I was referred to as a non-qualified all the time when I was a HCA. The term was used by both nurses and by other HCAs. It didn't bother me then and it wouldn't now. I just took 'qualified' to mean someone with HCPC registration who had general responsibility/oversight for my work, not as disparagem...

Thank you, Arya. I think the twisted insistence that we're somehow at fault is actually just a response to helplessness in a terrible situation - if we blame ourselves, we're saying that we had the power to make things different, when in truth we didn't. Accepting powerlessness in the face of grief ...

At 32 I'm slightly older than you. I work part-time as a research fellow/lecturer and part-time in a more clinically orientated role. As an academic who only obtained my PhD a couple of years ago, I certainly sympathise with the need for stability (precarious short-term contracts are the norm for ju...

I think all CPs would agree that social workers are fantastic and much-needed. However, to be brutally honest...you aren't a social worker yet, and all you've done here is share that the application process isn't as competitive as clinical psychology and that you feel social workers make decent mone...

This has been discussed a few times on the forum, if you dig around for the threads. I believe one of the current trainees (Randomswirls) was in the same situation as you. There are definitely qualified CPs with lived experience of mental health difficulties, including receiving inpatient care. :) I...

1.) I keep thinking I see my cat moving out of the corner of my eye. It will be months before I stop finding traces of her fur in my socks, I expect. This is hard. I'm so touched by how kind everyone has been, both in my 'real life' and here online. Thank you. 2.) I miss my ex, but I am also feeling...

Thank you. Hearing that does help. I think it's extra difficult because so many things have happened in the space of three weeks - my mum's major surgery, then my ex breaking up with me, then my aunt in hospital, then my cat, and all this with two publication deadlines looming. I feel as if I've had...

She died in my arms. :cry: I went to the hospital straight from the train, as they didn't think she'd live through the night, and she was all spindly and emaciated and hooked up to all manner of tubes and monitors. Her spine was sticking up through her fur like teeth. She recognised me. She tried to...

Thanks, Geishawife. It doesn't look good. :( They're talking of a blood transfusion. Right now I'll settle for just being there to hold her at the end. It's so hard to forgive myself for getting a kitten. If I'd been content with the one lovely cat I have (had? :cry: ) this might never have happened...

3.) My cat doesn't seem to be very well. :( The catsitter wants to take her to the vet. I'm worried. It doesn't feel as if there is much else that can go wrong in July, but this is bizarrely comforting - if I can survive being broken up with while my mum was in hospital undergoing triple bypass sur...

1.) Everyone should have a friend in their life whom they met on a seesaw at seven years old and who has been with them through thick and thin through the intervening quarter of a century. I have one such friend, and I'm staying with her now. I sent a five-word message on WhatsApp outlining what had...

PRUs are very interesting places to work. I'm not a qualified CP, so can't comment on how it would be perceived in applications, but as someone who now teaches in a special school for young people with mental health difficulties I can say that PRU work will give you chance to develop a lot of releva...

The one thing I would add to what Geishawife says is to make sure you add more information to flesh out your answer. An early interest in mental health could just as easily have led you into psychiatry, nursing, social work, occupational therapy, advocacy and mental health law - the list goes on. Wh...

AP, for sure.

I just wanted to say that I have just received feedback that was lovely across the board from a Master's module that I've just finished teaching. This is the first time that every single student has reported a positive experience and commented happily on the quality of teaching. Interestingly but un...