SPEAKERS

Gabriella Braun, Rosie Gilderthorp

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Business of Psychology podcast. This week I'm really thrilled to be here with Gabriella Braun. Gabriella is the director of Working Well. And she is the author of one of my favourite books of the past few years, 'All That We Are'. So absolutely chuffed to have Gabriela here today. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much. Thank you for saying it's one of your favourite books of the last few years. That's wonderful. And thank you, it's lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

And we're going to talk a lot about the book today. Because I know there'll be lots of people listening, who are just fascinated by that process. And I also think that everybody should read the book. But before we get stuck into all of that, can you just say a little bit about who you are and who you help?

Okay. Well, I, as you say, I have an organisation called Working Well. We try and help people do what it says on the tin. But the bit that's different is applying psychoanalytic thinking and systemic thinking. So I'm trained to do that, I did a master's at the Tavistock in consulting to organisations using psychoanalytic approaches. I'm not clinically trained, but I'm trying to work in coaching or with teams around organisational issues. I work across very different kinds of organisations, higher education, further education, schools, health, culture, arts, corporates, different types of organisations. And I both do individual coaching and work with teams.

And what's really, one thing that really struck me actually reading the book was that although your working life has been extremely diverse, and you've helped numerous kind of organisations, from lots of different sectors, there's so much that holds it all together. There's so much kind of similarity in the humaneness of people that you work with, humanity, that's the right word. And I think, yeah, that's really fascinating and hopefully reassuring for people listening to this, who are thinking about how their career might, might pan out and might change. So could you say a little bit about who you wrote the book for, who was in your mind when you were writing?

Yes, thank you for giving me a chance to say it. Who was in my mind changed over the many years it took me to write this book, it took rather a long time. So when I started, it was leaders that were in my mind, I knew that I was absolutely not writing for people like me, or I think probably even people like you. It's wonderful that you love it, I'm delighted. But you weren't a target audience for me, because I wanted to talk to people who don't know anything about psychological thinking or psychoanalytic thinking. And I wanted to make, because I think it has so much to offer in the workplace, and I think people like me had been very bad at bringing it out into the general public. And that's what I wanted to do. So I was determined to get to a mainstream publisher, I didn't want to write an academic book, I didn't want a niche book. But I did start by thinking leaders in any organisation, that's who I have in my mind. And over time, that changed to thinking it's just people in organisations who are interested in understanding what goes on in them. So they might be a leader, they might be a member of a team, they might be a board member, they might have retired, but want to still make sense of something they experienced back when they were working. So those were the people in my mind people really wanting to understand the workplace. And maybe I suppose people who might consider the way in which we need to change it, because I strongly believe that we've gone very wrong with our workplaces, and we've turned them into, not all of them, of course, but too many, we've turned into miserable places that actually can be really damaging for people, really damaging for mental health, the statistics are terrible. So maybe I also had in mind that people might see it as beginning to you know, as helping to influence that process of changing the workplace and humanising it more.

And how has it been received by those people if those are the people you had in your mind? Have you had any feedback yet about who it's landed with and what they've made of it?

I've had some completely wonderful critical acclaim, which has just been beyond dreams really. So ranging from the Financial Times who have been brilliant and got behind it, to Marie Claire magazine, who and I'm completely delighted at that spectrum. So Marie Claire magazine that, in fact, the paperback comes out on Thursday, and on the front, there's Gwen Adshead, author of The Devil You Know, which is a brilliant book, completely brilliant book. And then at the bottom on the front is Julia Hobsbawm, who's very influential in thinking about the world of work. So she's written astounding blurbs, saying it's one of the most important books about the workplace ever published. Can't really get better than that. It's wonderful. And then on the back, there's the FT, saying, it's a remarkable book, blah, blah, blah. And then there's Marie Claire, UK, saying it's essential reading for anyone who's ever felt rattled by workplace dynamics. So it's held wonderful critical acclaim. And I've also had individual people within organisations say, this has been so helpful. They, and I've had people thanking me for the courage to write something which, you know, put all of me on the page really, well, not quite all of me, but an awful lot of me. I did feel extremely exposed as it went to print. But people have been very, very lovely in response to that and seem to feel that's really made a difference. And they've used it. I've had people come and say, can you supervise me now? Or can I come for coaching now? So it has, its landed with the critics, but also with the people on the ground who I wrote it for. So far, touchwood, it seems to be landing well.

