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Occupational and coaching psychology in independent practice with Christine Hamilton

Christine is a highly experienced occupational psychologist and leadership development consultant. Her career to date has spanned across the public and private sector and she has held several positions in the British Psychological Society. 

The highlights

 

  • I introduce Christine and she tells us about her career path and the road she took to independent practice 00:17
  • We discuss the importance of talking to people about our careers and asking for help 04:23
  • I ask Christine what it was like to be in a management role and introduce psychological thinking 07:20
  • Christine tells us where her career went next, after developing her competence as an occupational psychologist in a management role 09:58
  • Christine talks about her move into self employment and how she knew what she could do independently 13:56
  • Christine talks about the growth of her independent practice 19:25
  • Christine tells us about the coaching side of her work 27:26
  • We discuss the difference between therapy and coaching 30:00
  • I ask Christine how people can skill themselves up to work in this area 36:32
  • Christine tells us the first steps for occupational psychologists who are thinking about starting a private practice 40:22
  • I thank Christine and she tells us how to find her on LinkedIn 45:32

 

 

Links:

Linked In – Christine’s profile 

ILM – coaching qualification accrediting body

EMCC – coaching qualification accrediting body

ICF – coaching qualification accrediting body

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TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Rosie Gilderthorp, Christine Hamilton

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  00:01

Welcome to the business of psychology podcast, the show that helps you to reach more people, help more people and build the life you want to live by doing more than therapy. 

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  00:17

Today, I’m talking to Christine Hamilton. Christine is a highly experienced occupational psychologist and leadership development consultant. Her career to date has spanned across the public and private sector, and she’s had several positions in the British Psychological Society. There’s so much I’m keen to talk to you about today, Christine, so thank you so much for coming on and welcome to the podcast.

 

Christine Hamilton  00:38

Thank you very much Rosie, I barely recognise that introduction, so thank you for it.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  00:45

Well, something that I hear a lot from members of the Do More Than Therapy community is that it can be really difficult for applied psychologists who aren’t clinical or counselling psychologists to visualise what an independent practice would mean for them. I’ve also been having lots of conversations recently with students on Psychology Business School, about the difference between coaching and therapy, and what role we can take in leadership development. So I think there’s going to be a lot of listeners today who are going to gain a lot from hearing from you. So firstly, it would be brilliant to get to know a little bit about your career path and the road that you took into independent practice.

 

Christine Hamilton  01:26

It was very much a sort of tacking away and then a tacking back, I would say, when I look backwards at my career, so after my degree in psychology, it was the early 80s, there were no jobs, so definitely resonance with these days, and took clerical jobs after I left University, thought, I’m never going to be able to apply my psychology. So did some personnel management qualifications. And again, there were no graduate roles that I could find in South Wales at the time. But by by chance, applied for a management training scheme, in the Department of Employment and started to see connections between psychology and employment. They’re very obvious connections, but it really came home to me that we were in a situation where we had to enable vast amounts of people to get, one, get jobs, retain them, and two get some training that would get them out of dead end occupations, and into new ones. So it was a fascinating time to be involved in large scale schemes to enable some of that transition for a lot of people. So started to tenuously see my psychology in that frame. And then moved on, moved up and managed all sorts of offices and schemes in the southeast of England, and then moved back to Scotland, and happened to see an advert that was about graduate training schemes, and thought, in the NHS, and thought, oh, that’s fascinating, that’s an interesting area, and discovered that a lot of it was about assessment for part of the year, and then about development. Bringing these young people in to parts of the NHS, helping them acclimatise, and also get professional qualifications. And of course, that’s at the heart of occupational psychology. Who is suited to a role, who could deal with the complexities of this particular kind of the public sector, part of public sector, who could become a manager and a leader of people? So I was again, tacking my way back to assessment of people, young people, and got drawn back into the world of psychology through my network. And I thought, you know, this is really an area I need supervision on, spoke to local psychologists, built up my knowledge, used some of their services, piggybacked on their expertise. And then gradually thought, now I really need to go for my chartered status. So it was very incremental forwards and backwards as the job required, and as my interest was piqued, I’d say.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  04:23

I really love the method in there about talking to people and being open about what you’re doing, and what you’d like to be doing. Because I think often, you know, we’re not sure where we’re going. We’re not sure what we can do with our qualifications, but there are people out there who are doing inspirational things. And usually they’re quite happy to talk about it.

