The post-registration clinical Masters bridging course and pivoting to non-client work (with Nishie Govender)

[00:00:05] Bronwyn: Hey, mental workers. You're listening to the Mental Work podcast, the podcast about working in mental health for early career mental health workers. As always, I'm your host, Bronwyn Milkins, and today we are talking about the post registration Masters pathway in clinical psychology and also talking about shifting away from clinical work into alternative career directions.

This episode explores the path less spoken about transitioning to clinical psychology after general registration and pivoting into non-client work when you realise that clinical work just isn't your jam. You'll hear reflections on career expectations versus reality and crafting a career that actually fits your energy, values and wellbeing. Here to help us out today is our guest, Nishie Govender.

Hi, Nishie

[00:00:46] Nishie: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:47] Bronwyn: Could you please start off by telling listeners who you are?

[00:00:50] Nishie: Yeah, sure. My name's Nishie, I'm a clinical psychologist and I have a dual career in both clinical psychology but also in corporate or occupational psychology, so I do both at the same time.

[00:01:03] Bronwyn: Wonderful. So I'm really excited about this episode because you have a very interesting, and I think, varied career that I think listeners will be really interested in. Could you tell us how your psychology career started? What got you interested in psychology and what did you do first?

[00:01:18] Nishie: Yeah, sure. I don't have a really strong origin story of wanting to always be a psychologist. Like we've often heard, you know, I've always, people say, I've always been drawn to understanding people how we think, how we behave and cope. It just sounded cool and no one I knew was a psychologist, and so there was something appealing that. And if I think about it, I came from a family, like many families, where mental health literacy was quite low, and so the unknown, maybe it was quite exciting to me if I think about it.

[00:01:54] Bronwyn: Yeah, that's a really good point. It, it does sound kind of exciting. I remember when I first studied psychology, I did psychology in high school and I think I selected it 'cause it sounded cool. So same thing.

[00:02:04] Nishie: Yeah!

[00:02:06] Bronwyn: Yeah, so what was the first thing you do? Did you go to uni, do your undergrad, and then do honours? What did that look like for you?

[00:02:14] Nishie: Yeah, I completed the four year undergraduate programme, which I don't believe still exists. So it was three years and then the fourth year. So that honours or postgraduate year was incorporated into the four years, yeah. Um, and I believe the current model is three plus one undergraduate years.

[00:02:36] Bronwyn: Yeah, I think that's what I did. I did the three year undergrad and then I did the honours year. And then did you go on to do a honours or a master's or... what came next for you?

[00:02:48] Nishie: I thought that after four years things would be a bit clearer. I think there was that element of sunken funds fallacy thing going on, where you've spent four years of university now you feel like you have to see it through. So you have to go on and become a psychologist. And when you start university, well, most of us started at 18, four years feels like a really long time, and so I think I just wanted to finish and become a psychologist thereafter.

So what did I, what I ended up doing was the four plus two pathway was still available, so the four year degree and then two year placement with, with supervision, but I don't think I felt really equipped or ready to take on the four plus two. So I applied for a few masters programmes in my home state of New South Wales thinking that would be the natural, you know, next step.

But what I didn't realise at the time was how competitive the master's programmes were, even with really good marks or grades. And the interviews I did get with universities did feel really promising, but I wasn't progressing beyond that stage and I wasn't getting enrollment offers. But what I had learned through that experience was that grades were not really enough and that my peers, and my friends that I'd been going to university with, had a competitive edge that I simply didn't have in the way of maybe they had volunteered or had some experience in the field that they could talk to at those interviews.

So at these interviews I was being asked what kind of experience do you have related to the practise of psychology? And at the time it was zero beyond university and I was really living a university life at the time and travelling and being quite social. So when my peers were able to say for the last year I had volunteered in a clinic, or I worked in a research lab I worked with an outreach provider, my extracurricular activities were like dancing on top of the tabletops overseas. Like I wasn't doing what everyone else was doing in terms of trying to get exposure to the field. And it just did not compare with those, um, others that were trying to get admissions into universities. And it was really discouraging at the time.

