Transcript
Intro: Welcome to A Bunch of Therapists, the podcast that goes behind the doors of the therapy room. Our guests will be sharing their experiences of counselling and psychotherapy, and all the lessons they’ve learned on the journey through life. This episode is hosted by Dipti Solanki and me, Michaela McCarthy.
Dipti Solanki: Our guest this week is Mandy Wax.
Michaela McCarthy: Hi, Mandy. Welcome to our podcast today. First of all, I’d like to know why therapy? Why did you go into therapy? How did you start? Just expanding on that.
Mandy Wax: It was difficult because I think I was hoping for understanding and I was hoping to be able to talk, to start to talk about things and maybe, I don’t know, thinking back, yeah, I was probably doing it for all the wrong reasons. I don’t know. It just didn’t feel, this person felt very remote and very inaccessible.
Michaela McCarthy: And how did you find this therapist?
Mandy Wax: I found her on a directory or looked her up. And I think at that point I was looking for, oh, you know, who’s got a qualification on that basis. But it wasn’t, I mean, I know now, I didn’t know at the time, but I know now that she was working in a very psychoanalytic way. So there was a remoteness about it and a distance that some analysts adopt that didn’t really suit me.
Dipti Solanki: It’s not what you needed.
Michaela McCarthy: How long did you stay with her?
Mandy Wax: I think it was a few months, but it didn’t continue.
Michaela McCarthy: And then when was your next time for therapy?
Mandy Wax: I think the next time I started therapy was probably when I started training to be a therapist. I think I then had quite a big gap.
Michaela McCarthy: And did you get the right person?
Mandy Wax: Still not really the right person.
Michaela McCarthy: Okay.
Mandy Wax: I feel as though I’ve only really found the right person pretty recently.
Michaela McCarthy: Oh really?
Mandy Wax: Yeah.
Dipti Solanki: That’s really curious, but you still decided to train as a therapist.
Mandy Wax: Mm-hmm.
Dipti Solanki: Why do you think that was?
Mandy Wax: It’s interesting because I’m only thinking about it now as we’re talking about it but I’m thinking, it’s a little bit like why on earth did I become a teacher because? Because I hated school.
Michaela McCarthy: Okay.
Mandy Wax: And I was naughty at school. I didn’t do that well at school. And yet, when I was mature, more mature… where I’m going with this is I think that maybe I wanted to be the teacher that I didn’t have.
Dipti Solanki: That you needed.
Mandy Wax: Yes, and maybe I wanted to be the therapist that I didn’t have, maybe.
Michaela McCarthy: I remember speaking to a therapist, well, he’s still in the industry, I won’t mention his name, and he said he never found the person. And he tried forever. So I’m pleased never found the person. And he tried forever. So, I’m pleased you found someone now. Is it now?
Mandy Wax: Yes, now.
Michaela McCarthy: That you have. Maybe you’re just ready now or who knows?
Mandy Wax: Yeah, who knows? Who knows? I think as well I didn’t have the confidence perhaps before training or even during training. I didn’t have the confidence to believe, I know this isn’t quite right. Whereas now, I have that.
Dipti Solanki: And I think during training, I think something really incredible happens in terms of you really understand the potential of therapy and what therapy can offer to clients if we show up in the right way for them as well. So yeah maybe that’s a lot to do with the fact that you still continued on that path.
Mandy Wax: Yeah, yeah.
Michaela McCarthy: And the training? So you’ve done, you were a teacher for years.
Mandy Wax: Many years.
Michaela McCarthy: And so when did you decide to train then? How did that happen?
Mandy Wax: Well, I had to, well I didn’t have to, but I had to do something to, you know, pay the bills. And I was bringing up my son by myself. So the security of a teaching job was…
Michaela McCarthy: And the holidays and…
Mandy Wax: Yeah, and it was, it worked, it worked really well and it was fantastic. So when my son was at the sort of age where he was going to be going off to university, I thought, oh, now’s my time, now I can do it. So that’s when I took the plunge.
Michaela McCarthy: And was it the right decision definitely
Mandy Wax: Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah
Dipti Solanki: That sounds emphatic tell us why it was the right decision
Mandy Wax: It’s… it sounds a bit of a cliche, but I feel it’s what I’m meant to be doing. And actually, now that I’m in a training environment and I’m a therapist, it feels like bringing all of it together in a perfect way, in just the right way. So, it’s worked out well.
