at least one thing to look forward to each day this month. My thinking behind this is if I feel down or depressed I can look at the date on this advent calendar and I make sure I’ve done that activity for the day, and I can look at the rest of the week’s activities and get excited about that. Here is an extract from my advent calendar for the week this episode goes out: ·       Monday 11th December- writing ·       12th December- Outreach work ·       13th December- Christmas meal at my social group and meeting with supervisor ·       14th December- writing ·       15th December- catch up with best friend ·       16th December- family Christmas meal ·       17th December- Moonpig cards As you can see this week contains a wide range of different types of activities to get excited about and I admit doing Moonpig cards might not sound very pleasurable. But in my family I am very famous for writing cards that make my parents cry so that’s always fun. I hope that gave you some ideas. Another reason why I wrote down all the dates in December is because I can highlight each day before I go to bed and I can visually see how many days left in the month I have. And this I found really useful because it was good to see that it was the 6th of December so 20% through the month and I haven’t had bad mental health yet. It was useful to see that I’m probably going to be perfectly okay. Even today’s date which is the 9th is basically 32% of the month and I’ve been fine for ages. This month will probably be a brilliant month after all. As a result, I would say it might be useful to work with clients, yourself or your loved one to create a list of fun planned activities that you’re going to find enjoyable and get a lot of pleasure from. That way this gives you another way to help manage this scary month. Do Something New Moving onto our penultimate idea for how to support people this December, in early December, I was really scared about this month because I was just waiting for a meltdown. So I wanted to try and be as busy as possible and I wanted to try something new and I wanted to have fun whilst doing it. As well as this thing that I chose has actually been a lot of fun and I think it has helped my mental health a lot. I’ve been learning French on Duolingo. They don’t sponsor today’s episode but Duolingo is actually brilliant. It’s really easy to use, it’s a lot of fun and it doesn’t take long. As well as it’s reminded me how much I enjoy French and other languages. As a result, it might be an idea to do something new and learn something this holiday season. You might download Duolingo and learn that language that you’ve always wanted to. You might take up an art form you’re always been interested or you might want to buy a few books on an aspect of history that you’ve always wanted to learn more about. I think learning is a very powerful tool if it’s something you enjoy. Since it takes your mind off your concerns and your mental health, these language apps are designed to be games so they are fun and it’s nice to feel accomplished. I always like it when I get 100% on a lesson and I get a little well done and whatnot. It’s just a thought but you might enjoy it. I know I have. Be With Friends and Family The final thing I wanted to wrap up this episode with was going back to the basics because yet again I have forgotten the basics. Because I’ve been talking with the three girls I used to do my final year project with and I’ve contacted one of my oldest school friends because she sent me a Christmas card, I’ve realised how nice it is just reconnecting with people. It’s nice knowing what other people are up to and it’s good to reconnect and forge new friendships. I’ve actually liked it so much that next week I think I’m going to contact my two oldest school friends because I haven’t spoken to them in years. I occasionally like and comment on one of their photos on Facebook and wish them a happy birthday. Yet that really is the extent of our communication. I don’t expect it to go anyway but if I reconnect with a friend then that would be great. Therefore, my point is, and this goes for everyone, remember to text your friends and family this December. It doesn’t have to be a long conversation but as long as you contact them then it’s something. It is some social contact that you weren’t getting before and that’s important. You might need to schedule you contacting other people and that doesn’t make you weird or anything. It just means that you want to do it and you might need a little more help to actually get round to doing it. I can promise you if contacting all my friends wasn’t on my advent calendar, I would only be contacting one of them this month. That’s how bad I can be about social contact. Clinical Psychology Conclusion In this mental health-focused podcast episode, we’re covered a lot of different things but all of this is important. It’s important to recognise that December isn’t a magical, perfect month for every single person on the planet, and as future or current clinical psychologists, this is something we have to acknowledge. In addition, it’s critical that us and our clients know how to get mental health support over the holiday period, have an action plan in case of bad mental health, they do activity scheduling, maybe try a new activity and they maintain or make new contact with friends and family members. A lot of these tips are basic mental health stuff, but as I’ve learnt it is always the basics we forget when we have mental health difficulties. And now we’ve spoken about these five tips, I really hope that you’re useful in making yours or your client’s holiday season a little more joyous, merry and filled with good cheer. I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Working With Children and Young People: A Guide To Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References How Activity Scheduling Improves Depressed Mood? 5 Ways To Reduce Holiday Stress I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley for a one-time bit of support.

The entire idea of Activity Scheduling to help people with depression is something I’ve heard a lot about lately. Yet it wasn’t entirely I was feeling intensely down and experiencing a mild depressive episode myself, I learnt just how powerful Activity Scheduling and other behavioural activation techniques can be. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what is Activity Scheduling, how Activity Scheduling improves depressed mood and how to use Activity Scheduling in your own life. If you enjoy learning about depression, cognitive-behavioural techniques and clinical psychology, then you’ll enjoy today’s episode. Note: as always everything on this podcast is NEVER any sort of official medical, psychology or any other type of advice. Today’s 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Why Is Activity Scheduling Needed? When people experience a depressive episode, the vast majority of people can’t take part in activities they used to find fun, relaxing and enjoyable. Since depressed mood, feeling tired and a lot of other depressive symptoms can make people withdraw from the world. And whilst we all know this is true from our lectures and our interactions with service users, I’ve definitely found this recently because there are times when all I want to do is just lay on my bed and not talk, interact or see anyone. I actually just want to sleep but my evil body says no. As a result, these depressive symptoms can make people experience periods of inactivity, which aren’t exactly helpful. Due to these periods of inactivity can help maintain depression. And whilst I don’t have Major Depression Disorder (but most of us can relate because feeling depressed is a part of life. It only becomes a mental health condition when it happens for a long period of time and causes clinically significant levels of psychological distress and impaired functioning), last week at the time of writing I found that my inactivity would only make me ruminate more and more. Whereas today when I finished an activity that brought me a lot of joy (finishing a short story) my depression was burnt away for a few hours. The reason why inactivity can maintain depression is because it causes rumination and makes people focus on their negative emotions and thoughts. Hence, this makes it even harder for people to have the motivation to start positive activities that might decrease their depressed mood. As well as inactivity means a person is likely to miss out on opportunities that could improve their mood. Also, one of my problems for the past few weeks has actually been starting stuff. For example, I know writing a psychology blog post and writing fiction brings me a lot of joy but the motivation is hard to find. I actually meant to start this particular blog post an hour ago, and yet it’s taken me an hour (maybe two hours) to find the motivation to start it. What Is Activity Scheduling? Now that we understand why Activity Scheduling is needed, we need to know what it is and how it works. To put it simply, Activity Scheduling is where a depressed person schedules in activities they enjoy and these activities are likely to increase their mood. Activity Scheduling works by behavioural activation, which is a cognitive-behavioural treatment for depression that focuses on finding and doing activities that the person enjoys. As well as research consistently shows that scheduling and doing these activities increases mood and