Dr Fraser Smith

In this episode, Dr Peter Blundell interviews Dr Fraser Smith about being a Counselling Psychologist & Clinical Director for Psychology Scotland.

Dr Fraser Smith
Fraser is a chartered psychologist registered with the HCPC and BPS with years of experience and training working within therapy. He specialises in working with men's mental health and has worked in therapy with men, researched the field and become a recognised speaker within this area for a number of years.
Twitter: @_getpsyched_
Website: https://www.psychologyscotland.com/team/dr-fraser-smith/

Dr Peter Blundell
Peter is the founder and co-lead of #TherapistsConnect. You can find out more about Peter's work via his website www.peterblundell.com.

Twitter: @drpeterblundell
Website: https://www.peterblundell.com/

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#TherapistsConnect is a platform for connecting therapists.
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Origins of #TherapistsConnect

Transcript

Peter Blundell: 0:39

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Therapist Connect Podcast. Today I'm interviewing Dr. Fraser Smith. Fraser is a HCPC registered counseling psychologist, and he works in a variety of different settings. He's spoken at various events such as the 2019 TEDx in Glasgow is a recognized speaker in psychology and mental health. Fraser was an early supporter of Therapist Connect asked me to write a blog for his getpsyched website. You can find get site on all the usual social media platforms, and a large amount of videos on YouTube. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did recording it. If you'd like to support the Therapist Connect Podcast, then please find us on any of the podcast apps and leave us a review.

Dr Fraser Smith: 1:28

Hi, Peter. How you doing?

Peter Blundell: 1:29

Morning Fraser, how are you?

Dr Fraser Smith: 1:31

It's nice to finally meet you face to face.

Peter Blundell: 1:33

I know it's stranger isn't it, we know kind of like people on Twitter and stuff and have interactions with them, and then have never actually spoken to them.

Dr Fraser Smith: 1:42

such as the world today.

Peter Blundell: 1:43

Strange world we live in?

Dr Fraser Smith: 1:45

Yeah.

Peter Blundell: 1:46

Are you? Are you good?

Dr Fraser Smith: 1:47

Yeah, I'm doing really well. Yeah, things are things are going well, very busy.

Peter Blundell: 1:51

Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be a therapist in the first place? Like what drew you to the profession?

Dr Fraser Smith: 1:56

Absolutely, there's a number of things that kind of drew me in my, I always kind of gravitate to the relationship with my mother first. So she has a her first degree was in psychology. And she was a deputy head high school teacher for the large part of her life. And then there was there was just like the connect the connection that my mother and I had were as a very close relationship. I think there's a lot of psychological therapeutic understanding on her part that kind of probably that it's worked me ingrained in me at a young age. But what really kind of sparked my interest in going into the therapeutic world was really my own mental health difficulty. So I am very long story short, but I was in America for a year, I was playing basketball there. And I came back and was in university, I was actually doing a history and politics degree at that time. And just went through a very difficult stage of depression and anxiety. And there was a lot of things happening in my life at that time that were extremely difficult. I think at that age and particular I was 19/20. The world was changing around me and I didn't really have the legs to keep up and went and saw therapist. And it really turned things around for me. And one of the main ways in which it turned things around for me was career wise actually because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. It was always something that I had tried to put off and not really think much about. And then when I had that experience with that therapist, I was like, this is a job that I would love. And it was an opportunity came to another one. And actually, I managed to get job working night shifts at reception desk at a couples therapy center in Glasgow, and then got onto a COSCA training skills course up here in Scotland, which is like an introductory course to therapy. And that really kind of started the train ride from there and then worked my way up through that organization and then and took on Counseling Psychology, and over the next few years, so yeah, that's really kind of how it all started from

Peter Blundell: 3:53

The different motivations, there seemed like very personal kind of relationship with your, with your mum, and then and then kind of your own personal experiences, which are kind of both fed into that that choice. You did go down the line of training to be a therapist, can you tell us a little bit about your career so far, kind of what what that's looked like