 

Christine Hamilton  04:44

Yes. More often than not, unless they’re very very up against it, people enjoy having a cup of coffee when we can do that, and just talking and listening. They love it. I don’t think I’ve had many refusals, personally for me or for anybody else, when I said, would you mind talking to this person about? I could count the fingers on one hand, of people who have said no, and it’s been for very good reasons.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  05:15

Yeah, me too. And I think if you think about our own behaviour, I think certainly recently, I’ve been getting messages on LinkedIn, from people who are applying for the clinical psychology doctorate. I always try and help. Because I think we all know how privileged we are, to be able to call ourselves psychologists, it’s certainly not an easy route, and you need a lot of luck and other things to get there. So I think there’s a lot of goodwill in psychology and in therapy, that means if you reach out to somebody, it’s really likely they’re going to try and help you. 

 

Christine Hamilton  05:48

Very much. I think, I think we all have either been there or know close relatives who are there, so there is a lot of appreciation of that. But I think I would say that, and this is my ignorance of other divisions, but I’d say occupational psychology has particular problems, in that we have very, very few, and it’s getting even less, opportunities to be trained as occupational psychologists and paid at the same time. Usually, we have to do HR roles, training and development roles under the banner of another another job title than psychologist, and get those pieces of expertise and competence under our belt, and then find another way, in that role, or in a part time role, to acquire the other aspects of our training to acquire enough expertise for our portfolio to get our chartered status. So where we have to kind of be very creative, and determined to stretch our roles when we get them to make sure we get the the the domains covered in terms of occupational psychology. And that can be very challenging because employers want their piece of work done. They don’t really want many of their new starts to, to go into areas of their interests where it can be quite challenging to get that x that that range of expertise.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  07:20

Yeah. And something else that I was going to ask you actually about your journey was kind of what it what it must have been like to be in a management role and introducing psychological thinking at that time. How was that received?

 

Christine Hamilton  07:35

I think people are intrigued by psychology, a wee bit daunted sometimes, but genuinely intrigued. And as long as, and this is not to be patronising, as long as it’s made relevant, so how is this going to make our task more effective? I think on the whole organisations want to use best practice. They want it to be effective. They want to get the best people for the role. So they’re very interested in what does the evidence say, but they will not give you much time to explain it. So they expect you to do the research and then refine it and get it right. So yes, I think we are intrigued, but they need it, not exactly translated, but they need to be engaged. They need to find it relevant.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  08:29

Yeah, that’s interesting, because I was thinking one of the tensions might be that often, we feel we need to experiment, butt you can’t know exactly what’s going to work in a particular context, you can kind of you might have an idea and want to test it. But I imagine there’s not that much room for testing.

 

Christine Hamilton  08:47

Not really, particularly if you’re doing something in mass scale, like like recruitment, you need to determine your approach, refine it, and particularly as one of the many things you want to do is engage the potential employers of the trainees. So you might involve them in the assessment process and in the interviews, and you have to go through some sort of consistency of standard and confidence in in that in that sort of large group, that large cohort of helpers, and you can’t overstretch them, so you can’t use them too much. So you’ve got a large body of people, that you’re trying to get to do pretty much the same thing. And of course, you would have ways of checking on consistency and standards, but it has to be very practical, in terms of the processes you use. So yes, we used to have to put a lot of effort into explaining ensuring people felt clear what they had to do, confidence sometimes give them tuition, but it was about masses of people being able to do good practice was was often what we were asked us for.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  09:58

Wow. So Where did you go from there? So it sounds like you kind of carved out a management role for yourself, which allowed you to develop your competence as an occupational psychologist. Where did your career go after that?