decrease depressive symptoms. How To Use Activity Scheduling? Firstly, a client would need to monitor their activities for one week so they can note down everything they do. This includes any activities they do and any period of time when they don’t do anything. Clients should do this because it helps them to see when to add in activities and when they start to do activities, monitoring their week allows them to keep track of their mood in relation to these activities. Personally, because I started this blog post last night and I’m finishing it this morning, I’m sort of glad I only keep track of my activities in the morning. Since I have just wasted two hours doing busy work and just laying on my bedroom floor feeling depressed and down because of something in particular. Yet I would want to record both of these things. Secondly, clients should use a calendar to schedule in daily activities because for people with depression, bipolar disorder and other mood disorders, it’s important to keep a regular schedule. Not only because a regular schedule helps with mood stability but scheduling in activities is a way to make sure a client actually does activities at a fixed, appropriate time of day. In addition, it’s important that a client’s schedule stays manageable because a client shouldn’t fill up their schedule with too many activities because that might be too intense for them. As well as it might be helpful for them to choose a mixture of activities. Like some activities that are active and others that allow the client to decompress and unwind. Thirdly, clients should do a mixture of important and enjoyable activities. Since clients need to do fun and enjoyable activities to increase pleasure and decrease their depressed mood. Yet it might take clients a lot of repetition of doing these pleasurable activities to get the same sort of pleasure out of them as they did before their depressed mood. However, important activities are still, well, important as well. Due to these are activities that need to get done but they’re harder to complete when depressed. For example, paying bills, doing a chore, doing coursework or finishing anything at your job. These important activities are important to do because they can help a client increase their sense of mastery and achievement and this has positive knock-on effects as well. Which is even more important when we consider how depressed people are more self-critical so it’s important to balance this out with positive feelings of achievement. Penultimately, it is critical that clients keep their activities small and manageable. This is something I completely understand because this is one of the reasons why me going to Newcastle not long after a mental breakdown wasn’t the best idea. It was way too big and it did a lot more harm than good. Therefore, when it comes to completing a whole task, this can make a client feel very overwhelmed when they’re experiencing depression. So it’s important to break down the activity into small chunks. I did this the other night actually because I wanted to go on my laptop and do some business work but I was feeling way too down to actually do it. So I was just sitting on my desk chair by the door for a bit then I broke down the task of going to my laptop, turning it on and then doing something into smaller chunks. And it helped a lot. Other people might need to do 50% of a task today and then finish it tomorrow, like I’m doing with this particular blog post. As well as sometimes old hobbies feel overwhelming, so it’s useful to start small and gradually spend more and more time doing it. Therefore, one day a client might be able to spend as long as they used to on their hobby and get as much pleasure from it as they used to. Finally, clients should use mood tracking to note changes in their mood. This is a critical step in activity scheduling because mood tracking is a great way to recognise the relationship between doing activities you enjoy and find important and how it benefits your mood. As a result, clients should record their mood before and after an activity and see how they feel. Since seeing a positive difference, even a small one, can help with motivation and continuing to do what you enjoy so the benefits can only grow over time. All whilst your mood remains balanced. Clinical Psychology Conclusion Personally, I do love behavioural activation and activity scheduling because I know firsthand how powerful it is. I was shocked yesterday at how great I felt after finishing that short story because I love writing, it is an activity that seriously love and it was so nice to not feel depressed for a few hours after finishing it. It’s actually fun because it was a Matilda Plum short story, she's a superhero psychologist) and the story’s called “Face of Anxiety” in case you want to check it out in the future. I definitely think that activity scheduling is something not all of us think about in our own lives enough. And if this podcast episode has taught you anything today, please let it be that we all have to do and make time for the activities we love whether you have depression or not. Activities are important so always make sure you have time to have fun, do what you love and smile. Sometimes improving your mental health really is as simple as that. 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 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology Reference Chartier, I. S., & Provencher, M. D. (2013). Behavioural activation for depression: Efficacy, effectiveness and dissemination. Journal of affective disorders, 145(3), 292-299. Cuijpers, P., van Straten, A., & Warmerdam, L. Behavioral activation treatments of depression: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review 2007;27(3):318-326. Ekers, D., Webster, L., Van Straten, A., Cuijpers, P., Richards, D., & Gilbody, S. (2014). Behavioural activation for depression; an update of meta-analysis of effectiveness and sub group analysis. PloS one, 9(6), e100100. Greenberger, D. & Padesky, C.A. (2016). Mind over mood, second edition: Change how you feel by changing the way you think. Guilford Press. Kellett, S., Simmonds-Buckley, M., Bliss, P., & Waller, G. (2017). Effectiveness of group behavioural activation for depression: A pilot study. Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy, 45(4), 401-418. Lejuez, C. W., Hopko, D. R., Acierno, R., Daughters, S. B., & Pagoto, S. L. (2011). Ten year revision of the brief behavioral activation treatment for depression: revised treatment manual. Behavior modification, 35(2), 111-161. Masterson, C., Ekers, D., Gilbody, S., Richards, D., Toner-Clewes, B., & McMillan, D. (2014). Sudden gains in behavioural activation for depression. Behaviour research and therapy, 60, 34-38. Orgeta, V., Brede, J., & Livingston, G. (2017). Behavioural activation for depression in older people: systematic review and meta-analysis. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 211(5), 274-279. Otto, M., Reilly-Harrington, N. Kogan, J.N. Henin, A., Knauz, R.O., & Sachs, G.S. (2008). Managing bipolar disorder: a cognitive behavior treatment program. Oxford University Press. Veale, D. (2008). Behavioural activation for depression. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 14(1), 29-36. Weinstock, L.M., Melvin, C., Monroe, M.K., & Miller, I.W. (2016). Adjunctive behavioral activation for the treatment of bipolar depression: A proof of concept trial. Journal of Psychiatric Practice 22(2):149-158. 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 go onto any app store, autism support group or anywhere to be honest and search for games or items designed to help autistic people, then you will find some type of serious game. Since the gamification of autism is becoming more and more popular and even more apps, games and toys are being developed to help autistic people. There are tons of apps and other examples of serious games designed to teach autistic people social skills, life skills and other important skills that they sometimes lack due to their condition. Yet the gamification of autism raises a critical question that needs to be answered. How effective actually are these games? That’s the focus of today’s psychology podcast episode and if you enjoy learning about mental health, autism and neurodivergence. Then you’re in for a treat! Today’s clinical psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Gamification Of Autism: A Guide To Clinical Psychology, Cyberpsychology 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Introduction To The Gamification Of Autism (Extract From Gamification of Autism. COPYRIGHT 2023 CONNOR WHITELEY) Moving onto the first chapter of the book, we need to understand the topic at a general level, because if you’re anything like me before I really started investigating this topic, then you might not know a few things. Since I have always loved autism research, finding out more about it and trying to help people, but that seriously does not mean I knew anything about gamification. And what I tend to find when I talk to someone about what I did on my placement year and that I did a literature review on the topic, I found some people knew what gamification meant as a definition. But beyond that, they were clueless to how this was used in autism effectively. As a result, in this chapter, we’re going to talk about what are interventions, gamification and autism to make sure everyone is on the exact same page for the rest of the book. That’s what