Psychology4Graduates 2015 - digital edition

the

psychologist special digital edition

psychology4graduates 2015 www.thepsychologist.org.uk

Digital edition Archive pieces from some of the speakers at this year’s events in London (2 December)

Jamie Hacker Hughes 2015 Carolyn Mair big picture 2013 George Kitsaras Society’s 50,000th member Rob Yeung 2005

John Amaechi 2015 for more information, see http://www.bps.org.uk/events/conferences/ psychology4graduates-2015

INTERVIEW

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From civvy street to theatre of war Jon Sutton talks to Jamie Hacker Hughes, incoming Society President, Military and Veteran Specialist and Visiting Professor at Anglia Ruskin University

ow did your own military service H influence your later career and philosophy?

on whom the care of veterans falls when they leave the services, know very little about what a veteran is, what experiences they have had, and what their needs are.

I served as an army officer on a short service commission with The Queen’s In 2010 the Coalition’s ‘programme for Dragoon Guards, in England, Germany government’ promised extra support (during the ‘Cold War’) and Northern for veterans’ mental health needs. Are Ireland (at the time of the H-block riots they delivering on that promise? and Bobby Sands’ hunger strike). I didn’t Partially. Yes, there is extra funding for know it at the time, but it was the best Combat Stress Community Mental Health possible preparation I could have had for Nurses and a 24-hour helpline, and there my later life as a military psychologist. is some specialist commissioning funding From the moment I graduated from for a residential Combat Stress pilot University College London in 1990 I was treatment programme too. But when it knocking on the army’s door telling them that they needed to put psychologists into comes to delivering equity and parity of uniform (the last uniformed psychologists NHS and local authority veteran mental health and support services, we’ve still got served in World War II). I’m delighted a long, long way to go. Veterans, in theory, that, nearly 25 years later, in April last get priority treatment in primary care (but year, Captain Duncan Precious became seldom do in practice) and do not get any the first-ever clinical psychologist to be preferential treatment in secondary care, commissioned into the British Army [see where it is needed. There tinyurl.com/captdpr]. is widespread agreement I’m absolutely that the Armed Forces convinced about the Covenant is not delivering role that psychology “It’s going to be a heck of what it could or should. and psychologists have a year, but I’m going to to play in defence. give it my best shot” To what extent can you determine – and to what What’s the extent of extent is it important – the problem with whether it is service that causes veterans’ mental health? mental health problems, or that those 'It’s big. Our research tells us that up attracted to the armed forces may be to 20 per cent of veterans suffer from psychological health problems. That’s over predisposed to such issues?

That’s a good question and, as half a million people from an estimated psychologists, we know a good deal about three million veterans according to the predisposing and vulnerability factors, British Legion. A worryingly large provoking factors and precipitating number, given that service personnel start factors. It’s true that the armed forces, out as fit, healthy and selected through particularly the army and particularly the rigorous training. Veterans are also ‘teeth arms’ such as infantry, traditionally strongly represented in the criminal recruit from areas of high unemployment justice system and in the homeless and social deprivation when individuals population. And the tragic thing is that may be seeking to leave behind abusive there is no one person in the Westminster and difficult pasts in the search for a government who’s coordinating all this. It falls between several stools of the Ministry better future, let alone a wage. At the same time, many parts of the forces of Defence, the Department of Health, the Department of Justice, and so on. And the recruit robust, balanced individuals to train for some of the more demanding other problem is that the vast majority of roles. So, of course, it’s a combination of people in the NHS and the Third Sector,

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the two, as it often is, but the rigours of deployment – particularly repeated and prolonged tours where there is daily or near daily exposure to death and injury (and this has certainly been the case in Afghanistan) – absolutely take their toll, however prepared and resilient the individual concerned.

There’s also the question of whether it is the service that’s the issue, or the coming back to ‘civvy street’. I note your paper on deployment in Iraq actually being associated with improved mental health.

The paper that I wrote about how going to war can be good for you followed a group of specially selected, highly trained, highly motivated soldiers (paratroopers) on their first deployment to Iraq in 2003.