 

Christine Hamilton  10:14

Well, because I was looking at what did these new people in the organisation need in terms of building up their management competence, we would think about the placements, but we would also think about what knowledge did they need. And so we put together with a couple of universities, management modules, how to lead small groups of people, teams of people, larger groups of people, what that required internally for the individual for them to find their own style, their own way through, how to deal with difficult situations, difficult people, new policies, etc. So we we identified the key areas that they would have to build their competence in over a couple of years, and we put together management and leadership modules of which built their their their knowledge, and also bit of skills development, we put in there as well. So I was doing that for the graduates. And then I was asked to do it for some of the clinicians, some of the more senior managers, because really, it was just the sort of same sort of stuff but higher level. And again, it was just very interesting to think about. So after somebody is built their foundation management, leadership career, what do they need next. And the most fascinating areas where people who would touch on management, now and again in their careers, but had to be leaders of large numbers of people, so often clinicians, non managers, where they didn’t have much time to learn, they had vast resources and people to lead, very, very bright. So what you had to present was something that they could see the relevance of almost immediately and apply it. But also have a sense of I’m intrigued by this, I want to get good at this. So again, it was our psychology in terms of so what is it that will bring this group of people slightly reluctantly sometimes, towards this subject matter? What’s in it for them? Why would they want this? And how, from their position to we build their competence? Because you can’t take them through months and months of, of a Master’s course on leadership, you have to think about how do we get that inefficiently. So that was fascinating. Really enjoyed that. 

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  12:41

Yeah, I bet because I think, you know, definitely, from my NHS experience and my experience in the prison service as well. Often, it’s when somebody is a really amazing clinician, they get promoted out of their clinical role and into management, when that’s a totally different skill set. And I always kind of wondered, how on earth are people supposed to make that jump?

 

Christine Hamilton  13:01

Yeah, I think too little attention is paid to it. I think often, professionals find themselves engineers, all sorts of disciplines find themselves in these situations. And it’s quite a tricky thing to say, d’you know, I haven’t a clue how to. So I think, I think the HR department, the training department has to be quite delicate and astute about, actually, when you look at this role, if we’re going to move somebody who hasn’t had the opportunity to lead lots of people before, big resources, we’ve got to give them something judicious. And we’ve also got to manage their pride. We have to make sure it feels commensurate to their level. So again, a lot of psychology.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  13:53

Absolutely. Yeah, that sounds really fascinating.

 

Christine Hamilton  13:56

It was an it is. And then after that, that that department that I worked for was closed, in the NHS in Scotland, and I was pregnant with my first child heavily pregnant when this was announced. And so I decided I had to go into self employment, and spoke to some of my contacts who I’ve been working with over the years saying, or when I returned from maternity leave, what might there be? Might there be projects I could do, etc. So that was my, it was kind of propelled into self employment, independent practice at that point.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  14:36

Yeah, that’s interesting, because, you know, I was propelled into independent practice as well. And I think, often the questions that I get asked from members of Do More Than Therapy, who are either in occupational psychology or something that isn’t, you know, clinical or counselling typically, is you know, how on earth do I do this independently. Because maybe they’ve been in a clear defined role in an organisation for a long time. And so how did you go about kind of piecing that together? How did you know what you could do independently?

 

Christine Hamilton  15:12

It’s the same thing as you were saying before, Rosie, it’s very much about talking to people, talking to people that you used to get to do work. And of course, there’s a sort of, not exactly an awkwardness, but there’s an ethics around that because we’re rarely suddenly told we’re going to be made redundant, there’s usually a sort of halfway house happening of uncertainty. And so that’s when people need to put the feelers out in a way that is ethical for them and for everybody else, they’re speaking to. Just say, well, I’m not sure what the future is going to bring, but can I speak to you about what your knowledge is of what’s out there? People feel awkward in those situations, if you say, I think I’m going to be made redundant, can you give me something to do? And none of us would do that. But equally, there’s no point in not using those contacts. And people, as we’ve said earlier, are only too happy to have a discussion, they can sometimes think oh crumbs as it’s going to get a bit tricky, or they’re going to ask me for a job or something? And as long as it’s clear, no, that’s you know, I just want to send you out on the market. What’s out there? What do you think? And more often than not, people will do that, and they will often say, well, I don’t have… nothing’s coming to mind, but do you, do you know, such and such? Because I heard they might be doing such and such. So it’s, it’s that way that you build up. One, your knowledge of what’s marketable out there. And two, how to pitch against that because that that is a skill as well. So yes, you, one acquires these pieces of knowledge and it’s often just through other people’s goodwill, that that happens. Yeah. 

