My first week as a trainee clinical psychologist at Oxford

Starting a doctorate comes with many challenges. You may give up your life and support systems and move to a different city to embark on an intense three-year training programme that requires high ambitions, motivation, and a lot of hard work, being challenged from day one, having to liaise with clients of a diverse range, while also producing excellent research on the side. You're a student again, but you're also an NHS professional. You're learning new skills, but you're also expected to know enough so that you can basically deliver 1:1 therapy almost right from the start. 

One would think that all of these things are some good reasons to worry. One would think that I would go in on my first day wondering how I will deliver high-quality therapy sessions while passing all my assignments, and also keeping up some degree of work-life balance.  

What really happened was a bit different, and it was the first lesson that the DClin taught me. It is a very obvious one, so please forgive me, dear reader, for some very basic layman's psychology here. But there we go: We all want to be liked. 

I haven't done a degree in a while, and I haven't been part of such dynamics in equally as long. I'm fine with people one-on-one, but I sometimes get socially anxious in groups. Knowing that I have to interact and keep up with the same humans for three consecutive years makes me think: They will see my face a lot, and I will see theirs a lot. What if they don't like me? What if we don't get along? What if I'm the awkward one in our cohort, the one that stands out, the one that doesn't belong? Will they wonder why I'm even here because they feel that I've got no right to? Will they think: "How on earth did she make it this far? Why did she even get in?" We all know what this is called: Imposter syndrome. 

I know her well – the voice in my head. It's okay, she's not exactly knew – I live with her, as we all do. Her presence wasn't really surprising. I expected that she would come nagging on me. I have been talking to her, I have ignored her, I have fought her. My expectation of the first week was as follows: I would go in and feel naturally insecure. I would think all of these things, and I would silently deal with it. And it would be okay, it would be normal, and I would hope that other people secretly feel the same way. But I would never know. 

Because – obviously – people don't talk about that. People don't tend to share their insecurities right after introducing themselves. They don't tell you how vulnerable they feel, unless you've known them for years. They cover up, they use camouflaging techniques that may potentially even make them come across as particularly confident. People who got this far don't struggle. They toughen up. This is Oxford, after all. That's what I thought. 

And here's my little takeaway, I've warned you, so if you're still reading by now, it's your own fault. For a psychologist-to-be, my learning is extremely simple. I'm just human after all, aren't I? 

I learned… that, you know, people who are planning on dedicating their life's career to mental health – they are actually really, really decent human beings. They actually do care how others feel, and they do try their hardest to make people feel okay. They do even admit that they are feeling shaky and nervous themselves, even the ones in charge, the ones with power – the course facilitators. 

When you're going through a big life change, you expect big questions and big feelings. 

But you don't always expect that what life comes down to is something quite predictable in the end: It's about being liked, and about knowing that you're okay. It's about finding a new place and feeling that you belong. 

My first week as a trainee clinical psychologist was full of insecurities, and that didn't come as a surprise. But what amazed me was people's honesty about their own self-doubts. We were welcomed in a generous way, and we were invited to share our hopes and our fears. 

In the end, many of us fear similar things. As new trainees, we worry the workload of the degree, we worry about parking at our new job, and about who to hang out with at lunch time. But we also worry about the suicide of a client, and how to deal with it. Small things, combined with very, very big things. Our brains naturally gravitate towards social comparison and perfectionism. But then we see that everyone around us worries too. 

This doesn't necessarily take all these open questions and concerns away – but it does help with one thing: to get more comfortable with it. 

Natascha Niekamp used to work as a research assistant at the University of Oxford, and has recently started training as a clinical psychologist at the Oxford Institute of Clinical Psychology Training and Research. Follow her on Twitter @NatNiekamp