Mental Work

Bron and her guest unpack whether you can make it as a psychologist in your 20s. They chat about 👉🏽 Strengths and challenges when you're a young psychologist 👉🏻 Questions that clients may pose 👉 Our experiences and how we've navigated them  👉🏾 How to not feel like an imposter when you are a young professional. THE END BITS Mental Work is the podcast unpacking the challenges faced by ea...

Bron and Hayley unpack the career pathways that psychologists can take to achieve their financial goals. They chat about 👉🏽 Pros and cons of the one-to-one standard way of working 👉🏻 Hayley's career journey into 'one to many' offerings and business coaching 👉 What Hayley views as the next stage in the Psychology profession 👉🏿 How early career psychs can be part of the change! Guest: Dr Hayl...

Bron and Amanda get passionate about the deceptively simple CBT technique of behavioural activation. They unpack 👉🏽 How to maximise outcomes for clients 👉🏻 When and how to introduce behavioural activation 👉 Troubleshooting difficulties 👉🏿 Adaptations for clients with significant difficulties participating in pleasurable and mastery-focused activities.  Guest: Amanda Moses, Author of Treatin...

Bron and Averil unpack why it is so bloody hard to find a placement as a provisional/registrar psychologist. They chat about 👉🏽 Why universities find it hard to find placements for students 👉🏻 Why public health, private practices, and NGO's find it difficult to offer placements 👉🏿 What would make it easier for organisations to offer placements 👉🏾 Tips for finding a placement and hope for t...

How experienced do you have to be to contribute to discussion about the Psychology profession? This episode is all about that imposter syndrome-y self-doubt that holds early-career psychs back from taking up space and shaping the profession. Bron and Catherine unpack 👉🏽 How to feel comfortable with taking up space 👉🏻 How to give effective feedback at work 👉 How to step into sharing opinions a...

Bron and Brian unpack what to do when a client shares offensive views in the therapy room. They chat about 👉🏿 What even IS an offensive view and when could it become something to address in therapy 👉 Our favourite phrases to use 👉🏽Therapist self-care and permission to refer out. Guest: Brian Cheng, Psychologist THE END BITS Mental Work is the podcast unpacking the challenges faced by early ca...

Bron and Emma unpack how to adapt therapy to neurodiverse clients, using Schema Therapy as the example. They chat about 👉🏽 The new Schema Therapy model that Emma and her colleagues have developed for working with neurodiverse clients 👉🏻 How non-affirming therapists can be ableist and unhelpful to clients 👉 Signs that you are attuned to your neurodiverse client 👉🏿 The social model of disabil...

Therapists usually experience shock! horror! and despair! when they think about recording a therapy session. So let's talk about it. In this episode, Bron unpacks 👉🏽 Why you should record therapy sessions 👉🏻 How to ask for client consent 👉 Recording and storing sessions 👉🏿 Tips for overcoming recording anxiety. Bron's Informed Consent for Recording Sessions Word/PDF template is available to...

Bron and Carly unpack a spicy listener question: Is it possible to be financially secure and avoid burnout? They chat about 👉🏽 Valuing the skills that you have to offer as a psychologist 👉🏻 Finding workplaces that align with your financial goals and respect that you are a human with a finite workload capacity 👉 How to not get sucked in by workplaces promising you the world. Guest: Carly Dober...

Bron and Jordan unpack working with kids. They chat 👉🏽 How to get kids engaged in therapy and build rapport with them 👉🏻 When and how to use self-disclosure with kids 👉 Managing parent expectations and getting parents onside 👉🏿 Resources for child therapy. Guest: Jordan Turner (Educational & Developmental Psychologist Registrar) THE END BITS Mental Work is the podcast unpacking the chal...

Bron and Amanda unpack neurodiversity affirming practice. They chat about 👉🏽 The social model of disability 👉🏻 How CBT and other CBT-umbrella therapies were created for neurotypical clients 👉 What neurodiversity affirming practice is VS what it is not 👉🏿 How to know if you're delivering neurodiversity affirming therapy. Guest: Amanda Moses, Director at Amanda Moses Psychology and Early-Care...

You've prepped a great session for your client but they seem completely uninterested in all of your suggestions - what do you do? Bron and Kate unpack the dilemma of 'nothing sessions'. They chat about 👉🏽 What it feels like to have sessions that fall flat, despite good planning 👉🏻 How to help clients understand what therapy can involve 👉 Ways to increase client engagement in sessions 👉🏿 Tip...

Bron and Amanda unpack the tell-tale signs that you're in an unethical placement or workplace. They chat about 👉🏽 Fair pay 👉🏻 Reasonable caseloads 👉 Contractor vs employment arrangements 👉🏿 Should placements be paid? (spoiler: yes obviously) 👉🏾 Supports if you need help. Mental Work is the podcast unpacking the challenges faced by early career psychologists, so they don’t have to go it al...