But what I ended up doing was I applied for some last minute courses interstate at other universities and institutions I wouldn't have originally sort of considered as Master's Pathways. And I was lucky enough to receive a couple of offers, um, including the five plus one, so the Professional Psychology Master's programme, which was brand new at the time. And I chose that offer because it provided a structured pathway to registration, but it was also more generalised than some of those focused Masters, for example, the, the Developmental Master's degree or the Health or the Forensic, and I didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I opted for something that I felt would be a little bit more open than the other courses.

[00:06:07] Bronwyn: So you got into the five plus one course and then did that?

[00:06:12] Nishie: I did do that, and that was quite intense because I guess it was like your first experience balancing coursework, placement supervision. I was also living interstate at the time, and paid placements were extremely rare, and as someone living interstate without family support, I needed an income. And so I really tried to find a placement that had an income option, basically, that you could get paid for. And I was fortunate enough to find that which allowed me to both earn an income and then also contribute to placement hours as part of the internship.

[00:06:53] Bronwyn: Which I think is a common situation. Not necessarily like living interstate, but needing financial support when you're studying. Not many people have the full support of their families or other people who can support them. And so it is important to be able to earn an income. And I think in that stage, not only were you working clinically, but maybe you found income in nonclinical work, is that right?

[00:07:15] Nishie: Yeah, that's right. So the organisation that I ended up with, they mainly supported injured workers, so under the work cover scheme, but they also had an employee assistance programme arm of the business. And so for those who are unfamiliar with EAP programmes, it's a counselling and support service offered by employers to their staff members. So organisations will contract EAP providers, and I was working there and was able to get sort of that clinical exposure through the EAP arm of the business. Yeah, so that was quite good.

And the psychologist that worked at the EAP a place that I worked at, yes, it was through an employer, but really mainly the issues that presented were personal issues. And because the service was offered to not only employees and staff members, it was also available to their family members. And so I would see quite a varied range of clients . I also saw children through that, which I didn't think I would have an opportunity to through an EAP provider.

[00:08:22] Bronwyn: And I know you've mentioned realising early on that full-time clinical work was just unsustainable for you. Was it around this time, during your plus one internship that you had that realisation, or was it later?

[00:08:35] Nishie: It was during this time while doing the placement hours I began to notice, I guess, a growing sense of dread about the clinical side of work or the treatment side. And I really enjoyed the treatment side, but I found it really challenging and I think that's where the dread came from.

And then compared to the non-treatment work that I was doing, felt less demanding and easier in ways. And I didn't have that same sense of worry like I did with the clinical work or the treatment work.

And certainly that contrast was confusing at first because I, I really did enjoy the treatment side of things. And I think like many of us, when we're early in our career or we are in placement, we have expectation of real psychologists must be in clinical practise. And I think, Bronwyn, if I'm not mistaken, you recently spoke about clinical private practise often being the marker of success amongst psychologists, and I truly felt that way at the time.

[00:09:39] Bronwyn: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm wondering, like, you noticed that, the nonclinical work was a, a better fit for me in terms of ease. Were you tempted to maybe ditch the clinical side where you like, maybe I don't have to stick this out?

[00:09:52] Nishie: Yes, I, yes and no. I think persistence is one of my beneficial but also detrimental qualities that I, I have. And because I had imagined that I would complete the placement, get registered, become a full-time psychologist, and I'm saying psychologist in inverted commas, and work in private practise, helping clients with, um, anxiety and trauma and depression, it was hard for me to reconcile that maybe that wasn't for me.

And I really had to work at moving away from what I thought my career would be and what real authenticity might be or what's, what might be sustainable for me. And certainly the placement experience up my scope of what psychological practise would be applied in and what that could look like.

And I'm grateful for that because I wonder if things been different and maybe my placement was purely treatment and clinical exposure only, maybe I would've dropped out completely and thought, this isn't for me. But because I had the opportunity to be exposed to other sort of fields and practises, I think that's what sort of kept me engaged with maybe seeing through my registration. Yeah, I think it was a, it was a hard thing to accept your career or your registration or your, you know, your occupational life might not look like what you thought it was going to look like.

