Profile
Laura Fisk
My CV
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Education:
I went to the local school, called Ysgol David Hughes. This is a Welsh state comprehensive school with the sixth form attached (I was glad I didn’t have to try going anywhere else because I had a tough time at school socially). Then I went to the University of Cambridge to study English and then Linguistics – I’d say I never thought I coud get in and no one I knew had ever been and no one at school knew about Oxbridge, but I took a chance to apply when my AS level results were ok, went to the interview, talked about why I liked the books I liked and got in! I stayed at Cambridge to study a master’s in Psychology and Education (it was a ‘converson course’ which allowed me to do all the psychology bits). Then after gathering work experience in the NHS I applied for and was accepted to Newcastle University for the doctorate in Clinical Psychology – result!
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Qualifications:
GCSEs
AS Level: Chemistry
A Levels: French, German, English and Biology
BA Linguistics
MPhil Psychology and Education
DClinPsy (Clinical Psychology PhD) -
Work History:
I’ve been really fortunate with my jobs. Before and during uni, I was a ‘supply librarian’ – I was pleased (and surprised) to get the job because I had the interview in Welsh and that isn’t my first language. Then I worked in a hospital doing ECGs (sticking electrodes on people’s chests to take traces of the heart to see how it’s performing, often before the person had an operation). And then I was a support worker at a mental health hospital for young people aged 12-18. After that, I worked as an assistant psychologist assessing for dementia, before moving to another assistant psychologist job working with people with eating disorder diagnoses.
When I got onto the DClinPsy course I worked with *loads* of teams, and then when I qualified I went to work in a service for people struggling with eating problems again. My current role is as a Clinical Psychologist in a GP surgery testing out a new way of working (as I mentioned above – seeing lots of all kinds of people, for shorter appointments, with varying levels of involvement). Phew!
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Current Job:
Clinical Psychologist at a GP surgery
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I’ve moved around the UK a bit for work (I like to do interesting jobs in the NHS with different groups of people), and am now based in the midlands. I love art (looking and creating) and learning languages (for the people and travel!). I don’t have any pets – yet kind of think of myself as an adopted parent of my friends’ excitable bouncy greyhound-staffy mash-up dog. I’ve recently decided I want to learn to surf (wish me luck, this might not be a sensible idea… I don’t really live near the sea!)
My pronouns are she/her.
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I wanted to be a psychologist because I’ve had help from psychologists in the past myself, and I could see how important good mental health care is. I wanted to help others where I’d been helped.
To be a clinical psycholoigst you need to get a good grounding in lots of psychological theory – usually you get this through an undergraduate degree (first degree at uni) but I went the long way round and did a different subject first (linguistics!). Then after your degree, you get experience in working with people (because that’s pretty essential) like through being a Support Worker, or an Assistant Psychologist or a Research person. Then you apply to ‘do the Doctorate’ (a three year PhD you’re employed to do by the NHS) and then qualify as a Clinical Psychologist – and are released into the wild to do all kinds of jobs with brilliant people. SO that’s what I did.
That first bit of psychology learning (the undergraduate degree) gives me a lot of knowledge about how people in general work (how we develop, how our brains work, how social groups interact etc etc), and that second degree (the PhD) taught me how to apply that knowledge and to be able to help people. So when I’m listening to a person telling me about their problems I’m using my knowledge of how people work to figure out themes and my skills to know when and how to use that knowledge to best help the person.
This all means a lot of what I do might look quite easy, or look like I’m ‘just having a chat’ with someone – but there’s a lot going on ‘behind the scenes’, as it were. That’s qhy it can be quite tiring. But it’s a massive privilege to work with people like I do.
