Professor Anderson joins us to discuss career development in paediatric neuropsychology, the wider developments in the field, and the challenges and opportunities of this work.
Professor Anderson joins us to discuss career development in paediatric neuropsychology, the wider developments in the field, and the challenges and opportunities of this work.
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Ingram Wright: So welcome to the neuro clinic. We are delighted to have Professor Vicki Anderson with us, and I've got another treat in store. Because we've got a new co-host cleaner Carol cleaner. Do you want to say Hello.
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Cliodhna Carroll: Hi! Ingram? Hi Vicki I'm. I'm. Gina Karl I'm. A clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist, and I'm involved with the British Psychological Society as the early career representative. So i'm delighted to join us. The new co-host and on on the podcast with you, Ingram.
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Ingram Wright: I clearly need help. I I I can't do this on my own anymore. We've had a long break and a bit of a rest.
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Ingram Wright: and we've dusted off our mics and various things haven't we clean up. You got a new microphone. I've got a new mic very exciting.
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Ingram Wright: So we've invested heavily in this podcast vicki, and
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Ingram Wright: we've got a
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Ingram Wright: a stellar guest to start us off. So, Vicki, I've been wanting to persuade you to come on this podcast for a while.
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Ingram Wright: Your book
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Ingram Wright: was the first book that I read that really drew me into pediatric numerous psychology. I imagine I speak for lots of people in that regard, and I suppose we'll get.
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Ingram Wright: We'll get into some of that. But
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Ingram Wright: we have a convention in the neuro clinic that people introduce themselves, and I was just explaining before we got on the
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Ingram Wright: on the recording that that maybe it spares us the awkwardness of me introducing you, which I admitted to having done in a rather clumsy way in the past, so i'm.
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Ingram Wright: I've kind of learned my lesson. But are you happy to say a few words about who you are?
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vickihome: I am room, and thank you very much for inviting me to to join you in this podcast. So so i'm Vicky Anderson. I live down under in Melbourne, Australia.
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vickihome: and I have a number of different hats in my role. So I'm. I'm. Head of psychology at the Children's Hospital.
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vickihome: and I'm. Also the the Director of Clinical Sciences, research
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vickihome: at the middle of Children's Research Institute.
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vickihome: where I get to boss around a lot of surgeons and consultants and tell them how much money they have to pay their their research costs.
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vickihome: But I suppose my
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vickihome: my main interest is in child brain injury. Hence, being a pediatric, me, a psychologist, and
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vickihome: a a very broad interest. So really, over the many years of my career, I've looked at a range of different. just sort of starting from
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vickihome: brain changes in the Kenya.
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vickihome: And now, more recently, looking at stroke. And even more recently, I've got to be hooked on concussion.
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Ingram Wright: Okay, I just realized I made the mistake of saying, I read your book like you've only ever written one book.
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Ingram Wright: which is an example of the of the of the of the clumsy way that I sort of slightly misrepresents the canon of your research and
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Ingram Wright: clinical research output. So I do apologize for that. So it's always good to start a podcast with an apology.
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vickihome: I'm. I except gracefully.
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vickihome: I think I was talking about.
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Ingram Wright: So we will. We will. We will append a substantial bibliography to the, to the to the podcast output, so that people can appreciate the
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Ingram Wright: the breadth of of work that you've undertaken. But I suppose one of the things that
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Ingram Wright: people are
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Ingram Wright: often really interested to know about is is what got you into neuropychology? In the first place, I mean, are you happy to
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Ingram Wright: let us know how you got started out what fired up your interest in in this area?
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vickihome: No, I suppose the first thing that happened was I lived in a country town, and I really wanted to leave home. love my mom and dad, but I was very keen to leave home, and so I chose a a course that I needed to do in the big city.
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vickihome: and
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I thought I wanted to be a dietician.
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vickihome: But then I got to university, and I.
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vickihome: I had some lectures from Kevin Walsh, who, some of you may know, maybe may not know. It, was really the father of nearer psychology in Australia, and probably the father of nearer if the frontal lobes internationally. So he was an inspirational teacher.
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vickihome: and he very much had a model of neuro psychology. That was a detective kind of model spot collision which I've really found exciting, and he just opened up a whole range of really fascinating opportunities through his teaching, and he had me hooked, and i've
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vickihome: being passionate about your psychology at the same time. That's because that was in 90 s 1,978.
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Ingram Wright: What? And what I I suppose one of the things that sort of immediately interests me. I mean. I was born in 1,970, and I went to university in 1,989.
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Ingram Wright: The I I was inspired
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Ingram Wright: largely from a developmental perspective, and and again have a bit of a story around.
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Ingram Wright: There were one or 2 people who presented developmental psychology in a particular way that really drew me in and and and and and fired me up.
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Ingram Wright: But i'm guessing.
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Ingram Wright: The disciplines changed quite a lot since that time, Vicki, is it? Is it still the same kind of space that that was exciting to you at at the time.
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vickihome: I think it. It really has changed a lot. When I was doing my training you could easily read every paper on your psychology in a day.
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vickihome: And now, you know, I can't even keep up with my own particular areas. I think there was some really good things that came out of
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vickihome: being involved way back then
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vickihome: in the
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vickihome: when I, when I moved into a clinical role, I needed to see all kids who had brain injury. So I saw the cancer kids that some of the kids with stroke.
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vickihome: And so I got a really good sense of what each of those had in common, and how they were different, and I think that
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vickihome: that understanding what was in common with all of them, has really built my passion in pediatrics, because I do think that we can think about spotting the lesion, and which part of the brain has been impacted. But in kids
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vickihome: often that's not so relevant because what's been impacted is the developmental process. So developmental blueprint has been derailed. And so lots of the kinds of conditions we see will have, as you know, Ingram.
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vickihome: But
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vickihome: the information processing difficulties. So it's slow processes paid for attention for memory, but not so much the kind of things that we would see in a similar insulting adults. So you an adult stroke you have a fazier or Hemiplegian, and that's that's actually quite rare, at least in the longer term
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vickihome: in in pediatrics. So that really picked my interest in this whole issue Of
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vickihome: what? What, what is it
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vickihome: importance of?
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vickihome: And so, and a lot of my work since then, has been really focusing on it.
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Cliodhna Carroll: I'm: really sorry. I'm: really curious as well. Thank you about your experiences around
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Cliodhna Carroll: working with schools working with the support networks around children, because I guess you know, i'm an adult adult neuro psychologist. I have, you know, worked with kids at certain points like kind of but I think my experience in some ways has been that lack of understanding around the systems, particularly around education systems around children, that
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Cliodhna Carroll: that can make a huge difference in terms of
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Cliodhna Carroll: how difficulties are seen. Maybe
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Cliodhna Carroll: you know, things been kind of identified as been like Adhd, or autism, or learning disability, and and how to pull pull that apart. And is that is that important to pull it apart? I don't know what your thoughts are in that it's quite a a big question.
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vickihome: That's such a good question, though, and I might start with the end one. And then so I I am seeing a lot of kids who have both trauma and a very disabled, so that we know their brain is really
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vickihome: abnormal.
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vickihome: And and so these these 4 kids, who already have a several policy label or something similar.
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vickihome: will then get a label of 80 HD. Or Asd. Because their attention is poor and their social skills are for and
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vickihome: just from a neur, a psychological perspective. It doesn't make sense, because we would expect those things to be poor because it's all part of how the brain functions.
