Trainee journeys- a Counselling Psychology perspective

Choosing to pursue a career in Psychology is a big decision, and making the commitment to study a Doctorate programme no mean feat. Our trainees are the next generation of Psychologists, bringing with them their experiences, hopes and also their fears. The beauty of becoming a Psychologist is that there is always space for all those experiences, hopes and fears. As each of us learn more about ourselves, we become better able to recognise and support our clients, because of our humanity. We are always in a process of becoming, growing, and changing, and this brings richness and depth to our work as Psychologists. Over the next few months we hope to share more trainee journeys, to show the experiences that propelled them onto becoming Trainees, and also the range of skill they bring to the field as Practitioner Psychologists. Please join us in welcoming our blog writer, Jordan Behnam, Trainee Counselling Psychologist, currently in his final year of study at City University in London.

  

Sitting down to write this blog I am unsure as to what I should write, what you may expect from me or how exactly to layout this blog. Therefore, I shall use this as an opportunity to reflect and give an honest account of where I have come from and how I got to be a final year Trainee Counselling Psychologist. I would like to thank you for firstly for taking the time to read this and I hope you gain something from it.

Being a Trainee Counselling Psychologist is not just my job, I feel that it means so much more to me than that. Being a Trainee Psychologist is at the very core of who I am, it is deeply enmeshed into my identity and can be a source of happiness, pride and even pain. All my life people have fascinated me, and this may have been due to the fact I grew up around such strong characters in an environment I can only describe as unusual. Growing up I wanted to do different jobs at different times in my life. One thing I knew however, was that I loved to speak to people and I did not want a job where people were not the main aspect of it. 

It may be helpful to give you some context as to who I am and where I come from. I was born to an English mother and an Iraqi father in 1995. My father had moved to England with his entire family just before the Iran-Iraq war when he was a teenager and always described to me a feeling of alienation being in this country and a sense that he never belonged. His stories of his early experiences in this country always provoked strong emotions in me whilst also fascinating me and left an indelible mark on psyche. My mother had grown up in Essex and had moved to London as a teenager in an attempt to escape what she felt was a small and boring world, she embraced the diversity of sounds and smells of cosmopolitan London in the 1980s and has lived here since. When I was 5 years old my parents divorced, and I went to live with my mother in a council flat in North London. From then on, I lived with my mother but occasionally saw my father a couple of times a week. I went to a private school (paid for by my father) whilst my mother studied to become a Dental Hygienist and struggled to manage her Bipolar disorder. I believe that it was during these formative years that I began to develop the ability to quickly read and understand other people. My mother had the kind of pure love and innocence that you may see in a young child, for example, if she took me to Woolworths on the weekend she would spend all of her money on buying me a toy (perhaps a Pokémon game?) but would then be left without money to pay for the heating. This kind of behaviour may seem irresponsible to some but I remember it fondly and I am reminded of all the sacrifices my mother made, to go without so she could make me happy. During these years however, my mother could also be quite unpredictable, I would often not know what my mum would do or say when she picked me up from school or what kind of mood she might be in. For example, my mother might be anxiously staring at the other parents as she waited outside school for me, that could mean that she was feeling on edge that day, therefore I would adjust my behaviour accordingly without knowing, all at the age of 6. These early experiences caused me to be a sensitive and timid child right up until my teenage years. However, upon making friends in secondary school I found that the friendships I made were very close ones and these came to serve me well. 

When I was in Year 10 we were required to find some work experience, I had no idea what I wanted to do as I had no interest in school work and assumed that I would end up simply working for my father in his shop. However, my friend asked me if I would like to work with his mother who was a Psychologist. I could shadow her whilst she did administrative tasks in her role as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist who did cognitive assessments for parents whose children were subject to care proceedings. This sounded interesting to me but also meant that I would be able to spend time with my friend outside of school, so I agreed. Whilst working with the psychologist I found the work to be fascinating, then to also hear that she delivered therapy, a role that mostly involved talking to people, so you could help them, I was stunned. A new world had been opened up for me. A world where I could try and help people by talking to them seemed like the most desirable world to me. However, it still seemed like an unlikely dream as I had been told how difficult it was to become a Psychologist. I therefore placed this dream to the back of my mind until I had completed 6th form and was unemployed. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but had been seeing a psychotherapist on the NHS for a few months, I couldn’t really explain why but I found that talking to this lady left me feeling drained afterwards but following this I would feel better later on. Eventually I signed on at the local job centre with the feeling that I didn’t care what I did, I just had to do something, I remember my job advisor’s frustration that I would do any job but that he could not get something for me due to not having enough experience or a lack of local jobs. Eventually however I ended my therapy and realised that I was going to try and become a Psychologist, at the time I had no idea that my therapist was actually a Psychotherapist and I was unaware that Psychologists, Counsellors and Psychotherapists were distinct professions, I assumed they were all Psychologists, but I knew I wanted to deliver talking therapy. I therefore began taking evening classes at City Lit in Psychology and began working with the Clinical Psychologist I knew to add to my experience, I created my UCAS application and applied for universities I knew I would get in to as I wanted to take no risks. Eight months later I was at Swansea University undertaking my degree in Psychology. 