[00:11:26] Bronwyn: Absolutely. Okay, so you completed your internship and then you gained full registration. What did you do next after that?

[00:11:36] Nishie: Trying a couple of different things in terms of corporate work. I worked for the Royal Flying Doctor Service at one point, worked for a prison at one point. I, I worked in different organisations, I worked for an insurance agent. So after I did that, I learned that to have almost like this dual career, which I didn't think was possible. So I had a corporate aligned job, like a psychology corporate aligned job, and I kind of did clinical practise on the side, maybe you might say. So the bulk of my work was the corporate stuff, and then on the side I was doing clinical practise.

And that really worked for me, and because I still found the treatments and the clinical side of things deeply interested, I still got to do that, which I didn't think I was going to be able to do. I thought it would have to be all clinical stuff or all nonclinical stuff. So I was able to do both. And I think I found a, a balance and a client caseload that really suited me and helped me to prevent burnout, for example, or helped me to not feel so stuck and give me a bit of variety, I would say as well, because I was doing different things.

[00:12:54] Bronwyn: Wonderful. And I think a lot of listeners, like maybe they do feel that the expectation is they should go into full-time therapy work and they're interested and curious about what non-client work looks like. Could you just give us an insight into what your day-to-day tasks look like in your non-client corporate role? Like what kind of stuff are you doing?

[00:13:14] Nishie: Yeah, sure. So the types of things that I'm doing are really sort of strategy based. So it's really helpful to have a, a clinical psychology background, but it might be things like maybe working within human factors, maybe working in with human performance, working in with logical systems within a workplace culture, working with diversity... so how can organisations adapt to neurodiversity and maybe a neurodiverse workforce. And then also, I've got a very sort of broad range of things that I do, but it also might include psychometric testing or psychological competencies for new employees. So really a little bit of everything.

[00:14:04] Bronwyn: It sounds really interesting! Do you enjoy it?

[00:14:07] Nishie: Yeah, I do. I really do enjoy it and I think part of the enjoyment comes with it being relatively easy rin my view and in the way that you don't take it home, there's no emotional load. You kind of work a nine to five, and that's about it. Which you don't have the benefit with being in clinical practise.

[00:14:32] Bronwyn: Yeah, I totally relate to that. Like, yeah, having gone a lot into research work over the past year, the difference in the work you take home is just so stark, there's just a huge difference. I feel like, for research work, not taking much home, if at all. Then for clinical, it's like, yep, still taking a lot home just in terms of mental, emotional energy sometimes.

[00:14:53] Nishie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other benefit, well maybe it's not a benefit for everyone, but when you work in a corporate setting, you often work in a team which you don't always get in a clinical setting. And when I say work in a team, absolutely, you might work in a clinical setting and have, um, peers and colleagues... when you work in a corporate setting, those confidentiality parameters don't apply, and things aren't sensitive. And so maybe conversation and sort of, um, being able to relate and work in with your peers seems and just feels a little bit more natural because versus working in a clinical space where you're respecting boundaries and privacy and... yeah, I think it's a little bit different.

[00:15:37] Bronwyn: That's such a good point and something I hadn't put together in my own mind, but it's so true. It's like in my own workplace with the clinical setting, if an administrative person comes into the room and I was talking to a clinical person about some clinical things, not necessarily confidential, but just not, not appropriate for an administrative person, it's like we may have cut that conversation short, um, and we may not have time to address it again. So it's like, yeah, you may have shortened or not enough conversations that you need at work because of the sensitivity and confidentiality.

[00:16:07] Nishie: Yeah, sure. Yeah, agreed.

[00:16:10] Bronwyn: I wanted to ask you about therapist identity, or psych psychologist identity because sometimes people have this identity in their mind about psychologist, I do therapy and you are doing both types of work. And I wondered whether that had challenges, uh, conceptualization of your identity as a psychologist or whether you've expanded it.