Dr Fraser Smith: 4:10

My career has been kind of somewhat eclectic. It's kind of gone into different branches of therapeutic training, and then also psychological experience. So I started, as I kind of said to you, I was working my way up that that couples counseling organization actually had a youth working department where they went into schools and did a lot kind of training and support in different ways. And I did a lot of that work. And then went on to do my psychology undergraduate degree. And as and as I went through that, I continued working as a youth worker. And when I finished I actually got a job as an assistant psychologist in a brain injury unit. And that was my first experience directly and the kind of psychological domain. It was, with clinical psychologists we were working with clients with brain injuries, really was my first time having any kind of exposure to client work. And I then decided I wanted to go into counseling psychology. So I started that doctorate, I was fortunate to get into the doctorate started at work as a research assistant in health psychology, and worked as a tutor for a little bit as well. And then I did a number of different jobs within I worked in some help lines and things like that in my therapy. And I was also fortunate to get a placement at an organization nearby that then lead to hire me this was a private therapy practice. I worked there for about maybe about a year after and then realized, you know, one of the things I really value about working as a therapist working as a psychologist is the kind of autonomy over my work, the creativity of my work, the ownership of my work. And so I started my own private practice called Psychology Scotland, and I started that in 2021. And kind of the summer of 2021 was the vision of just for the first year kind of working by myself, I managed to get an office space had a website design, that kind of thing. But I had a kind of future vision of wanting to bring more staff members on board, opening up more therapy spaces. And then within a couple of months, a few opportunities came by where the building management I was working with had more spaces open up, I had some people reach out to me that want to work with me. So I just jumped for it and went and went with it. And the first few months were very difficult. But since then we've really brought on a larger team, and and we have a lot of ownership over the way we do our work. And the psychologists that work with us all work independently and autonomously, autonomously. And they work one to one therapy, and we do a lot of kind of corporate contracts as well. So my career has kind of taken a number of different trajectories through different means in psychology, but private practice is kind of where it is right now

Peter Blundell: 6:45

Can you tell us a little bit about your specifically your kind of therapeutic approach and how and how you work has that developed and changed over the years?

Dr Fraser Smith: 6:52

It has, you know, I think it's part of being a psychologist, being a therapist in reality, of any kind, that kind of ever, ever changing sense of how I approach is often shifted. And I think, you know, I immediately gravitate to my doctorate, when I was studying and everything, I was very keen to kind of ingrain theory, I was very keen to utilize kind of structured therapeutic modalities. I'm a big believer in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, I use a lot of that use a lot DBT. And I'm a huge believer and utiliser of a Person Centered therapeutic principles. And I was very keen in my studies during my placement to work very structured in those ways. And I think as things have progressed, I work much more in fluid kind of fluids much, much more subjectively, with my clients. And I still utilize a lot of those therapeutic approaches. But I think as time has gone on, I've trusted more in the Person Centered therapeutic model and those principles. And then when I was studying, I felt like I can have to do more. And absolutely, there's times where that's required to a degree but really trusting in those principles and really trusting in the process, and very much trusting in my own abilities to hold space. And I think that was something that has, I've really leant into particularly in the past year actually. And also thinking a lot of like I use, I probably utilize a little bit more cognitive behavioral therapy now in some ways, but but always coming from a base of a Person Centered therapy, I my stance is kind of more similar to the integration where Cognitive Behavioral approaches I use the Acceptance and Commitment therapeutic principles I use, I'm always mindful of my Person Centered training. And yeah, I think as time has progressed, I've valued that more than ever really.

Peter Blundell: 8:39

I mean, that's, that's really interesting, and brings joy to my heart as a Person Centred, a Person Centered therapist. Say that, but I was wondering, did you was that your Person Centered training part of your your doctorate, or, or was that, did you do that in another time?

Dr Fraser Smith: 8:56

No, that was, that was a big part of the doctorate. So I'm gonna give you a little bit more context that we have our first stage, so to speak of training in the doctorate is a is Person Centered. Now I did my first stage over part time. So it took me two years to complete that. So I really did two years of Person Centered training, and very much leant into those principles and really engaged in those principles. And I think when I first entered the doctorate, I thought it was interesting, like, I kind of had done therapeutic training before at the COSCA skills course, I had done Transactional Analysis training for a year as well. And I kind of thought of Person Centered as a bit of bread and butter, a bit of kind of that, you know, as you would conduct therapy, and it was so much more than that to me as as I engaged in the training. And I just whenever I feel kind of maybe stuck or challenged in therapy with my clients, I always return back to those therapeutic principles, and it always helps. And so yeah, that was a huge part of my training. The later stages were more Cognitive Behavioral based, and then after that was more about engaging in your own stance, but in Person Centered has always been at the core of my training and my beliefs about good therapy.