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  17:06

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think if if you’re listening to this, and feeling like, you don’t have much of a network, you don’t have very many people that you can reach out to who seem relevant, then reach out to people that don’t seem directly relevant, and ask them who they know. Because I know, I was very much in that position where I was, I don’t know anybody who’s remotely relevant to my career. But actually, I had, you know, twice removed connections, who were very happy to be introduced and talk to me. And that really made a big difference. Also use LinkedIn, I know Christine’s active on LinkedIn, I am, you can literally search by job roles. And you’ll be very surprised who gets back to you. I’m doing an assignment for my MBA at the moment, which is really interesting, but it’s about operations management and sustainability, so couldn’t be further out of my expertise. And, and I wanted to do a case study on on a big business, and I could probably say this, actually, I wanted to do a case study on Waitrose, I can’t say the name properly, that they had a sustainability operation called unpacked, very fascinating about plastic free. I’m very interested in that. So I wanted to use them for a case study reached out to a few very senior people I found on LinkedIn, they got back to me, people are so helpful.

 

Christine Hamilton  18:28

They are, they are and and whenever, and this is absolutely guaranteed, whenever it is a psychologist who wants to link in with me, for whatever reason, I never say no. You know, we all get people trying to link in or wanting to link in and you think, I can see absolutely no connection whatsoever, so the answer, unfortunately, is no. But if it’s a psychologist in training or, of course we want to link in because our network could be useful to them. So yeah.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  19:00

yeah, exactly. I just think don’t be afraid to reach out. I think people get really worried that it’s going to be annoying or a hassle. But at the end of the day, if somebody is too busy, they just scroll past it. And most of the time, they won’t, so no downside really. So that was kind of how you got your foot in independent practice. How did it grow and become what it is now?

 

Christine Hamilton  19:25

Well, again, tacking backwards and forwards. So I got some long term projects while I had my second child. And so it was sort of more like, it definitely was employment. It was long term projects, again in the hospital sector. And I looked for that, because I thought I’ve got two young children and one, I need, I don’t have the capacity to be self employed because there was just so much work coming in potentially, I thought I knew I needed to control this for a while. That was that’s just me. I needed to control it. But it was the similar sort of thing. It was a leadership development, this case for nurses and ward, ward managers. Loved it, absolutely loved that work, we could create it from scratch, test, in the end it was 600 people who went through those programmes, got terrific feedback, just loved that job, loved it. And then the project came to an end, so I tried to find another job, not too far away from home, again, in the NHS, didn’t enjoy that one, so much. Very difficult dynamics. And then I saw a job in organisational development. And for psychologists, particularly occupational psychologists, that’s just a dream come true. Because that is about the whole gamut of people in the organisation. And, and it was an organisation going through a lot of change, potentially a big geographic move. So it was just a terrific opportunity. So I did that for five years for some very interesting projects, and then left to go to do a large scale project in a trust, in a health board that was near to me, geographically, because I’ve done a lot of travelling, and then thought, well, maybe self employment is for me. So again, reached all contacts, and set up my business about eight years ago, and thoroughly enjoy it now. In terms of building that, it was very much about using my network, but also thinking about, well, what is the kind of work I want to be doing? What’s the kind of work I’m good at? And who is in that marketplace? And contacting them? And saying you don’t know me, but I work in this area, can I send you an example? Can we have a discussion? Can I hear more about what you’re doing? Or what you’re looking for? What you’re looking for, I think is a really good question. And built up a lot of work in fact almost too much over, but that took a long time. It was, I did work for the NHS, I did work for all parts of the private sector, contacted organisations so I could be their associate. So I had all sorts of models of working. And about three years ago decided it was just getting too much, so I’ve I’ve sort of reduced some of that now. But yes, it was, it was chance, sometimes, you know, the the place was was closing or the job was changing. And I just had to adjust.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  22:44

Yeah, and I think what sort of shines through that is that you weren’t afraid to reach out to people and be honest about what you wanted to do and what you could do, and have a conversation about it. Was that always easy for you? Or did you struggle with that at all?

