Bitesize Episode: Charlotte Pitt - Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

In this bitesize podcast episode, the student is going to introduce you to Charlotte Pitt who is a Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. If you'd like to find out more about Charlotte's work keep an eye out for the extended interview which will be released in a couple of weeks.

If you know a group of students who would like to interview female or non-binary role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

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If you know a group of students who would like to interview one of our role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Follow us on Instagram @STEMUntapped
Connect with us on LinkedIn @STEMUntappedCIC
Check out our website

Transcript

Intro 00:00

Hi, I'm Izzy host of the STEM Untapped podcast. This week our student is interviewing Charlotte Pitt, who is a Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist.

Charlotte Pitt  00:17

Hi, my name is Charlotte Pitt. I'm a Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. I currently work in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit in Birmingham, two and a half days a week. And I'm also about to start working in a school as a therapist.

Student Interviewer  00:40

What does an average day at your work look like?

Charlotte Pitt  00:43

The first thing that I do in the morning is join a team called the multidisciplinary team. So we come together, and there's people from all different disciplines, and professions who come together for the day, think about any risk, any cases that needs thinking about anything that's happening on site or any, any changes to the normal running of the day. So I meet for individual therapy with cases. So I work with any age from nought to 25. And if a young person is accessing therapy with me, once weekly therapy, then they might have a therapy session, then I might do some consultation work. So meet with somebody from a different profession and think about a case, a young person, then I might have my own supervision. So part of my work is to make sure that I think with other people about my work. So that's supervision. Or there may be a team meeting. So that's a kind of an average day.

Student Interviewer  01:47

What university did you go to? And what topics did you study?

Charlotte Pitt  01:50

I went to Swansea University, University of Wales and I studied Sociology. At A level I did English, Spanish, and History of Art. And yeah, I studied Sociology at university. But I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So I got to university through clearing, and did Sociology, and really found this career, got into this profession a lot later on in life. I think what is very common in my line of work is that people tend to not go straight into this career at a young age. So most people who do this training have tended to come from they've had a career before they become psychoanalytic, psychotherapists. People tend to come into this profession, perhaps as a second career, not directly from uni. But I think things are changing. And I think if you want to get into something like this, then then yes, do something like psychology, sociology. But I would say that actually, this this career, this profession, it doesn't matter what you studied at university, it's actually something that, that I think you come into or you arrive at from your life experience in general.

Student Interviewer  03:16

So how did you find out that you wanted to work in this field and do this as a career?

Charlotte Pitt  03:21

I think I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I think I had some friends at school who absolutely knew what direction they wanted to go in. And I didn't so I, I was very lucky, where I didn't sort of have pressures on me. I didn't put pressure on myself or didn't have pressures to find the career I wanted, I was able to explore. So I did a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course. And then went lived abroad, went lived in Germany, and taught English to adults for business. And then I fell into teaching children English while I lived in Germany. And then I got quite into training other teachers how to teach English, so very different to what I do now. And the more I did that, the more I saw or learned about behaviour difficulties in the classroom, and was really interested in why children were behaving in the way they were behaving and what was going on in their world, what were they trying to communicate through their behaviour. So I studied abroad, I did a long distance degree, supporting and understanding children with social emotional and behavioural difficulties. And then I did a Master's in that while I lived abroad, which was a challenge and then realised that actually, that was my area of interest. And I came back to the UK and I worked in schools for permanently excluded children, and then realised I just didn't have the tools to work with these children. And I wanted to try and make sense of their world and what they were communicating. So I looked on the internet and looked and looked and looked and found, or stumbled across psychotherapy, and did some research as to into different places where I could learn about psychotherapy, and then applied at the Birmingham Trust for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and started my training.

Student Interviewer  05:24

So what was your training like at the trust? What did that look like?

Charlotte Pitt  05:29

It's a six year training. So the first two years, which is called the preclinical training, is really about observing behaviour. And the way that that I learned how to kind of observe is through observing a young infant, a baby, which was really interesting. And we did theory. So we look at, we looked at psychoanalytic theory, and we also do a seminar, the preclinical, a seminar called work discussion where you bring examples from your work, and you think about them from a different perspective, a psychoanalytic perspective. So that's a two year preclinical and then I applied, everybody has to apply to do the four year clinical training. And that's then a funded post by the NHS in a CAMHS clinic. So Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

Student Interviewer  06:29

What advice would you give to someone who's training to do like a job similar to yours or your job?