Yes. I think when you humanise yourself like that, it allows people to connect with you who might not have been confident to make that connection before. So I can really imagine people thinking, d'you know, what, actually, this coaching business doesn't sound as frightening as perhaps I thought it was, or, you know, maybe there is hope for my team, because some of the teams that you mentioned in the book, are really, have been in really bleak places. You know, I think, as a clinician reading it, I've been part of teams like that. And clinical psychologists are often asked to leave reflective practice, which is not something we're often that well equipped to do, actually, I certainly wasn't. And I really recognised some of those teams in a couple of the examples that you gave in the book. And I think the fact that you share the fact that you you did feel some of that despair with them, you travelled through it, to, you know, sometimes a more hopeful place, but at least a kind of pragmatic solution, I thought was extremely powerful, and would perhaps give people that, that push to do it and take that risk of engaging with a consultant like yourself, even when it feels impossible, and like there could be no positive outcome.

I think, and thank you, that's, that's really lovely. I think that is true. I think I have had people come to me who might not have come otherwise, or have read the book and thought, oh, you know, maybe we can do something after all, that we thought we couldn't do, or thought, it's not just me. You know, other people are really struggling to it's not just me. They're not bizarre feelings I'm having.

Yes, so important. And also at the team level. Although it can be really bad and really bleak and under really difficult circumstances, you're unlikely to be the only team that I've ever experienced that. I think that's really, really helpful for people. So for anybody who hasn't come across the book yet, it's, it's kind of a collection of case studies and stories, interspersed with some really personal reflections from your own life as well. How did you decide which case studies and stories to include?

That changed over the long course of writing the book as well. At the beginning, I think I just chose what seemed to be the best stories, you know, stories that I thought would really speak to readers, but eventually, quite late on actually, I came up with the structure that I've got which is part one, the fundamentals of being human, part two, I can't remember... how we lose ourselves, which is about the capacity, our capacity for destructiveness and how that can really pull us down in the workplace as well as outside the workplace, of course, and part three is how we find ourselves, so that our capacity for constructiveness and our potential, and how important that is in the workplace and outside the workplace. And once I've come to that structure, then I realise of course, I've got to have stories that illustrate each part of that sufficiently. So that's how I then chose the stories.

It sounds like quite an organic process, that you didn't sit down and really rigidly plan it out. You started writing and the creative process took you to those stories.

Yes, that's right. And I did in the end, I mean, I got the the deal with my publisher, on the 7th of February 2020, we had no idea what was about to hit. And I got it on the basis of three sample chapters, and a very detailed, thorough proposal, which included chapter outlines, and then I had a year to write the book. And this was now, I called it version 5.5. because I just couldn't bear to think I was now on version 6. I just decided it was 5.5. But even then, during the writing, I would suddenly think of, well, I ended up thinking of two more chapters that I hadn't got in before. And my editor was absolutely fine, yeah fine, add two, I can't remember, it's possible I ditched something as well, I can't remember. And I did things like when I came to the chapter on belonging that was in my outlines, because I thought that was really important, and I suddenly had the idea that may be it could be first person, I hadn't planned to do all the personal stuff, that was a completely new revelation to me that I'd end up doing that. And I wrote to my editor and said, I'm thinking, what about doing this in first person? What do you think? And she said, I think it could be very interesting, give it a go.

That's really fascinating, and actually a bit of a relief to me, because publishing, you do have to submit this very detailed outline. And I'm kind of going through it at the moment and feeling a little bit constrained. And I'm like, where's the creativity in this, it's not really how my brain likes to work. And so it's quite nice to hear that when you came back with suggestions for new and a bit of a different direction, they were willing to listen to you on that, because I think those first person chapters are a real strength of the book, and something that makes it very unique.