 

Christine Hamilton  23:00

No. And sometimes, I made huge mistakes. I remember somebody approached me out of the blue to do some work, I think because that they suddenly had a gap in their cohort of trainers, and it was in Manchester. And I thought, well, this actually sounds really interesting, it’s with the insurance sector, oh I haven’t worked there, oh yes, oh thank you very much for seeking me out. And then realised that they would pay me through some sort of umbrella umbrella organisation. And it was a nightmare sending in all the paperwork. The actual work itself was terrific, but the logistics of getting paid was horrendous. So I learnt from that, in my in my case, I would not, not engage in that arrangement again. Then others where it was highly prestigious organisation that I happen to get in touch with when they happen to have a need. And we had lots of meetings in London and I couldn’t believe the palatial offices and I thought oh, I’ve arrived and not one jot of work in of it. So you don’t know where these things are going to take you. Some of them work wonderfully and are long term and some, you know exploded like fireworks and come to nothing. So you just have to kind of roll a bit with that, I think.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  24:30

Yeah, and I like what you said about having a few different models at the beginning and kind of trying it all out. And then when you feel like you’ve got a solid base, just cutting off the ones that you don’t really like.

 

Christine Hamilton  24:44

Yes, because in in our field there is a market for assessment for roles of course, and also assessment for development of organisations who want people to go through a development centre and then have some very clear pointers about what their strengths clearly are. But and, and how they can hone those, and also what they need, they need to change or develop in order to get to the next level. And I love, love, love that work. But many clients want incredibly detailed, lengthy reports, that’s something I’m sure many psychologists are asked to do in different aspects of their roles. But some of these reports are killers, they are so long, and they have to be turned around so fast, and they have to be absolutely correctly spot on in terms of evidence, they are exhausting. Now I could, I found I could do that, you know, 10 years ago, but more recently, unless it’s really interesting piece of work, I won’t put myself through that because it you know, the return, some some organisations almost seem to judge the quality of the work by the length of the report, as opposed to give me something pithy that that this person can really focus on and work with, and use the psychologist to discuss that with the individual to to help them extend themselves through through discussion through exploration. Some just want to have a report. And, yeah, I’m very, very thoughtful about some of those, I must say.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  26:31

Yeah, and I think it does come down a bit to your vision for your business and your life and what you want your business to bring you. Because I do know, people in the Do More Than Therapy membership, who really love doing these big, it’s medico legal reports, usually, for us. And they love that. And they would very happily sit at their desk and work on those for a long time. So as long as as you’re being paid well for all of that time, I think that’s a real sticking point that I’ve learned the hard way, that you’ve got to be, you’ve got to pay me for all of the time, so that I can give it the space without it encroaching into my time with my family. Then if that feels good to you, then you might want to keep doing it. Whereas other people might try that out, and feel that actually, you know, I’ve chosen to be self employed, so I have the freedom to do work I love and I don’t love that. So I’m going to do something else.

 

Christine Hamilton  27:26

Exactly, exactly and to use your expertise where you can get into the flow, I think, is this getting more satisfaction as well as pay the bills. Yeah, I think that’s very important. And what I’m realising I forgotten is, during all of that time, I was also doing coaching, counselling training, then coaching training, to get accreditations, etc. So yeah, so I extended my work more into the coaching side.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  27:53

Yeah, that’s interesting. So can you tell me a bit about the coaching that you do?

 

Christine Hamilton  27:58

Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a very wide range. In the public sector, there as totally understandably, there’s there’s a demand for senior level posts, and particularly in the NHS in Scotland, GPs to get coaching, because it’s recognised that many roles are coming under pressures that were not foreseen 10 years ago. So there’s something about helping people think that one through, what’s their way through this. You know, when they came into the profession, it was like this, and now it’s like that, what do they make of that, how do they work their way through it, as I say. Same with directors, where the, where the responsibilities sometimes can change hugely. And then there’s another market, which has been extended during COVID, for a much wider range of staff, that would not have been considered to have coaching, that would that offer wouldn’t have been given in the past. So that has widened hugely, so that’s a lot of people being offered coaching. And the methodology is, well, if you’re going to offer that to a much wider range of people, you’ve got to make it very efficient. And the way to make it efficient is having platforms that enable the matching to happen efficiently, very efficient management and management of time, and fees. And, and that’s a trend that I think is coming in, in so many parts of psychology, and it’s one that I’m concerned about. It’s not to say that it’s not a wonderful thing to widen, who gets opportunities, but there’s also something about comensurate reward for expertise and training and experience. So, so there’s all sorts of markets suddenly opening up and coaching.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  30:00