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vickihome: I think sometimes there is marriage in
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vickihome: keeping those diagnoses for funding purposes, perhaps.
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vickihome: But when I talk to families I I really like to emphasize that you know
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vickihome: a child, even a child with less severe problems doesn't have asd and autism and a learning difficulty they have, and they're neurotypical. And all of these things are actually.
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vickihome: I like in some ways. And then the new approach to psychiatry. The trans diagnostic approach, I think, is really useful in kids because it doesn't.
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vickihome: They don't leave your rooms with 5 different problems. They They live with one problem. It has a range of different symptoms, and
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vickihome: and I always like to be able to.
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vickihome: you know. Feeding back to families has be able to help him understand what their child, Why, they try to be having a particular way, but also
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vickihome: have a little bit more hope and understanding of
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vickihome: of what the underlying issues are.
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vickihome: The second question is around. Sorry? No, you go. The second question was around linking with services, and
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vickihome: I I know, like like Britain, we have a a universal health system. A links with education are not great, but it is certainly reasonable. And for most kids I would be talking to teachers or doing school meetings, even if i'm just doing an assessment. But
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vickihome: so I think, about our rehabilitation team. They're very integrated with some schools and very much part of the process of getting kids back to school gradually. And then further and further.
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vickihome: I I think the other element of the integration is with the rest of the hospital. And
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vickihome: but when when I started, people didn't believe in the view that early in salt is worse than later in salt. It was very much all their child. They'll get better, their brains plastic.
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vickihome: and, in fact, the very few ring rehab services around for kids in those days, and I think gradually, as the research is built up, it's now become clear that
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vickihome: it's a bit too simplistic to say younger age means worse outcomes, but that there are critical periods during childhood; that when it's really bad to have an injury.
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Ingram Wright: Nikki. I I wanted to, I suppose, take you a bit to Sorry i'm getting lost now, because i'm i'm so.
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Ingram Wright: realizing that, having 3 of us on
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Ingram Wright: and and giving you space cleaner is a bit tricky. Obviously this bit won't Go into the edit, and i'm just trying to remember what the question was I was going to ask you were talking about, and I'm just reminding myself here, Vicki, so I can find my my, my thread again. You were talking about
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Ingram Wright: what interested you and I. I know what it was. It was about holistic approaches.
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And
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Ingram Wright: because I can I just try and gather myself. I'm. I'm coming across very professional. Now, that's fantastic.
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Ingram Wright: So, Vicki, you were talking about
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Ingram Wright: how lucky you were, I suppose, to start. I don't know whether you would characterize yourself as lucky, but lucky to start
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Ingram Wright: work in an area that was growing in developing, and you could kind of read and embrace consume everything.
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Ingram Wright: And
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Ingram Wright: I had a similarly, I think, lucky experience in the
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Ingram Wright: I sort of cut my teeth as a clinical neuropsychologist.
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it
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Ingram Wright: offering
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Ingram Wright: a comprehensive service to any referrals coming from our neurologists and community pediatricians, and it felt to me that
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Ingram Wright: there's a considerable advantage in seeing everything, because you see those commonalities, you see common themes in families who've experienced the trauma of having a child have an acquired brain injury, and
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Ingram Wright: that there's much more in common than perhaps the research literature would would lead us to believe, and and we were talking a little bit before the podcast about how, if you consume the literature now, you'll you'll read lots of papers that about
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Ingram Wright: small series studies, small and designs with.
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Ingram Wright: you know, sort of rare populations.
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Ingram Wright: But what's striking is that there are common features. There is family trauma. There is
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Ingram Wright: difficulties with being accepted by your peers. There are problems often commonly presented with
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Ingram Wright: subtle executive, regulatory and difficulties, and
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Ingram Wright: I'm guessing one of the corresponding difficulties that you might have
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Ingram Wright: is that you could be unlucky and work with a single population, and and and and carve out your research niche in that in that way, I mean I maybe lucky unlucky is the wrong way to put it. But I mean, how would how do you? I'm. I'm guessing from the way you described yourself, that you would consider yourself
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Ingram Wright: as someone who takes a much more holistic approach and embeds pediatric your psychology, and in a broader
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Ingram Wright: clinical context rather than pursuing
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Ingram Wright: a niche, if you like.
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Ingram Wright: It's a very long rambling question.
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vickihome: Let's see how my working with memory is to answer it.
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vickihome: Ingram. I think I would see myself as holistic. So my training was very much near a psychology spot, the lesion kind of
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vickihome: training.
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vickihome: and then I went out into paediatrics, and one of the hallmarks of pediatrics is different to to adults, I think. Is it? Kids come with parents? So the child might have a brain injury, but the parent usually doesn't, and they have really tricky questions to answer, and they want information from you
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vickihome: that is actually useful for them in their day to day life with this child. So all of a sudden saying, your child has a left temporal.
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vickihome: It's not particularly useful to your clients.
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vickihome: and so I think pretty quickly. I
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vickihome: I I learned that I needed to do more than that, and and I I suppose interestingly, I did my Phd. On specific learning difficulties. So I got quite a good sense of
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vickihome: what the key aspects for learning in the classroom, and what would help, so that really has stood me in good state to be able to sit down and talk to a family about. You know
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vickihome: what's what's going to be the consequences of an auditory processing difficulty, or what's going to be the process of a emotional regulation problem. And
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vickihome: and I really find that that's the kind of information that people
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vickihome: go away we can hang on to. And now, many, many years later, I often get get young People bringing me up who i'd seen when when I was when they were kids who have done really well, despite all of their brain injury. And you know I still have that yellow copy of the report that I sent them. So I think
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vickihome: it's just so much more meaningful if we can.
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vickihome: and much more difficult to to be able to move from behind that desk out into the world of outpatient. But I do think it's really important
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vickihome: that that's right. I'll get off my slip books, man.
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vickihome: I At the At the Children's Hospital, where I work. We have
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vickihome: about 50 neur, a psychologist, and
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vickihome: probably double that in terms of clinical psychologists, and we have a Haven't spoke kind of model with the psychologist, working cancer and psychologists working in Rehab.
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vickihome: But our central group takes the professional governance of all of the psychologists on campus, and what we try and do with that is, bring all of the psychologists together, both clinical and neuroscience
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vickihome: and do training together. So you know, If we doing, say they take training. Everyone comes together, and they can all translate it into their own particular context. But they've all got the same set of skills, and I I find that if you don't do that, then you get
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vickihome: my colleagues just reinventing the wheel all over the place and wasting a lot of time. So some of the people that we have a course set of skills that we will need to share, and then we can get our individual specialty, knowledge, and experience as well
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Ingram Wright: go on cleaning you can.
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Ingram Wright: It's a bit awkward. It's not that it's used to living alone, clean.
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Cliodhna Carroll: and it's almost like there's a census in there of having kind of a group like a core set of skills, but different lenses of how we might
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Cliodhna Carroll: and interpret or see those skills and use them.
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vickihome: Yeah, look, I I think you know, I mean, i'm in your psychologist heads to department. That's mostly clinical psychologists and counseling psychologists, and I think it was a lot of anxiety in the stuff when I took that wrong.
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vickihome: and probably I would say that that and you a psychologist on that sort of the dial diagnostic end of that. You know. It's like continuum. But I think we've all learnt
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vickihome: a lot. So I think the clinical psychologists who, in our in our model Don't, spend a lot of time assessing.