And you know what, I think my editor would totally agree with you. I think she's really pleased with that. And she was yes, completely open to me trying different things and coming up with two different chapters. And yeah, very open to the creative process, which meant that the writing, of course, it was hard, but it was also hugely pleasurable because I wasn't just fulfilling a contract. I was in a creative process. And the editing was also very pleasurable because it carried on with that, then.

That's interesting. So I think most people feel a bit stressed by the idea of the editing process. So do you think that was to do with the relationship you had with your editor that made it more pleasurable than painful?

I barely knew her at the beginning of editing. I mean, I'd put in a couple of like, can I try belonging, or what do you think? And she said, good idea. So, and I'd met her, but I barely knew her. I liked her when I met her and I liked her response to me questioning belonging. There wasn't a lot to go on. But she her, and I was very anxious, waiting for the structural edits, which is the first thing, you know, the whole structure of the book and is it working and all of that. I was very anxious, think Oh God, what's going to come back? And I I'd read things on Twitter, where writers were saying, I had to lose 30,000 words of my... and I thought Oh, my God, is this what can happen? So I was I was pretty nervous about it. But actually, she responded, it was lovely. She did me detailed structural suggestions. There wasn't that much that she changed... suggested. But I remember now we lost a chapter because she said, I love the introduction, but I want to see a bit more of this, this and this, you haven't done enough of that. It's great, but you know, can you add more of that. And then just sit in, when we get to chapter, I think it was chapter three, she said, it doesn't quite work, or maybe it was chapter four. She said, because you've gone into such... the first two or three chapters are such great stories, and then suddenly, you're in a chapter that's not a story. And at that point, it doesn't particularly work. And you could either... so she gave me choices, so I love the way it was approached. She said, you could either put a bit of this chapter in the introduction actually, and lose this chapter, or turn this chapter into a story. So she gave me a choice as to which way I wanted to go. And I decided to put a little bit of it into the intro. And I lost a whole chapter.

But it's your decision, I guess that feels really...

It was my decision. There was another thing that she did that I really liked with belonging. As you know, I, I identify quite a lot about my family and where they came from, you know, being immigrants and what country they came from. And when she read that chapter I hadn't, I'd said, we were immigrants, but I hadn't said where we were from, that came much later in the book. And she said, she wasn't sure why I'd done that. But at the moment, it was a speed bump. It would stop people because they'd be busy thinking, Oh, well, where did they come from? So she again, she gave me a choice, either tell them now, tell the reader now. Or if there's a reason you don't want to do that, let me know, and I'll give you suggestions about how you can keep it out, but not make it a speed bump.

That's really interesting. What did you decide to do?

To tell them now. I thought, Okay, I'll tell them now. I was nervous, because it's a controversial country for listeners. I was born in Israel, and there's, there's it, it gets such headlines around it. And I was nervous that so soon in the book, telling people that might change the way people read the whole book. But given that she'd said, I'm not sure why you're not saying it now, I thought, okay, okay, I'll go with it.

That's really interesting, because having read the book, I think some of that reticence comes across when you're telling your life story about how when you were younger, you were reticent about talking about your heritage, and even really thinking about it and exploring it. And so it's almost like a micro version of the wider process. Very interesting.

That's true. Absolutely. That's true. And, and actually, the writing process and the editing process makes you really ask yourself a lot of those questions.

Yeah, it sounds like quite a therapeutic process to go through in its way.

It is, there were a couple of times when I thought, Oh, my God, it's like being in analysis again. I mean, it's different, obviously, it's very different. But it is quite therapeutic and you have to dig really deep and think, well, why, why did I say that? Or why am I not willing to now say this?

So how did you come to the decision to be so open with your self exploration?

