Rejecting Industry Norms

I'm a psychologist who doesn't drink coffee. Weird, I know.?

As a provisional psychologist, I was the only psychologist at my workplace. So my supervisor would invite me to attend meetings at his office, where I could network with peers. When another psychologist met me for the first time, I often got asked if I wanted a coffee. I’d say, “I’m good thanks”. They’d say, “Oh you already had one?”.? I’d then say, “No, I just don’t drink it”. This is where they’d start to look confused. “What, you don’t like coffee??” At which point I’d add to the confusion by telling that, “Actually I think it tastes pretty good, I just haven’t gotten into the habit of drinking it and I don’t really want to”.?

Coffee is fuel for a lot of health workers and psychologists are no exception. It’s an industry standard to grab a coffee before work, during a break or to get you through a long boring afternoon meeting.? But I don’t do it, and it’s never hindered my happiness or career. A lot of the industry standards for psychologists are like that. They are widely accepted and practised but have no relation to the evidence base or what it takes to be a great psychologist. They have even less to do with what makes you happy as a psychologist. They're just things that a lot of us do.?

Here are a few that you've probably encountered:

• 60/40 splits
• 5-6 clients a day
• A 5 day work week
• Finding a niche once you’re registered
• Being underpaid as an early career psychologist
• Being overworked as an early career psychologist
• Seeing therapy as the ‘real psych work’

But none of these things define you as a psychologist. They don't even have to be a part of your journey at all. You can be happy, helpful, and have a long career without any of them.

I'm telling you this as a psychologist of 17 years, who spent much of that being underpaid, overworked and unaware of how flexibly I could have worked. I eventually hit a wall and fantasized about leaving the industry completely. Thankfully, I'd been listening to psychologists who'd rejected the norms for years and that gave me the confidence to try working for myself. I figured I'd worked the 'normal' way for so long, it wouldn't hurt to try something less conventional and more importantly, something to my liking.

So, I've been splitting my time between 2 days of therapy and 3 days of supervising psychologists. The therapy days are pretty standard 9-5s at a private practice, but the 3 days of supervising are from home and I see clients all over the place. In between them, I do the usual life admin, walk the dogs, get to the gym or just relax. And boy am I happier. I just didn't think a week like that was possible.

But you know what really makes me happy these days? It's when I'm supervising early career psychologists and they say things like this:

• “I only work 4 days, I just didn’t want to work a 5th”
• “I do 2 days at one place and 3 at another so I don’t get sick of one type of work”
• “I don’t really like therapy, so I’m looking for more assessment and report writing roles”

They've begun their journey miles ahead of many by not buying into the industry norms. Instead, they're working out how to be a psychologist in a way that suits them.?

So if you're a psychologist who finds the industry difficult, consider if you feel this way because you're buying into the norms. If this is the case, then reject them in service of what works for you. The industry as a whole benefits from psychologists who feel free and happy about their work. But more importantly, the biggest benefit will go to you, the psychologist who found their way of being a psychologist.