we’re going to look at now. Therefore, using technology and combining it with psychological interventions is not new, because it is only increasing given how technology can be used to motivate and engage users (Gaudi et al., 2019). And I feel that we are definitely at the point where our technology is good enough that it can definitely be used on a whole range of conditions thankfully. Some examples of technology that can be used in interventions include, serious games (more on that later on), structured-oriented videogames designed for learning as well as therapy in a fun environment (Alvarez Reyes et al., 2019), and game-based interventions. Again, we will talk a lot on how these different pieces of technology and games are used in clinical interventions of autism but the most important thing about all of them is that by using technology to encourage motivation and learning (Mairena et al., 2019), we are able to overcome some massive limitations of more “traditional” psychotherapy. For example, we are aware that an autistic person cannot sit down for very long and they lose interest very quickly. This makes it very, very difficult to get them to engage with an hour-long therapy session, so technology can be helpful in this task. Nonetheless, I certainly think one of the most interesting and possibly exciting things to note here is that this combination of technology and intervention is basically a brand-new frontier that still needs to be explored in great detail. For example, we need the technologically aided interventions to be created in the first place so that would definitely be exciting for developers, but we also need to test it on autistic children (again that’s another exciting area). Yet we need to empirically test these technologically aided interventions too and that’s the point of this book. I want to show you the current research and state of this area and hopefully inspire some of you to help improve it for the future generations. What Are Interventions? In the rest of the book, we’re going to see the term interventions an awful lot, and normally in my books, this refers to different types and forms of psychotherapy. Yet in this book, the term interventions is going to be used as a sort of umbrella term to talk about all the different examples of serious games and gamification. As well as all the serious games and examples of gamification mentioned in the book have been widely used to emotionally and socially train children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs; Boucenna et al., 2014; Grossard et al., 2017; Malinverni et al., 2017). Additionally, before I start giving you a definition and talk more about autism. I want to outright say that I don’t like the term Disorder for any psychological condition, even more so for autism, and this is very much biomedical model thinking. Since this model sees autism as a pathology that needs to be “cured” but that’s rubbish. But I’ve already written that argument in different places so I will be leaving it out of this book. What Is Autism? Furthermore, Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) refers to a wide range of neurodevelopmental conditions that can be characterised by repetitive behaviours, impaired social skills, and intense interests (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Moreover, the main reason why autism is of interest to the gamification literature is because with the autism population increasing (Fang et al., 2019), mental health services are of course looking for cheaper alternatives to the traditional Early Years Interventions. Some of these common interventions include Dance/ Movement therapy (Scharoun et al., 2014), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Perihan et al., 2021) and psychopharmacological interventions (Accordino et al., 2016). But the autistic community is increasingly becoming interested in interventions that use games and technology. For instance, games are increasingly being used in school environments within recent years (Whyte et al., 2015). One of the reasons for this is because autistic children have been deemed to view virtual environments as more predictable than non-virtual environments, so they are more likely to last in virtual environments for longer (Mitchell et al., 2007). Personally, I’m not exactly sure I like the phase children have been deemed because I think it sounds a little cold and uncaring towards children, but that’s what academia is like at times. As well as these virtual environment examples is a good one to show how using technology can help autistic people cope better when they might not be able to do as well in physical or real-world environments. This is something else we’ll explore later. As a result of this increased interest, a lot more ASC interventions are starting to adopt and become comprised of digital interventions. Allowing people with autism to improve their symbolic play, communication as well as social skills. In addition, what I think is very good about all of this is that having digital components of interventions isn’t hard to achieve, and this can be very seamless considering that high video game use is often reported in ASCs (Coutelle et al., 2021). The Problem We’ll Learn About However, I will be the first to admit, as great as all this understanding is about what serious games are, gamification is and what autism is, there is a major, major problem with this area of research. This problem is actually so problematic that it is actually one of the first things that interested me in the topic when my supervisor suggested it. And this is the problem that the evidence base for the effectiveness of serious games and similar interventions is very limited, as well as there are even some studies and researchers that question the very need for specific games in the first place (Alkhayat & Ibrahim, 2020). Although, I will note upfront here that even though I am mentioning these studies. Of course, I am the very, very last person who would ever deny that autistic people do face challenges and difficulties in the world. Hell, if I was denying that I wouldn’t be writing this book or done podcast episodes on autism. Yet I am highlighting that there is evidence serious games aren’t needed considering the effectiveness of non-specialised games, but that’s something we might explore later on. Anyway, the major problem with the gamification literature is that many of these studies are mere proof of concept tests that are comprised of small, inadequate samples and believe me, they seriously lack ecological validity. This is rather alarming in my opinion because when we consider the increased interest in the development of gamification of the ASC community, it’s important that we examine the area to see how empirical it is by looking to understand the field’s current weaknesses and areas of potential improvement. And oh yes, there are some serious areas for improvement and that is why this is such a great topic to explore. 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, Cyberpsychology 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References Accordino, R. E., Kidd, C., Politte, L. C., Henry, C. A., & McDougle, C. J. (2016). Psychopharmacological interventions in autism spectrum disorder. Expert opinion on pharmacotherapy, 17(7), 937-952. Alkhayat, L. S., & Ibrahim, M. (2020). Assessing the effect of playing games on the behavior of ASD and TD children. Advances in Autism. Alvarez Reyes, G., Espinoza Tixi, V., Avila-Pesantez, D., Vaca-Cardenas, L., & Miriam Avila, L. (2019, March). Towards an Improvement of Interpersonal Relationships in Children with Autism Using a Serious Game. In The International Conference on Advances in Emerging Trends and Technologies (pp. 315-325). Springer, Cham. American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th edition). American Psychiatric Publishing: Arlington. Boucenna, S., Narzisi, A., Tilmont, E., Muratori, F., Pioggia, G., Cohen, D., & Chetouani, M. (2014). Interactive technologies for autistic children: A review. Cognitive Computation, 6(4), 722-740. Coutelle, R., Weiner, L., Paasche, C., Pottelette, J., Bertschy, G., Schröder, C. M., & Lalanne, L. (2021). Autism Spectrum Disorder and Video Games: Restricted Interests or Addiction?. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1-22. Fang, Q., Aiken, C. A., Fang, C., & Pan, Z. (2019). Effects of exergaming on physical and cognitive functions in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review. Games for health journal, 8(2), 74-84. Gaudi, G., Kapralos, B., Uribe-Quevedo, A., Hall, G., & Parvinchi, D. (2019, October). Autism Serious Game Framework (ASGF) for Developing Games for Children with Autism. In Interactive Mobile Communication, Technologies and Learning (pp. 3-12). Springer, Cham. Grossard, C., Grynspan, O., Serret, S., Jouen, A. L., Bailly, K., & Cohen, D. (2017). Serious games to teach social interactions and emotions to individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Computers & Education, 113, 195-211. Mairena, M. Á., Mora-Guiard, J., Malinverni, L., Padillo, V., Valero, L., Hervás, A., & Pares, N. (2019). A full-body interactive videogame used as a tool to foster social initiation conducts in children with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 67, 101438. Malinverni, L., Mora-Guiard, J., Padillo, V., Valero, L., Hervás, A., & Pares, N. (2017). An inclusive design approach for developing video games for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Computers in Human Behavior, 71, 535-549. Mitchell, P., Parsons, S., & Leonard, A. (2007). Using virtual environments for teaching social understanding to 6 adolescents with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 37(3), 589-600. Perihan, C., Burke, M. D., Bowman-Perrott, L., & Gallup, J. (2021). Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and ASD. Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders, 1028-1032. Scharoun, S. M., Reinders, N. J., Bryden, P. J., & Fletcher, P. C. (2014). Dance/movement therapy as an intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 36(2), 209-228. Whyte, E. M., Smyth, J. M., & Scherf, K. S. (2015). Designing serious game interventions for individuals with autism. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 45(12), 3820-3831. 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.

