Psychology and MH Nursing

Placement looms again. This is our penultimate placement; a mere eight weeks, which pales when compared to the behemoth 15 weeks we had to deal with last year. I've had my 'expression of interest' wish granted, and I'll be spending two months with an Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service.

I've been begging my tutor for this placement since literally my first term of training. I've been begging life for this kind of opportunity since I was a lowly Psychology student, actually. IAPT was established the year that I graduated from my first degree and I'd had high hopes of jumping straight into a PWP training post and the world being my oyster. Unfortunately, despite numerous applications, I never got so much as an interview. I was embittered for a while, but life has a funny way of working out.

I will freely admit: I am not training to be a mental health nurse for a love of nursing. Mental health nursing, I feel, is a world away from general adult nursing, and I see it as much less as a calling than as a role that demands you combine about eight different jobs and passions simultaneously. Adult nursing to me seems to revolve around wanting to care for people at their most vulnerable or sick, and whilst mental health nursing is this to a point, there's a world beyond it that's just as important. Mental health nursing is about being a social worker, a healthcare assistant, some sort of law and ethics expert, a detective, a bloody code breaker, and a nurse. All at the same time.

I had high hopes when I started my first placement on a ward. What better place to help people than the place they're brought to when they're most unwell? Unfortunately, I was instantly disappointed. Where are the activities? Groups? Therapy of some kind? I was told the only thing the ward did was give out medication. And in that moment I nearly quit. I signed up, I had felt, to help people, to support them through their illnesses and issues, not medicate them and leave them to wallow. I was disheartened, and I'm still incredibly disillusioned about wards in general: they are not a place I wish to be associated with.

Ever since, I've been looking for ways to bring psychological working into my practice. Early Intervention was a godsend, and it remains an area I'd love to work in when I qualify. CRHTT, surprisingly, is the area I've managed to bring cognitive behavioural approaches in more than anywhere, and for this reason (as well as the kick up the arse it gives my assessment skills) I'll be returning for my management placement in the summer.

Before then, my career could potentially change forever. My life could change forever, if you want to be melodramatic (and I do). I've pinned most, if not all of my hopes on IAPT being a successful placement for me. That I'll take to it like a duck to water, that I'll be able to dive into a high intensity training post when I qualify. That it will be my niche, one of the few parts in mental health that I agree with and will happily develop myself in for the rest of my career.

On the other hand, I could hate it, and know it's definitely not what I want to do. Unlikely, but it could happen.

Fortunately, things are looking positive. I've spoken to my mentor and she's excited about having me; she's devising a weekly plan for me so that I have plenty to do and can get a full experience from the service. An old friend works there too, and reconnecting with her earlier this year whilst visiting the service I'll be on placement with really felt like a good omen. I get to shadow one-to-one working, listen in on assessment calls, and later on, carry out phone assessments for myself. I'll get to fully immerse myself in a truly psychological service, instead of wondering where all the helpful talking happens in mental health.

Oh, and I am terrified.