Michaela McCarthy: And so how long have you been practicing as a therapist now?
Mandy Wax: 13 years.
Michaela McCarthy: Then you actually found The Awareness Centre.
Mandy Wax: Mmmm.
Michaela McCarthy: Well, it was your son who found The Awareness Centre.
Mandy Wax: It was.
Michaela McCarthy: Yeah.
Mandy Wax: It was.
Michaela McCarthy: And he said, Mum, this would be right up your street. I think that was the term.
Mandy Wax: Exactly. He said, this is you. This is a training school for therapists, for counsellors and therapists. This is just right for you. Yeah, he found it.
Michaela McCarthy: And I remember because I don’t come from an education background, but I had a good idea of how to run a school and we had some really good tutors around us and supervisors and everything. And I tend to, you know, being an entrepreneur, I’m that way, even though I’m a therapist, which I love, I just went for it. It was like two tutors said to me, why don’t we set up a training school? And I went, all right then, you know, and so we just sort of did, there was no major plan, but one thing is, I did know that we needed external markers and external verifier, we found a tutor along the way, he does skills tutoring because obviously we were having more people neurodiverse and English second language, all those things, because I’m very pro-education and I don’t just mean in the classroom, but in life. And then you turned up, and I remember we was in the training room over in Clapham, and we were trying to work out whether our diploma was a level four or a level five. And because you come from education,
you were like looking at school, oh, you know, no, you meet the criteria, this is a level five. Well, I wasn’t confident enough to make that decision.
Mandy Wax: Yeah.
Michaela McCarthy: You know, and I thought, oh my God, and we done that by mistake. We just put more into our training when we put it together.
Mandy Wax: Yeah.
Michaela McCarthy: And it just happened to be a level five. So it happened, a good thing in error really.
Mandy Wax: It’s very good because it is although it is it’s difficult is not the right word but it is a very intensive training. It’s hard work yeah and so the fact that it is of that higher standard makes all the difference.
Dipti Solanki: I think that’s a really important point because I think we live in a world where courses are so accessible to everybody now and you see people doing coaching courses in a weekend and then being able to call themselves, you know, whatever they want to call themselves. And I think there’s something that definitely surprised me and actually delighted me in that when you train to be a counsellor, what a journey it is and how deep the training is, how intensive it is, and how much it actually changes you as an individual. And that’s a requirement. So I’d really love to hear from both of you actually on that, on what your take is on the therapist training and that journey and how it changes one?
Michaela McCarthy: Well the foundation is where people start but some people that we’ve had come in they’ve done level twos, they’ve done, they’re open, they know bits because I know your background when you went into therapy and your training psychoanalytic.
Mandy Wax: Yeah, very different.
Michaela McCarthy: Very different and we’re integrative. And I wonder what attracts you to the integrative even though you’ve training and experiences in psychoanalytic.
Mandy Wax: I think that, I think psychoanalysis is fantastic and I think it’s the foundation of everything and I think it’s where it all started. But I think it’s where it all started. But I think where everything has gone since then is as important. And I think all the developments and all the thinkers and the theories and everything that’s built in the last, whatever it is, 125 years or whatever, is… we have to look at everything, I think. And I think to be in 2025 and just be looking at psychoanalysis is not current enough. It’s not modern enough. I think we have to go with the times and we have to go with what’s, not what’s in fashion or in vogue, but what is happening in the world around us and that affects, you know. It’s the same with anything, it’s the same with media, it’s the same with politics, whatever, it’s evolving. So I think counselling and therapy has to be evolving.
Dipti Solanki: It’s almost like being agile as a profession as well, isn’t that as well?
Mandy Wax: Yeah, so I love in integrative because I love the way that it just pulls from wherever it needs to pull from.
Dipti Solanki: So, Mandy, can you just explain a little bit about what does integrative mean when it comes to the course and in terms of the approach?
Mandy Wax: So integrative means that we don’t just use one modality or one approach or one theory of counselling and therapy. We draw from a number of different approaches as the discipline has evolved over time. There’s been lots of new things brought in. So we look at, just to give you an example of different modalities we look at, we look at person-centered counselling, we look at psychodynamic theory in counselling, Gestalt, transactional analysis, transpersonal. So we work from a therapist, I think, called Petruska Clarkson, who brought in the five relational model, which draws from all of the different modalities. And interestingly, Dipti, when you said about what happens when you train, and I think you change, your relationships change. And that’s, I think, something that we don’t expect and that students don’t expect. And when you’re training, you can realise as you’re going along the way.