At the moment I mostly meet people in their GP surgery in a private room, but if it suits a person better we might meet at a cafe, or their home, or a different NHS building. We chat, work out a plan of what’s happened, decide what things might help change them for the better, and work out how to put this plan into action. I might see a person lots of times, or never again. My job at the moment lets people decide that for themselves (though sometimes on the NHS you hve a set number of times you can see a psychologist). Another thing to mention is that I see lots of people (12 in a day) for quick bursts of time (30 minutes each), whereas normally a psychologist will typically see maybe 5 people a day for about an hour.
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I’ve done various jobs as a Psychologist in the NHS – but they’ve all involved directly meeting with people (children, adults, older people, families etc etc) and trying to find out what they’re having difficulties with. Some of the services I’ve worked in are specialist services (so people come needing help with a specific problem) and some, like my job at the moment, is very general (anyone can come along for any reason).
Basically, I meet with a person and ask them to tell me what’s brought them along, and I’ll listen hard to pick out what might be happening in their lives (things that might be going well – strengths – and things that might be going less well – challenges). I’ll ask them questions to find out more, and if I’ve got some hypotheses (best guesses) about what might be happening, I’ll ask them to see if that makes sense.
At the moment I mostly meet people in their GP surgery in a private room, but if it suits a person better we might meet at a cafe, or their home, or a different NHS building. We chat, work out a plan of what’s happened, decide what things might help change them for the better, and work out how to put this plan into action. I might see a person lots of times, or never again. My job at the moment lets people decide that for themselves (though sometimes on the NHS you hve a set number of times you can see a psychologist). Another thing to mention is that I see lots of people (12 in a day) for quick bursts of time (30 minutes each), whereas normally a psychologist will typically see maybe 5 people a day for about an hour.
So, I will get to work and turn on the omputer which tells me who’s due to come and see me today (people book their own appointments). Then, I wait until the computer tells me they’ve arrived (it’s very fancy), go and fetch them to my room, and we sit down. I ask something like, “What can I help you with today?”. A person might know straight away (“I keep getting really anxious when I go outside”) or might not really know (sometimes people are told by others in their lives to come along).
And then we talk – I’ll ask a few questions. A good one is usually, “How long has it been this way?” because it tells you things like whether they’ve had practice managing it or if they noticed it quickly and jumped into action. Often I’ll ask, “are there any times things are different?” – that’s called looking for ‘exceptions’, and it’s to help us work out some of the things that influence a problem (make it worse – or make it better) so we can do more or less of those things!
I’ll be listening out for themes in what a person is saying – things like set patterns of thinking that might be trapping a person into a certain way of seeing things, or specific beliefs a person might have that affects how they think things should be (like telling themselves off for feeling a certain way). I’m using theory to make a hypothesis of what’s going on, and using this to gather ideas about what might help.
So if a person is very critical of themselves, we can start to notice that and its affect on the person’s mood, and then work out whether it’s fair, accurate or helpful, and then either re-train the person to be a little more self-compassionate or to manage those feelings with different strategies.
I like to make sure someone leaves the room with a plan – it might be something we’ve drawn or written together, it might be a suggestion they speak with another NHS service, or it might be a book to read or an action they need to pratice.
After 12 or so of these conversations (a bit of lunch in the middle, and lots of cups of tea in between people), I add notes onto the system (people can read what I write using a log-in) and then I go home. Phew!
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What I'd do with the prize money:
Share psychology knowledge with young people through online and offline formats
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Curious, hopeful, enthusiastic
What did you want to be after you left school?
I was lucky I knew - a psychologist! But I did flirt with the idea of being a teacher, and I might yet
Were you ever in trouble at school?
I did tell my teacher off when she got something wrong about a Shakespeare play... I was a bit of a know-it-all (hope I'm not now!)
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Oh dear, this shows my age - Queen!
What's your favourite food?
Noodles! Usually from Wagamama
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
Sorry to be a pain, but #1 I'd like to end homelessness; #2 ensure everyone had enough money, resources and love so they never went without and #3 to speak all languages fluently!
Tell us a joke.
I like elephants. Everything else is irrelephant.
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