On all of our journeys to become qualified psychologists regardless of the area we want to work in, life will happen and life will get in the way. Be it the death of a loved one, our own mental or physical health or another factor that is outside our control. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, we’ll be looking at the way different life events can impact our psychology journey and how we can better deal with these events. If you enjoy learning about mental health, careers in psychology and real-world experiences, then you’ll enjoy today’s episode. This podcast episode has been sponsored by Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers in Careers In Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Business 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Why Am I Doing This Podcast Episode And What Will Be The Structure Be? Originally, I wanted to write this podcast episode last week because USA Today Bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch who I have a fairly good working relationship with, and Dr Marianna Trent of The Aspiring Psychology Podcast, put out two very good resources. I’ll quote a little bit from Kris because what she said really hit home, and then Dr Marianna Trent gave me a lot of ideas about how to frame this for other psychology people. However, I’ve been wanting to do this sort of podcast episode since my last meltdown (at the time of recording anyway) in Newcastle in late October 2023. Due to this meltdown taught me a lot, it framed a lot for me and the different things I want to talk about in today’s episode really helped frame my recovery better. And for newer listeners of the podcast episode, if you want to learn more about my mental health difficulties that were amplified in August 2023, please check What is Person-Centred Therapy? And What Is Emotional Dependency and Locus of Evaluation? Anyway, for the rest of this psychology podcast episode, I’ll be exploring some general life rolls and life events that might affect you on your psychology journey. Then I’ll talk about them and reflect on them and then I’ll narrow in on my own experiences using a brilliant quote from Kris’s blog post. Afterwards, I’ll explain why Kris’s blog post has a lot of powerful lessons for all of us. The life events I’ll be covering are death and grief, the ending of a major relationship and mental health. How Can Death And Grief Impact Your Psychology Journey? When someone major in our family or social network dies then this is extremely impactful on us. Maybe a parent, a close family member or a very close friend dies and you have to deal with all the grief, funeral arrangements and everything else that is forced on you when someone important dies. If this happens to a psychology student then this might mean you cannot focus on your studies, you might not be able to focus on exams and you might miss deadlines because you’re dealing with a lot. Equally, if you’re more advanced in your psychology journey then you might have the same problems as professionals, even more so if you’re on professional placements during your Doctorate of Clinical Psychology. Furthermore, if you’re a psychology professional, like a clinical psychologist, working in a service that involves a lot of grief and trauma. As well as if you know that a lot of clients with mental health difficulties associated with cancer deaths come in, then that can be very upsetting and triggering for you. Then this might have a knock-on effect on your work, your ability to focus and your ability to deliver high-quality care that our clients serve and come to us for. None of these effects or impacts makes you a bad person. It makes you human, relatable and it certainly doesn’t make you weak or anything. Therefore, when there is a death in the family or your social network, you need to grieve, you need to process your emotions and you need to make sure you’re going to be okay. If you’re a psychology student then talk to your university. I know at my university there’s a lot of different things in place for students that need a small break whilst they focus on things outside their control. So make sure you contact your university, see what your School or department offers and even if they cannot help you, they can still signpost you to other services. I was talking to one mature Masters student the other week and it turned out that her father had died of dementia last year so she needed an intermission. And I’m telling you this because I want you to know that asking the university for an intermission is okay, you can do that and it won’t end your life as you know. It will not make you a failure or a lesser student. You have to do what is right for you. Something I am learning more and more as time goes on. In addition, if you’re a psychology professional, then definitely consider taking some time off and focusing on processing your feelings, do what you need to do and then return to work. And even when you return to work, I’ve heard you can talk to your Line Manager and see if you can be given caseloads that are away from your death experience and you can slowly get back to work. Which actually might be quite nice because you’ll be dealing with fewer clients so you can get the paperwork done without being snowed under between seeing tons of clients and a mountain of paperwork that grows more and more with each passing day. How The End of A Major Relationship Impacts Your Psychology Journey? Whilst I am hardly qualified to talk about this point because I have never been in a relationship, I still know stuff but this will be a briefer section. So you might be a psychology student or psychologist and your relationship of five years and you thought they were the One, is over. The relationship broke up and you would be feeling a lot of pain. That is perfectly normal and you have every right to feel in pain, upset and confused. As well as you might even feel a little depressed and you might not be able to get out of bed or you won’t feel like moving or doing much for a few days. When this does happen then life can also feel a little hopeless, joyless and like you’ll never be able to find happiness again. And there is a minor problem with our professional, especially in clinical psychology, because you’re thinking like then we go into work and hear about a client’s negative mental health experiences. This is hardly going to make us feel great. Therefore, it might be an idea, when we’re experiencing the end of a major, major relationship to take one or two days off. So we can process our emotions, get ourselves together and go back to work or university feeling a little better. Because we will still feel bad, a little joyless and a little empty. However, the best cure for this sort of breakup loss is living, socialising and just being around other people that we like. And everyone else says that you will find love again and whilst I have never been in a relationship, my former emotional dependency still made me feel like this whenever I lost great friends. And I always did manage to friends, so you really can find love and friends and everything again but you have to keep living. How Mental Health Impacts Your Psychology Journey? I’ve already spoken a lot on the podcast about my own mental health breakdowns, my child abuse and trauma so I won’t go into too much depth because you can look at past episodes for that. Yet something I have noticed is, and is NOT a rule of thumb or a generalisation, that some people attracted to psychology do have their own mental health difficulties or past. For example, I have my trauma, self-harming and suicide. A woman in my cohort has anxiety and another woman had domestic violence against her in the past. And at some point if you have had a traumatic past, you will break and you will shatter and this can put your entire psychology journey up in the air because you have to focus on your recovery. Especially, as I was out for dinner with a friend last night and They were saying how They’re 25 now and it is only now they are comfortable admitting that they have recovered from their trauma. And their trauma happened when they were 12 or 13 and was a single incident that had 5 years’ worth of consequences for them. Then it is about them recovering from the aftermath.  