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vickihome: has really got to understand the value of assessment, and equally the clinical, the clinical neuron psychologists have have started to understand and put in practice
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vickihome: the fact that you know family dynamics are important social economic status and social disadvantage is important.
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vickihome: Whether a child had an argument with your mom and dad on the way into their assessment, is a really important thing. So really thinking about what the child brings
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vickihome: apart from their brain to the to the assessment context. Formulation. Isn't it. It's always back to formulation. Yes.
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vickihome: that's what we count replaced by computers.
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Ingram Wright: 100%. No, yeah, Vicki, Although somebody was talking to me about getting Chat Gpt to write on neuro psychology reports. I don't know if it's something you've tried, Vicki. When I spot the backlog of reporting that I've got to do, I i'm sorely tempted.
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Ingram Wright: I I don't know whether you wanted to comment on.
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Ingram Wright: I mean you, you you You mentioned that yellowed copy of a report, I mean, I think, one of the things that we set our.
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Ingram Wright: You know
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Ingram Wright: our profession's reputation is often about how we can communicate
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Ingram Wright: neuropsychological principles to to families. And you talked a little bit about this in relation to this diagnostic questions that families will sometimes bring, They'll say, Does my child have an autism spectrum condition? Do they have dyspraxia? Do they have this as well as temporal lobe epilepsy. And of course
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Ingram Wright: we try and frame our responses in in accordance with it, with with the family's needs. Do you have any sort of tips for people who are burdened with
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Ingram Wright: reporting. What is it that that that leads someone to hang on to that report as being particularly salient to them in their
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Ingram Wright: developmental journey.
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vickihome: So I think, and we were talking about this a little bit before to.
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vickihome: I think
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vickihome: it's really important in a report to, not just talk about weaknesses.
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vickihome: And so what I try and do is start with strengths
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vickihome: in my reports and
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vickihome: in then highlight the weaknesses.
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vickihome: but with recommendations around how to support those weaknesses, and it's very rare that you find a family that that aren't really aware of the weaknesses. In fact, my coming to families is if i'm suggesting something about their child that doesn't fit with what they
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vickihome: see. And I've probably got it wrong. So you know I think they they absolutely have the
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vickihome: like. They know at some level. They just don't have the terminology, and usually they they don't have that the knowledge and the experience to be able to figure out the way around things, and I mean I use it an example.
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vickihome: an example that just has stuck in my mind for years, when
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vickihome: there was a very disable, a very, very severely injured 3 year old child who was in a rehab unit.
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vickihome: and the physio
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vickihome: contacted me and asked, and this isn't anything they give you about these years, by the way. But the she contacted me and and said, this child keeps fighting me every time i'm working with them they bite me.
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vickihome: And so I went down and sat and watched the session and this child it was nonverbal, so she couldn't say anything, and
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vickihome: about 30 min into the session, remembering it's a 3 year old.
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vickihome: The child started buying that the pci therapist, but it was very clear. That was her only means that communicating she had had it. She couldn't do anything else. So you know, I think
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vickihome: the so that is always worried that it was a severe behavior problem. But actually it was a trying. It was quite a positive way to trying to to let. This is, I know, and we could then
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vickihome: change that behavior to a different kind of behavior and solve the problem. So I think it's that kind of
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vickihome: understanding that's really important. And and when I say students, and you know I often try and get my students to see
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vickihome: a non-testable client. because it makes him very anxious, and but it also.
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vickihome: you know I do give them some tips. It makes them realize how much information they can actually get
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vickihome: from observing. So trying to get them to take the head out of the test manual and watch what the child's doing rather than just score it all up, and and I think you know that's a really valuable skill we have as well.
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vickihome: and I think all of that then goes into the report. So the whole picture of the
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Ingram Wright: and I guess I guess our role as mentors, supervisors, managers, leaders within services is to
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Ingram Wright: support
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Ingram Wright: generation of neuropsychologists in acquiring those skills and having balance within their clinical repertoire, because it is very easy to get stuck into your test manuals and test scores and and those kinds of things, and the
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Ingram Wright: the volume Sometimes the demands on us are such that we can miss some of the things that are perhaps harder
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Ingram Wright: to obtain. The information. That's that takes a little bit longer to get hold of.
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vickihome: Yeah. And look, I I want to be really clear. I still think we need our manuals and our psychometrics, because they particularly in pediatrics. They're absolutely essential.
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vickihome: They're essential in the context of understanding what developmental expectations are for a child to. So you know, I think that's important, but absolutely and and
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vickihome: I think one of the other things that happens having it right about my profession at month. But I think we get very hooked on
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vickihome: test batteries.
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vickihome: and we have to do all of these things with every child we see, and we'll go on bias. I I grew up in in an era of hypothesis, testing where we you know we did do an IQ test, and from there we went
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vickihome: and had a look at what the issues were that we needed to delve deeper. But we didn't do multiple full tests. And you know, I do think
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vickihome: I do think this value in
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vickihome: in that formulating along the way what we need to do next, and that that also saves us time and allows more time to see more kids.
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Yes.
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Ingram Wright: i'm guessing set against that. And I suppose we're going to talk a little bit about research. Say one of the things that maybe drives us to be less flexible, more systematic to do the same with everyone is having a
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Ingram Wright: a clear research agenda. It is important we do this test because we always do this with children with this particular tumor or whatever it is. I'm guessing you've had to balance out
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Ingram Wright: some of those concerns about. We need to be systematic if we're able to succeed and gather evidence around outcomes in particular cases. So there is something
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Ingram Wright: that you're saying which is very powerful and persuasive about
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Ingram Wright: your clinical orientation. But you've clearly also been very successful in in the research domain. Vicki. How have you managed those those tensions?
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vickihome: So I think it's a bit of a chronology here that's important. So
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vickihome: when I started doing research.
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vickihome: I fine
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vickihome: always instead of doing you Research Project i'd always try and get funding for that research project and bearing in mind that that was a time where we, you know, we really didn't see that with that many neuro psychologists, so that a lot of kids didn't get seen. So, for example, when we did our
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vickihome: our Leukaemia study, we were looking at the impact of chemotherapy and radio therapy.
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vickihome: We got a small branch.
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vickihome: and so we could that there was no us like service.
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vickihome: And so we saw all of those kids. and we provided them with reports, clinical reports.
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vickihome: and we did a very formal Eur assessment, standardized, you know, like assessment which was clearly important for research. But as a result of that, when the research stopped.
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vickihome: It was no clinical citizen, so that on colleges actually
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vickihome: employed neuro psychologists, and very same thing happened in the traumatic brain injury area.
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vickihome: We did assessments on the I don't know 200 kids over 2 years, and then we we were no longer there and available because our research and our research. It finished. And so there were. There were neuroscience to come in and and
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vickihome: do that work. So I think it's by doing it. And i'm talking about in a medical, an academic medical context.
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vickihome: The research is a way to show the medical departments how useful neuro psychology can be.
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vickihome: and in that way you build your resource. And now we have this, I said, lots of neuro psychologists across all those departments.
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I think
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vickihome: you know our our clinical resources in
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he's very tiny compared to the need.
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vickihome: and we have at any one time. We've got a 6 month waiting list, so so I suppose I have always tried to
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vickihome: sip right out
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vickihome: the funded clinical work from the founded research work as much as I possibly could
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vickihome: sometimes that would sometimes it doesn't. I mean, we we have as most places. I've got a nice database with all the back clinical data in it that we can can use, but we don't.