I think even that was organic. At first, belonging just felt it like it would suddenly be, it suddenly felt that it would be richer and more meaningful if it was my experience of belonging. And I actually loved writing that chapter. So that was a good experiment that I thought I can do it. I'm not scared now of doing it, although some of it was scary later. But I think I grew to feel, I can't pretend I set out feeling that, but I grew to feel that if I was writing a book about all that we are, it had to include me. Otherwise, it's all that we are except not me. It's all that you are, you know, I understand everything, of course, just you don't. So it's all that you are and I'm somehow special and excluded from that. And that wasn't going to work. So if, if I'm really saying all that we are I have to include myself.

It's interesting. So I often talk to my coaching clients and my members in Psychology Business School, about self disclosure and how much feels comfortable to share. And I know it's often particularly difficult for those of us that are coming from a psychoanalytic background. So how did you grapple with that?

Great question. There was a kind of very, very memorable moment for me in the writing process. In the year that I was actually writing the, this book. And I thought, I may not be able to work again, I may not be able to do the work that I currently do. Presumably I won't, you know, I might find other... I might be able to give talks about the book or whatever. But I may no longer be able to do the kind of work I do. And what amazed me having had that thought, and I think it was a proper, it was appropriate to think that. But what amazed me was that there was basically a nanosecond of question in my mind, and then it was, okay, if I can't, I can't, but the book takes priority. And this is what I think the book needs, and I'll face that when I come to it. I mean, I'm really lucky that I'm of an age where I, you know, I, I am now getting my pension. So I don't, I don't have that, if this was a decade ago or two decades ago, that would be a whole other decision, because you can't lightly say, I may not be able to carry on in this kind of work anymore. So I'm lucky that it was an easier decision from that point of view. But I didn't hesitate in thinking, this is what the book needs and that's my priority.

So that mission that you wanted to accomplish with the book, it really took precedence over everything else?

Huge, huge. To my amazement, I've never been as ambitious about anything in my life. I was amazed at my ambition for this.

Wow. So gosh, there's so many questions I want to ask you, but just quickly to kind of follow up on on the one about self disclosure. So now the book is out there in the world being read, how do you feel about that work going forward? Is it, Is it the end of that chapter for you? Or have you, have you made any decisions on that front?

A couple of people... I've had a few people come to me having read the book. So they've come for coaching or to ask me to work with their organisation, because they've read the book. And I decided to see how it what, you know, to judge each one on on merit. So, of course, I know that they know far more about me, than I'd normally tell clients. But I'm not a therapist, I'm not a clinician, so it's not as clear cut as it would be if I was. So I thought well, I'll see. And a couple of coaching clients, to my surprise, actually, what I realised it meant for them was that they went very deep very soon, because that's what the book told them. You know, they realised that was the nature of the work, and so they didn't waste any time, they just went straight there. It was as if the book was a massive induction process for them into this way of working and they were up for it and they went there. I've also, I have had a very bad experience where I was asked to do a piece of work that, in hindsight, I think was just about ticking off a check box, a tick list almost, so that almost they could say, look, well, an author, an author has worked for us, has considered this, so we're great. And so that taught me that I've got to be more careful to consider why people are coming to me if they've read the book. But given that, and I do need to be more careful in what I say yes to, but it doesn't seem to be the total 'no, I can't do this anymore'.

That's really interesting. Thank you for sharing a bit about that process. Because I know it's a subject that brings people a loss of anxiety. And just thinking yes, you've got to think it all the way through, but also allowing yourself a bit of grace to sort of see how it feels after it's done and what feels right seems very important.

I think that's absolutely right, and I think, I think at times as, as professionals, we can almost be too safe in, you know, we put a boundary out and we steer well away from it, we keep on the right side of it. But we give quite a bit of space between our work and the boundary. And I suppose I like to think of it as I'm constantly at the boundary, rather than well away from it. And if you're at the boundary, you have to keep questioning and considering, if I do this, am I going over, have I lost the boundary? What's right, what isn't right? But for me, it seems important to go there in order to ask the question, not to go there and just break boundaries at all, but to be curious about it.