They went to carry out tasks that they had been specifically trained for, carried them out successfully, with minimum loss of life and limb and returned to the UK relatively quickly, and yes, their scores on pen and paper measures indicated that their mental health had improved over their deployment. But that is, sadly, not the norm, and our research indicates that troops exposed to danger on a regular basis suffer the consequences, especially if they are young, junior and inexperienced.

Coming back to ‘civvy street’ is indeed a huge problem. I found it difficult enough returning from Belfast to Birmingham in 1981 after less than five years’ service.

For people who have given 22 plus years of service the necessary adjustments are immense. You are leaving behind not just a job, but a way of life where everything is provided – food, entertainment, pay, clothing, accommodation – and where your whole social network is based. It’s a huge wrench.

Alcohol must play a part… I have read soldiers’ accounts describing life as ‘a bunch of lads’ playing ‘the ultimate extreme sport’, ‘drinking and drinking and drinking and having a laugh’.

It’s true that drinking huge amounts of alcohol has been considered as normal for far too long and, in many cases, is expected and forms part of initiation rituals, rites of passage, celebrations and commiserations. The MoD and the three individual services – Navy, Army and Air Force – are finally beginning to get the message; things are changing slowly.

When I was a young cavalry officer, a gin and tonic before lunch was common on weekdays in the mess. That’s almost unheard of nowadays.

Are veterans more receptive to some forms of mental health intervention

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than others? I note you use EMDR, which has often been controversial.

I do use EMDR, and when I first heard of it 20 years ago I was hugely sceptical... until I started using it. I’ve been using it ever since, and it’s a most remarkable form of therapy and, in my experience, much more powerful than the CBT in which I had been trained in initially – although it is my view that EMDR is, in fact, a particular type of cognitive behavioural intervention rather than something completely different. The military and veterans respond extremely well to EMDR because you don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, and it is particularly effective for the treatment of trauma where flashbacks and nightmares predominate, although it can also be very effective in more complex cases where shame and guilt are involved. The MoD love it too because it’s a NICE-approved intervention for the treatment of trauma, along with trauma-focused CBT. Some years back we discussed a special issue of The Psychologist on military health, but it was scuppered when colleagues in the MoD raised concerns about how it would be received. Is this still an issue that prevents psychologists in the area sharing their good practice?

No. Not at all. Things have moved on massively and there is now a proposal to form a Military and Defence Psychology Section in the British Psychological Society, which would be a real result after such a long campaign to have one. Just in time, too, as we celebrate a century of military psychology in the UK in 2015.

Military and defence psychologists, of all hues, are often right at the cutting edge of practice, as you would expect, and the formation of a Section, amongst other things, would really help in the promotion of our area of work.

Presumably psychologists of many different persuasions have a role to play in veterans’ mental health.

You’re absolutely right. When I was appointed head of clinical psychology for the MoD, we expanded the service to include counselling psychologists and health psychologists in addition to the clinical, forensic and neuropsychologists that we already had. And there are huge numbers of occupational and research psychologists in the MoD too – in the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force, in MoD Main Building and in the various research and training establishments. It’s absolutely fascinating and highly rewarding work, and I would commend it to anyone.

And perhaps input doesn’t have to be ‘formal’ psychology – is there a role for innovative therapies such as gardening, running, et cetera?

Of course. Perhaps running isn’t that innovative after all though. It’s one of the things that all military people do, and they are very good at knowing when they need to go for a long therapeutic run or to ‘beast’ themselves in the gym. When deployed out in theatre, in an alcohol-free environment, ‘fizz’, as physical training is known, is incredibly popular as people engage in ‘Op Massive’ in the gym in

learn more about God. With regard to my work with the military, I very much believe in the ‘just war’ philosophy and that it is, sadly, necessary to have an armed force available to use as a last resort to prevent terror or tyranny. I really felt that when I was a soldier in the Cold War. The presence of very large numbers of conventionally armed troops in Germany was a real deterrent to any conflict, and I am pleased to have played my very small part in all that.

Do your own personal and professional interests chime with your priorities for the next year, as incoming President of the British Psychological Society?

