Climbing Mount Psychologist: Ambition, Grief, and Becoming a Psychologist. Jacob's journey to Counselling Psychology.
Hi everyone and welcome to our next instalment of the Pathways to Psychology blog. Today we hear from Jacob Williams, Trainee Counselling Psychologist, BABCP- Accredited CBT Therapist, Msc Health Psychology. Jacob shares the rollercoaster path to completing psychology studies. Grit, determination and perseverance don't begin to capture Jacob's commitment. Happy reading!
Jacob Williams
Trainee Counselling Psychologist
BABCP -Accredited CBT Therapist
Msc Health Psychology
Climbing Mount Psychologist: Ambition, Grief, and Becoming a Psychologist
My journey to where I am is best told as a climb: one I began unknowingly underprepared and under-equipped; with no idea there was even a mountain to climb.
Wandering the Foot of the Mountain
I realised as life progressed, that the area you are brought up in plays a significant role on your prospects. The starting point of the mountain varies from one individual to the next. My hometown in the South Wales valleys is classed as a deprived area, and my experience of school, which has been in-and-out of ‘Special Measures’, was uninspiring, unenjoyable, and required resilience to get through. Personally, I don’t feel like I faced hardship - home life was calm and ‘normal’, particularly compared to that of my peers. Growing up felt like I was constantly evading problems by blending in, deflecting, or avoiding. Ambition was low - life’s messages seemed to be; be nice, don’t get into trouble, don’t become a drunk or an addict, don’t be a show off.
I got through school doing just enough to acquire some pretty underwhelming grades and without a clue for the future. Some options included; join the RAF (that idea was shattered when I discovered I was too tall to fly a plane), work in the local Aluminium factory (good money for the area, but my dad specifically told me not to follow his path in life), study something music-related (logical as I enjoyed music and played the guitar to an okay level but, deep down, I think I knew this would be a terrible choice), or find something else. I chose to delay a decision to begin with and was fortunate to have an opportunity to travel to Canada for several months, freeloading at a family friend’s home in Vancouver. During that time, I picked up a ‘Psychology for Dummies’ book and realised that the subject seemed to have a lot of answers for things on my mind. It’s worth mentioning that I studied Psychology in school for a year, enjoyed it, but failed two exams with a very impressive ‘U’, or ‘Unclassified’, because it was that bad. However, the unpressured reading of that book meant I began to dream of the Freudian chaise longue, and this image of my future led to my BSc Psychology.
I entered university, without mentioning the ‘U’s, having never taken studying seriously and, on reflection, a combination of distractibility, impulsivity, and no knowledge of how to study. Much later, as a practitioner delivering a CBT for ADHD group programme, I realised the irony of these skills having been missing in my life for so long.
Heading Up the Base of the Mountain
I studied, enjoyed the topic, received more underwhelming undergraduate grades and naively began applying for the jobs with the gold standard ‘clinical experience’ requirement needed to become a psychologist. This went as well as you might expect, with multiple unrelated jobs, including a stint at said Aluminium factory.
A lifeline was thrown when one of my many applications led to a 3-month, Erasmus+ type placement in a psychiatric hospital in Slovakia. My first clinical experience closely resembled One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, complete with white coats, intimidating ward rounds, and a clear systemic preference for the biomedical model and positivistic interventions. Fortunately, there was no Nurse Ratched. The experience began to shape my idea of the type of psychologist I wanted to become, and I returned with a tunnel-visioned focus on becoming a clinical psychologist.
On return, I was reality-slapped with job rejections and no further opportunities of clinical experience, so I worked as a charity fundraiser and applied for an MSc in Health Psychology in an attempt to boost my career prospects. My MSc felt like my attempt at educational atonement as I tried to remain focused enough to get impressive grades. I remained inconsistent in my focus, struggled financially, and attained a ‘merit’ grade which at least led to further opportunities.
A Clear Path Emerges
In 2016, I finally reached the dizzying heights of an Assistant Psychologist post within a residential care setting across Shropshire and nearby regions, and I became immersed in the devastating world of developmental and complex trauma. The role was a true exposure to the most harrowing examples of life going wrong from the outset and I developed an immense sense of privilege for my own trauma-free life, appreciation for human resilience, compassion, and a level of understanding of human suffering.
I became armed with new psychological language to make sense of how disorder comes to be and, most importantly, how the wounds, to an extent, can heal, if the conditions are right. It was, despite the difficult nature of the role, an experience that taught me there can be a co-existence of hope and despair, exemplified by the concept of post-traumatic growth.
At this point, I was speeding up the mountain, chronic self-consciousness muted by an uncharacteristic sense of self-efficacy. I had progressed to the point of being able to observe the peak - Mount Psychologist. In 2018 I was shortlisted for DClinPsy interview at Trent University.