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vickihome: We don't kind of tail out clinical assessments for research purposes. I suppose, in that particular context.
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Cliodhna Carroll: I think there's a real learning there from for the Uk, because it
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Cliodhna Carroll: my correct me if i'm wrong, Ingram. But I think, like my impression often is that it's clinicians trying to build kids business cases and on top of their own clinical work rather than kind of that, is quite a different model. To
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use the research funding to to demonstrate the need to build your business case for having the service.
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Cliodhna Carroll: I I don't know, Ingram, if you've ever come across that in Uk. I know I certainly haven't, but
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Ingram Wright: I guess there are all kinds of drivers aren't there for the way that we do things. So we've talked about.
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Ingram Wright: You know what is in your mind
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Ingram Wright: as a scientist, as a neuro psychologist, as a clinical psychologist when you meet a family. But I think what you're alluding to cleaners is also a kind of service context. And there's also the kind of pressures of the work
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Ingram Wright: what you needs to produce at what you need to develop, how you need to grow personally, and
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Ingram Wright: we have to reconcile all of these different drivers, don't we around our practice, I think. What's really
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Ingram Wright: powerful about hearing you talk, Vicki, You know, having picked up that book, and you know, become a You're a psychologist. I'll transform myself from a developmental psychologist into a Pedd and You' a psychologist
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Ingram Wright: on the back of reading your work
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Ingram Wright: is to hear you talk now and to reflect on.
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Ingram Wright: I guess experience that has been accumulated over time and a perspective that's developed over. Time is.
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Ingram Wright: I think, sometimes it's hard for us to tell when we're in the middle
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Ingram Wright: of our career, or at the early stage of our career. What kind of neuropsychologists we ought
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Ingram Wright: to grow into if that makes sense. And
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Ingram Wright: I guess a big part of your role. Vicki is mentoring, supporting, nurturing. You described
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Ingram Wright: the the opportunities to be bossy. I I I can't imagine you being bossy, but I imagine there are moments.
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Ingram Wright: but but I guess a lot of the work that you'll do with people who are aspiring you. A psychologist is not about
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Ingram Wright: being bossing as as such.
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vickihome: No, I do have a quite impressive Italian temper.
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vickihome: but I don't usually apply it to my my stuff more to my kids. They would say
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vickihome: so. Yeah, I I I absolutely love clinical work, and you know, if I had to define myself by one label, I'm a clinical neurop psychologist. And then one thing I would not give up.
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vickihome: And and as i'm. Not that, far from retiring, the one thing I really will not keep up is seeing seeing patients and their families. But the other thing I absolutely. Love is working with young people.
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vickihome: and my my team is.
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vickihome: you know, research team. It's going to be team. We have a number of new neuro psychologists, but we have lots of fighting.
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vickihome: Research is clinical psychologists, and we have a an intern program, a volunteer intern program.
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vickihome: Which is, it's amazing to me that these young people
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vickihome: come and give their time often for our concussion study on weekends and after hours to to work with us, and
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vickihome: they just so inspiring. They do all my
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vickihome: my reading for me, and you know all whenever i'm with them. I love the fact that they really
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vickihome: challenge the ideas that you have, because they should get all you get stuck in the ways. So it's just great to to have people challenging ideas, bringing up to date with things. And
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vickihome: and in that context, I think more recently.
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vickihome: in so a lot of my research was really focused on describing problems. How many papers are there on cognitive problems after brain entry.
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vickihome: And in the last 10 years probably, we've really changed tech and and thought.
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vickihome: You know anything that we're going to learn now is really incremental. And all this work is sitting
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vickihome: in journals
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vickihome: in books that no one in the community reads. And actually, how can we make it? How can we implement it and and make it available to others? So so a lot of our
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vickihome: our research more recently has been
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vickihome: trying to apply the knowledge that we've developed into interventions.
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vickihome: And one of my favorite stories is our online intervention for parents and kids who have
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severe life threatening disorders. And so they very traumatized. And and
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vickihome: and because our research shows very clearly that parent mental health is a big predictor of child outcome, we really wanted to support those families. So
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vickihome: we we built this acceptance commitment therapy intervention. This doesn't sound very near a psychological, I know. But we did have this. The clinical psychologist in the room, too.
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vickihome: which we tried to deliver face to face, and of course the parents would not come into the hospital, so we had to learn
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vickihome: how to do this intervention online. And we tried all these different platforms that were really clunky. You might remember, go to meetings and things like that. But Anyway, we we developed this, this intervention which parents absolutely loved.
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vickihome: and Dad's actually came along to it because we did it after hours. So it was just, and it was a great intervention
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vickihome: and made a really big difference to families. We got great feedback, because then came Covid, and we all had to go online. And this intervention was there ready to go. So I think those kinds of
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vickihome: things using new technology and new ideas, and also listening to your consumers and what they want is really important. And the other area that we we're doing
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vickihome: quite a bit now is the whole digital health app kind of area, and that's really exciting, too, because
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vickihome: i'm a big aussie rules for Paul Fan and I get now to go and talk to clubs and talk to players about concussion, and how
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vickihome: our app and etc. So it really feels like
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vickihome: It's really rewarding now that we're actually doing something that people are interested in them and can find useful.
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Ingram Wright: And it I
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Ingram Wright: I mean, there's a hint of an apology for for for doing therapy there, and
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Ingram Wright: Vicky arounds
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Ingram Wright: the that interface with clinical psychology. I I I find myself on a similar journey, and becoming, you know, I consider myself a novice act therapist, but realizing, I suppose, that we we do need to translate some of our diagnostic biases into something which is.
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Ingram Wright: which has a more diverse application and and and an impact. And, as you say, recognize that
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Ingram Wright: actually some of the most powerful interventions of with the wider system, aren't they, rather than
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Ingram Wright: spotting an association between a
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Ingram Wright: form of temporal pathology and a and a memory problem. I mean that clearly has value. And we mustn't
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Ingram Wright: disregard our
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Ingram Wright: foundations, I suppose, as a neuropsychologist. But we do need to be able to translate that into an environment that's changed quite radically in terms of where interventions happen.
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vickihome: Yeah. And I I would really argue strongly that
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vickihome: that intervention that I talked about would not have been as effective If there wasn't a neur, a psychologist in the room, because when families would say, oh, my child is doing that, my child is doing this. We could then say to them, Well, you know they're recovering it's pretty typical.
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vickihome: whereas the clinical site didn't have that knowledge. So you know, I I do think that we have really key knowledge in when we're working with kids with brain entry that we need to be able to to contribute to any therapy that kids have.
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Ingram Wright: Yes.
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Cliodhna Carroll: is something in what is neuro psychology? Isn't it of?
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Cliodhna Carroll: You know. What what is your psychology, anyway? Is it about kind of testing and identifying weaknesses and strengths? Kind of in in cognitive processes?
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Cliodhna Carroll: And I think that's a beautiful thing about pediatrics, particularly when I've, you know, worked with with pediatric patients. Is that this is a kid
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Cliodhna Carroll: like this case. You know. This is one part of them where I think kind of when I work with adults.
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Cliodhna Carroll: And this is a very generic statement, like kind of really, but a lot of the adults I work with like this: Taking this neurological condition becomes a huge part of their identity. Where we kids it doesn't it doesn't become so all consuming, maybe, in the systems around them.