That was a hard pill for me to swallow because my mind is still very much, I want to recover now or within a few months. But no Connor, recovery takes a long, long time from mental wounds and trauma. That’s why focusing on recovery is critical. This is basically what I have been doing since August 2023. I have been trying to recover, get myself “solid” again (whatever that means) and I want to be a position in my life where I am okay. And do I know what okay looks like, no, not really. Since I have never been okay, I am a survivor and it is all I know. I don’t know how to live, I don’t know how to not be on high alert and because a lot of old trauma responses like my emotional dependency, have been dealt with. I have no idea how to experience certain things. For example, before my template of a close friendship was intense, all-consuming, very toxic and it wasn’t healthy at all. But now I have a few close friendships but they feel weird to me because they aren’t intense, they aren’t all-consuming and they are healthy relationships for the first time. Anyway, linking this back to your psychology journey, I am honestly scared at the moment because I still have smaller meltdowns. I had my breakdown on the 13th August 2023 then I had my first meltdown in early September then I had another meltdown 6 weeks later. Also, I am beginning to realise that I used to be perfectly okay with so many psychology topics. I was happy to learn about self-harm, suicide, trauma and real-world experiences of the amazing clients that we get to help. But now, I am finding that I am not as resilient to certain things as I once was and certain psychology topics are triggering or upsetting to hear about. Not when I read about them or learn about them in a lecture per se, but in the real world when people actually have to deal with these things. I am not always okay with that. And it scares me. You all know I love psychology, I love this podcast and I love clinical psychology tons. It is my world, my domain and it is where I want to work so badly in the future because I love this profession. Therefore, with me still having meltdowns on occasion, with me still being scared, fragile and not always okay with my own past and mental health, I am scared that I will never be okay enough to do the work I want to do so badly. That scares me and I know I am not the only person that feels like this. In addition, these feelings aren’t always helped by the way that my life is stupidly busy. For example, my Masters degree takes up a lot of my time (as you would expect), my Mondays and Fridays are busy helping out a friend run his control group for his PhD and even my Thursdays which look free on paper are busy because my counselling (which ends today as I write this post) is at a weird time. Yet this week I’m working all day Thursday anyway. I raise this because normally in therapy and other mental health work, we always try to say to clients, you need to find activities that make you happy as well as you need structure and routine. At least I do because of my autism. However, this is difficult because I have a good structure and routine, but I am not able to focus on writing, publishing and my business as much as I want to. And I know this isn’t very relatable but you can substitute it for any hobby or any other activity that keeps you grounded and really helps. I used to be very stressed about this lack of writing time, but unfortunately Kris’s husband, Dean Wesley Smith who is a sensational writer and I have a good working relationship with him, had a shattered shoulder after a charity run one weekend. Kris wrote a blog post with something I want to quote and then I’ll explain why this is useful for all of us in terms of mental health recovery. “I know that my mind will be very busy with the changes to our lives. We have to make adjustments for the next several months as Dean heals. As I’ve written many times before, shit happens. We all have to deal with those things and take the time to work through them. Sometimes, writing isn’t possible. Sometimes, writing what you were writing before the event isn’t possible either—at least, not for a while. Maybe not at all. Events change you. The person I was before Dean fell is not the person I am now. Dean is not the same person either. We don’t know how much will change, but some things will. Other things won’t change. We’re both writers, after all.” As a result, there are three things I want to reflect on here. The first paragraph stresses how when something happens, our minds are very busy and we have to change and adapt to a new reality. For Kris, this meant adapting into a new routine to help Dean heal and recover from his shattered shoulder. For me, this means I need to allow myself to change and adapt because my mind is filled with recovering, being okay and adapting to a very new and exciting reality. A reality where I am loved, where there is no risk of me being beaten and a reality where I can be me without threat of death. After a decade of that reality that is extremely hard to get used to. Secondly, I want to reflect on the next three paragraphs because Kris points out how in life, life events and life rolls will always happen and you cannot control them. These will happen, that is just how life works. Yet it is our job and our responsibility to work through them so we can keep living and enjoying life, and having fun. As well as, you can change writing for another activity that brings you joy, so if you were doing an activity then maybe you will need to stop for a little bit, or slow down or change it entirely. I’ve written a lot since my breakdown. I’ve written a lot of science fiction, some fantasy and some mystery, but I have a lot of critical voice about romance. Since a good romance is positive, happy and there is chemistry between the two love interests. I do not know if I am able to get in that headspace for now where I can be so positive, so focused on the romance and I have hit all the traditional romance expectations that readers love. That doesn’t make me a failure, it just means I don’t want to go there at the moment, but I will in the future. Because I am a writer, but I have to focus on adapting to this new reality and recovering first. Finally, Kris talks about events changing you, and that is extremely true. Since like Kris, ever since my life-changing, I have not been the same person. I can feel emotions for starters, I am no longer a survivor and I am a shard of the person I used to be in a good way. And that is extremely hard but I loved when I read that quote because it was meaningful. I am changed and that’s okay because there is always a lot of stuff that doesn’t change. I am still a podcaster, a writer, a business owner, a psychology student. I still have amazing listeners, readers and a family that loves me. As well as I have a group of friends that is growing and I am happy with. So whenever you feel like your life is changing and it shattering, just know that things will change and you will have to focus on your recovery and adapting. Yet there are always things that don’t change and they will always stay the same too. Clinical Psychology Conclusion and A Footnote On Spoon Theory At the end of this podcast episode that focused on Careers In Psychology and your psychology journey, I want to remind you that life rolls will happen. You will be upset, blindsided and you will feel like you’re drowning. Just make sure that you process your feelings, seek professional help if you need to and just make sure that you’re okay. You will have to adapt and change because of your life roll. I won’t pretend that you won’t and chances are, you might be a different person afterwards and that’s okay too. As long as you know when to get professional help, if needed, and you focus on the things that are the same too. Personally, I am having to really prioritise these days because I am still not 100% and I am still learning and trying to train the New Me about certain aspects of life. For example, early today I wanted to get up at 7 am and be on my laptop doing some work by 8 am. I couldn’t get up, I was too scared about some stuff and I was struggling a little so I woke up at 8 am and I got to my laptop about 9:18 am. It wasn’t ideal but I was compassionate because that is still better than some past Tuesdays. Since Tuesdays are my only free days to be honest. Therefore, I have to really focus and really prioritise what I absolutely have to get done that day. If you’re on my email list, you might know I haven’t been emailing very much lately, this is why. I have to focus on the podcast, writing and the various online courses I’ve paid for. Then university work takes up a lot of my time too, but that’s okay and remembering Spoon Theory helps too. When life events happen, the old saying of “life is what you make it” still holds true, you can allow life events to harm and control you, or you can start walking the very long and hard but joyous journey towards recovering and getting past your life events too. But this is a choice, a hard one, but the end result is all within your power. I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode. If you want to learn more, please check out: FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET Careers In Psychology: A Guide To Careers in Careers In Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Business 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast by Dr Marianna Trent- Unknown Episode Kristine Kathryn Rusch- Business Musings: Spoons (A Process Blog) Available at kriswrites.com Kristine Kathryn Rusch- Business Musings: Focus And Escape. Available at kriswrites.com I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley for a one-time bit of support.