In much the same way as I’ve been fighting over the last quarter of a century for a resurgence in military psychology, I’m going to use my term as President to seek a higher profile for the profession, a stronger voice for psychology and greater influence on policy and practice. But I’d also like to see better access, equality and transparency for our Society too.

order to return to the UK with a musclebound, honed, tanned body to impress their partners with. Gardening, though, is, actually, really beneficial as well. I’m mainly involved in veteran psychological health and social care research and delivery these days and am a supporter of two charities that have projects up and down the country where veterans work alongside horticultural therapists. I’ve seen them at work and am a big fan.

I know you’re a religious man. Do you ever find it hard to reconcile this with your military involvement and scientific beliefs?

I am. I happen to be a Christian and an Anglican Franciscan Tertiary (that is to say a lay member of a religious order within the Church of England), but I really do believe that everybody has a spiritual side to them regardless of whether they have a faith or not, and that the ‘spiritual’ in ‘biopsychosociospiritual’ is an extremely important, and often forgotten, component. No, I don’t find it difficult to reconcile my faith with my scientific beliefs at all. I’m not a fundamentalist and I am absolutely sure that the God that I believe in works through science and that science provides a way in which we can, perhaps, also

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What do you think is holding us back from having this profile, voice and influence?’

Perhaps it just hasn’t been seen as a priority. But I know, from what several members of the Society have said to me since I was elected as President Elect, that they would like the BPS to be more prominent, not only in the media but having a real voice and influence on policy and legislation. This is all now in the Strategic Plan and we have the necessary mechanisms to underpin it.

We just need to be a lot more reactive, and much quicker at reacting too, telling people what we, as psychologists, know about an issue in question and demonstrating what psychology has to offer in the area. And, of course, this will require a lot of proactivity and planning and targeted communication too. I see the Society’s Boards as having a crucial role, as well as our policy advice and press team and, of course, The Psychologist.

Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out! How are you going to find any time for yourself?

I’m ruthless about the way in which I handle e-mails and social media and have very firm boundaries. Downtime, alone or with family and friends, is incredibly important. I find running and singing and playing music really restorative and enjoy learning foreign languages for fun too. It’s going to be a heck of a year, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

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INTERVIEW

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‘We’re all Jedi or Sith’ Miles Thomas meets John Amaechi OBE – psychologist, organisational consultant, high-performance executive coach and former NBA basketball player

ell me about your time at school in T Stockport.

I hated school. I hated Stockport. The school I went to had perhaps ideas above its station, in terms of the type of school it should be – a grammar school that thought that kind of emotionally illiterate, highly didactic method of teaching was righteous, because it somehow separated the wheat from the chaff. In other words, kids who could learn that way were clever and worthy, and kids that couldn’t learn that way were stupid and unworthy.

I flirted with worthiness through extreme effort, but fundamentally it’s not how I learnt well.

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through long-term disease or illness.

My mother worked a lot in palliative care, and she also worked in a psycho-geriatric hospital. My first job at eight years old was as an occupational aide there!

Typically it started off as teas and coffees, but even then they were so understaffed it was interacting with adults who weren’t quite there. As a youngster I remember being terrified. ‘How come I’m young,

Yet you’ve been successful in an academic sense?

When I got to take the subjects I wanted to take.

I’m quite jealous when I hear of people who took psychology for A-level.

That wasn’t an option.

I had one option, in order to read psychology at university, and that was to do biology, chemistry and physics. I took subjects I hated… I got to America, and they believe in this breadth of education, so your first year you need to take French again… my second year at university, I’m taking abnormal psychology, experimental psychology, a statistics class…

they’re old, old people are supposed to be there?’ And you realise the adult is really relating to you on your own level, driven by how frightening it is…

So what is it about psychology?

I wanted to be a psychologist since I was seven. I watched my mother as a doctor, as a GP, and I realised very quickly when I went on visits with her that the vast majority of her job didn’t seem to be anything to do with medicine. It seemed to be her ability to help people be resilient

So you had an understanding of the fallibility of mind at quite a young age?