Whilst undertaking my undergraduate degree I worked with a charity on campus that ran a variety of projects. During this time, I led a project that went in to a school for autistic students and used Lego therapy to help children develop social communication skills. I also volunteered in other projects that helped vulnerable adults to lead their own activities within the organisation and I helped children in deprived areas learn to read when I volunteered as a Teaching Assistant at a local school.  I undertook these activities over the three years whilst doing my undergraduate degree, and I must say I sometimes felt like I had taken on too much. I felt that common experience we sometimes feel as aspiring Psychologists that we need to have so much experience if we want to continue climbing the ladder to the Doctorate and I often felt annoyed at myself for feeling that I was not doing enough or that I could not manage the balance between university work, social life and extracurricular activities. I always felt that I had to be doing more to give me that edge and to make me stand out amongst those 200-odd people on my course as I felt we were all competing for so few spaces. If I was to go back and talk to my younger self I think I would encourage myself to be more self-compassionate and take more breaks. I feel that this is something I commonly recommend to all aspiring Psychologists. At the moment I am delivering seminars to Undergraduates and when I tell them I am a Trainee Psychologist their eyes light up, this is a wonderful feeling for me, but then I quickly find myself feeling concerned as they come up to me and express their worry about getting the right placement or having enough time to be doing the hundred and one things they feel they should be doing. This reminds me of my own past worry about being good enough and I remember one occasion when I felt that I needed more experience, so I went on the BPS website and searched for all of the Chartered Psychologists in my area before contacting them one-by-one to ask if they could offer any work/experience. I managed to get a day shadowing a Clinical Psychologist in the area. This is a tactic I would use years later for my doctoral research and although I put in a lot of work and worry for little reward at the time, the number of kind responses I have always received is a testament to how warm the vast majority of psychologists are. My personal tutor at University always took the time to help me and speak to me when she could and she always said that she did not mind this as long as I “passed it on” and this is a mantra that many Psychologists share.

After completing my Psychology degree and getting a 2:1 I stayed on at Swansea University to do my masters in Abnormal and Clinical Psychology. During this time, it was impressed upon me just how varied the backgrounds of Psychologists are. I was both amazed and confused at the backgrounds of the Psychologists I met, how they became Psychologists and how their day-to-day work could look so different. I spoke to the Head of the Department one day whom I completed my research project with. He informed me that in the 1980s he had worked as a Nurse but was given the job of being a porter instead because he stated that he “wasn’t very good at being a Nurse” before going on to re-train as a Psychologist. His days mostly involved running the department and working part-time in the NHS. I also had a lecturer who was something called a Counselling Psychologist and gave lectures on qualitative research, all of which was new to me, little did I know that less than two years later I would be a Trainee Counselling Psychologist undertaking my own qualitative research. Then there was the Clinical Psychologist I knew who had given me work experience when I was at school, she worked in a private setting doing pretty much only psychometric assessments. On top of this, many of my lecturers had PhD’s in psychological research, but were not qualified Psychologists and not able to see clients, yet many of them gave lectures on the effectiveness of therapy or the benefits of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) versus medication. It was all very confusing to me and it felt like an impossible landscape to navigate, one thing every single person told me was that it would be very difficult to get on to a training programme. After having been advised to check the Clearing House website for the statistics on the number of applicants that are actually accepted I was left feeling deflated. However, I felt that I was already on my Master’s course and I decided to apply for a placement at a Brain Injury Service. Due to already having some experience as an Assistant Psychologist, I was offered this placement and enjoyed my short time there learning about the different kinds of assessments and the holistic care offered by the Psychologist colleagues. 

Upon finishing my Masters, I returned home to London. My Masters ended too late for me to apply for the Clinical Psychology (DClin) courses so I decided to use that time trying to get a paid NHS Assistant Psychologist (AP) post. Every single one I applied for I received an almost instant rejection or I heard nothing at all. Eventually I gave up applying and decided to work as a Specialist Brain Injury Support Worker for a private company based in London. This was the best decision I had made even though it felt completely out of my comfort zone, I was well paid and able to choose my hours. However, the greatest part of this job was the humility and compassion I developed in this role. As an Assistant Psychologist we can often work long hours doing (quite often) some mundane tasks. However, as a support worker I experienced a completely different kind of challenge that showed me just how different our colleagues lives can look like. In the space of a year I had gone from the warm comfortable office of an NHS service creating handouts for clients to pushing wheelchairs for miles through central London during rush hour and cleaning long-term wounds sustained in road traffic accidents. I went from a remote, desk-based job to becoming a cleaner, a friend and helper for those same kinds of clients. The experiences imprinted on me during my time as a support worker will never leave me. I was intimidated at first by the thought of maybe having to help someone to the toilet or push a wheelchair through Piccadilly at lunch time, but it left me in awe of the helpers and carers that exist out there and what they do day in day out. 