Dipti Solanki: It’s not for the faint-hearted that bit, is it really?
Mandy Wax: No, no.
Dipti Solanki: And sometimes it’s quite sad,
Mandy Wax: But other times it’s joyful.
Dipti Solanki: Yes.
Mandy Wax: But it can be quite difficult, can’t it? Because you realise that your interests and your thoughts are starting to be quite different from perhaps your friends, your loved ones, and how you balance that is…
Dipti Solanki: Yeah, yeah. I think authenticity is something that blossoms but then it challenges your thought patterns as well doesn’t it and and you’re just not willing to put up with some things and you want more of others and itchanges everything
Mandy Wax: Yes
Dipti Solanki: I think it’s so important for our viewers and listeners to to hear that everything that you’ve just shared about the journey, because I think very few people realise how in-depth this whole transformation into becoming a therapist is. It’s deep and it’s wide and it’s a very emotional journey as well, as well as an intellectual one, wouldn’t you say?
Mandy Wax: Definitely.
Dipti Solanki: Yeah.
Mandy Wax: Definitely.
Dipti Solanki: Yeah. What are some of the emotions that you see surfacing with the students that you support?
Mandy Wax: I think for some people it’s, well it’s definitely transformative, it definitely is and you know a lot of students talk about that and say how… and it’s not you know it’s not without its issues and like we’ve been saying because you know sometimes relationships that have been ticking along fine suddenly come under the microscope a bit more and so questions start to get asked. And I think and I think a lot of people, let’s face it these days, don’t have the luxury of being able to just do this training. So they’re carrying on with perhaps a first career or a previous career and they’re juggling.
Dipti Solanki: The family, their friendships.
Mandy Wax: They’re juggling their family lives, they’re juggling their career, they’re juggling. So.
Dipti Solanki: Trying to stay healthy in the process.
Mandy Wax: Yes.
Michaela McCarthy: It’s a big commitment, yes.
Mandy Wax: It is and we’re always talking about self-care and yet it’s difficult because your time is so consumed.
Dipti Solanki: In terms of the students that you, I’m sure you end up supporting in a lot of different ways, I’d love to hear about what their journeys are like, what their anxieties, what their joys are like. What are you, what’s your experience of that side of things?
Mandy Wax: I think, I think something I hear a lot from the students is that, and it really resonates, I think, when I was studying philosophy all those years ago, is that once you start on a path of looking and investigating and thinking, you can’t really ever go off the path. So once you’re on the path, you’re on the path and so it becomes your, it becomes your life and it becomes part of you. So I think that’s a really lovely realisation that they have, our students. I mean sometimes they say, oh, sometimes I just wish I could switch off, switch off for the evening and not be thinking, oh, but what’s their motivation and why, you know, even if they’re watching TV or something. So I get that, but it’s, yeah, so that’s one thing, that it is a journey that you can’t really just say, oh actually, I’ve changed my mind, I’m not going to do that anymore. Once you’re on it, you’re on it.
Dipti Solanki: It becomes you.
Mandy Wax: It does.
Michaela McCarthy: And so if you think about your journey so far, and you know our school is growing, and it’s still a baby so to speak even though The Awareness Centre has been going 20 years you know we’ve attracted so many great people.
Mandy Wax: We’re at a very exciting stage.
Michaela McCarthy: Yeah, it feels exciting.
Mandy Wax: It is exciting yeah and and I do feel as though the sky’s the limit here. We’re growing, we’re developing, we’re adding courses all the time, our student numbers are growing and it’s really a very exciting time.
Michaela McCarthy: But even the team, like the backhouse and everything, we call them the backhouse, you know, they’re dynamic. I think they’re dynamic in their approach as well because the environment that we’ve created is that way. And we’re bringing people in, you know, great tutors, great supervisors, people wanting to join us.
Mandy Wax: Yes. And it’s a very supportive environment. And our, what we’re interested in is, the next generation’s the wrong word, but you know is the next cohort or the next group of therapists who graduate we’re interested in them being the best therapist they can be. So that’s what we’re supporting. We’re not really interested in running it as a sort of… ticking the boxes. Oh, you’re doing very well, well done. You know, it’s very supportive because we want people to graduate from here and be fantastic therapists.