Yes. I mean, my body is wrecked, through years of doing too much with it and now not doing enough with it. But the only thing that really frightens me about my future is the idea that one day my mind will go. I work with a disability charity

and have a number of good friends in wheelchairs. So I recognise physical disability as inconvenient. But ‘losing my marbles’ would be devastating, especially if I knew it was happening.

Which psychologists have influenced you?

The professor when I was doing my MSc on marriage and family therapy in the States was Will Stillwell. He was old enough to have been a student of Carl Rogers, so he’s been around for a while.

It was the first time I’d sat down with someone and used a therapeutic method which was open and reflective and took into account the lies of humanism, which was that you don’t interject anything of yourself. It was exactly what I had imagined psychology would be when I was seven. When I was seven I thought psychology was like being a Jedi. In a way, we are all either Jedi or Sith.

Is that a bit of a primitive split?

It might be, but – and this is why I love Star Wars – the moment you realise that how people fall into being Sith is actually not as simple as ‘are they evil or are they good?’… If you read the books, a lot of Jedi are not very nice people! And there’s Sith, the Anakin Skywalker narrative of how he transitions. It’s about watching the vigilance that you have to have over yourself. I know very well that my life could be easier, more abundant in terms of cash and many other things, if I used my skills in a slightly different way. There are regularly pieces of work where I say ‘you don’t need me for this’. I have a time limit on all my coaching – we’ll do six months, then we’ll do another six months, and then I have to be sure that I am not then becoming a consistent crutch for a person. Some of my peers are on four years of coaching. If it’s mentoring, that’s a different thing. If it’s just sitting down with a glass of wine, then fine, but if it’s directive… I worry about that.

So your perspective is more about activating their resources in a longterm way.

We all have those moments when we are sitting across from somebody or a couple and we think, ‘I know exactly what the problem is with you, why don’t you just do this?’ In your head you’re screaming it.

But you have to stop, because it’s not about me, it’s not about us, it’s about them and what process will help them get to the best solution. You need to nudge people towards that ‘Eureka!’ moment of their own, that gives them not just that answer, but ‘wow, I came up with that answer!’

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You want the person to be the powerful of Notre Dame to read, I thought ‘that one, to go away and do things, not to must be what people see when they see invest too much in you. I’m suspicious me’. There’s a sense of fear of the monster, of the charismatic, the powerful but also ridicule and mockery. That’s coach… everyday. If we walk up and down this My son once told me a lovely thing… in street, you watch – people will be on their basketball there’s a backboard and a hoop, phones not paying attention, and they’ll and you shoot off the backboard into the get up close and see me and they’ll freak hoop, and it’s just a universal truth that out. Or, if you walk past, turn around and some backboards are soft, you hit them three or four steps away people will be anywhere and it’ll go in… a ‘forgiving’ pointing and laughing. backboard. My son once told me that Because of your size?

I was a forgiving backboard… whenever It’s a combination of height and size, he would throw his words and ideas at and colour. That combination to people me, they would go in the hoop. That’s as is apparently terrifying, and mockerymuch credit as you can give me – you’re worthy. the one aiming, you’re the one shooting, I’m just a forgiving backboard. But And the discrimination is overt – you sometimes you can’t control whether were refused entry to people find you a club for being ‘too charismatic, and for me big and too black’? that is not helped by the “I’m always cautious of It happens all the time. fact that I am unusual things that appeal to me The other night I was looking. The too much” in Soho, my two friends juxtaposition of that and went in first, they were what I do for a living is wearing Chuck Taylors. I’d somehow odd and come from work and was wearing a suit enticing for people. I’m fairly esoteric, so and tie. They looked at my shoes. It really if people listen to me on the radio it’s not pissed me off. I’m not blind, I can see what they’ve normally heard before, the what you’re doing, it’s blatant and it’s way I use words has an impact. These rude. But I can’t do anything about it, aren’t affectations I use for my work, it’s because as soon as I lose my temper I ‘fit how I talk to my kids and my grandkids, type’. So I’m mandated not to… it just everybody. I make points by telling cedes. I’m not allowed to lose my stories. So there’s some combination of temper… I’ve known that since I was this and the weird CV that I have that six. I can’t afford to lose control, because makes that happen a lot of the time I can accidentally hurt people just by without me wanting it to. turning around, so imagine what I can do Your Twitter feed says that ‘the most if I really intended to. It would only take unlikely of people in the most a second. improbable of circumstances can Your mum was a GP, so I suppose become extraordinary’…