During this time I decided that I would apply for both the Clinical Psychology Doctorate and also the Counselling Psychology Doctorate programmes, after the Clinical Psychologist I worked with recommended it. I then had a similar experience to when I had applied for paid NHS Assistant Psychologist posts. I found the rejections coming thick and fast with only one course offering me an assessment (not an interview), which I promptly failed. I then had an interview for the University of East London’s Counselling Psychology course but was rejected due to a lack of research methods knowledge. I next received a rejection from Roehampton’s course as it was felt that I had not made it clear why I wanted to be a Psychologist rather than simply going down the Psychotherapy training route. My final option was City University’s Counselling Psychology programme, however I held little hope for this as I was told by others that I was unlikely to get on if I had been rejected by the other programmes. However, I was offered an interview and found myself in a small glass room with a kind interviewer who asked me why I wanted to be a Counselling Psychologist. I remembered thinking that this was my very last chance for at least this academic year and so I briefly told her about my early experiences and how I felt they had given me both an interest in the behaviours in others but also a passion and drive to help those who are suffering. I spoke about my volunteering at University, my brief Assistant Psychology work, my role as a Support Worker, but I placed an emphasis on how my early experiences had shaped me. I remember feeling as though I was “scraping the barrel” so to speak, as though the things I were saying were anecdotal and although relevant, highly unlikely to be the kind of hard-hitting and impressive NHS Assistant Psychologist posts that the interviewer was hoping to hear about. I left the interview feeling proud of my honesty and as though I had done the best I could, but at the same time, feeling that I was not good enough and that perhaps I never would be. A week later I received an email telling me that I had been accepted on to the course and I jumped up and down on the spot and shouted with excitement. It was the proudest moment of my life.

Since then the course has been the most challenging thing I have done in my life. I am now in my final year and I can say that it continues to be difficult. Whilst my colleagues take well-earned breaks after completing all of the taught modules before moving on to complete their theses, I am still working on an assignment I failed at the end of my final year. One theme that we often speak about on the course is the idea of imposter syndrome. The feeling that we are not competent at what we do, that we are actually just fortunate to have gotten as far as we have and that we are not skilled or intelligent enough to do what we do. I experienced this when I got on to my Undergraduate Course and looked out to a hall of over 200 people and thought to myself “how can I compete with all these people?”, then when I started my Masters “this is serious now” and then again when I started my Doctorate “I definitely should not be here”. Forever waiting to be ‘found out’ by the lecturers and told to forget it and choose another career. However, confidence is not innate, confidence is developed over time after repeatedly putting yourself in uncomfortable situations to develop new skills and experiences and showing yourself just how strong and capable you are. Eleven years after my first day of work experience I am proud to say that I am still occasionally failing, sometimes getting confused and regularly a bit stressed. But when that imposter pops his head up I take a second to breathe and remember all of the times I have succeeded after first failing. How enjoyable my course, placements and jobs have been and how many I was rejected for before getting those ones (it is a double-digit number). I now wear my failings with pride, the journey has been, and still is, hard, but it makes the reward so much greater and makes me feel so much more capable when I overcome those setbacks.

Now that I have finished my third year I find myself in a weird place, still correcting a piece of work I have failed, but having been offered a job at my placement and working for the University delivering seminars to undergraduates. I feel that where I am at is an analogy for life as an aspiring Psychologist, this journey is not a linear one, it is not one that can be compared to that of other peoples on this journey and it is certainly not black and white. Taking time this year to reflect with some of my coursemates on how they got on to the course I discovered that we all had very different paths to getting where we are today. Some had Master’s degrees, some did not, some had NHS experience, others had only worked in private or third sectors, some had worked as Assistant Psychologists and others had not. The old me would perhaps be inclined to start comparing myself to others to see where I stand in the ‘hierarchy’ so to speak. However, after 3 years of my course I have realised that such activities are pointless. We all come from different places, have different strengths and weaknesses and that is a beautiful thing and something to be embraced. If you are on the journey of being an aspiring Psychologist I hope that you can feel good enough because perfect does not exist and it is my hope that maybe you will learn to love the journey and realise that psychology needs all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds with all kinds of experiences. 

Thank you Jordan for sharing so openly about your experiences. I am certain it will act as an inspiration for many other aspirant Psychologists considering their own training pathways, and qualified colleagues alike. We wish you all the very best in the last leg of your journey to becoming a qualified colleague. 

If you were inspired by reading about Jordan's journey and would like to write your own blog entry, please get in touch! We welcome all Practitioner Psychologists and trainees to contribute.

Kind regards,

The Pathways Team