I think that's really true, especially in the way that the modern world is changing in regards to information, information sharing, and what the meaning of information sharing is, that context is changing. So we always need to be considering our boundaries, where we've drawn them before may not be where we draw them now. Even at the beginning of my career, no one really knew anything about anybody. We only had social media, in universities, between networks of people who already knew each other. What a different world that was. Now, of course, people can see me talking about my views on mental health and all sorts of things. And that, of course, has an impact on the therapeutic relationship. But there's also the fact that if that wasn't there, that would mean something, especially to the younger generation. And so I have to think about which one of those meetings I want to be there.

Exactly. And you're having to engage in that decision making and that thinking all the time really, aren't you? I think that's absolutely right. And also, what I found is that clients who have come to me having read the book, have been very sensitive about it. I remember one guy saying to me, I'd love to know why your family did this. And he said, I'm not expecting you to answer me, I'm just telling you I'm curious. And I thought that was very nice. He immediately made it clear that he knew I wasn't now going to have a great conversation, to go into things I hadn't even gone into in the book, he was just giving me his response.

But I think that's possibly due to your authorial voice in the book, I think I could really imagine what it would be like to sit and work with you. And I could imagine where those boundaries would be drawn. And again, that's an experience people haven't had if they've never had input from someone like you, they, they're usually going in blind and might not really know where those boundaries lie. Whereas somebody who's read your book, I think it comes across quite clearly how you engage with your clients. So it actually gives them a bit of a clue as to what's appropriate and what's not.

I think that's probably true, actually. So yes, he knew that it was wouldn't be appropriate for me to engage in that whole conversation. But it was completely fine for him to say, it had left him curious.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I've never thought of that dimension before. Yeah, but I think it possibly does help people know how to engage with us if we put out a little bit more about our process. So I've heard lots about what was really rewarding about the book. But there must have been challenges along the way. What did you find most challenging in the process?

Oh, gosh. I suppose a couple of things really. One was when I started, I knew I wanted to do kind of stories. But I didn't have the skills. I couldn't write the book I've now written. So that was really challenging. And actually, what I had to do is learn to write, learn to write in a non academic way, not a way that you'd write papers, that was very challenging, to really learn to write. And there were a couple of things that I remember. One draft chapter at one point, I sent my agent because I you have to have a literary agent to get to a mainstream publisher. My agent didn't read every chapter by any means. But before... I can remember why she read this chapter, I was still trying to add a chapter and I sent some draft. And it was terrible. It was really terrible, but I thought it was GREAT. I think it was Oscar Wilde said, kill your darlings. Oh, my God, that's true. And she very politely said something that made it pretty clear that she didn't think it was terribly good. And she said something like, I think you, you need to be careful that you don't lose the trust of your reader at this point. I also sent it to Mike Brearly who I talked to about seminar series I ran, and he stayed with me along the way for the book, and I sent it to him with great pride. And he just very, even more politely said, 'has your agent seen this?' Which I think was a clue, really. But he didn't want to say to me 'what are you doing?!'

I know that's painful, but of course, writing for the mainstream audience is its own skill.

It is its own skill. And then when the agent said that I reread it and I absolutely cringed. I thought, but this is completely terrible. How could I have thought that this was all right? So I mean, of course, I had to have acquired that skill before I got the agent. But still I made blips like that. There was another blip where the final chapter I wrote, this was really hard, where I'd added a couple of chapters, and I'd run out of steam, I'd really run out of steam. And I was so naive about the whole process. I said to my agent, I can't do the last one now, I just can't, haven't got it in me, I'll have to do it later, even when it's with the publisher. And she said, you can't, you can't do it when it's with the publisher. You can tweak it, but you can't add a new chapter. And she said, Tell me what you're struggling with, what you want to do what's blocking you, let's talk about it, which was lovely. I didn't actually do that, although it would have been a good idea to have done it. But I thought, okay, I've just got to do it. I've got to do it. So I wrote it. Again, thought it was the bee's knees. It's always a bad sign for me when I think it's the bee's knees, and I sent it to her. And by this time, she'd read the entire manuscript, ready to send to the publisher. But she hadn't read this final chapter. It wasn't the final one, but the final one I wrote. And she came back to me and said, it's a really good first draft. And at that point, I wanted to crawl under the table, because I thought, Oh, my God, a first draft. I didn't even think I could write one more word. And then I basically had to redo it, completely. Those those times were very challenging.

