• Question: how difficult did you find studying mental health? Was it more stressful due to the workload or stressful due to the emotional factors?

    Asked by anon-216152 to Jasmin, Caroline on 12 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Caroline Brett

      Caroline Brett answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      I have mostly studied mental health in terms of cognition (i.e. thinking skills), wellbeing, and the links between physical and mental health. The training to become a clinical psychologist can be quite stressful, as any training can, as you have to juggle learning about a wide range of mental health conditions with working on placement to apply the learning and skills you’re developing. The same is true of any branch of psychology, to be fair. But it’s worth it!!
      Personally I teach on a course about mental health and wellbeing; at one point I had to prepare and teach a lecture on ‘psychological flexibility’. I found this quite difficult (and stressful!) because it is something that I personally have struggled with, but I actually found learning about it to be quite helpful!

    • Photo: Jasmin Moon

      Jasmin Moon answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      I would say that any stress I experienced studying psychology was because of the workload or struggling with assignments, not because I found it emotional. Unless your course includes a placement, it is mostly theoretical and you are learning about psychological models/theories and previous research. For me, the emotional aspect came in when I actually start working with people with mental health problems as it can sometimes be upsetting.

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