[00:16:32] Nishie: That's a really good question and I think it depends who I'm talking to. So people are naturally very interested when you say you're a psychologist, and I think that opens the door to then talking a little bit more about what you do and maybe challenging some of those views that they might have. Versus when I talk to my parents and they still don't understand what I do, they're just like, oh yeah, you're a psychologist and you listen to people's problems and things, and I'm like, yeah, yep.

[00:17:02] Bronwyn: That's what I do!

[00:17:04] Nishie: But yeah, I think people are naturally curious and I think there's a lot more mental health service knowledge amongst sort of like the general population that people maybe are more willing to ask those questions than they might have historically. And so I do have really good conversations with people around what I do, and do mention that I do like a corporate side of psychology and a clinical side of psychology and why I do that. And I just say, I usually just say that that's kind of the balance or what works for me. And I get benefit from both.

And I think working in a corporate setting does help me in the clinical space because most of my clients are, well, most of them are women, not all of them, but most of them are women and most of them have corporate type roles or high demanding type roles. So they're usually, for want of a better term, you know, women in STEM, so they're either doctors, lawyers, engineers, got a couple of scientists, nurses... And so having worked in a corporate setting or a team setting or a workplace setting, I'm able to maybe bring some of that nuanced knowledge to sessions that I might not have had if I didn't work in a corporate role myself or with an organisation myself.

And then on the other side of that, brining clinical knowledge to a nonclinical space has been really beneficial, especially when there has been some, you know, really big and vital and rapid changes over the years in regards to how we view people within the workplace, how we treat them, what wellbeing looks like, what we can do to support employees within the workplace and ensure good health for employees. Though I think that looks a lot different now than it historically has, and to be able to bring a clinical lens to that work has been really beneficial.

[00:19:03] Bronwyn: Did it surprise you how much, um, your clinical training has benefited your role?

[00:19:09] Nishie: Yes, it certainly has. And I think many organisations, if they don't have a medical team or a mental health care team, where else would they go with those types of questions or queries or issues? And so it has really helped me to maybe bridge the gaps in many ways between particular issues being very vague, but- without revealing too much, I'm not sure how much I can say about the corporate job.

But yes, it certainly has, it certainly has surprised me, but in a good way. And I think a lot of the skills that you learn when you're training to be a therapist, a psychologist, a counsellor, really, really helps in a corporate setting where a lot of the work that you do relies on relationships and rapport with people, getting to understand them, getting them to understand you, and maybe working through something that's equally challenging for the both of you, or sometimes challenging for them.

It also gives you good insight into how relationships might work when there is someone in a more senior or authoritative role, which I think sometimes is lost in a corporate setting. There's not that sort of really strong acknowledgement of, and I hate the term, but I, I'll have to use it anyway, sort of that subordinate relationship and how things might come across to people.

And I think the other area that's really helped me, I guess to excel has been, I work in an organisation where performance is a focus, let's say. And so having a deep understanding around polyvagal theory and anxiety and stress models has been really beneficial in that, and being able to depart, I guess, some psychoeducation to people that maybe wouldn't have got that psychoeducation otherwise has been really helpful in terms of how we, how we, how to support them in how they do their roles and jobs.

[00:21:17] Bronwyn: I love the way you explained that because I think it really speaks to the transferability of our skills and the importance of our skills. I think there could be a perception amongst, I don't know, just people more generally that like, what if I ditch the clinical work and go into nonclinical work, will it have been a waste of my study and training? And from your answer, it's I guess a resounding "no", like there is so much that you use from your clinical training in this nonclinical role.

[00:21:45] Nishie: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:46] Bronwyn: Which is awesome. Turning to the bridging course, so you're doing both these things at the same time. What led you to want to do the bridging course, and then we'll go into what it is.

[00:21:55] Nishie: Yeah, sure. The clinical master's bridging course opportunity became available... and was actually thinking about what I would say in our conversation I was wondering if what drove me to apply to the clinical course was maybe that was still a part of me that was like, okay, if you upskill, if you do a treatment focus course, maybe you won't find clinical work so challenging and you can resume that full-time treatment, you know, psychologist career that you envisioned for yourself? Like I wondered if that was maybe the driving factor?