Peter Blundell: 10:04

Fantastic. Can you tell us a little bit about I mean, you've talked about you've got your own therapy community building up within within your practice, but how connected do you feel to kind of the wider therapy community maybe in Scotland or even even broader, potentially,

Dr Fraser Smith: 10:17

yeah, and that that feels quite not up and down, but can we be hot or cold at times? It's again, I think, often by working privately and working privately is a very lonely experience sometimes and it's quite isolating. And I've had to be better at staying connected. When I did, when I was doing my doctorate, I created a platform called Getpsyched. And it was like a kind of online platform, social media platform YouTube channel of a lot of content around mental health and psychology training. And that really helped me connect with other people, because people saw that content. I spoke at conferences, I did podcast, I did interviews. And you know, that was really great way to stay connected. When psychology Scotland started, I didn't, I kind of stopped, stop Getpsyched. And so I've kind of felt a little bit more detached from the community at times. However, I've been mindful to connect with the British Psychological Society a little bit more, I've been doing a lot about work with them. Building my own therapeutic community here, you're right to say that one of the biggest reasons for doing that was to create a kind of network was to create a sense of connectivity as well. And I was very keen for our team not to just kind of go into the therapeutic rooms and shut the door, so to speak, but to stay connected with the team around us. And, you know, that's difficult, because we have team members who maybe work two or three days a week here, and they're not full time. So, you know, we it's important for us to try and stay connected as much as possible. But that has been difficult for me in many ways. I think COVID has got a lot to do with that. And, you know, I'm sure you'll have flet the same way . You know, it's, it's feel a little isolating at times. And I think social media can be really useful there. But it's, I think working privately is something that I've needed to and I would advise other people in the future to have more intent. And being connected with other therapists, and then looking at kind of governing bodies that they can connect with have therapeutic networks in their area. And that's something that I'm continuing to try and push forward.

Peter Blundell: 12:14

I think that's really interesting. I mean, Getpsyched was the first bit of media content that Therapists Connect had, because we did a blog post

Dr Fraser Smith: 12:24

was very quick to jump on that.

Peter Blundell: 12:28

I forget sites, but I'm just interested to hear about your journey in terms of that connection. Because, you know, Getpsyched is a really big thing. It's got loads of views, it's you I should say you did lots and lots of things with it. It's interesting that maybe how things have shifted for you as you've gone into private practice, and maybe not had as many opportunities to kind of connect in that broader way.

Dr Fraser Smith: 12:48

Yeah, absolutely. And that's, you know, it's a, it's a shame, because Getpsyched is, for me, it grew into a great platform. And that was really exciting. But it asked so much of me. And, you know, when I had a family, and when I needed to make a real income, there was all those kind of variables that came into the fold that that meant that maybe, to Getpyched work had to take a back seat. And, you know, I was putting out videos every week, I was in social media content most days, and it was all me doing it whilst I was doing doctorate. So it was very, very taxing. But I do miss it. And I think I probably took it for granted a little bit because it was a very easy way for me to stay connected with people, you know, I would get emails and I would get messages most weeks, people who had value from the content or people who had additional questions, or people who wanted me to do X Y Zed, and that was great. And not to say that that stuff doesn't happen still, but it happens much less. And I think there's a again, that requires a response from me, which I'm starting to with again. And again, the building of the team here psychology, Psychology Scotland has been a part of that is building a network of my own. And making sure I'm staying connected with the wider community because yeah, it gets like, it kind of did the job for me a little bit. It was like a platform that was there. And people could access it whenever and then they could reach out to me. So staying connected with people became quite easy, actually as Getpsyched grew. It's a little harder now, but yeah, something to approach with more of more intent on my part as well.

Peter Blundell: 14:18

Yeah. And people could start access all that content, even though there's maybe not new content going on there. It's it's all there for people to access already, isn't it?

Dr Fraser Smith: 14:25

Yeah, it is. And then, you know, we changed like, for example, the Instagram, I shifted that from Getpsyched to my own personal one. So I kind of I ended up with a YouTube channel and the website are still there. There's a little bit of potential that things may kick in again, with Psychology Scotland, there's a chance I may look at rebranding some of the Getpsyhed stuff with Psychology Scotland and start doing some more video content again. But that's still kind of in the pipeline a little bit, but all the content is still is still there. It's very accessible. Yeah.

Peter Blundell: 14:54

Can you tell us what what do you think the biggest challenge that the counseling and psychotherapy professionals face right now in your opinion?