What could be more unlikely that a 17from early on you had a model of the year-old who read Asimov and ate steak Hippocratic Oath, ‘do no harm’. slices, in six years, playing in the best Yes, and the way I physically manifest basketball league in the world, having on the world around me is about doing never touched a ball before? It seems no harm. I talk a lot with senior people remarkably unlikely. For other people, about their responsibility to do no harm, it’s even more unlikely to them that and part of that is about recognising your somebody who played professional sports size. If you don’t realise you’re a giant, would end up being a psychologist. you do accidental damage all the time.

Before the age of 17 I thought I would The moment you accept the fact that you have a desperately lonely life. I thought have power, you wield it differently. That I was a monster when I was 11 years old. wielding tells you something about the person. Once you realise you’re a giant So 1981, in Stockport, in your and you still walk through the world bedroom. You described yourself as knocking people left and right, then you a ‘fat freak’. Did you have an epiphany? can say something about that character.

I don’t know if epiphany is the right word… it’s the first time I interacted with You ‘came out’ in the NBA, where you people who didn’t treat me like a monster. were the first and only Briton to have I very much enjoy the idea of the lookinghis jersey hung in the US Basketball glass self concept. I looked in people’s Hall of Fame. Do you feel that part of faces, and reflected back was that I was a your role is to liberate people? monster. When I was given the Hunchback Oh no, that’s too much. I recognise the

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limits. I had meetings arranged with activists in China [when working for the BBC during the Beijing Olympics, and as a global ambassador for Amnesty International] and I cancelled them.

It would have been informative and perhaps even empowering to meet them, but I couldn’t account for their safety after I left.

I get some stick from the LGBT community because I advise people that if they’re likely to get fired from their job, who am I to tell them to come out for the betterment of society? People like Peter Tatchell are right that there’s a collective responsibility, but I lived in Utah, which has a large youth culture out on the streets because they have a religious culture which says your children must live the life, and if you don’t disown them you will be disowned by the church… so what kind of person would tell a 14-yearold to come out, you’ll feel better, you’ll be a great role model… but you’ll also be trying to find somewhere to sleep tonight.

Do your beliefs as a psychologist trump your political ones, in terms of safety, where people are at…

Rather stupidly, I had not considered that.

It would be nice if that was true. It’s somehow noble, and that of course appeals to me. But I’m always cautious of things that appeal to me too much.

Hmm, is compromise around political belief really noble?

People who are zealous, I am immediately fearful of them. As staunch as I am in some of my beliefs, I am not a zealot.

I am not interested in sacrificial lambs, that’s so medieval. There are some people out there, John Fashanu for example [whose brother Justin killed himself after homophobic bullying as a professional footballer], some people don’t seem to care how many have to come out, be pilloried, kill themselves for their particular cause. I do – the body count matters.

You adopted two children, and now they have their own children. How does it feel to be a granddad?

I’m very comfortable with it, but it’s a strange situation, to have essentially no family and yet lots of family. I live on my own, there’s no partner with me, there’s no evidence of kids in the house, yet somehow I have this massive family that’s in another country.

Is that through circumstance, or is there an element of choice in living alone?

In a work sense, interpersonally, I am Jedi

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quality! But in a social sense I’m useless, I find social interactions painful. I’m an INTJ, an extreme introvert, all social interactions are painful. I notice everything. Being introvert is not about an inability to interact, it’s about how energyexpensive it is. As I walk down the street I know everyone who is looking, everyone who is pointing, and I only have a certain amount of energy for that. So I stay in my house.

