What if you do actually quit psychology?

This article has been amended from Episode 60 of The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. If you'd prefer to listen to it then you can here. You can also watch it on YouTube here.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Hi, welcome along to the aspiring psychologists podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a Qualified Clinical Psychologist. Now as you might well be aware, the road to becoming a qualified psychologist does not always run smoothly and of course, with the vast number of people who are wanting to join the profession and become qualified, and the small amount of jobs available, it must mean that it doesn't work out for everybody and whilst that might be a painful consideration or realization to make, I thought it was a useful angle that we needed to cover within the podcast. So, that is exactly what today's episode is going to be about. It's a guest interview episode with someone who started out on the route to professional psychology qualification, but then later, had a different course and has had a different outcome. Now, this episode covers different bits and pieces that you might not use in your clinical practice, or that you might not have heard of, as well. So, listen with an open mind and I will look forward to catching up with you on the other side. Hi, I would like to welcome Fiona Maguire to the podcast. Fiona is a coach, a speaker and an author. Hi, Fiona.

Fiona Maguire

Hi, Marianne. How are you?

Dr. Marianne Trent

I'm really well, thank you really well enjoying a little bit of sunshine today, which is nice after all of the rain. How are you?

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, the same thing the sun has come out and it just lifts things up, doesn't it? Really, it's fantastic.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Yeah. So, I know, I'm like becoming an old hand here talking about LinkedIn. But we did meet on LinkedIn, didn't we?

Fiona Maguire

We did.

Dr. Marianne Trent

I love it. Do you love LinkedIn?

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to it. I ignored it for years. But now yeah, I'm really getting into it. I love engaging with new people and finding out what they're doing and you know, how we can work together, collaborate or help each other in any way. It's fantastic.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Yeah and actually, I think it's a really good place to be. If you are an aspiring psychologist, I think anyway, because you can connect with loads of people that are doing the job that you want to do. But you're not an aspiring psychologist anymore. You are a coach, a speaker and an author. Could you tell us a little bit about what you do currently, Fiona?

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, so I'm an intuitive transformational coach. So, I use all my psychological training, but I work on all levels of people. So, my main superpower, if you like, is my intuition and I've really honed my intuition. So, I can access people's unconscious mind, I can access what's going on inside of them and I ask them questions, because if they own it, then you know, that's when we can really do the work, wherever I say, oh, this is what I see. They don't particularly own it, and it doesn't have as much or inspiring, you know, such a deep insight that they get inside of themselves. So, I work with their intuition, I work with their unconscious mind, their energy, their conscious mind, their emotions, their thinking all of them and my aim is to obviously solve the problem they come to me for, but also for them to get a deeper understanding of who they really are.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Great, thank you and obviously, a lot of our listeners might have spiritual or kind of holistic views and beliefs themselves. But when we try to put that into practice, sort of in an NHS setting, that's difficult because of the evidence base, is there an evidence base for the way that you work?

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, so I'm not. People don't have to do anything spiritual with me. They don't have to go there if they don't want to. But what I actually do now is I talk about something that's called the free principles and it was also coined the Inside Out perspective, which Michael Neal called it that, and there's a lot of evidence for that and that's basically the psychological theory of perception how perception really works and therefore how the mind really works and then when you realize that you don't live in reality you live in your own thought created reality, which is your own perception of everything and psychology agrees with that. You know, wouldn't you agree that psychology agrees with that?

Dr. Marianne Trent

It's like a social construction, isn't it? And Meta cognitions, and thoughts about thoughts about thoughts and all of that, so absolutely agree with that angle.

