Reflecting and understanding-Saira's journey to becoming a Counselling Psychologist.

Hi everyone and welcome to the Pathways to Psychology blog. Today we hear from Saira Mahmood, Trainee Counselling Psychologist. Saira reflects on her experiences related to belonging and learning to make space for strong emotions. Her strength in reflection seems to carry Saira to making meaning not only of her own context, but crucially that of her clients. Happy reading!

               Saira Mahmood

Trainee Counselling Psychologist

Someone once asked me what motivates me. This question encouraged me to reflect on why I chose to pursue Psychology at 18, and what has kept me in the helping profession over the past decade. My journey towards Psychology was not necessarily a straightforward one. I was not always someone who felt academically confident or who had a clear sense of direction, and during my A-level Psychology studies I found the subject challenging and was encouraged by teachers to consider whether it was the right pathway for me. However, this experience strengthened my determination and curiosity, and rather than moving away from Psychology, it encouraged me to understand the subject more deeply and explore why it resonated with me.

I suppose it helps to reflect on my early years leading up to that decision. Growing up as a middle-class South Asian woman, born in Germany and predominantly raised in Surrey since moving to the UK in 2003, I noticed an intricacy in my experiences. On the one hand, I had the opportunity to experience travelling and migration across different systems, including sporadic years abroad in Pakistan and the US. Although these experiences occurred during my formative years, they left a lasting impression on me about both the connectedness and individuality of people within different cultural contexts.

I remember feeling othered as an 11-year-old girl at a private convent school in Pakistan for being "too foreign” and then returning to the UK and still struggling with my own sense of identity and belonging. Alongside this, I grew up within relational dynamics at home where emotions were not always prioritised, leaving me with an innate sense of ambivalence about how to be. Even as a young person, I found myself curious about understanding and working through this ambivalence. Looking back, I wonder whether this curiosity, at some level, encouraged my decision to pursue psychology.

I still recall one of my first clinical experiences with a client at the age of 19, where the client's emotional state led to me being physically attacked. At the time, I felt fearful about the unpredictability of working within helping professions. However, I also recognised that I was willing to stay with the challenge of attempting to repair the rupture with this client, while also maintaining compassion and curiosity about what may have led them to act in that way. Although this experience was challenging, it reinforced that I was motivated to stay alongside people even during uncertainty. This experience also encouraged me to separate my own need to be liked from the client's needs.

This client experience was pivotal in strengthening my motivation to remain within psychology and to continue developing my experience. Over the past decade, I have sought opportunities for new learning across a range of settings such as, forensic, private, and charity-based services, supporting individuals with a wide range of presentations, including complex trauma, personality disorders, neurodevelopmental conditions, schizophrenia, psychosis, and addiction.

Working with addiction at HMP Brixton was particularly influential in shaping my thinking. It reinforced the importance of maintaining curiosity rather than making assumptions, and of trying to understand what in a person's context may have contributed to their offending behaviour. I remember one conversation with an individual who described being in prison as feeling more comfortable than life outside, explaining how the lack of opportunities available to him contributed to what felt like a revolving door of offending. Experiences such as these deepened my appreciation for the complexity of human behaviour and reaffirmed the importance of understanding people within the wider context of their lives, rather than reducing them to their actions.

As I have progressed throughout my career, my curiosity has continued to evolve, not only in understanding others, but also in developing a deeper understanding of myself. This curiosity is what led me to pursue clinical training in psychodynamic psychotherapy and counselling at a young age. I can only describe this experience as awakening a different level of self-awareness. It almost felt as though I had woken up from a deep sleep, becoming conscious of aspects of myself that I had never really considered before. Thinking so deeply about myself and my own tendencies felt confronting as a young woman, yet it was also one of the most personally meaningful experiences of my training. One of my greatest insights was recognising my strong avoidance of failure and beginning to understand that failure itself can create opportunities for reflection, growth, and deeper insight. This psychodynamic training has fundamentally influenced my development as a trainee Counselling Psychologist. Throughout the challenges of the DPsych, I have become more able to recognise and sit with parts of myself that feel vulnerable, rather than distancing myself from them, which has strengthened both my self-awareness and reflective practice.

It was during my psychodynamic training that I began to recognise that while psychodynamic thinking felt like a natural fit for me and resonated with the way I had come to understand people, I also wanted to develop a more flexible approach that allowed me to draw on different therapeutic perspectives. I found myself increasingly drawn to the idea of integrative thinking, and Counselling Psychology’s emphasis on creativity, reflexivity, and working across diverse areas felt particularly meaningful to me. Furthermore, the profession’s commitment to social justice and the importance it places on reflecting on my own positionality within the world felt important. For these reasons, pursuing Counselling Psychology felt like a natural progression in my journey.

The course has been intense, but I can confidently say that it has been the right pathway for me. It has been taxing in every way possible, emotionally, academically, and personally. However, one of the things it has taught me is the value of discipline and the importance of remaining open to putting myself in situations where I may not feel completely comfortable, or where I may question whether I am doing a good enough job. As someone who has always placed a lot of importance on doing things well, learning to sit with these feelings rather than avoid them has been a significant part of my own development. I have found that some of the moments I have found most challenging have also been the moments where I have taken the richest learning.

Reflecting on my own journey, I think one of the most important things for anyone considering Counselling Psychology is finding a course that genuinely aligns with their values, interests, and the type of psychologist they hope to become. Throughout my own training, I have come to appreciate that each Counselling Psychology doctorate has its own unique ethos, areas of focus, and ways of encouraging trainees to develop. I think it is important to spend time understanding what you hope to gain from the training, whilst also remaining open to the unexpected learning that comes along the way. In three years, it is impossible to learn everything, but I believe the training provides the foundations to continue learning, reflecting, and developing throughout your career.

Thank you so much Saira for sharing your reflections. We wish you every success completing your studies and look forward to seeing your career as a registered colleague blossom.

Maybe Saira's reflections reminded you of your own experience in training. Get in touch to add your own blog entry.

Kind regards,

The Pathways Team.