Clinical psychologists working in Occupational Health

[mazzz123]

Hi! Anyone else out there working in Occupational Health? I'm new to the field and keen to find any exisiting networks, or to be pointed in the direction of any particularly useful resources! Thanks

[Toria]

Hi,

I work in occupational health as a small part of my job in an acute hospital. I am leaving at the end of February but am happy to try to answer any questions you have? This has also been discussed on the UK Clinical Psychologists Facebook group so that might be worth a search too.

All the best with your new job!

[mazzz123]

Hi Toria,
Thanks for your message. I hadn't heard of the FB group before, but I'll make sure to sign up - thanks!
Could you tell me a but about what sort of things you do in the service? (E.g. health promotion, direct clinical work, consultation etc?) I'm trying to get some ideas about how I might divide my time to cover the key bases so some ideas of what others are doing would be brilliant.
Could you also tell me a bit about the work you do with clients? I'm from a clinical background, and so working with staff as clients and taking into account the needs of the Trust is very new to me. I understand that some of what I'll need to be doing is assessments and advice to referrers / managers, and short-term interventions and signposting as opposed to psychotherapy / psychological interventions.
As you can probably tell I'm very new to this (and am the only psychologist in the team, so no colleagues to help point me in the right direction!), so any ideas, reflections or pearls of wisdom would be gratefully recieved as I find my way!
Thanks,
Mazzz

[Toria]

Hi Mazzz,

Apologies for taking a while to reply. The service mostly provides direct clinical work and this has been mostly medium to longer term psychotherapy but now seems to have included more extended assessments/formulation/advice and signposting than previously. There is an early intervention part of the service which I haven't worked into but I know this is about provide consultation and training into services with high staff sickness levels. Another CP has also provided supervision groups to the specialist occupational health nurses.

It's interesting that you talk about coming from a clinical background. My experience of working in occupational health is that I have done more extensive psychotherapy than I have in all my other qualified roles (in physical health).

Clinical work has included therapy focussed on a wide ranges of issues (e.g. PTSD, low mood, anxiety, anger difficulties) and extended assessment and formulation with members of staff with longstanding complex mental health difficulties. Other psychology colleagues in OH have also undertaken a small number of autism and neuropsych assessments.

In terms of advice, it sounds like the set up is very different where you are working with you being the only psychologist so I think your ideas around shorter term work and consultation sounds very sensible. However, I think thinking about dynamics and how you are positioned within OH and with disciplinary/dismissal procedures is very important whatever the focus of your post. I would also massively recommend this article: http://www.acat.me.uk/reformulation.php ... cle_id=115

Hope that helps, all the very best with your new post!