That’s really interesting. So I think a question that I get asked a lot is, what’s the difference between therapy and coaching? And yeah, actually I’d be interested to get your perspective on that. What do you think the difference is?

 

Christine Hamilton  30:15

Well the simplistic answer is that coaching is very much pictures about, so where are you now? Right here and now? And where do you want to be? And what’s your way towards that? And what might be the barriers? And what’s your way through those barriers? So it’s very future focused, but also taking in the signals the evidence from here and now in the body in the in the mind and emotions, etc. So it’s goal focused at its most simple level, and that’s often where we start, what what’s this for? What kind of outcomes are you after? Sometimes, if we’re brought in by the organisation to do a range of of people, then we would have meetings with the manager of the individual and the coachee. And we’d have to form some sort of triangular relationship.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  31:15

Oh wow, that sounds complicated.

 

Christine Hamilton  31:17

It can be, on the whole, it just took me, one just has to be very clear, right from the start about that arrangement, that contracting, which is what is it that the company, the manager will hear of what’s discussed? What’s the remit from the organisation? And often they’ll say, well, what I want is this person to be more of this, or generally, we need our this tier of people to be doing this more, or we’re going through this change so we want to everyone should be doing this more, and this less. So it’s sometimes quite vague, what they actually want, but it’s incredibly important for the coachee, once their boss has said, I want more of this, to think through with somebody, so do I want that? Can I, Can I do that? Will I still be me if I do that? What’s my way of being more like that, but not an identikit? And what’s reasonable to expect of that coachee, in terms of conforming to what’s sometimes quite vaguely expressed? And and one sometimes our role is to help batten that down. You know, what is it that this boss is asking for? And is it legitimate? So it can be quite a delicate conversation, and we always have to be mindful, even when we’re one to one with the person, what does the organisation need of us two now? Because quite understandably, all sorts of things and come up in that coaching discussion. And we attend to that. And we will pause at certain point in the discussion and say, so where are we going in terms of what the organisation needs? Are we being sufficiently mindful? But you don’t do that too much, but you do have to do it, if that’s the contract that you’re in.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  33:14

That makes a lot of sense. And I like the way that you’ve described that, because I imagine it being very clear to the coachee. I think because as a as a therapist, I’ve worked with people who have had coaching in their organisations before sometimes. And where that’s been problematic, it tends to be when they felt like they weren’t being heard, because either the needs of the organisation very strongly came first, and there wasn’t much space for them to kind of question any of those goals. Or kind of the other way, and it wasn’t mentioned until the end. Which again, that also just feels a bit difficult. So that’s really interesting. I think, you know, speaking to that point, and your last point, there’s, there’s attention in therapy as well, sometimes when we might be in a service that has a particular goal. And I’m thinking of colleagues who might work in in IAPT, or of people who are working with children, when there’s often another person involved, there might be, or actually I work with loads of people who are their therapy is paid for by their employer. And so there’s always this expectation that one of the goals will be returning to work, returning to school. And you always have to question as a therapist who wants that, is the person sitting in front of me saying they want that because they’ve been told to, or do they really want that? And I imagine in a lot of ways that must be a lot more complicated in coaching.

