On the 18th of March 2022 I helped to support the Widening Access event titled “Is Clinical Psychology for me?”. We had a great turnout with a couple of hundred people joining for the live session, but had many others who received the recording afterwards. There were a lot of really important talks and perspectives shared that I hope supported those who watched in thinking about whether this career is right for them.
As a summary of the day we had various talks on:
- What is Clinical Psychology
- A day in the life of Clinical Psychologists
- Trainee discussion on what it’s like to train in Clinical Psychology while being from minoritised ethnic backgrounds
- A service user and carer representative speaking about how important representation within Clinical Psychology is
- The different pathways onto training
- Applying to training
As a summary of my own background, to give some context to my opinions, I am currently a Research Assistant at the University of Surrey, with a few years’ experience within mental health who’s hoping to pursue Clinical Psychology as a career.
I found the selection of talks incredibly interesting and important, I especially enjoyed the talks where the speakers reflected on their personal experiences. I find that Clinical Psychology can sometimes lean too far into seeing people as numbers: whether in large-scale pieces of research, in applying for training amongst many other candidates or in therapeutic settings in trying to get through waiting lists as quickly as possible. So having spaces where we are reminded of the real people and humanity behind doing this type of work is so important and refreshing.
Particularly when we are thinking about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) within Clinical Psychology, for me it has really highlighted the importance of coming back to people and individual’s experiences way above seeing people as numbers. The point of doing this work is for those experiences which do not make up the majority of this profession to be heard, to include everyone’s voices. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because these people have such incredible strengths and specific skills which make their contributions to Clinical Psychology absolutely invaluable.
One of the main things which stuck with me and that I am taking away following the event is how you are yourself first, before you are a Clinical Psychologist (or absolutely any job for that matter). This might feel obvious to some, but for me and many others I have spoken to it can really feel like: What kind of person do I have to become to fit into the box of Clinical Psychology? This is probably due to a multitude of reasons including how competitive getting into the field is and quite specifically being from a minoritised ethnic background while this field is predominantly White. But many of the talks really reminded me of how invaluable it is to be yourself, remembering the strength in difference and not just the difficulty.