Fiona Maguire

Yeah. So, as soon as people, really, this has been my experience my own personal experience and experience of working with clients. As soon as people realize that they're not they're thinking, and they don't have to be so identified with their thinking, they then paradoxically, start wondering and thinking, well, who am I? And what am I? And if I'm not experiencing the reality, then how do I experience the reality? And when they really open up to that question, if I'm not experiencing the reality, does that explain why? You know, sometimes I have an argument with my spouse, and it's like, we're living in completely different worlds. I don't understand why he she is upset about something. And, you know, they're thinking the same thing and it's almost like we're talking from different universes.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Just like that saying, isn't it? There's three versions of an eventuality, your version, their version and the truth and it's what perception what angle you're looking at that from and also what comes before and what, what trauma might have been around for one or both parties, as to what might be a truly mindful reaction to what's going on now and what might have happened or be a ripple from things that have happened years ago?

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, absolutely and also for me, when I first really got that actually, I'm, I'm just creating lots of stories in my head, that the language I put on it, these are just stories and yes, some of them, to my brain seem fancied. Because this happened in my past, of course, I'm gonna act like this, of course, I'm gonna react like that, or, and then I'll just wait, hold on, but am I really present? Am I here? Am I really present inside of myself? Knowing what's going on inside of me? And am I really present with the other person and if you're in your head, too busy with your own story, then you can't be present, you can't really listen, you can't really hear and a lot of people are just too busy thinking about what they're going to say next, to actually hear what the person said to them.

Dr. Marianne Trent

I hear you and that's a really important consideration for many of our audience as well who might be developing or striving for a career as a therapist. Have you got any tips for ways that we can improve that ability to stay present and not be focused on? You know, is it the listening to hear, rather than the listening to speak?

Fiona Maguire

You know, one of the things that was said to me, and I've got one of my own, but one of the things that was said to me once, and it was part of a bigger course that I was on and Michael Neal said it, he said, listen as if you're listening to music, and there's something in that that just dropped for me. So, maybe that doesn't drop for other people. So, my advice would be, to center yourself to ground to become into yourself, and to know what's going on for you. But to be centered in that you're not lost in your thinking, or your emotions or your feelings, but to be centered and to ground is one of the things I give away for free on my website on how to grounds.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Okay, and I guess I was thinking about what about the bits of music that really resonate with you and you want to join in or you want to sing and you want to stand up and dance? Are those bits where you get the natural interaction that's kind of spontaneous, rather than pre thought?

Fiona Maguire

That's really interesting. Isn't it? Amazing? You've seen it differently. I love the way you've seen it. You've seen it differently. For me, it was like when I'm listening to music, I'm there I'm an open vessel. I'm just with it, and I'm letting it flow through me and then whatever may happen, you know my response to that it's I love what you said, my response to that is I want to dance or is that I want to join in or I just want to be with it or be closer to it. So, if you think of the music as a person, and I really love what you've just said, then that's true connection, isn't it that you want to be more with them, you want to dance with them. You want to hear more of what they're going to say or you just want to be in the flow of their company as beautiful connections.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Oh, lovely. Although my husband who is a musician would say, just listen to the music like they done a good job, you know, there are many ways to look at the same consideration and I understand that you originally were on a path to psychology, is that right?

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, after my degree, I done the first single honours degree at the University of Lupton, it was called now it's now the University of Bedfordshire and looks a lot different. I want it to be a psychologist and my second job as an assistant psychologist, stroke group worker was in what was called a psychiatric unit for adolescents. So, that now called young people, and that was great. But my first thing that I noticed was okay, so I know all these theories, I know what schizophrenia is and all anorexia is multiple personality disorder, as they called it, then, you know, I know all of these things bipolar. These kids, like those three kids over there, they're all schizophrenic, but they're all completely different. So, how does the theory psychology go with that? So I had questions right from the beginning and it was fascinating but for me, and I don't even remember how long it was a nice look at my CV that I worked there full time and then I had a car crash leaving the hospital one day, lucky enough on the driveway, the hospital, I hit snowmen into a tree, and on the impact of you know, hitting the tree my inner wisdom just said, you have to leave and I just intuitively knew that I had to leave that job because I was just I was burning out and I don't know why I was burning out.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Could you guide us through that a little bit what that felt like at the time and how that was showing up for you in your work and personal life? If that's okay.