Also, it was right at the beginning of COVID and the pandemic and there wasn't a whole lot to do, and so I felt like this was a good opportunity if there ever was a time to do it. if that also had a bit, well, that certainly did have a big role to play in doing the, um, clinical bridging course. And I would like to consider myself a lifelong learner, and I felt like there was a lot more to learn, I was always interested in clinical work or sort of that deep clinical work in terms of acute presentations and pathology. And I also wondered if it would help me understand if I would ever work in some of those really acute environments, for example, a hospital.

[00:23:22] Bronwyn: Yeah, awesome. And so I'll just explain to listeners who maybe have no idea what we're talking about. So, in Australia there are multiple pathways to registration. One of them is what Nishie did, and I did this pathway as well. It's called the five plus one pathway. So you do, uh, Masters where the first year is university and then you do a 1500 hour internship. Was it longer for you?

[00:23:43] Nishie: That's a lot longer... I think it was 3000? 3800, or 3500?

[00:23:50] Bronwyn: Maybe it was, was it that for me as well? And I've just like blocked that out. Anyway, it's really long.

[00:23:55] Nishie: Yeah!

[00:23:56] Bronwyn: It's, it's a hard slog to get to. So you need to do, um, an internship as well to gain general registration. Then you're a generally registered psychologist, but if you want to gain an endorsement, there's eight areas of study in psychology, and they include Health and Developmental, Educational psychology, and Organisational psychology, and Clinical psychology. If you wanna gain an endorsement in that, you need to do another course. And then Nishie did this course, which became available around COVID, which was called a bridging course. And for you, was it two years part-time?

[00:24:27] Nishie: It was two years... it was, it was one and a half years, almost full time. But again, it was their first ever offering of this course. So I think they were also trying to figure it out as well.

[00:24:40] Bronwyn: Yeah, so this course would enable Nishie, and everybody else who does it, to be able to then go on to do a registrar programme in clinical psychology. Yeah, so this was just an area of further learning and like you said, commitment to lifelong learning for you.

[00:24:56] Nishie: Yeah, yeah. So it was a course for psychologists that were Already registered.

[00:25:02] Bronwyn: That's an important part, yep. So you already have to be registered to have done this course.

[00:25:07] Nishie: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I really enjoyed the course, and it was... because you had to be a psychologist already, it was very different from my other education experiences because you bring real world context and you shift your focus from learning psychology to really deepening, refining, and expanding, So I really enjoyed it.

[00:25:30] Bronwyn: How do you feel it contributed to your clinical work? Um, do you feel like it furthered it or expanded your knowledge in some areas?

[00:25:38] Nishie: Yeah, I, I think so. There is a real humility that comes with returning to being a student because you're balancing what you're confident in, versus being curious about what you don't know or what you want to know. And I suppose that's confronting at times because you realise much of your practise has been shaped by the context or environments that you've previously worked. So workplace demands or supervision styles or populations that you've worked with.

I guess it reopens questions you thought you had already answered for yourself in that way. What I mean by that is maybe how it differs from, you know, a master's student who has come straight from undergraduate, but someone that's already gained their registration, I would think that, I'm just gonna call them new students for the sake of this conversation, but new students build foundational competency, experienced psychologists or existing psychologists focus more on integration and reflection and nuance. So that's really what I got from that, and I think learning mindset shifts from how do I do therapy or psychological practise to, how do I do psychological practise effectively and attune to complexity.

[00:26:59] Bronwyn: Yeah, that's a really lovely way of putting it. Were there any other benefits you noticed to doing the course?

[00:27:05] Nishie: Yeah, I think theory is applied differently. So layering frameworks, which isn't something you might have done in undergraduate or as a new psychologist, a new student into real life experience and engaging more critically with content. Like you are critical of the actual content because you bring that clinical maturity. Like you've sat with uncertainty, you've managed crisis situations, you've supported clients or you've seen outcomes. And so I guess that helps you to engage with content in a more critical way.