I don’t live anywhere, most of the time. I have some duties in Manchester, I’m an NHS Trustee. That’s five days a month. Then I’m in New York or Connecticut, with clients, five days a month. I have a charity in Manchester as well. I built a centre in 1999 that we opened in 2000. We have about 2500 kids a week going through our doors. I’m a little disappointed in it at the moment to be honest. I’m interested in a place that helps young people become more emotionally literate, that helps them be a bit more personally insightful. When we started we used to do MBTIs for young people, not because I think it’s the most accurate, but because any tool that’s simple enough for young people to do, that allows them to gain an understanding about how they operate and how other people operate and why they might find certain types of people irritating and others not, is a really good thing. I had to fight to get that done, and now I can’t get it done, and they just want to do a high-quality basketball centre and I don’t care about that.

What do you care about, in terms of pressing issues for psychologists?

In the community sense, there is a complete mismatch with how we look at psychological maladies and physical maladies. We’ve got hospitals, GPs and advice lines overrun with people with nothing wrong with them in a physical sense. And yet we have certain communities – men, minority groups – who just don’t access these services.

They find themselves in a justice-system response to their situation.

One of the biggest problems is that people just don’t take these issues seriously. Ridiculous people like Katie Hopkins continue to talk about depression as if it’s just a bit of sadness,

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cent of people in the House of Lords. They don’t see me as anything but a sportsperson.

That’s normal.

‘why don’t you suck it up?’ This narrative resonates with too many people. There are schoolteachers you talk to who see someone coming in, they say ‘he’s just a bit sad’ – no, sadness for six months?

Not sad.

What are your aspirations?

I’d like to be in the House of Lords, I’d like to be a cross-bench peer. I’ve already been rejected once. I really fit because I don’t care whose idea is a good idea, I care if it works. This is one of the things that I love about science, the idea that evidence counts. The rationality of it.

What works, counts. Whether I like it or not. If something I’m doing doesn’t work, I must stop doing that. Even if I’m really attached to it.

People chase their losses though.

I don’t. The moment that somebody can supply me with evidence, I’m not precious about it, it’s gone.

Is there a ruthless aspect to you?

I ruthlessly chop away people who betray me. There’s no second chance. You’re done. But not in a really proactive sense, I can’t imagine a proactive way that I’m ruthless.

It’s a defence, isn’t it?

Accidental harm, I think people do that. Even intentional harm, out of that moment of loss of control, even that… betrayal is different, and I feel very different about betrayal.

The Lords … you’re not going to give up, are you?

No. They’re wrong. I mean objectively wrong. Stack my CV up against 90 per

What should they see you as?

Who talks about themselves as what they were 10 years ago?

Who does that? Let’s talk about what I do now. I work with eight of the top 10 businesses in the world, in terms of any measure you would like to use. And I’m not cheap. They can’t all be idiots.

The annoying part is that I’m fairly sure that if I want to become a Labour or Lib Dem peer, there’s a pathway for that to happen. I just think it would be disingenuous to do that, because what I really want to do is be part of that core of backbenchers who are charged with looking at policy for unintended consequences, for rationale, for efficacy, without the lens of who comes out looking good if this policy goes through. I think this is such an important thing, especially as I lived in America and I’ve seen the Senate there… they should wear uniforms like Nascar drivers, because really they have special interests all over them. There’s no transparency with what they do. In the House of Lords, those cross-benchers are a voice of reason, rationality, and that’s a really powerful thing and I would like to be a part of that.

I think something about your story, being a big character, is ‘noisy’ for people, even for me as a psychologist.

How often do people meet ‘John’?

Rarely I would imagine. I have a lot of colleagues. There’s professional distance with that. But I have a small group of friends, and we are very much ourselves together.

I’m a spiky individual. Difficult to grab hold of. I’m not warm and fuzzy, in most people’s estimation. Professionally I am direct, firm, people recognise that I am pragmatically harsh when necessary and pragmatically warm when necessary.

But in my house, with a glass of red, I’m watching cartoons.

I John Amaechi OBE is a psychologist (and

a Society member), organisational consultant and a high-performance executive coach. He is a New York Times best-selling author and former NBA basketball player. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of East London, where interviewer Miles Thomas works on the Doctorate in Education and Child Psychology.