Fiona Maguire

Yeah. So, of course, we had protocols, we had ways we were meant to work and everything else and it was definitely around, I think it was around Christmas time, this realization hit, it was definitely snowing. You know, and I just noticed that what we just talked about, you know, I was a Buddhist and at the time, and I really believed in being present with the young people and that meant to me just really listening and really being with them and that had the benefit of them just really calming down like these were psychiatrically ill children, they were not in a hospital in a unit for nothing. Like they had severe mental illnesses, you know, psychiatric mental illnesses and we would acknowledge that I work differently and in in the whole, they were happy with that, because I was definitely getting results and it was great that I was able to be with the kids all different times a day, sometimes when the psychologist wasn't there, so I see them at all different times. But what I knew at the time was that I felt what the children were feeling and I had real empathy with them. But to a degree that it didn't seem like my peers had and I could either had a really good idea of what they were feeling, or I literally felt it physically in my body, what they were feeling and I was 23 or something like that I was young and it was just too much, you know, knowing their trauma and knowing their circumstances and knowing that they've been abused in all different types of ways and then feeling what they feel and feeling their response to their parents and their parents response to them and it was just too much and I'd been somebody that that had felt other people's emotions all my life and I was kind of okay with that. But in that intense environment, it was hard, and I didn't have the self-given acknowledgement that I'm a highly sensitive person back then. It was just the way I'd always been the way I always was and I wouldn't change that but what I have done, what I have learned is that I'm not always picking up on energy. I'm not always picking up on the way somebody feels and what's going on for them internally, you know, and externally, and that has made a huge difference to my life and that's what I bring to a lot of my clients because I've worked with a lot sensitive people on in past.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Yeah, it is a big job we do, isn't it and I think we're more likely to be able to hope really tune in to others, you know, resonance and their frequency and their emotions and more likely to get it and get why it matters and to be able to kind of piece together some of their story and almost go with it. But that's not without its negatives as well, if you're doing that with all of the people that you're working with, because, you know, it's knowing how and when to disconnect from that, that it's not your stuff, that it's someone else's and the way I do it, I guess is to think about doing the best possible job I can do at that moment and the bits I've struggled with is when systems or finances mean, that I can't do what I deem to be the best for that person. So, it might be that there's a really long waiting list and I found that personally, really, really difficult. So, actually, I thought that this would be the ideal pathway, you know, gold standard in terms of waiting, and in terms of what that person needs, and what is going to work for them will have a best chance of working for them. But when I can't do that, because of my hands being tied, that's when I find that it leads me further to disillusionment and burnout.