 

Christine Hamilton  34:45

It sounds very similar actually, Rosie. It sounds very similar because how many of us actually question what what’s good for me? People often work their way into roles up the ladder, and then discover, well, actually, I don’t think I’m very good at this, or actually, I’m not very ambitious to go higher, or I’m frightened of going higher. I certainly don’t want anybody around me to be aware of that. So how do I work out what I want? Because so many of us received the message that this is what we should want. And actually, it paves the way it makes life better. But is it what I’m good at? Is it what I want? And it’s not surprising, people discover that sometimes well into their careers, and want to find a way in another direction. So sometimes people astonish themselves in what comes out in the coaching. Because we sometimes use diagnostic to help them, personality questionnaires, etc. strengths, inventories, and they think d’you know, I’ve often thought that but I didn’t know how to articulate it. And here is in front of them, they find themselves saying these things, and then saying, oh, my goodness, what am I going to do? And so that, so you never know what’s going to come out of these coaching discussions. And of course, it’s our responsibility to say once that’s come out to work with them about oh so what, so what are you going to do? What are our options are there? How can we work our way through this together?

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  36:32

Sounds really interesting and really fulfilling work. And I think probably for that reason, actually, there’s a lot of people that I know will be listening to this, who would really like to skill themselves up, maybe they’re coming from a clinical or a counselling background, but they’re interested in organisational work, particularly coaching or leadership development are things people talk about lot in the community. So where it would be the best place for them to start, if they want to skill themselves up in that area?

 

Christine Hamilton  37:02

I would definitely recommend that they get accreditation, if if only to to properly work through for them themselves, the differences between counselling, clinical psychology and coaching. So there’s ILM qualifications. There’s a European Mentoring and Coaching Council, there’s a number of bodies who will will inform you about what what, who are the providers or qualifications, and what the levels are. And they each have different strengths and weaknesses, I would say that what I’ve observed is, when you’re when you’re shopping around for the course that might suit you is the more that you are observed actually coaching in in the classroom, of course, and also recordings, and that might be similar to other divisions, but the more that the course actually does that and gives you feedback, the better. Because I have come across people who have taken coaching qualifications, and have said to me, do you know, but I don’t actually know if I do it, right. I can do the assignments, but I don’t know if I do it right. And that’s a horrible feeling. You know, how do you know what your competency is, competencies are? And the ones that do invest, and is a lot of time to watch you coaching, what’s what that’s what stays with you is that, that person you respect is saying, yes, you’ve reached that standard. And you of course, you carry that then in to when you’re having difficult discussions with people that you’re good enough, and that you have evidence that you’re good enough. And I would say that it’s just so important. For that quality of relationship to be as it needs to be.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  39:02

That’s really helpful. So just to recap, those organisations that you can look for the courses on are ILM.

 

Christine Hamilton  39:10

ILM for mother, yeah. EMCC. And there is one other, but it’s not coming to mind at the moment. But if you look up coaching qualifications, there’s a number… ICF, ICF is the other one International Coaching Federation. Those those three are the ones to look up and then then be really very discriminating about who you get your training with.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  39:41

Yes, I think a couple of people actually have been talking in the community recently about just the vast numbers of choices they’ve had looking for coaching qualifications, and, you know, I wouldn’t know how to tell so I think looking at those accrediting bodies would be a really great place to start. So I’ll link up to all of those in the show notes so that people can link straight through to them. Because I know this is a big area of interest for lots of people listening to this. But for our occupational psychologists who are listening now, if if they’re thinking about starting a private practice, what would be the first step that you’d recommend to them?

 

Christine Hamilton  40:22

Um, I think about the where they’re working now. And what, what, what of that is most appealing to them? And where their strengths are. So, and that’s a such an obvious thing to say, but I would definitely say so what is it I’m good at? And that I get, I get my sense of myself in doing. And look in that direction first. Because, I mean, it is obvious, but people sometimes think I need to be a jack of all trades. No, you don’t. So what am I good at? And what what does that look like in terms of an offer? So am I good at the assessment side and the reporting writing? Am I good at training and development? The creation of of learning approaches? Am I somebody who is good at work design? Am I good at this organisational and systems aspect of occupational psychology? So where where are the areas and and there’s five key areas within occupational psychology charter status, that you can look up on the British Psychological Society. So think it’s using almost that to say as well, which are the areas that I am already have a depth of expertise in, and who needs that? Who is it? Is it large organisations? Is it is it small organisations? Is it individuals? And and where, where, where where do they find that? Are there directories I should be in? Are their associateships I should be in? A big one for us is the CIPD, which is the HR and learn and learning and development governing body, a professional body. And they have lots of local networking meetings, every part of geography of the UK will have local groups, and they love to get speakers. So just plunk going to some of those and plugging yourself in and saying, here’s what I can offer. And making it interesting, just as we were saying earlier, and pitch it to that group, and why they should use your approach, if not you, why they should you should use your approach. So local, if you’re if you’re wanting to work locally, there’s an, it’s there’s lots of of networks, one can plug into through that. And if you don’t mind where you work, then I suppose what I did, which was approached the best and say, have you got some projects and openings? Can I talk to you?