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The ‘street children’ of Latin America

Words and sorcery Simon Oxenham and Jon Sutton consider the causes of bad writing in psychology, and its impact

Graham Pluck with a story of challenge and survival for millions

letters 2 news 8 interview 40 reviews 66

march 2015 www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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letters 172 news 184 careers 236 reviews 244

radical behaviourism 24 mindfulness in psychology 28 mental illness – head to head debate 34 looking back: Asch’s line studies 72

eldercare: the new frontier 202 sweet memories 206 sexual identity at work 212 masculinity, trauma and ‘shell shock’ 250

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vol 28 no 10

october 2015

Fashion designers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers interact to produce an important global industry that employs millions of people worldwide. We buy, wear and dispose of clothes. Some design, make and sell; others collect, display, recycle and up-cycle. Our clothing affects our self-esteem and confidence as well as influencing people’s perceptions of us, and even their cognitive abilities (see Hajo & Galinsky, 2012, on enclothed cognition).

This image was taken from Fashioning the Future 2009, a global student competition recognising the next generation of fashion designers and practitioners. It’s conceived and delivered by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion (www.fashion.arts.ac.uk). The college is committed to its ‘Better Lives’ agenda, using fashion to Reference Hajo, A. & Galinsky, A.D. (2012). Enclothed cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 918–925.

drive debate and change the way we live with the aim of developing a more ethical fashion industry concerned with promoting wellbeing through fashion.

Fashion is without doubt a fascinating and important aspect of our lives. And fashion, like psychology, is inherently concerned with behaviour.

Before becoming an academic (I am now a Chartered Psychologist), I worked as a visual merchandiser, graphic designer, dress maker and portrait artist.

Now I’m developing the first ever Psychology and Fashion master’s programme, to start in 2014 at the London College of Fashion.

For more information contact me on c.mair@fashion.arts.ac.uk.

Photo by Sean Michael; designer Karina Michel; text by Carolyn Mair.

E-mail jon.sutton@bps.org.uk with your ‘Big picture’ ideas

You are what you wear?

BIG PICTURE

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Society’s 50,000th member: George Kitsaras The Society has welcomed its 50,000th member: Mr George Kitsaras, Assistant Psychologist at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, who joined soon after his graduation and arrival in the UK. George is currently taking a master’s degree in clinical psychology at the University of Reading. He said: ‘I was aware of the importance of BPS before coming to the UK. Joining was my first goal after my graduation back in Greece because many of my colleagues highly recommended it. One of the reasons I became a member is that I believe a career in psychology in the UK is linked with BPS membership due to the unique networking opportunities that the Society offers and its international prestige. Also the access to a wide range of journals and reductions on training opportunities are particularly valuable at this point in my career.’

George is looking forward to his prize of attendance at the Society’s 2015 annual conference in Liverpool (5–7 May). He also receives a year’s free Society membership.

The milestone continues the yearly growth that has seen membership rise from over 10,000 in the early 1990s. Society President Professor Dorothy Miell said: ‘All of our members – from those who have been loyal activists for years to those joining now– are the lifeblood of the Society. As a membership The Society’s Royal Charter

organisation our strength comes from the effect that each and every one of our members can make in their work promoting psychology – whether by teaching, practising or researching in so many different settings.

We are proud to welcome each new member and to offer them support in their work.’

The Society has also celebrated another milestone, the 50th anniversary of the granting of our Royal Charter – the principal governing document, which established the objectives by which the Society still operates today. To mark the occasion, the President, Professor Dorothy Miell, has sent a message of Loyal Greeting to Her Majesty the Queen on behalf of all members.

The Charter has undergone a number of revisions over the course of the last 50 years – perhaps most notably in 1987, when we gained authority to run a Register of Chartered Psychologists. The current version can be read at www.bps.org.uk/what-wedo/bps/governance/royal-charter-statutes-rules/royalcharter-statutes-rules.

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STUDENTS Associate Editor: Nicola Hills Short articles (around 600 words), news, tips, quotes, cartoons and other contributions of particular relevance to students are most welcome. Send to: Nicola Hills, c/o the Society’s Leicester office. E-mail: Nicola_Hills@hotmail.com

Thinking about a postgraduate degree?