And I think the best part of the course for me came from the enrichment with experienced peers. You are surrounded by experienced practitioners and there's psychologists from diverse backgrounds, so some from hospital settings, some from community settings, some from schools or organisations type of practise. And those conversations inside and outside of coursework often become the real learning moments in the course where theory meets reality in almost like this tangible way.

And I think there's a shared understanding of the emotional load of clinical work. Like peers can really hold space for each other in that way that's deeply validating if they've had that shared experience. And you start to see practise through a new lens like you notice blind spots and biases and maybe edges that you wouldn't have had otherwise, um, in a different setting.

So I got a, I got a lot out of it, but I did find it really difficult to balance professional identity. Maybe not, difficult is not the right word, maybe challenging to, um, balance professional identity of being a psychologist versus student identity, which can be a bit odd because it's a strange space between you're a competent psychologist, yet you're back in a position of being assessed, and supervised, and having to do assignments. And that can bring up a lot of imposter feelings, especially when you're suddenly having to, again, for want of a better term, like prove the skills that you might already have and you've already been practising sometimes for years.

And a lot of the peers that I had in my small group, so we had like a smaller sort of tutorial learning group as part of the course, some of them were nearing the end of their careers. And I found that really interesting that they chose to go back to university to do the clinical bridging course. Yeah, and I'm sure that maybe on a different level that really challenges egos. They need to receive feedback, being observed, your clinical decisions questioned or whatever it might be. But I, I still think it's valuable because you reconnect with your learner mind and it might even reinvigorate your willingness for the, for the discipline, let's say, to be a psychologist or open you up in that way.

[00:30:18] Bronwyn: Yeah, some really interesting benefits and it sounds like you gained a lot of learning about yourself and I guess a lot of humility as well, and openness to learning in that process, which is awesome.

I wanted to ask you about potentially any downsides you noticed from doing the course. I was thinking for instance, like was it difficult managing the amount of study and assignments that you needed to do?

[00:30:38] Nishie: Yes. However, again, I did the bulk of the course during the Pandemic. So we were all at home not doing all that much anyway. And so, yes and no... I, I'm not naturally a good student, so I think I found it more challenging than others! The other thing I found really challenging is that when I started the course, it was not the pandemic completely, I would say, and there was expectations that you would go in on site and see people. And so I had to, sort of work with having, in the end, it ended up being a completely online course because there was so many sort of changing rules and regulations around face-to-face and, um, meeting people, so I found that difficult. So I had envisioned that I would, you know, go-, go on campus and attend a workshop or meet people in person, and all that year and a half I never met any of them in person at all. So I found that really hard.

[00:31:43] Bronwyn: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Overall, if somebody is considering going back and doing this Master of Clinical Psychology bridging course, what would you say to them?

[00:31:53] Nishie: If it feels good, you should do it, I would say.

[00:31:56] Bronwyn: Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:31:58] Nishie: You don't have to overthink everything, and I appreciate that most of us feel safer when we overthink decisions. And it is a big decision because it, it might come with student debt , it might come with a time commitment, it might come with some other adjustments that you might have to do to be able to do the course. But if it feels good and you are passionate and invested in it, I certainly don't think that there's a downside to sort of furthering your education in that space.

[00:32:33] Bronwyn: Yeah, absolutely. And I agree with you that yeah, there's, there's no downside to furthering your education. There's always so much to learn in psychology that yeah, it's, it can be a real eye-opener to pursue further education.

[00:32:47] Nishie: Yeah. Early career uncertainty is so normal and I don't think we talk about it enough. Well, I mean, you talk about it in your podcast, but in-, with, with our friends and maybe even with the university and, what do they call them learning or maybe career counsellors, I'm not sure.

[00:33:08] Bronwyn: Yeah, career counsellors.