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Cliodhna Carroll: But that's the use of your psychology for me, and why I love passing on to kind of doctorate students and clinical psychologies like your psychology, you get to use every single clinical skill that you've ever learned everything. It's all in there.
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vickihome: Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I think that that
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vickihome: you know we've only got ourselves to play by if we put ourselves in a box, because I think our skill set is just so valuable in so many different contexts.
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vickihome: And you know the proof of that is the way we've grown as a profession in the time when the health but in the health dollar is really decreased. I'm. I'm. Not sure in the Uk. Or from the people I know. It seems that it's a growing profession in
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vickihome: in Australia, particularly in the East coast. It's just it's growing so fast that we just can't keep up with the demand for your psychologists. And
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vickihome: okay, and
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vickihome: if I say to to my students who doing research that
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vickihome: the other element is that a psychologist? We don't realize how valuable we are in that research space doesn't matter what what is being research, how degrees
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vickihome: have so much statistics and research methodology that you go into a hospital in an academic hospital, and they they want to do research, and you know, and that on his students can make a major
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vickihome: a change to a very poorly
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vickihome: developed protocol. Just because I know that work. And and so you put
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vickihome: one of our students in those kinds of contexts, and
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vickihome: people love them.
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vickihome: The
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vickihome: it's, you know. I think we've got such a broad skill set, so you can work clinically and work in research. You can work in policy, making like an education.
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vickihome: Each features.
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Ingram Wright: Lena has a
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Ingram Wright: confession, Vicki, which brings us on to the the the the question that I was keen to ask you, and I think
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Ingram Wright: it's sort of something we've implicitly addressed.
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Ingram Wright: going forwards, particularly around the distinction around pediatric, an adult neuropsychology. We mix and we're quite friendly with our adult neuro psychology. Colleagues. Aren't we vicki I've I've conceded a a seat on this podcast to cleaner, but cleaner you you've. You've faced a bit of a dilemma haven't you around
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Ingram Wright: Peter the pull of pediatric psychology.
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Ingram Wright: the enthusiasm that that is, that is brimming
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Ingram Wright: from Vicky's experience around the richness of the discipline. I mean, are you persuaded
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Ingram Wright: it
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Cliodhna Carroll: system?
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Cliodhna Carroll: Yeah, like. I don't like Ingram and I. We've had this conversation multiple times. So I finished my qualification and adult clinical neuro psychology 2 years ago and immediately had a midlife crisis where I thought I'm just going to do the pediatric neuro psychology training straight away
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Cliodhna Carroll: and then realize that maybe I should have a break. But I like I've always kind of put, you know. Have that pull back to pediatrics and have that like I love working. I love working in your psychology. It's my absolute passion, but
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it's just something really special, I think, When I have, You know, I've had some opportunities to work with with children kind of when I was training, and and even still now, under the supervision of pediatric
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Cliodhna Carroll: and neuro psychology colleagues. But i'm
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Cliodhna Carroll: there's something really special about working with kids. But I I guess I wonder, Vicki, what your advice might be to somebody who's having that
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Cliodhna Carroll: dilemma. Is it adults? Is it peeds?
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vickihome: Yeah, I often get asked this question, and just kind of for for disclosure. So my first job was in a geriatric rehabilitation center.
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vickihome: and through my career, because I'm an adult trained as well through my career. I've worked in lots of adult contexts. I worked at what we call the I in the hospital. Here I worked in an adult neurology clinic. So it's done quite a lot of work in adults. And
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vickihome: no, I I think that it all of those different contexts are great.
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vickihome: I think what I like about
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vickihome: pediatrics. I think kids are easy to test
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vickihome: adults. It's really hard to get past the barrier of on them being tested, whereas kids just walk in, and it's just like school.
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vickihome: or they don't when they little, and they, you know, climb under the table, and you've got to climb under the table with them. So so I like that kind of I like that kind of dynamic, and I like that
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vickihome: often. There's a competent
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vickihome: set of parents there that can put into practice and support whatever
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vickihome: we're suggesting. So it's quite a hopeful.
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vickihome: But you know, I think my my advice to to even my best students who i'd love to stay working in pediatrics is. But it's really important not to kind of pigeonhole yourself.
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vickihome: One of the beginning of the career you need to, because, you know.
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vickihome: if you don't try something like geriatrically, you never got to know what you like it or not. So. And then.
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vickihome: if you.
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vickihome: if you've never tried it, you never going to get a job in it later on, because you're going to be pigeon hold as a pediatric. You're a psychologist. I I sometimes get asked if I have to give evidence in court. How can I possibly
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vickihome: have a sister 25 year old and
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vickihome: well.
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vickihome: not only because he had his injury when he was a kid, but because we've got skills that can really cover that in the
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vickihome: I think so. The one
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vickihome: thing that I think is different in pediatrics, and also probably different in geriatrics is, you have to have an understanding that there's a rapid development.
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vickihome: and I
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vickihome: I was never more conscious of this than when I worked with.
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vickihome: and Robots and and Tom mainly developing the test of every day attention for children, because they obviously have to test every day attention which was great. And you know, if you look at the manual, that they had a very small standardization sample. Now, if you want to translate that
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vickihome: for children, we can't have a small standardization sample You've got it got to have kids at every
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vickihome: part of the you know that age trajectory. So it's. You know it's really that
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vickihome: acknowledgment that normal kids change rapidly, and if we're going to.
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vickihome: they accurately what we test we have to be using really good norms to to compare to. So I don't know whether that answered your question, but
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vickihome: I think I think it's.
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vickihome: I think it's. You know, psychology, the discipline that inspires me
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vickihome: and the brain rather than a particular age group. But in terms of who I like to interact with best as probably kids.
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Cliodhna Carroll: And I think, like for me, you know, my midlife crisis, do I do? Pete's like kind of neuropsychology training and straight off the back of adults.
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Cliodhna Carroll: I think I remember going to a podcast. I would go into it an online training event and thinking, oh, my gosh, wow! This is! This is massive like this. Isn't just a i'll just tag on peeds like, and it'll be a quick, you know. 6 months i'll learn Peeds neuro psychology.
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Cliodhna Carroll: It really does feel like there's there's a lot of additional stuff in pediatric psychology.
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Cliodhna Carroll: and and I think that that's it's not not necessarily always recognized that this is a different.
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Cliodhna Carroll: You know there's similarities in there, as you say, but but it is different.
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vickihome: Yeah. And I think the whole
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vickihome: interaction with schools is a really big one. and if we're talking about case with the transition points are really important. And and so, while you might see an adult once, and that's fine
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vickihome: with kids who've had a significant injury.
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vickihome: You really can't leave it at that, because you know, if that would, if they were preschool, and then they had to go into kingdom. That's a big.
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vickihome: a big jump, and you have to spend a lot of time supporting families and kindness that point, and then they go into school, and then they go into high school, and then they have to find a job. So you know those transitions are really important, and
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vickihome: of all of those transitions I think the most challenging. But the most interesting is adolescents, and, you know, working with adolescents who have a brain injury
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vickihome: is just
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vickihome: but the hardest thing, I think the only time.