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  43:11

Brilliant advice. And I think it just shines through all of this, doesn’t it, like get talking to people and don’t be afraid to build that network. Because you can’t, you can’t do it in secret. I do remember when I started my practice, I set up a domain name that had nothing to do with my name. I didn’t use anything to do with my personal social media whatsoever. I literally wanted to create a business where nobody would know it was me. That did not work. It did not work. It was when I got more open to the idea of having to show up as me talk to people, let people I knew know that I was in business that things really exploded. So I think that’s really helpful advice.

 

Christine Hamilton  43:54

Yes. And I think you can still be you. You know, we were talking earlier about sometimes many, many of us would characterise psychologists as a bit reticent to market ourselves. And and in a, in a way, it’s not marketing ourselves, although it is, it’s it’s marketing what we can offer, and that we are friendly, approachable, caring, ethical, professional people. And it’s not that that’s a rarity, but people like it, when they come across it, that they get a sense of whatever that work is that you will take care that you will be professional that you will apply good practice, that you are bound by regulations. And we’re doing some work in the Division of Occupational Psychology to try and get the public sector to say, well we need chartered psychologists, not just somebody who has, who’s put that in their title. So we’re trying to say you know, look for that quality, and if you’ve got it to offer, you know, there’s not many of us on the ground, really, when you think about the demand for the work, the type of work.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  45:03

Yeah, that’s certainly true. And I think, you know, if you need a confidence boost across any, whatever area of psychology you’re in, then take a look at some less qualified people that are doing things that you could probably do better. I know it sounds mean, but it’s certainly true.

 

Christine Hamilton  45:20

It is it on the whole it is because you know more, you know what a good approach to that looks like, and you know, what our sort of cutting corners looks like. 

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  45:32

So, thank you so much Christine. You shared so much value, and I think people are gonna want to kind of look you up and connect with you probably. So where is the best place for people to find you?

 

Christine Hamilton  45:42

Just in LinkedIn, Christine Hamilton, and it will be under occupational psychologist and coaching psychologist, coaching psychology is going through a lot of changes. But that’s how actually you’ll find me.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  45:55

Brilliant. And I will link to that in the show notes as well so that people can find you quickly. Great. Thank you so much for coming on.

 

Christine Hamilton  46:02

Thank you Rosie, thank you for asking me.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  46:05

Before you go, I just wanted to check something out with you. Because I don’t know if this is just me. But do you sometimes wake up at two o’clock in the morning, worried that you’ve made a terrible error that’s going to bring professional ruin upon you and disgrace your family? I’m laughing now. But when I first set up in private practice, I was completely terrified that I’d miss something really big when I was setting up my insurance or data protection practices. Even now, three years in, I sometimes catch myself wondering if I’ve really covered all the bases properly. And it’s hard. No, actually, it’s impossible, to think creatively and have the impact you should be having in your practice, if you aren’t confident that you have a secure business underneath you. But it can be really overwhelming to figure out exactly what you need to prioritise before those clients start coming in. So I’ve created a free checklist plus resources list to take the thinking out of it. Tick off every box and you can see your clients confident in the knowledge that you have everything in place for your security and theirs. You can download it now from psychologist.drrosie.co.uk/client-checklist, and the link is in the show notes.

 

Rosie Gilderthorp  47:18

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Business of Psychology podcast. If you share my passion for doing more than therapy, then make sure you come over and join my free Do More Than Therapy Facebook community, where you can work on getting your big ideas off the ground with like minded psychologists and therapists. I’d also love it if you could leave the show a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It will help more of the people who need it to find it. See you next week for more tips and inspirational stories to help you do more than therapy.