Whether you’re a parent or a therapist of a teenager and they make a gender disclosure to you, this can be a potentially uncertain and scary time for both of you. For therapists, you might be uncertain about how to support a transgender person specifically. For parents, you might not know how to support your transgender teenager as well as clients might want to disclose their affirmed gender in a therapy session with the parent so they have the support of a therapist during the disclosure. Since as you’ll see later in the episode, self-harm, suicide and depression are unfortunately common effects of transgender people not being in a supportive environment. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll see why supporting a transgender teenager is critical and how therapists and parents can support transgender teenagers. If you enjoy learning about mental health, psychotherapy and transgender topics, you’ll love today’s episode. Today’s 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Structure Of This Psychology Podcast Episode I want the majority of this podcast episode to be aimed at parents because I want them to understand and learn why it is important to support their teenager after a gender disclosure. As well as I want to offer them a lot of practical (unofficial) tips and ways to affirm their teenager’s identity so we can hopefully prevent the large majority of negative mental health outcomes. Like suicide, depression and self-harm. However, the reason why I am talking about this topic on my psychology podcast where most of my audience members are psychology students, young people and clinical psychologists, is because this is critical for current or future therapists to understand. Since both parents and teenagers will probably need psychological support during this time, and it is always useful to read this parent information. As this helps us to understand and empathise with what the parent has experienced before they come to us. Additionally, if someone in your psychology workplace comes out as trans or even if you make a transgender friend, it’s always useful to be aware of how to support and affirm their gender identity. Why Is Supporting Transgender Teenagers Important? A lot of research has been done over the years on transgender mental health and the awful consequences of trans people not living in a supportive environment. For example, Eisenberg et al. (2017) found roughly 66% of transgender teenagers have had suicidal thoughts as well as this is further supported by Veale et al. (2016) who found 65% of 14 to 18-year-olds have seriously thought about ending their own lives, and this is extremely concerning because only 13% of cisgender teenagers considering ending their own lives during this same age period. Therefore, therapists and other physical and mental health professionals who work with transgender teenagers can testify that having supportive parents is an extremely positive game changer for teenagers, and there is research supporting this argument too. For instance, Trans Pulse (2012) conducted research that found the following. · Transgender teenagers with supportive parents had 72% life satisfaction compared to only 33% for teens with unsupportive parents. · 64% of teens with supportive parents had high self-esteem compared to only 13% for those without parental support. · 70% of supported transgender teens had excellent mental health compared to only 15% of unsupported teens. · 100% of teens with supportive parents had good housing compared to 45% of those lacking parental support. When it comes to negative outcomes, only 23% of teenagers with supportive parents experienced depressive symptoms compared to 75% of teens without supportive parents. Also, only 4% of transgender teenagers with supportive parents attempted suicide in the past year compared to 57% of teens without support. Therefore, there is a lot of personal and research evidence that highlights how important parental support is for transgender teenagers. This leads us to our next section and question. How Can Parents Show Support For Their Non-Binary Or Transgender Teenager? Since it is only a tiny, tiny minority of people that have to ever “come out” about their gender, no one really understands what it’s like. Therefore, whenever a teenager comes out about their gender identity, it is important to know that they are revealing an extremely important and very vulnerable part of themselves. And they are putting themselves in a very courageous and scary place because this important part of them could be rejected. Personally, I’ll admit this was very scary for me to because I came out as trans non-binary to my parents a few weeks ago actually. And even though the relationship between my parents and myself is a lot better, healthier and great as far as LGBT+ topics are concerned, this was still an extremely scary topic for me to reveal and I had no idea what was going to happen. Thankfully, they accepted it and they love and support me. As a result, it is important to know how to affirm a transgender or non-binary person gender identity to hopefully prevent some of those worrying mental health outcomes mentioned above. Therefore, here are some ways to affirm a teenager’s gender identity · Affirm their gender by using their affirmed-gender’s pronouns and name. This is important because your transgender teenager would have spent a lot of time and emotional energy choosing their new name, so it might feel upsetting and it might feel strange to use a new name, but it will become easier over time. · Help to prevent bullying and when it happens, address it. · Prevent and address any cruelty and harm aimed at your client or child · Allow your child to show you who they are and love your child fully. · Help them access gender-affirming therapy and medical services. · Work with your teenager’s school to make sure they can use the affirming bathroom and there are affirming classroom practices in place. For example, using their affirmed or “chosen” name on school materials and the register. · Help your teenager explore and progress in their social transition when they’re ready for it. Other Ways To Affirm Your Teenager’s Gender Identity Another way to affirm your teenager’s gender identity is to educate yourself so listen to podcast episodes (like you are now), read books, watch videos and more to help educate yourself about the topic. And even before I realised I was watching these videos and learning about the topic because I was trans myself, I have to admit it was a lot of fun and this is a really interesting area. Furthermore, you need to accept your own feelings because it is perfectly okay to feel a sense of loss when your child makes a gender disclosure. Since parents do plan for their child to do X, Y and Z as their Gender Assigned at Birth, so when this changes, your hopes, dreams and your expectations change too. You might feel angry, overwhelmed and confused about why this is happening, and I get that. These are normal reactions so please make sure that you process and deal with your own feelings, but make sure you support your child. That is the most important thing during this whole process. Building upon this further, make sure you listen to your family member in a nonjudgemental way. Since transitioning is difficult and it is a journey that takes a hell of a lot of courage, so please allow your teenager to be hopeful and guide you so you know what they need from you. In addition, it’s important to know there is no one right way to be trans, because not everyone’s journey is the same. Yes, it is true that some people know their trans ever since they were a small child, other people don’t realise it until puberty and others still don’t realise it until much later. Personally, I only realised I was trans non-binary because I haven’t “felt” like a man for years and then over the summer during my therapy work, it dawned on me that I don’t “feel” like a man not because of my abuse and trauma. But because I