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vickihome: or maybe a few other times. But the only time I've really been
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vickihome: really, really angrily, was by a 14 year old girl who'd had quite a severe brain injury
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vickihome: who had been a really good basketball player. She couldn't play basketball anymore, and I was telling her how she was doing quite well, cognitively, and she just like we set me. Say, I don't really care. You know I can't play basketball anymore, and I think it's that you know that the loss of identity in that age group when they're quite aware.
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vickihome: But I've still got the feature, 8 of them which is now being derailed. That is, it's such a a critical time. So it's not just pediatrics. It's the stage of that that childhood path. It's also really important.
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Ingram Wright: And what's it? I guess what's interesting, Vicki: about the different, I mean, I suppose, where we started, how one might define one's self right that you're saying, actually, i'm not.
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Ingram Wright: I've always been exclusively a pediatric neuro psychologist, I mean, like, I said, I consider myself coming from a strong developmental tradition, I I really enjoy the challenges of assessment in infancy it's a very different
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Ingram Wright: space. To occupy requires a different skill. Set.
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Ingram Wright: The same is true. Isn't it working with adults, cleaner, working with older adults, working with a different in a very different developmental context.
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Ingram Wright: Vicki. I was struck when I was doing a Phd. Working alongside people who were
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Ingram Wright: working within a developmental framework, but with with older adults working, looking at, aging. And again, as you point out, a very dynamic space to be working in where a developmental perspective is entirely appropriate, and maybe we should stop dividing ourselves up in these conventional ways. Yes, it's helpful to communicate. I'm. A child neuropsychologist.
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Ingram Wright: i'm an adult neuropsychologist. But it's probably not how we would choose to define ourselves in in 2 categorical a way.
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vickihome: Yeah, I agree. And I I was saying, I thought there was similarities between the paediatric and the
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vickihome: the issue is about
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vickihome: being considered and thinking of. Be patient, not thinking of what you're going to do.
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Cliodhna Carroll: Hmm.
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vickihome: Your patient and I, you know, I I suppose I think of some of the experience I I've had with the adults where, when I first started I would you might be
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vickihome: talking in long sentences, and you know, older people, maybe more time to process, or they've forgotten the hearing aids, and I thought that they were demented. But actually they just couldn't keep what I was saying. Or now. Now I've watched some of some of my students, and they're trying to get their elderly patients
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vickihome: to use an ipad.
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vickihome: and sure some can use it really well, but others just do not get it, and they never going to get it for various reasons, not necessarily because they've demented. So you know, I think all of those issues about
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vickihome: really again coming back to being aware of person in front of you. And
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vickihome: if you've got an environment for them that is optimal for that for them to show you what they can do.
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vickihome: and making sure, making sure you
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vickihome: do as much as you can to get that. So I agree
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vickihome: with Ingram. I think that we can divide ourselves far too narrowly
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vickihome: when we've got this board we do have a set of skills that can cover the age range so long as we're observant.
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Cliodhna Carroll: I was at a conference last week. We had to get together Conference. It's a conference here that's been set up in the Uk that really looks at families after brain injury.
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Cliodhna Carroll: But one of the speakers spoke about this idea of
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Cliodhna Carroll: like break bread with us.
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Cliodhna Carroll: and that idea of you know it's really what you're talking about. Isn't it like kind of come and break bread with us. Find out how it is for us.
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Cliodhna Carroll: It's not about how it is just in this. You know our kind of hour and a half assessment is all of the other stuff that we need to kind of bring to the table. And
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Cliodhna Carroll: you know, if you can understand us. it's almost like kind of that sense isn't it, if you can understand us like kind of, then then you can help us like kind of, and we can understand you.
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vickihome: and we can trust you because You've made it
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vickihome: understand us. Yeah, I mean, I I Some of the most confronting things I've done is some home visits with families that keep very severe injuries. And
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vickihome: no, I come out just
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vickihome: being so admiring of the family, and you know, having to manage trackings and pigs, and you know, lifting kids here and there and
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vickihome: oh, you know, catching it when they're breaking things and throwing things. And
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vickihome: it it's just it's so different to the the test room that it's really important to see that.
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vickihome: Not too often. But it does just remind you of of them.
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vickihome: How difficult it can be.
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Ingram Wright: Vicki. We've asked you a number of
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Ingram Wright: what ought to have been challenging questions. But you've managed them admirably. But i'm
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Ingram Wright: i'm gonna make things slightly more difficult for us all now, with both technically
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Ingram Wright: and and intellectually. We've got. We've got some questions from a genuine child, neuropsychologist.
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Ingram Wright: Eliot, who is 5 years old. Who's it? Son of a friend of mine
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Ingram Wright: and has submitted, knowing that you were going to be on the podcast, has submitted a series of questions that he would like to
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Ingram Wright: a pediatric neuro psychologist to answer about the brain. And I think you've kindly agreed to answer
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Ingram Wright: Elliott's questions. Is that is that right?
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vickihome: And you Haven't heard these which is extraordinarily brave.
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Ingram Wright: I'm a pretty psychologist. I'm used to difficult questions from to the I I I have had the advantage of just full disclosure, and I have had the advantage of listening to these questions, so i'm!
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Ingram Wright: I'm quite happy to think on my feet. But having had some fore warning of what the questions are. If you want to pass on any of the questions, Vicki, I think we'll allow you. There are 7 questions, 250.
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Ingram Wright: Okay and and and cleaner if you can do the co-host thing of counting Vicki's passes so
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Ingram Wright: any that vicky passes on. I'm happy to answer. We'll only give you 3 passes. Vicki.
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vickihome: Okay. Hmm.
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Ingram Wright: Right now, I'm: just
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Ingram Wright: go on.
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Ingram Wright: You happy with that.
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vickihome: Yeah.
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Ingram Wright: Great. So this is the slight.
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Ingram Wright: technically challenging bit where I have to share my
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Ingram Wright: screen and share the sound so you can hear it
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Ingram Wright: so I can see you both of the key. But your small postage stamps on my screen. I'm just going to open up this email so that
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Ingram Wright: Vicky, you ready for the first question.
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vickihome: I am.
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Ingram Wright: So what i'm gonna do, Vicki, the the audio might not be great in terms of Elliott's voice, because it's being played through the system. But what i'll do is i'll edit in some nice pristine
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Ingram Wright: versions of his questions, so that the audience, listening to this can hear it.
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Ingram Wright: So he's the first question you can choose to answer or pass right. Are you ready?
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Yeah, I am I'm going.
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Why do we have dreams?
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Ingram Wright: What do you think about that one?
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vickihome: I'm not sure. That's when you're a psychologist can answer. It's more.
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vickihome: Oh, well, I can. I can drag up my
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vickihome: limited sleep knowledge and talk about
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vickihome: rem sleep, and
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vickihome: how that's the stage where you have dreams, but i'm not quite sure. I can say why we have dreams. So I I might have to give a pass on that one
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Ingram Wright: lots of great research, isn't it on sleep and learning and consolidation of learning and the role of sleep. And I guess.
447
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Ingram Wright: as you point out, it it doesn't necessarily fully address the question of why we have dreams, does it? But it does appear to be some.
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Ingram Wright: certainly some clear. Your cognitive functions of sleep and consequences of disruption to sleep, and is a common thing isn't it. We would see in kids with acquired brain injury.
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Cliodhna Carroll: I think it's interesting isn't it when you speak with people, with neurological conditions about their dreams as well, particularly those who might have physical disabilities, and whether or not that manifest in their dreams.