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, I agree with you there about the system I'd like to pick up on. It's not that I was overthinking it, or it's not that I was taking it home and the way that that other people will take their work home and I'm not saying I didn't do that. There was one occasion where I did this child is in such a ridiculous situation, in my opinion, and the way that he was being treated and the way the system was built up, and that's the morning I crashed my car, they decided that they couldn't help this child, he was going to be put in a lock so I can actually keen it. That's what happened back then and I was honestly I was fuming angry, I was like, and you cannot do this. I'm his key worker, I know more about his child than everyone else and for you to go behind my back and do this is like, and they were like, but we're not going behind your back this has been scheduled and it's not personal and I get that it wasn't personal, but I had such relationship with his child, and I believe that we could really change him. But that they had decided amongst the doctors that they was going to go down a different route. But being a highly sensitive person, the emotions and the empathy are much stronger, you feel things much deeper. So, the difference, a highly sensitive person doesn't feel it in their body. They just know what that person's feeling and then they may then feel what they feel about that in it, they will definitely feel what they feel about that in their body and it's just a level of sensitivity that works beautifully in these environments. But it also makes it really difficult unless you can turn it off and as also as an impasse, you know, so someone was one of the kids would come in and kick off and I would feel what they was feeling, I'd feel the rage or the upset or whatever it was and they'd also be part of me and this was I'd be like I get that I get that you're doing that right now and in fact I think that's good for you just playing carry on let him do it. There's nothing here that he can harm himself with just let him blow it out. No, no, no, no, they sedate him and I'll be like, well, no, and when I had the authority and I could stop at sedation I did and you know, and most of the time it worked really beautifully. The kid blew off steam did what they did, you know of course if I was going to hurt themselves or hurt someone else I would step in or literally physically step in and I'm quite a small person and most of the adolescents are much bigger than me, but they trusted me and I had a rapport with them that I would get them to look in my eyes and they would just instantly calm down. So, that was all beautiful but it I wasn't allowed to work the way that I saw and I wanted so like you I agree with you and that was difficult and yeah, I was a little arrogant. I had all these ideas, I just finished uni, and then everything else, but I was very passionate and caring about the kids and that's what made me burnout.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Yeah, I think absolutely, if we're not helping people to experience their full range of emotions, which includes, the hyper aroused bits as well as the hypo aroused bits, we're not necessarily equipping people with the skills to be able to handle it next time. If you're being sedated, then you go from hyper aroused to then, you know, waking up and wondering what's going on. But you've missed that middle bit of where you calm down and that I think that is potentially difficult and I think there's an interesting, you know, interesting food for thought there in letting people safely, you know, process and manage their thoughts, feelings and emotions. Could you tell us a little bit about how you stepped away from your psychology career?

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, hitting the tree was really a wakeup call. So, ironically, six weeks ago, because of high emotion and high energy of the job, you know, it was a brilliant hospital that I worked in, and they were running a new system. That's why I chose this hospital to work in, and there was a lot of things that worked really well in it, I'd like to say that and it was a massive education for me being there, working there. But just before I hit the tree, six weeks ago, I had taken an active holiday, because I knew that I couldn't, I needed to do something I need time at work, I needed to do something. So, I went on what I thought was a beginners course in sports massage. But the lady had put me on intermediate course because my qualifications anatomy and physiology and then she just said, look, if you don't like it, you can go home and you can do the other course because it was a residential course or so. Okay, so there was 10 days, and I wasn't actual passing flying colors. So, I was now unexpectedly qualified sports massage therapist and when I hit the tree, and I had various injuries, my I use my knowledge and got most of me better, you know, had whiplash. So, that's what I treated, what I didn't know is an also really, really hurt my left hip. But that didn't show up physically into a month later and so I started getting treatment per month later, and the guy was technically excellent. But his bedside manner was dreadful and that was private, it wasn't through the NHS and I just thought I could do this. So, I started doing it part time with just people around me and within a year, I had enough client base to stop my job and to do that full time and that's what I did. So, I just stopped being a psychologist, but ironically, at least 50% of the people that came to me want you to come to me for mental problems and I had to keep saying, but I'm no longer a psychologist, you know, is there anything physical you want and so eventually, I just gave in, and I started treating both and that's how I created my own therapy.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Lovely, thank you for sharing that with us. Have you got any tips or advice for if people are listening to this and they're starting to notice that itch that might need scratching the mental health career in professional psychology might not be for them anymore?

Fiona Maguire

Yeah, I think for me, what I needed to do was just look at well, what do I love? What do I spend my time thinking about? You know, when I'm not at work, what thoughts go through my head? What is it that I really love about my work? What is it I love about the studies that I've done? What books am I reading? What films am I watching? What conversations am I have in and out all that, I was like, Yeah, I'm really like sports are really, always done sport and I thought I read you know, I really liked sports. So, yeah, I would be interested in doing that and I'm still really helping the person. There's what I notice in the psychiatric units was all of the children also had physical problems all of them had, you know, they might have been smaller, they might have been bigger and then yeah, I pretty quickly realized that the majority of people that came to me for massage, they also had like, maybe it was stress, maybe it was depression or maybe it was something much bigger, like trauma, and things like that. So, I became more interested in the link between the physical body and the physical problems and the mental problems and have logical problems and that led me to studying cranial sacral therapy, because that brings the two of them together. So, to answer your question, in case it's been lost, is to really look at what it is you love and what excites and interests you and in where that leads you to.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Great and would you say that you are fulfilled and happy and pleased in your sphere of work currently?