just don’t connect to a male identity and I am just me. Not a man, certainly not a woman, just me. Also, some trans people might be militantly active about their gender identity, some people might not. I know some people that are very active about their gender identity, but I am seriously not. I’m extremely passive about me being non-binary, so it’s up to the teenager to decide how they want to be trans and what being trans being to them. Finally, be happy for yourself and for your teenager because yes, the transgender journey is hard. I will not lie about that for a moment. Yet transitioning from a birth gender to who you really are is a hopeful, positive and affirming thing that is amazing. So if you allow yourself to be happy for your teenager because they’re finally being who they always wanted to be, then you’ll find a lot of joy in the process too as you see your child become happier, more authentic and enjoy living their best life. Clinical Psychology Conclusion Whether you’re a parent or a therapist or both and you have a transgender teenager, the most important thing you can do is support them during this difficult time for them. The fact that they are transgender doesn’t make life difficult, it is the world we live in that is going through a massive hating period towards transgender people, and it is that negative trans world that makes life difficult for trans people. Yet the family home and the parental environment is the perfect place to offer a trans person the love, support and protection that they have the right to feel. The same goes for the therapy room. Just like cisgender clients, whenever a trans person walks into a therapy room whether they are for mental health difficulties related to being trans or not, they deserve to feel and experience the same security, safety and sense of welcome that all our other clients feel. And that sense of security and safety and openness to be their authentic self all starts with their gender identity being affirmed and after this podcast episode, you now have a great starting point in knowing how to do just that. 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Clinical Psychology References Eisenberg, M. E., Gower, A. L., McMorris, B. J., Rider, G. N., Shea, G., & Coleman, E. (2017). Risk and protective factors in the lives of transgender/gender nonconforming adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 61(4), 521-526. Eisenberg, M. E., Gower, A. L., McMorris, B. J., Rider, G. N., Shea, G., & Coleman, E. (2017). Risk and protective factors in the lives of transgender/gender nonconforming adolescents. Journal of adolescent health, 61(4), 521-526. http://transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf Iverson, Jo. (2020). Once A Girl, Always A Boy. Berkeley, CA: She Writes Press Perez-Brumer, A., Day, J. K., Russell, S. T., & Hatzenbuehler, M. L. (2017). Prevalence and correlates of suicidal ideation among transgender youth in California: findings from a representative, population-based sample of high school students. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 56(9), 739-746. SANSFAÇON, A. P., GELLY, M. A., FADDOUL, M., & LEE, E. O. J. (2020). Parental support and non-support of trans youth: towards a nuanced understanding of forms of support and trans youth's expectations. Enfances, Familles, Generations, (36). Seibel, B. L., de Brito Silva, B., Fontanari, A. M., Catelan, R. F., Bercht, A. M., Stucky, J. L., ... & Costa, A. B. (2018). The impact of the parental support on risk factors in the process of gender affirmation of transgender and gender diverse people. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 399. Veale, J. F., Watson, R. J., Peter, T., & Saewyc, E. M. (2017). Mental Health Disparities Among Canadian Transgender Youth. The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 60(1), 44–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.09.014 I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page. However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you. Which I am going to say right now. Thank you! Click https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley for a one-time bit of support.

The day this developmental psychology and cognitive psychology podcast episode comes out, is the start of Transgender Awareness Week 2023. Therefore, I wanted to cover the really fun topic of using “They/ Them” pronouns to describe non-binary people and most importantly, the psychological reasons why some people find using “Them/ They” really hard to describe people. Then we’ll look at ways to overcome these difficulties. If you enjoy learning about transgender topics, developmental and cognitive psychology with a hint of mental health, then you’ll love today’s episode. This 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Busting A Transgender Myth Immediately Before we dive into today’s episode, I just want to bust a myth upfront because there is a very right-wing myth in society that if you get a person’s pronouns wrong then they are going to shout, scream and berate you. I’ve heard that myth tons of times and it is funny because it just isn’t true. In my experience, if you get them wrong then the person will simply correct you and then you try and remember them. Then if you make a mistake again then apologise and as long as you’re trying to put the effort in and you aren’t purposefully misgendering them then they’ll be okay. The amount of times I’ve misgendered my non-binary friends by accident is bad on my part, but I apologise, I try and I am a lot better than I used to be. It’s very rare now I misgender one of them but my other non-binary is newer so I’m still learning. But they don’t get annoyed with me because that annoyance is a myth unless you’re being horrible on purpose. Why Am I Talking About “They/ Them” Pronouns On A Psychology Podcast? Quickly before I dive into the main topic of today’s episode, I want to stress here that this is the perfect topic for a psychology podcast. Since “They/ Them” pronouns are a part of human language and language development, so this pulls on a lot of concepts from developmental psychology. Also, in today’s episode, we talk about the brain and other concepts from biological psychology and neuropsychology, as well as we discuss gender identity which is another topic from developmental psychology. Therefore, this is a great and really interesting podcast episode that draws on a lot of psychological knowledge. Then lastly for this quick section, there is a chance that as a current or future clinical psychologist, you will meet a transgender person in your therapy room at some point. So knowing about the importance of pronouns and the different challenges other people have could be important for the therapeutic work and making sure that your therapy room is an affirming space for the client. Why Using “They/ Them” Pronouns Are Challenging For Some People According To Neuroscience? In a moment, I’ll explain the importance of pronouns because that often gets missed when these topics are covered, but let’s just be upfront about this, some people will never use “They/ Them” because these people want to use the incorrect pronouns as a sign of disrespect and hostility. For the sake of this podcast episode, I am not talking about those people because considering all the problems in the world, if you want to put your energy is fighting and hating and berating transgender people by refusing to simply change what you refer to them as. Then I’m not that interested, I would rather humanity put their effort and hate towards more productive and useful things that are actually problems. For example, solving climate change and holding governments to account for their lack of action. Anyway, there are other reasons why people might find using “They/ Them” pronouns difficult that has nothing to do with hate or disrespect. Since there are reasons related to cultural neuroscience because the human brain across the world has been socially categorised to put people