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Cliodhna Carroll: and how you know he, their physical or cognitive beings, can.
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Cliodhna Carroll: Physical and cognitive functioning can be in dreams. It's always an interesting conversation, I think, having those conversations.
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Ingram Wright: I think, in terms of Elliott's questions, though in our the rules of this particular game, Vicki, it's posed a problem because I think that was probably half a pass if if we if we're counting it, we're counting it strictly
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Ingram Wright: so it's even more of a challenge for you to count half marks. I'll put a half a pass. Would you like the next question, Vicki?
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Ingram Wright: I'm. Hopefully. Not all that hard. But I think that was the one of the hardest one I don't know why it's in this particular order. It's somewhat random, but he's the next one from Elliot.
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Do I really have to wear a helmet to protect my brain.
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vickihome: Well, Elliot, that's one I can definitely make it comment on. I think that the answer to that is, it depends on what you're doing.
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vickihome: So if you're riding a bike.
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vickihome: or if you're skiing, or snowboarding, or playing cricket. really important to where helmet, because it will protect you from missiles like cricket balls, hitting your head and and damaging your brain
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vickihome: if you playing something like junior soccer or similar kinds of sports.
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vickihome: Sometimes a helmet can get in the way. because it makes your head bigger.
461
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vickihome: and it it puts more stress on your neck.
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vickihome: And also with some kids, make some feel like they
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vickihome: mystery in principle.
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vickihome: and to take risks when they wouldn't otherwise do it. And that can mean that that kids are more likely to have injuries. So I think my answer is.
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vickihome: Sometimes it's good to wear a helmet, and sometimes it's not.
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Ingram Wright: I think Elliott's parents will be really pleased to have your definitive advice on this at topic. Vicki. Thank you very much. I I think there was no even half passes on that question. Cleaner
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Ingram Wright: Finish shaking your hands. We're fine with that one you ready for question. 3. The key!
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vickihome: Yes, I am.
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What foods are good for your brain.
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Ingram Wright: I think that's a difficult one. When I heard this, I thought. Oh, I don't know.
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vickihome: I think it's a difficult one to you know. I think it kind of the the
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vickihome: All Wives tail would be fish oil might be the answer to that.
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vickihome: But but I I think really a healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle is really important. So everything in moderation to me is is good. So you know, even to the extent that sometimes
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vickihome: kids will will be told that sugar is bad for for them. But, in fact, we all need some sugar to keep us active and not get for tea, so we do need some
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vickihome: some sugar, but we also need vegetables and proteins, and so on. So so I think it's really
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vickihome: making sure that you've got a broad diet that's important, particularly when you're young, and your brain is developing.
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vickihome: And I suppose, just as a bit of an aside, we do know that
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vickihome: for kids who who live in very disadvantaged environments and don't get enough to at all.
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vickihome: We see that their brains actually don't develop very well. So food is really critical to developing a healthy brain.
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Thank you, Vicki.
481
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Ingram Wright: Question for familiar. Here we go.
482
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Is it really true that half your brain is made out of water?
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Ingram Wright: There's a technical question for you.
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vickihome: More than half of your brain. Is water actually so? So? Yes, that's definitely true.
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Ingram Wright: Thank you. It's a lovely succinct answer.
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vickihome: It's lovely to see. Question, too.
487
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Why can't you remember being a baby.
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vickihome: Now that's a really interesting question. and oh. I will give you my thoughts on it might not be the perfect answer.
489
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vickihome: But memories
490
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vickihome: rely a lot on our language skills.
491
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vickihome: And so, when we remember things.
492
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vickihome: we often remember a conversation or the labels that we put on things rather than the smell or the visual picture.
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vickihome: and
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vickihome: when my babies we don't have any language, and so we don't have any of those labels to put on what's happening to us.
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vickihome: but pretty much by age, 2 or by h 3. We can start doing that really well, and that's when we start having really good memories
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vickihome: in saying that just to give a little bit more information, some people who had very traumatic things happen to them when they were babies.
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vickihome: They have really clear memories of smells that might have been around at the time, like If they happen to be in a really nasty fire.
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vickihome: they'll remember that smell. But they won't. Remember any of the words around it. So I hope that answers your question.
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Ingram Wright: Wonderful answer, Vicki. Thank you. and got 2 more questions. I think
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00:58:41.590 --> 00:58:54.600
Ingram Wright: you Haven't used any of your passes yet. I'm. I'm slightly worried about what what do we do if you, if you finish these questions in credit, and you've you've only half passed on one question.
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00:58:54.850 --> 00:58:56.240
Ingram Wright: We'll have to send you some
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00:58:56.700 --> 00:58:58.970
Ingram Wright: book that, or something like that. Is it
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vickihome: as a credit?
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00:59:01.120 --> 00:59:06.780
vickihome: Next time I see you. You can come on the podcast and refuse to answer any questions in future.
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Ingram Wright: And
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00:59:08.170 --> 00:59:11.740
Ingram Wright: here's question Number 6 penultimate question from Elliot.
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00:59:15.440 --> 00:59:18.570
Is your brain really walnut-shaped.
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00:59:20.590 --> 00:59:25.160
Ingram Wright: So not that another technical question. Is your brain really walnut shaped
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00:59:25.980 --> 00:59:32.430
vickihome: it it's so full that shapes, and you know it's so. It's like it will not in that has, you know, 2 pieces that
510
00:59:32.640 --> 00:59:39.440
vickihome: to pull apart hopefully, not when you're alive. But yeah, it is a bit worn out, and it's a big kind of
511
00:59:40.240 --> 00:59:47.390
vickihome: on the outside to like a walnut. So all of the the the brain has lots and lots of folds in it
512
00:59:47.480 --> 00:59:48.740
vickihome: that
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00:59:49.280 --> 00:59:53.970
vickihome: growing and get more and more over time from the time when when you're
514
00:59:55.450 --> 01:00:01.830
vickihome: before you born to the time you born. So yeah, I think I think that's a really good way of describing it.
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Ingram Wright: You think, Vicki, Can I ask it? No, I maybe shouldn't ask a follow up question. I don't want to contaminate Elliot's questions. But I suppose
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01:00:11.890 --> 01:00:19.370
Ingram Wright: these questions about our understanding our brain are quite important, aren't they to communicating with families? So
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Ingram Wright: when I heard Elliott's questions, I thought
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01:00:22.050 --> 01:00:30.960
Ingram Wright: mit
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01:00:31.160 --> 01:00:41.230
Ingram Wright: vulnerable our brains might be because of their shape because of the anatomical aspects of how the brain fits into the skull, etc. All of these things are
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01:00:41.650 --> 01:00:48.740
Ingram Wright: relevant aren't they to our work. They're not necessarily something we would say, actually, that's for the neurosurgeons or the radiologists to talk to you about.
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vickihome: Absolutely. I mean, I think that last question about the the the shape really gives the opportunity to talk about
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vickihome: how the brain starts off is quite smooth, and as the volume grows and grows, it doesn't have a bigger space to to grow into, and so it folds itself over and over again, and all those falls are critical to how well it functions. I agree.
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01:01:16.080 --> 01:01:17.220
Ingram Wright: I think I would.
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01:01:17.570 --> 01:01:28.660
Ingram Wright: And you a psychologist. I think he may well be on that pathway. I'm hoping Well, Elliot will no doubt be interesting interested to listen to this podcast, and maybe he can make a decision afterwards.