Bron is joined by Averil Cook (Clinical psychologist and Director of Bodhi & Psychology) and Sahra O'Doherty (Psychologist and Director of AAPi) to get curious about gender roles and leadership in the Psychology profession. They unpack 👉🏽 Why men are disproportionately represented in leadership positions in a female-dominated profession 👉🏻 Internalised misogyny 👉 Sahra and Averil's leader...

Bron is joined by long-term listener Sarah Glover (recently registered Psychologist) to share their registration journey with us. They unpack the lessons about 👉🏽 Feeling responsible for clients 👉🏻 Comparison to other psychs 👉 Being highly impressionable to what senior psychs say 👉🏿 Managing feelings of isolation. Mental Work is the podcast unpacking the challenges faced by early career psy...

Bron is joined by Emma St John (Sexologist & clinical psych registrar) to unpack how early-career psychs can apply their existing skills to talk about sex with clients. They explore 👉🏽 When is it relevant to talk about sex with clients? 👉🏻 Why it's important to examine our attitudes towards sex 👉 How to talk about sex 👉🏿 Applying our existing therapeutic skills to sex therapy interventi...

[Rerun] Bron takes listeners through the dilemma of choosing an area of practice to niche in. She talks about 👉 Feeling pressured to niche from colleagues, supervisors, parents, and everyone else 👉🏼 Benefits of niching 👉🏾 Why you don't have to niche (phew!) 👉🏻 What Bron feels now after Googling the crap out of niching. Mental Work is the podcast unpacking the challenges faced by early caree...

[Rerun] Bron takes us through the topic that therapists love to avoid: Money 💵. She highlights the negative attitudes embedded in the mental health profession and shares the experiences that have taught her that wanting a liveable salary is not only okay, but necessary. Mental Work is the podcast unpacking the challenges faced by early career psychologists, so they don’t have to go it alone. Host...

Thanks for listening, Mental Workers! Season 3 has wrapped up and shiny new episodes will be released in just a few weeks! ✨ SUPPORT THE POD THAT SUPPORTS YOU... Join the Patreon for $2 a month 😎 Leave a rating and review on Apple and Spotify ! It REALLY helps new listeners find the show! Support the show by buying me a virtual coffee ! ☕ Email Bron at mentalworkpodcast@gmail.com Facebook / Ins...

The National Psychology Exam (NPE) is a big ass exam that provisional psychologists doing the 4+2 and 5+1 pathways must pass to gain full registration. On today's episode, Bron is joined by Amanda Moses (Psychologist) to unpack 👉🏼 What does the NPE assess? 👉🏾 How to prepare step-to-step 👉🏿 Top tips for sitting the NPE on the day 👉 How much time to set aside for study. Mental Work is the pod...

Heck yes, it's a listener story! 🥳 Bron is joined by Jordan Turner (Psychologist & Ed/Dev Registrar) to share her lessons from the first 2 years of being fully registered. They unpack 👉🏽 Being pregnant while seeing clients and handling baby questions 👉🏻 Building rapport with clients 👉 Setting boundaries with clients 👉🏿 Setting boundaries with yourself on the kinds of clients you see 👉...

Bron is joined by Annie Slater (Psychologist and Director at Annie Slater Psychology) to unpack getting the most out of supervision. They chat about 👉🏽 Making supervision work when you don't have a choice in your supervisor 👉🏻 How to manage a not-so-great supervisory relationship 👉 What an 'ideal' supervisory relationship looks like 👉🏿 How to give feedback to a supervisor who relays too man...

Bron is joined by Julie Waller (Counselling Psychologist) to unpack what it's like working rurally. They unpack 👉🏽 What led Julie to working rurally 👉🏻 Managing tricky ethical dilemmas including multiple relationships and professional boundaries 👉🏾Why errybody should work rurally at least once in their career 👉 What you need to know if you're thinking about rural work. Mental Work is the po...

WE'RE GOING RURAL, BABY! Bron is joined by Lauren Vines (early-career psychologist) to tell us what it's really like to work rurally, where you are sometimes hundreds of kilometres from your nearest colleague. They unpack 👉🏽 What led Lauren to working rurally 👉 Best things, most challenging things, and most ~surprising~ things about working rurally. Mental Work is the podcast unpacking the chal...

Bron is joined by Neeraja Shankar (Clin Psych registrar/PhD Candidate) to unpack getting comfortable with making mistakes as an early-career psych. They chat about 👉🏽 How being human means you're gonna make mistakes, and - take a deep breath - that's ooooook 👉🏿 What counts as a mistake in therapy? 👉 How to see mistakes as growth opportunities 👉🏻 The mistakes we've made and how we've survive...