Yeah. I can imagine. So how did you then get through that? Did you find support? How did you pick yourself up and get writing again?

I think I got through it because I was so dedicated to the project that the book was, and also what she said made so much sense to me. She said, You know, you've got to write this that in a way that's true to this book, to your book. It's got to have longevity. No, it really made sense to me. So that helped me.

I think often with creative projects, this is the story, isn't it? A lot of people have ideas for books, and they might even write a first draft, but it's that commitment to the vision that gets you through the agony of having to do the next bit.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And you've got, because writing is really hard. I mean, it is really hard. And if you don't have that commitment, I don't think you, well I wouldn't be able to get through it.

Yeah, absolutely. Certainly going through to traditional publishing and trying to create something with that longevity to it. I think, certainly the way that my brain is, I quite like writing the first draft of anything. But it's to go back and do that editing process and really commit to making this the best thing it can be. That's that's graft, isn't it? It takes something deep within, you have to love it.

Yeah. And there's a lot of the editing processes, I mean, your own editing. But then once you're in the editing process with the publisher, because you get your structural edits, then you get your line edits, where the editor literally picks up something line by line and says, is that the right word? Is there a better way of saying that? Or whatever it is, and then there's the copy edits, and then there's the proofreading, there's a lot of stages. You have to keep going through all of it.

It sounds tough, but it sounds like ultimately it was worth it for you. I mean, one question, I'm just dying to ask you that I didn't prepare you for it all, so sorry for putting you on the spot. But you've had some really impressive people reading the work and reviewing it. We mentioned the Financial Times and Mary Claire, how did that come about?

For the hardback, I wrote to, you know, like Mike Brearley, I wrote to Gwen Adshead, she'd never heard of me, and she did a review, which was incredibly generous and I'm very grateful for. I also wrote to a lot of people who either didn't reply, or who said, sorry, no, can't, or their agents said sorry, no, they can't, they're really busy, they can't. So it's, it's another hard one. But and the FT, I had been in contact with somebody at the FT, and then she said she'd read it, and then she came up with a completely wonderful review. But that was at the point of publication, so it didn't go on the book at all. But then in the year that the hardback's been out, it's just gradually galvanised more attention. And I suppose I've been very, because I'm so committed to the project, I've been on Twitter, I've been on LinkedIn, and gradually people have come across it and then that, and then they've started making comments, and then I say, or my editor says, could we use that, please? And so we've got all this incredible blurb for the paperback. And I wrote to more people for the paperback and I think people who had made little comments and I said, would we would you mind if we use that? So we've got, as well as the front and back covers, we've got two pages of endorsements at the beginning of the paperback, which is wonderful.

Brilliant. So it sounds like it's important to really commit to getting those endorsements and recognising that that is important. Because y'know, for people to trust you enough to invest their time, they need to kind of know that this is worth that investment. And those first few that you got, I'm sure that has generated the snowball effect that you're seeing now.

Yes. And what was really lovely in the first few for the hardback, I had four quotes for the book. And two were by novelists. And I knew them from social media, and they very generously quoted, and their quotes are still in the paperback. And I'm so appreciative that novelists are writing nice things because it is, it is narrative nonfiction. So to have a novelist say they enjoyed it is great. It's lovely.

Well, I must admit, I'm surprised to hear you say that you struggled with the writing process, because it really reads like somebody who's been writing books their whole life. Did you do any courses? Where did you learn to write if you're saying it didn't come so naturally?