Dr Fraser Smith: 15:00

For me, I think it's societal shifts. And there's a lot people don't need to need me to tell them this. There's a lot that's going on in the world right now that affects people's mental well being. And I think there's a there's a there's a greater challenge for therapists to be able to hold space and in a climate thats unchanging at times, and I think and I'm speaking only from my self, that can be quite a scary potentiality for for therapists because I think when I again when I was training, and when I when I think about my work, I'm a huge believer in the potential of people and people's ability to overcome circumstances and make and to heal and to make situations better in their lives, and I often work from that ethos, but that's very difficult when there, there is war breaking out. And when we have global pandemics, and we have awful, you know, cost of living crisis and energy bills and things like that, just to name a few of societal situations that impact the well being of the individual. And for me, that's been a huge challenge, because that creates a number of difficulties, you know, and then the individuals often see that as well. It affects everybody, therefore, why should I complain? But actually, every individual has their own traumatic experience of things like Coronavirus, of things like, you know, the idea of war breaking out across Europe, you know, the these kind of things that are really, and many others as well, that impact individuals. So for me, I think there is something very important and very challenging about how we sit with and address massive societal challenges on a one to one basis with our clients. And again, we are trained and being able to do that. But it's very difficult when those situations are unchanging in that room, and how do we deal with that? How do we live with that? And how do we hold that space? And those societal changes are not going anywhere? They're going to remain? And, you know, how do we deal with that? For me, I think that's one of the biggest challenges that we're therapists face, in my eyes.

Peter Blundell: 17:05

And I think that's for me, I think, becoming more to the forefront, I think, in recent times that idea of kind of maybe social justice issues. Whereas in the past, maybe those some therapists who maybe have kept silent on those particular issues. Now it's becoming much more open that people therapists are engaged with some of that.

Dr Fraser Smith: 17:25

Yeah, absolutely. But there's something that we need to lean into again, and, and that's been the case for decades, of course, there's always been societal challenges, and social justice has always been an issue that we've needed to address. But it feels very present today. And yeah, I think that's just something that we're going to continue to have to adapt to. My doctoral research actually was in men's mental health. And the nuances of that research were in older men's mental health, their kind of understanding of mental health and barriers to accessing therapies a demographic that are in widely under represented in the therapeutic community and in research, and it was a really interesting piece of research for me. And I kind of went on to do a number of talks on men's mental health at a TEDx talk in Glasgow in 2019. And 2018, actually traveled out to East Asia to speak on men's mental health in the Philippines. So I had a lot of great opportunities there. And I've done quite a bit of work in men's mental health, I did quite a bit of video content on Getpsyched on it. And as a result, I see quite a lot of men in therapy actually did a workshop last week last week for an organization in Edinburgh and men's mental health because it was International Men's week, or international, men's health, I think. So it's a it's an area that I still I still speak a lot on. And it's one that's I have a great passion for, you know, understanding, I think it kind of ties into my own upbringing, as well as my mother, my mother was a single parent, I had quite a distant relationship with my father at first. And as an only child, I think my exploration of men's mental health has been a lot about understanding myself and also understanding my father. And that's really kind of where that stemmed from, but then it kind of delved into an area of real interest, you know, it's a, it's an, it's a constant area of challenging suicide rates, lack of therapeutic uptake is a continual issue. And then COVID has also had a big impact there as well. And so yeah, it just feels more more pressing than ever to really be be a champion of men's mental health as much as I can. And I try and continue to do that. So yeah, it's a real area of passion for me.

Peter Blundell: 19:25

I think that's really important. And I still feel that even today, it doesn't get spoken about enough. And, you know, the amount of male therapists is kind of, you know, low compared to female therapists, you know, so it's a it's a continuing issue. So I think it's important that we yeah, you mentioned that so

Dr Fraser Smith: 19:45

absolutely. Yeah, it's a continual area of real need for talking more about it and also more work that's needed done in it. Yeah.

Peter Blundell: 19:53

Fraser that's all my questions. I suppose my last one would be kind of what you're up to next.

Dr Fraser Smith: 19:59

Yeah, well, more Psychology Scotland stuff, it feels like in a never ending trend. And so ya know, what's happening next for us is continued look at some growth. We're opening up more therapy rooms, we're bringing on more psychologists and therapists, we're very keen to explore the idea of being a placement provider as well and giving students opportunities here. So you know, that's something that we're very keen to explore. We have a number of different ideas as well as to how we might develop our practice and bring more opportunities to our therapists but more quality therapy to clients and a greater exploration of some of our organisational contacts. You know, I'm very keen to explore that further. And we're we're we're kind of working with organizations post COVID, in particular to bring in mental health and therapeutic support to employees and it can get through directly through their organization and that's working really well. So, yeah, a number of different things on the horizon that we're going to push towards

Peter Blundell: 20:58

the end. Sounds very exciting. I look forward to seeing more for you in the future. Fraser, thank you so much, it's been great chatting to you on the podcast. Thank you for supporting Therapists Connect.

Dr Fraser Smith: 21:08

Thanks for having me Peter. Thank you so much.