Fiona Maguire

Absolutely. You know, when I start every session with an aim, and at the end of the session I asked him about that and I might even poke it in a bit to make sure that it's cleared and it just amazes me the journey, the session goes on and then to see the person's face when I realized something, and particularly when they let go of it, and I helped them let go even more of it. It's just wonderful. I just love it.

Dr. Marianne Trent

So professional psychology is not the only way to make you happy and that might be a really interesting and useful point for people if they are starting to feel that this is not, it's not for me, it's not making me happy. Now feel like I'm burning out, then there must be another way. There might well be you know, this isn't for everybody. Have you got a take home message for people who might be listening today, Fiona?

Fiona Maguire

To be who they really are, to ground inside of themselves, to connect to who, who they really are and to explore that and dare to lift that dare to be who they really are and show that and be inspired, or they're inspired by to go with their intuition. Because I don't believe that anybody can work as a psychologist, and not intuitively feel something about their clients and patients, whatever they call them and that might not add up when they think about this theory or might not add up. So, what they are expected to do. But if they feel it inside of themselves, and they know it dare to go with that dare to go their own insights and see where that gets their time.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Yeah, I absolutely agree. You know, you should feel like you're being yourself, like you're being authentic and that you're vibrant in your work. You know, I think absolutely, that's the case and I I believe that about myself and my work currently for sure. Where's the best place for people to connect with you or learn more about you if they want to Fiona?

Fiona Maguire

On LinkedIn and my name is Fiona Maguire and also my website is the same www.FionaMaguire.com without any spaces and I give away this free resources, the ground in that I've mentioned how to work with your energy, which is a book and yeah, people get a lot of benefit out of them and I'm always happy to chat with somebody on LinkedIn.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Brilliant, thank you so much. I'll pop all your details in the show notes as well. But not everyone accesses the show notes. So, it's always useful to have said that out loud as well. Thank you so much for your time today, Fiona and for helping us answer the question what happens if you decide psychology is not for you. I know that you still work in the psychology sphere, but professional psychology because that's a lot of our audience. So, thank you so much for your time and so generously sharing your rich insights with us.

Fiona Maguire

Thank you very much. Really good to speak with you.

Dr. Marianne Trent

Thank you so much for my guest, Fiona Maguire for coming along and talking with us. I hope you found that to be a useful listen. Like I said, if you want to connect with Fiona, do check the details in my show notes and that will help put you in touch. If you are still wanting to pursue professional psychology and you're ready for the next step. Then do please check out the aspiring psychologist’s collective book, the clinical psychologist’s collective book and do consider joining the aspiring psychologist membership. We were really lovely group that supportive that helps you towards your goals and I help you with anything that you think oh, I'm not worried about that. Then I will find an expert to talk to us about it to help you guide you through that process and that's certainly I'm the case with something we've got happening in the membership. Today as I record this we are covering selection tests, logical and deductive reasoning tests. So, if on replay you're listening to this, you thinking oh, I'd like to learn more about that then you might well find the membership useful for that too. I would love your reviews, your audio testimonials of the podcast, and of the books too. It's really simple to do that. If you head to my website, www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast then just click on the audio testimonial option and with a few clicks and a couple of minutes you will have done that. Thank you so much for your time. Do come and connect with me on socials. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent in all places that you might hope to find me and yeah, I'm really looking forward to connecting with you and helping you in your journey as an aspiring psychologist. Thank you so much for being part of my world take care.

To read about more tricky journeys in psychology check out the clinical psychologist collective and aspiring psychologist collective books here.

To grab your free supervision shaping tool click here.