Well, thank you for saying that. I, I got myself a writing mentor. And that made an enormous difference. Really enormous difference. I went on writing retreats. I had done like a four day introductory writing course, but I had no idea at that point that it would turn, like this is what I'd end up writing. I later did a little bit of very introductory novel writing courses. And I probably used a few of the techniques when I was editing this. But what I found is during the process, during the years of writing this, is I grew to love writing. And that's probably what you're picking up. So I started to really enjoy the craft of writing. And you know, some of the things that might sound really pernickety, but like wondering, is that the word I want? Is there another word I want? I loved all that. I absolutely loved it. And playing around with a sentence, or two sentence, or should it be three sentences, or where was the semicolon, or was it a colol? I grew to love all of that, the craft of writing. So you're seeing, hopefully you're seeing the end result of that.

Yeah, it absolutely does come come through as a labour of love. You can feel that as you're reading the book. I think there's a real theme emerging here about total commitment to the vision and doing everything it took at every stage. And it reminds me of a saying, which I can't remember where I came across, probably on some social media somewhere, that somebody said, 'What would you do if success was not optional?' And it sounds like that's kind of the attitude you took here, like this book has to work, because this message has to be out here, so I'm going to do everything I've got to do to make that happen, even the really uncomfortable stuff like writing to hundreds of people, and and learning how to, learning the craft of writing, I suppose. Whereas I think a lot of people fall at those hurdles, because they haven't found the topic that lights them up in that way, that gives them the the fire to get through those difficult times. It sounds like you really found the book concept that was going to push you through all that stuff.

Yes, I think that's totally right. And I knew from the outset, I was committed to the concept. But I think the further along I went, the more and more committed I got to it, to the concept because I was, it was becoming more and more... I was getting clearer and clearer about what I really was trying to do. I wasn't that clear at the beginning. But as I got clearer, I didn't know at the beginning, it was all about trying to humanise the workplace and trying to influence as best as I can, a little bit, trying to influence what we do at work. I didn't know that at the beginning. So as I got clearer and clearer about that, I became more on... it, that, that drove my commitment on.

So one thing I always ask people on the podcast before we finish is, you know, what, two action steps would you recommend that psychologists and therapists listening to this take forward?

It's a good, good question, isn't it to say, what would you actually do taking forward, taking this forward? I think, I think one thing is, as a psychologist, as a therapist, you might be in private practice. But if you are, you're probably in a professional body, which is an organisation. And you might also work in an organisation, in the NHS, or wherever it is, you might work in an organisation. So I think one action is to bring some of what you know, your expertise to bear on understanding what is happening in your organisations, you know, understanding those dynamics, understanding those difficulties in your organisation. You've got incredibly helpful knowledge to use in that way. That's one. I think the other is to be really aware of just how much all of us and all you and your colleagues and your patients and your clients are affected by work and their work experiences, and how complex that is, and how rewarding it can be and how awful it can be, and how that affects every other aspect of our life. And I think that's an action as well, to just have that awareness of how everybody you're seeing as a colleague, or as a client is, is affected in, in perhaps a more substantial way than we will always necessarily give credit for.

Yes, I think that's really powerful. I thought as a consequence of reading the book, I started to think that my clinical formulations you know, because I work in perinatal, often people are on a break from work, but that doesn't mean that the workplace isn't present. And that those dynamics are not playing out in some way, especially knowing the pressure that's on people surrounding maternity at the moment. So there's there's a lot to think that they're not I think the book really got me thinking about how my clinical work might incorporate that more. So yes, thank you so much for sharing those. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast, really inspiring book, really inspiring talking to you today. So if people want to connect with you, you mentioned that you do a bit of social media, where should people go to find you?

I'm either Twitter or LinkedIn, they'll easily find me.

Brilliant, and I will of course put a link to where people can find the book in the show notes for this episode. It's 'All That We Are' and I really recommend that if you haven't read it yet you go and get yourself a copy because it's very inspiring and definitely one of my favourite books.

Oh thank you so much. I loved having the conversation with you. Thank you for inviting me.