Avalanche
In April 2018, my father was killed in a road accident.
What can I say about that? Whatever I do say will hijack this from a career journey to an autobiography, and I appreciate I’ve already started to blur those lines. Our career paths and personal lives are inevitably interlinked, some more than others. But we choose these paths due to experiences (fortunate and misfortune), values, and a desire to help that germinated from some seed. I was on my journey and the climate changed, and I am where I am as a changed person from this chapter in my life.
Career wise, my father’s death ground progress to a halt. One month later, I held it together through three interviews at Trent and then cried my way through the ‘personal interview’, making it onto their reserve list. I moved home to keep a closer eye on my mother, left my Assistant Psychologist post, and found myself back in the frustrating cycle of job applications and rejections.
Wilderness
The next two years felt like being stuck in the wilderness of the mountain. There were the inevitable grief-related struggles and thwarted attempts at career growth. I worked as a Family Support Worker and then an Assistant Psychologist again, with two further failed attempts to enter the DClinPsy. The first was because, in my grief-haze, I missed the part of invitational e-mail that required me to confirm my attendance to the interview. A year later, my fourth year of applying, I received no offers to interview and felt utterly despairing with the process.
In 2020, from the combination of a role with a private company that was exploitative (overworked, underpaid, undertrained) and had borderline unethical practices, and the cumulative effect of personal life (I was certainly depressed), I reached what felt like a long semi-controlled descent into burnout. I resigned with no plan other than to escape to a faraway place, attempted to travel to Kyrgyzstan (a military coup occurred a day before my flight), lost myself within Turkey instead, and returned to Cardiff unemployed, figuring that I could last around 6 months with little salary. This break from employment was, while uncertain, a relief that allowed me space and time to recuperate and recalibrate.
A New Route
I discovered the existence of trainee High Intensity Therapist roles within IAPT services, a salaried role that included thorough training as a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist (CBT). Fortunately, I succeeded in acquiring a position with Southern Health NHS Trust.
In entering the world of CBT, this marked the most significant turning point in my career. Becoming an accredited practitioner allowed me to gain the direct therapeutic experience I had desired, minus the chaise longue, and, most importantly, meant that, for the first time, I was employable on my own terms.
I have loved my experience as a practitioner, training with disorder-specific frameworks and practicing mainly with anxiety, depression, and psychological trauma presentations. My goal was to become a ‘complete’ therapist, able to work effectively with anyone who walks through the door. CBT demonstrated the importance of the therapeutic relationship and the necessity of disorder-specific strategies for certain profiles.
I am a strong advocate for the approach. With a strong therapeutic alliance, adherence to strategies has led to improvement more often than not. There are also limitations to CBT. For example, for some individuals, I suspected compliance with the strategies allowed them to remain within therapy, where the most valuable intervention was the warm, non-judgmental environment that facilitated a calm curiosity. I now recognise these as Rogers’ core conditions of congruence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard.
I also found myself frustrated by both dogmatic CBT practice and bastardisation of therapy through watered down versions. Working with complexity requires more than goal setting, formulation, and disorder-specific skills-building. It also necessitates seeing the client as a human, first and foremost, rather than a label. My experiences have shown me there was still so much from the world of psychology to learn and the desire to become a psychologist remained an itch I had to scratch.
The Final Ascent
Six years have passed since I became a psychological therapist. Three years ago, I moved to Glasgow and I decided it was the right time to apply for a doctorate.
My disillusionment with the Clinical Psychology process pushed me away. Frankly, I could not face the disempowering feeling of rejection and helplessly waiting another year for the next cycle. My position had changed significantly from the frustration of the past. I had a good salary and less pressure. I explored Stage 2 Health Psychology, but it didn’t excite me. Counselling Psychology’s emphasis on humanism and a deeper understanding of the theory of psychotherapy did. Although it was self-funded, from my father’s death I had inherited enough money that could cover half of the overall tuition fee. I am both fortunate and deeply unfortunate for that fact.
The Summit
I am now entering my third year of the doctorate. The mountain has flattened out and I am close to the top. As I near it, I am seeing the world of prospects around me. Once this is scaled, I will know that I am capable and equipped to choose the next challenge. But I will sit for a while, maybe shed a tear for the journey, knowing that I have caught up with where I wanted to be, for the loss and the growth that emerged later. Maybe I will buy a chaise longue for myself.
Diolch yn fawr (Thank you so much) Jacob for writing openly and honestly about your journey. Whilst it has been an uphill climb I am certain you will inspire plenty of others searching for their psychology career pathway.
Perhaps reading about Jacob has inspired you to reflect on your own training pathway- get in touch to add your own blog entry.
King regards,
The Pathways Team.