into one of two groups, male or female. For a lot of people, these two categories have become an engrained thought pattern and in cognitive psychology, we know these are called “schemas.” The problem with schemas is that Schemas are difficult to change the longer they’re engrained in our cognitive patterns. This is one reason why it is difficult for some people to use “They/ Them” pronouns because it goes against their schemas. Although, Schemas can definitely be overcome. Why Are Pronouns Important? Just because I feel like this is a topic that gets missed a lot whenever pronouns are discussed, I want to explain why pronouns are important. One thing that has surprised since I’ve started talking about my non-binary friend a lot more when I’m not with them is how much you actually use Pronouns in everyday language. Since I’m surprised the amount of times I used to slow down talking just so I could change the pronoun in the sentence from “he” to “They” out of respect and acceptance for my friend. As a result, it shouldn’t be a surprise that pronouns are a critical part of our communication as well as human language. Due to in our culture, pronouns facilitate communication, they reflect everyone’s gender identity and affirm everyone’s sense of Self. Also, from a sociocultural lens, we have learnt and we always should respect and support for other people’s identities. And I’ll finish this small section, by mentioning that using a transgender person’s correct pronouns is about affirming them, and research shows that when a transgender person lives in an affirming environment then the chance of them committing suicide is a lot, lot less. What Are The Cultural Neuroscience Challenges Of Some People Using “They/ Them” Pronouns? I mentioned earlier that there are some biological and social reasons that can help to explain why some people find “They/ Them” pronouns difficult to use, but these can be overcome. One such explanation is that humans learn traditional grammar rules at a very early age and these grammar rules lead people to associate “They/ Them” pronouns with plurals. This is something that my family strongly associates them with to the point where they get confused when I talk about my non-binary friend, but they’re learning. As a result, our brains might not be accustomed or used to using “They/ Them” pronouns to refer to a single person. Then this socialisation has an impact on our neural processing as this “referring to a single person” is unfamiliar to us so some people get confused, hesitant or get anxious when attempting to use this unfamiliar language in communication. Personally, I can definitely see this in my own family because me and my mum were talking to the other night about this, and she lacks the confidence to use “They/ Them” pronouns because she doesn’t understand the language, she gets confused and I think she might be anxious. But she is definitely learning and she is actually really good because a few weeks ago we were talking about my friend and she was saying “They” a lot. So given a little practice, you can learn this relatively easily. Furthermore, the older a person is, the harder this learning of this new language becomes because our neuroplasticity (the ability of our brains to change in response to new stimuli) decreases with age. So this makes it harder for our brains to learn new language (Mateos-Aparicio et al., 2019). If we connect this to “They/ Them” pronouns then an older person shifting from gendered pronouns to gender-neutral ones does require a mental shift and a change in our language habits. Overall, it does take time and practice to change these language patterns but this difficulty can be overcome with practice and openness. And that’s what I mean about the myth surrounding using the wrong pronouns, if you are willing and friendly to try and use the right pronouns. Then no one will moan at you and if you make an honest mistake (which 99% of mistakes are) then no one will care you made a mistake as long as you don’t do it every single time. How To Overcome Socio-Cultural Stigma and Resistance To Using “They/ Them” Pronouns? Even within psychology, not a lot of people (myself included before recently) think about how our social norms and our social expectations reinforce our use of gender binary in communications. So it is perfectly reasonable that some people might feel uncomfortable or be rather resistant to using “They/ Them” pronouns because they don’t want to experience backlash from other cisgender people or judgement. As a result, to overcome this resistance and stigma, this requires effort and approaching this with an open mind. Now I’m going to share three tips with you to help. Firstly, one of the compromises me and my parents have come up with because both of them get confused when I refer to my friend as “They”, is I try to use their name instead of the pronoun. This is useful because it means I’m able to still respect my friend whilst slowly exposing my parents to “They/ Them” pronouns so they can learn over time. Secondly, be open to making mistakes because that will reduce some of the anxiety you might have about making a mistake. Thirdly, there are plenty of great online resources to help familiarise yourself with gender-neutral language, and practice is a great way to reinforce new habits and this will help the words feel more natural in your brain over time. I can promise you that practice does make perfect. Developmental Psychology Conclusion On the whole, I won’t lie referring to a single non-binary person using “They/ Them” pronouns might be difficult at first. Due to it is unfamiliar to us, there is societal resistance, our neuroplasticity decreases with age and our language habits play a role too. Yet none of these are excuses not to use “They/ Them” pronouns when you meet a non-binary person because if you educate yourself (which you have been doing by listening to this podcast episode), you practice and you approach this with openness, then it is very, very possible to overcome these difficulties that ultimately stem from concerns as well as anxieties about making a mistake. A mistake that no transgender person will judge you for if it is our honest mistake. Which come on, if you’ve listened to the end of this podcast episode then I’m 99% sure that is what your mistake will be. 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 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, you can buy the eBook directly from me at https://www.payhip.com/connorwhiteley Patreon for exclusive access and rewards Have a great day. Cognitive Psychology References Budge, S. L. (2020). Suicide and the transgender experience: A public health crisis. American Psychologist, 75(3), 380. Haas, A. P., Eliason, M., Mays, V. M., Mathy, R. M., Cochran, S. D., D'Augelli, A. R., ... & Clayton, P. J. (2010). Suicide and suicide risk in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations: Review and recommendations. Journal of homosexuality, 58(1), 10-51. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/cultural-neuroscience/202309/anxious-about-mis-gendering-a-non-binary-person Kempermann, G., Gast, D., & Gage, F. H. (2002). Neuroplasticity in old age: sustained fivefold induction of hippocampal neurogenesis by long‐term environmental enrichment. Annals of neurology, 52(2), 135-143. Mateos-Aparicio, P., & Rodríguez-Moreno, A. (2019). The impact of studying brain plasticity. Frontiers in cellular neuroscience, 13, 66. Toomey, R. B., Syvertsen, A. K., & Shramko, M. (2018). Transgender adolescent suicide behavior. Pediatrics, 142(4). Vance, D. E., & Wright, M. A. (2009). Positive and negative neuroplasticity: Implications for age-related cognitive declines. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 35(6), 11-17. Virupaksha, H. G., Muralidhar, D., & Ramakrishna, J. (2016). Suicide and suicidal behavior among transgender persons. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 38(6), 505-509. 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.