HOOSING to do a PhD just over 10 years ago was a bad decision.

I’m not saying that I’m now unhappy with my chosen career. Far from it – applying psychology to practical problems in the workplace is interesting work.

But it was my decision-making process that was bad. If I’m honest, I did a PhD because I didn’t know what else to do. I’d been to careers seminars, but nothing really appealed. Then an advert for an industrysponsored scholarship caught my eye.

So, lo and behold! I was being paid to be a postgraduate.

While my career has turned out OK, that was over 10 years ago – and the job market has changed a lot since then.

Nowadays I talk to students embarking on PhDs and MSc courses, and I have a whole different perspective on it all.

C

Talk to practising professionals Speak to at least half-a-dozen people who work in the field before embarking on your course. Don’t rely on course tutors to tell you how the job is – they are effectively on commission to sell the course (and its fees) to you. Speak to practising psychologists. What are the highs and lows of doing it day in, day out? Is there much administration and form-filling?

Do they work for an employer or are they effectively self-employed?

But ask about the lifestyle too. What are the hours like? What is the salary like?

What are the prospects for career advancement and pay increases? How easy is it to take maternity leave?

Understand that experience is more important than qualifications It’s a situation that most clinical psychologists are familiar with. You can’t get a place on a clinical course unless you’ve got some experience. Unfortunately, the same is rarely true of occupational and health psychology courses around the country, some of which hand out places even though the competition for jobs is so fierce that only a percentage will end up as actual psychologists.

For example, if you look at firms that employ occupational psychologists, they usually say the same thing – they all want

BY

ROB YEUNG

These are all key skills that will make you more employable after your course of study.

people with work experience. So make sure that you get some. Take a gap year or two before doing an MSc. If there is a good employer, offer to work for free

Build your contacts ‘It’s not what you know but who you know.’ Having a qualification and a good understanding of your field is important.

But employers often recruit the people they already know.

Presenting a paper at conference is a good way to get your name embedded into employers’ minds. Finding out about other professional associations and attending their events is another way. For example, in addition to the BPS Division of Occupational Psychology, there is the Association of Business Psychologists (www.theabp.org).

Even if you only manage to meet someone for two minutes, that could make a difference when they are interviewing you for a job a couple of years down the line.

So don’t let yourself get too focused on your postgraduate research and study. Keep an eye on the future as well, and what you need to do to get the job you want.

for a couple of months to get valuable experience on your CV. Even if you can’t work as a psychologist – having some experience of working in a professional environment will stand you in better stead than having simply studied for your entire adult life.

■ Dr Rob Yeung is a director of Talentspace, a business psychology consultancy (www.talentspace.co.uk).

BEHIND THE NAME

by Noel Sheehy

Choose your dissertation topic carefully Don’t plump for a dissertation simply because it is interesting to you. Consider what potential employers are interested in – are there hot topics that they are wrestling with at the moment?

Even better, to demonstrate that you are not a crusty old-school academic, try to get involved with organisations other than your university. Think of ways to make your research as broad as possible. Can you do your clinical research across a number of health authorities? Can you test your workplace stress intervention in a business rather than on students? Can you get sponsorship – even if it’s only to pay the postage costs for your survey – to demonstrate that you can forge partnerships across organisational boundaries?

GORDON ALLPORT pioneered an approach to the study of personality that emphasises the influence of social processes on personality development and stresses the importance of free will and personal responsibility. His simple Protestant upbringing imbued values of cleanliness, piety and virtue.Allport met with Freud on only one occasion during which he told Freud a story about early onset of phobia. It was about a fouryear-old boy Allport had seen on the tram on the way to visit Freud. Allport reckoned Freud might be interested in this young fellow’s fear of dirt. Freud listened, fixed his therapeutic eye on Allport and enquired ‘Was that little boy you?’

Further reading: Nicholson, I.A.M. (2002).

Inventing personality: Gordon Allport and the science of selfhood.Washington, DC:American Psychological Association.

37 January 2005

The Psychologist

Vol 18 No 1