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01:01:30.260 --> 01:01:31.670
Ingram Wright: Here's his last question.
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01:01:35.340 --> 01:01:41.460
How can my brain? How can our brains think about our own thoughts?
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01:01:43.510 --> 01:01:45.200
vickihome: I think that's possibly
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01:01:45.420 --> 01:01:49.050
Ingram Wright: the most difficult of the questions that we've saved it for last?
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01:01:49.240 --> 01:01:51.770
Ingram Wright: How can our brains think of our own thoughts?
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01:01:52.810 --> 01:01:56.280
vickihome: Oh, so I think I think
531
01:01:56.660 --> 01:02:00.430
vickihome: our own thoughts are from our brains, so
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01:02:00.620 --> 01:02:03.780
vickihome: we can. We can.
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01:02:04.080 --> 01:02:12.140
vickihome: being a certain situation, for example, and we can feel something. And then, on the basis of that, we can put that into some kind of context.
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01:02:12.670 --> 01:02:22.070
vickihome: that the brain then interprets for us, and and often what happens is the that process ends up in some kind of language based
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01:02:24.110 --> 01:02:25.500
vickihome: output. So
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vickihome: so. But the stimulus might not be language based. but what our brain does is translate it into those words.
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01:02:36.780 --> 01:02:39.170
vickihome: and that's a bit of a clunk kind of it, but
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01:02:39.220 --> 01:02:42.150
vickihome: it's it's great. I can drink.
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01:02:43.630 --> 01:02:50.640
Ingram Wright: Well, thank you very much for answering Elliott's questions. Now I've I've just got to work out how to stop screen sharing.
540
01:02:50.820 --> 01:02:51.700
You have done it.
541
01:02:53.060 --> 01:02:59.410
Ingram Wright: We can see what's 6 and a half.
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01:03:00.090 --> 01:03:01.160
Ingram Wright: Bye bye.
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01:03:01.570 --> 01:03:02.520
vickihome: it's tricky.
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01:03:02.630 --> 01:03:04.430
Ingram Wright: really tricky questions.
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01:03:04.480 --> 01:03:05.500
Ingram Wright: and I think
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01:03:06.610 --> 01:03:17.260
Ingram Wright: I think one of the thing you talked about what you enjoyed about working with children, Vicki, and I think sometimes the only ones asked that question. You come up with different answers each time or variance on.
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01:03:17.290 --> 01:03:18.660
Ingram Wright: I quite enjoyed that.
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01:03:18.850 --> 01:03:28.070
Ingram Wright: I I've quite enjoyed crawling onto the table to get an assessment of some kind on, and it's a great thing about working with children that you're faced with those kinds of challenges.
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01:03:28.270 --> 01:03:35.250
Ingram Wright: But I also think Elliot's questions. Exemplify something that's great about working with children is they'll ask you the toughest questions right?
550
01:03:35.530 --> 01:03:38.300
Ingram Wright: They won't. you know.
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01:03:38.620 --> 01:03:52.590
Ingram Wright: Sit back and and and shyly, You know, kind of avoid exposing you and your limitations. They'll ask you some really really tough things, and I I quite enjoy being put on the spot on occasion in in my work. I'm sure we all do.
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01:03:53.010 --> 01:03:57.230
vickihome: Yeah. And I think you know with those questions you can see, and it's cogs
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01:03:57.290 --> 01:04:08.690
vickihome: of his brain working. You can see what he trying to get a better understanding, and and I love that I love love being able to kind of feed information into that brain
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01:04:08.760 --> 01:04:12.520
Ingram Wright: keeps our cogs wearing as well, answering the questions
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Cliodhna Carroll: I've certainly learned a lot from your answers, Vicky.
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01:04:16.800 --> 01:04:20.490
Ingram Wright: I've got a final question
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01:04:20.640 --> 01:04:32.650
Ingram Wright: for you, Vicki, and I, I suppose we talked a little bit about how you got into newer psychology, and how the field is is shaped over time, and maybe changed and developed, and become more specialized and
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Ingram Wright: much more extensive. I suppose, in terms of the the volume of of of work that is published in in the name of your psychology. But as someone who's been a a leader in the field for such a time.
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Ingram Wright: Where do you think we're heading? Where do you think we need? Where do you think we need to go? I mean, You've talked about some of the challenges technology apps
560
01:04:56.240 --> 01:04:57.830
Ingram Wright: online therapy.
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01:04:58.180 --> 01:05:06.950
Ingram Wright: I suppose that the place that we're living in now. But where do you think we're going to be heading in the next 10 to 15 years in terms of your psychology.
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vickihome: It's really hard to tell, because if you had asked me this where we where we would be now when I started
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01:05:17.280 --> 01:05:28.780
vickihome: my training, I mean, we didn't even have computers that then. So it that the the amount of change is enormous, and and you mentioned check before
564
01:05:28.890 --> 01:05:31.390
vickihome: those kinds of AI
565
01:05:31.720 --> 01:05:35.440
vickihome: developments offer such huge input.
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vickihome: I I think that
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vickihome: I think that we're likely to just have ever in expanding use of of technology, digital technology online technology.
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01:05:47.280 --> 01:05:54.920
vickihome: I think that well, I hope that we take advantage of that to be able to disseminate
569
01:05:54.940 --> 01:06:08.030
vickihome: our knowledge as best as we can, not not just to our psychology, colleagues, but to to our patients and clients and families, so that it's really easily accessible. I think that's that's really important.
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vickihome: you know. I I think we
571
01:06:12.920 --> 01:06:16.720
vickihome: as the health system kind of gets more
572
01:06:18.000 --> 01:06:31.890
vickihome: precision based. I think this a an argument for us to get less precision based. because you know what we get so focused in on these medical things
573
01:06:32.020 --> 01:06:33.700
vickihome: and and the
574
01:06:34.180 --> 01:06:43.030
vickihome: the minutia of of really particular diagnosis, that I think it's really important for us as psychologists in general to keep up the picture
575
01:06:43.200 --> 01:06:54.210
vickihome: and to be able to maintain that approach, to be able to look at whoever we've got on in front of us, or on the screen, or whatever.
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01:06:54.370 --> 01:07:01.570
vickihome: and really be able to maintain that kind of human element to what we do. I don't quite know what kind of
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01:07:01.880 --> 01:07:08.450
vickihome: platform will be doing it on in 20 years time, but but I think you know it came back to Freud.
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01:07:08.530 --> 01:07:22.240
vickihome: I'm. Not necessarily psycho in the analytic in my background, but what he was doing and what we're doing now, you know, has very a lot of similarities in that sitting in a room formulating, making interpretations.
579
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vickihome: you know, and that's that's a century on, despite all of the the progress that's been made. So I hope we really do take that kind of human touch to what we're doing.
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Ingram Wright: Vicki: Thank you ever so much for sharing your wisdom, perspective, and experience with, as it's been an absolute pleasure. I mean, if i'd if i'd known when I was turning over the front cover of that one and only book that I
581
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Ingram Wright: knew about at the time that inspired me to pursue a career in Peddat. And you're like, if I knew that i'd be talking to you in this forum, you know, if I could have predicted that future I would have been absolutely delighted. So thank you for your time.
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vickihome: and great to
583
01:08:01.780 --> 01:08:03.430
vickihome: to talk with you both.
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Cliodhna Carroll: Thank you.