[00:33:10] Nishie: I think we're sort of conditioned to have a really clear pathway if we deviate from that, that can feel really scary. So I think for most of us, career uncertainty is quite normal and every psychologist or mental health worker evolves at their own pace and in their own direction. Maybe it's a little bit of that comparison, sort of, um, trap that we get into sort of comparing ourselves to others, which can be really detrimental, um, to how we feel and maybe even our decisions that we make. What do you think Bronwyn?

[00:33:47] Bronwyn: No, I completely agree. There's a lot of uncertainty with our careers and I'm just reflecting on your own journey and it sounds like doing the course and going into the different areas that you have, have all been about learning more about yourself and what it is that you do like, and how you sustain your career and your wellbeing through this process. And it sounds like you've found a good set of tasks and workplaces that work really well for you.

[00:34:10] Nishie: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:34:12] Bronwyn: Yeah. Is that something that you might recommend to listeners who are feeling uncertain, like to give different things a go and not be boxed in?

[00:34:19] Nishie: Yeah, absolutely. I think continuous exposure and learning isn't a sign of inadequacy or that you're doing things wrong or that you should know better, I think it's a real mark of commitment to your craft or trade or that you would like to achieve in life. I certainly do think you should try things , even if you think they might not be for you.

Think back to when I did the placement, if someone said, you think you would like to work with the injured workers? I probably would've said no. And I think I was kind of forced into that pathway because I, I did want a paid placement, but it certainly wouldn't have been something I picked, and I'm so glad I did because it did open up my scope of application in terms of what psychology could look like, and it has led me to a really fulfilling career that I really enjoy. So I think it's, it's a good thing to try, try different things.

[00:35:18] Bronwyn: Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much. It's really inspiring to hear that from you as well. What does the future hold for you? Are you gonna keep on going in kind of this dual career pathway? Are you gonna do further learning?

[00:35:29] Nishie: Hmm. Yeah, I, I see that I will always have a dual career. I think it's been really beneficial for me. And I don't see changing too much. Like I might work with different organisations in the future. I might make a more specialised psychology corporate sort of role. So maybe I, I might focus in on human factors, for example, or some other areas of occupational psychology, but I don't think I will ever fully give up one discipline for the other. So what-, for example, I don't think I'll ever give up occupational psychology for clinical, or clinical for... I think it's, it's served me well to have both, so I plan on staying with both.

[00:36:15] Bronwyn: Awesome. It's been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast this year. It's been a real joy to learn from you. What do you hope that listeners will take away from our conversation today most of all.

[00:36:26] Nishie: Oh, that's a really hard question.

[00:36:29] Bronwyn: It is a, it is a hard question, yeah. Summarise everything we're just talking about in one sentence and go. Is there anything that stands out for you today, most of all, that you want listeners to remember?

[00:36:39] Nishie: I mean, not to labour the point, you certainly don't have it all figured out the beginning. I know we hear that a lot, but what does that actually look like? And maybe that looks like broadening your view of psychology. Maybe it's about building your competence, to build your confidence. Maybe it's about redefining what success looks like early for you. Like what does it actually look like? Like is it more important that you have this particular role or position, or is it more important that you feel good about what you do?

And I certainly think investing in self-awareness and supervision is really good and those things can anchor you, um, early in sort of those formative years that we have early in our career.

[00:37:24] Bronwyn: That's a really beautiful takeaway. You went from like, I don't know what to say to saying a really awesome thing, well done.

[00:37:29] Nishie: Thank you.

[00:37:30] Bronwyn: Yeah. , Nishie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast again. If listeners want to learn more about you or get in touch, where can they find you?

[00:37:38] Nishie: So my website for my clinical practise and the clinical work I do is cetaspsychology.com, it's spelt, C-E-T-A-S, Psychology.

[00:37:49] Bronwyn: I'll make sure I pop that link in the show notes so that people can reach out.

[00:37:53] Nishie: Thanks Bronwyn.

[00:37:54] Bronwyn: No worries. Listeners, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you found it helpful, please do make sure to share it with a colleague or somebody who you think might be interested, give us a rating or review, and thanks again!

You've been listening to Mental Work. I'm Bronwyn Milkins. Have a good one, and catch you next time, bye!