Michaela McCarthy: So Mandy, explain to the listeners and viewers, you know, what is it that people have to do to train as a counsellor? What is it?
Mandy Wax: So we offer either a partial journey or a complete journey to being an accredited counsellor. The Foundation Certificate is a sort of introductory course. It’s a brilliant sort of all-round introduction to what does counselling and therapy involve and an introduction to the different theories and ideas, some of the thinkers, some of thethinkers, you know, really. The foundation as it says. And it gets people starting to practise working with other people in this sort of setting. Then, and for some people that might be all they want to experience. They might want to, oh, what’s this all about, this counselling? Is it for me? How does it feel? So for some people they might leave it there. But most of our students get the feel for it and they love it and they want to go straight from the Foundation and do a diploma.
So our diploma course is a two-year BACP accredited course. It offers students a huge range of things. They get lots of theory classes from visiting tutors who are specialists in their different areas and each week they also meet with the same lead tutor who takes them through skills practice and working with others and processing all the things that they’re learning about. They will also do at least two placements to actually be practicing the real thing in the real world.
Michaela McCarthy: With real people.
Mandy Wax: With real people and they will experience supervision because all practicing therapists carry on being in supervision for all of their career. And that two-year diploma, when students graduate from that, because it’s BACP accredited, they will automatically be qualified to practice and be on the BACP register of counsellors.
Dipti Solanki: Yeah, I think one of the things I know a lot of my colleagues had been struggling with is placement opportunities actually and I think that there and if you’re studying somewhere but you know you are almost guaranteed a placement if you get through whatever criteria you have to get through, is really important because the training you know is quite an investment emotionally, physically,
Michaela McCarthy: Financially.
Dipti Solanki: Financially all of that and then it feels like the final hurdle if you can’t get the placement that you want because you’re so eager to go out in the world and do what you want to do with with all the training you’ve got. It’s hard, it’s demoralising. So I think placement, having a placement is really something to think about as well, almost guaranteed placement. Yeah.
Mandy Wax: Yeah and there are a lot of questions I think out there you know what once people have qualified that it’s it’s one of those professions where you do get asked to do work for nothing and all the voluntary work that that some therapists are expected to do and it’s it’s a big discussion, question, yeah an issue, is you know why why would we work for nothing?
Michaela McCarthy: Yeah, yeah, true. I mean that’s why we provide the supervision on our placements here. You know, you don’t have to pay for our supervision, we fund it because students are giving up their time to work with clients.
Dipti Solanki: I think what I would love to see a move towards in the profession is to have paid placements as well because I think that would make such a difference to therapists who are training. And I get there’s logistics around that but I think that would be a really, a powerful move and a supportive move to those who are training as well.
Mandy Wax: It’s an interesting time, isn it when you know thinking you know thinking towards the future and thinking what what’s going to happen in our profession really because we keep being promised more public funds into mental health and yet it’s… it doesn’t feel as though it’s getting any better, so that you know this talk talking about this kind of…
Michaela McCarthy: Well I think what it is it’s not enough you know we live in London and London is a busy city and I think more people are open for therapy and you know even in the NHS which you know we manage the counselling service and more and more people are coming in and yeah…
Dipti Solanki: I need to mush that demand in a way that’s sustainable like we say for the whole ecosystem actually and I think it will make for better therapists I think it will mean there’s more equity for, because a lot of people want to do the training but it’s an expensive training to do as well. So if we’re looking at making it equitable for all parts of society to train as a therapist, we need to kind of be thinking about that and I think that needs to come from much higher up like the government.
Mandy Wax: Yes.
Dipti Solanki: They need to look at how we can fund that better. Okay, so just to close, we would love to know what little piece of wisdom you’d like to leave for our listeners and viewers when it comes to therapy, the world of therapy.
Mandy Wax: I think I would say you don’t know what it might be like or what it could be like until you try it. So don’t try and imagine it. If you have a thought about it, try it. Try therapy. And there’s only one first time.
Dipti Solanki: Yes.
Michaela McCarthy: Exactly.
Mandy Wax: Thank goodness.
Dipti Solanki:
Thank goodness.
Michaela McCarthy: Yeah. Thank goodness. Thank you.
Outro: You’ve been listening to a bunch of therapists with me, Michaela McCarthy and Dipti Solanki. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review.
And don’t forget to follow us on our socials to keep up to date with all of our news. Thank you so much and until next time.