Charlotte Pitt  06:35

I think one thing that I learned through my training is to ask for help, but also to know where to go to, to ask for help. So there's different you know, in my training, and with different people offering me different things. So I had my training school, I then had my training placement, I had a supervisor, I then had my own analysis. So it's learning who's available in your world, in your training, and who to go to, with what. I think also, what another thing that was really important for me when I was training was to be able to be quite boundaried. So when I was at work, I was at work and I, you know, I was really committed to my work. But when I was at home, and I finished work for the day, that I switched off, and that I have things in my life that is separate from my work, I think that's a really important skill, in this line of work to be able to separate out, work home, whatever it is to have a life outside of your work.

Student Interviewer  07:38

What are the biggest challenges and like successes or highlights of your job?

Charlotte Pitt  07:42

I meet some young people in their families who have really suffered a quite significant trauma, or abuse, or are really struggling with their mental health, or are really very poorly. But I think when you've had a good training, and you've got the right structures in place around you, and you're able to use them in the right way. Highs, knowing that, that actually I'm really helping young people and some people really benefit from this way of working and this way of thinking, yeah, and then hopefully, they are given the tools to be able to go on and live fulfilling healthy lives, both physical health and their mental health.

Student Interviewer  08:29

Do many women work in your field? Like, is it evenly split or does one gender like dominate?

Charlotte Pitt  08:34

I would say, there's more women than men in this profession. There is definitely a male presence, but I think it's probably more women than men. Although saying that, where I trained, there were male psychotherapists, where I work now there are male psychotherapists, so I'd say it's probably more women, but not sort of predominantly.

Student Interviewer  08:58

What does a typical therapy session look like I guess? I feel like that's quite a hard question to answer, but just sort of like a general one.

Charlotte Pitt  09:06

I can answer kind of more generally, I think the way that that I work is that the young person, what's really important is that they consent to therapy. So they're not being asked to or expected to come by someone else that they want to be there. A therapy session lasts for 45 or 50 minutes. It's the same day, every week. So it's got regularity. So the young person can build up a relationship with their therapist, a therapeutic relationship, a trusting relationship. And within those 45 or 50 minutes, depending on how old the young person is, but I'll talk about an adolescent, they would really bring to the therapy session what it is that they want to bring, so it's not me leading or asking them to kind of do homework or have set specific goals or tasks, the young person comes to their session and lets me know in the way that they can. So it might be with words or with drawings, some people find it really hard to find the language and the words. So they might use some resources like pens and paper, or maybe some other equipment, we have different things that they can use that maybe string and playdough. And we have a box that they may be able to use to communicate what might be going on for them. And then I might make a comment or an observation, like I was saying earlier that the observations, the pre-clinical, really enables me to just observe what the young person is bringing, and also to notice how I'm left feeling, being with that person. And then I might make an interpretation or a comment and then see how they respond. And in that way, a language is built up with the young person and their therapist that feels right for them at their own pace, in an attempt to understand what it's like to be them, how they make sense of the world, and where they may need some help thinking about it, you know, where they might be getting into trouble or difficulty with their mental health and how they're processing things. And then that psychoanalytic therapy tends to last quite a long, a longer period of time. So it's not like a six week or 12 week block, necessarily, we work longer with, with young people to give them time to build up that trusting relationship and be able to think about some of the things… you know, when you get upset and you're crying, and you don't really know why. And somebody's like, well, what's the matter? And you're like, I don't know, and, you know, you need time to be able to build up that.

Student Interviewer  11:44

What would you say to your teenage self, or just teenagers now that you're a psychotherapist?

Charlotte Pitt  11:50

That's a really good question. That it's okay not to know, and that you can't know, everything. And if you think you know, then you've got something wrong, because you can't know everything. And it's alright not to. You know, as a teenager, I thought I needed to know I needed to have clarity, I needed to be decisive. And actually, as I was saying earlier that arrived at a career that I'm passionate about, and I very much enjoy, and I arrived at it later on in life. Because I was just able to, to kind of follow my feeling or follow my gut rather than having to get it right ,having to get the grades having to perform, having to be successful, have a lot of money in my bank account, you know. So I think it's, I would have said to myself, don't worry if you don't know. It's okay not to know. Doesn't mean you shouldn't work hard and be ambitious and, but you can't always know.

Outro 12:55

Thank you for joining another SETM Untapped podcast. If you enjoyed this episode then subscribe for free on your podcast app. You can follow us on Instagram @STEMUntapped. If you know of a school or group of students who would like to interview female or non-binary role models do get in touch. Likewise, if you know of anyone who would be a great role model then let us know. Our details are all documented in the show notes.