Psychology BSc alumni Corah Lewis had a clear idea of what she wanted to do with her life from a young age. Read about how she managed to achieve her ambitions and the road she took to get there.
I have always felt fortunate that from the age of 15, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a Clinical Psychologist and work with children. Twelve years and a whole lot of studying later, I have reached that goal.
Studying psychology
My journey started at The University of Manchester in 2014, where I studied Psychology. As part of my degree, I undertook a placement year at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. During this time, I worked on several research projects which explored the impact of a child’s physical health condition on their mental health.
One of these was a project looking into the impact of cystic fibrosis on children and young people. I was able to analyse the data I collected for this for my dissertation and was delighted to be invited to present my findings at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research.
Finding a job
As I mentioned in a previous blog, getting a job after I graduated was very difficult. After nearly 50 job applications, I was offered an Assistant Psychologist role at the Chalfont Centre for Epilepsy, working in their Neuropsychology team. The experience gained during my placement year definitely helped me to secure this role. I can’t recommend doing one enough if you are in a position to be able to.
Applying for a doctorate
A week after lockdown was announced in March 2020, I interviewed for a place on the Clinical Psychology Doctorate at the University of Oxford. I was delighted to be offered a place on the course.
I started the Doctorate in September 2020, so our first full year was online. This brought its own challenges. Having moved to a new city, it was difficult to get to know my cohort as restrictions were once again increasing. My first placements were all online and I felt as though we missed out on a lot of learning you get from being physically immersed in a team.
Placement highlights
Through my second and third years, I enjoyed my placements more and more. Specific highlights were being on placement with the Oxfordshire CAMHS Neuro-developmental Conditions Team, and the Spires Cleft Team.
I found working with children particularly rewarding. I developed my skills in getting creative with how to engage children and young people, whether that was pretending to be an ‘angry dinosaur’ to explore a young person’s anger, or helping a young person write a letter to their cleft lip, to help them to articulate how it impacted their life.
Research challenges
Research is another essential component of training. I undertook a systematic review looking at therapy engagement in Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder and a Service Improvement Project with the Oxford Craniofacial Team. Unfortunately, I found my main project hard to recruit for and with six months to go, I made the difficult decision to start again, from scratch.
In the end, my main research project explored stigma and social support in Facial Palsy. In the rush of pushing this through, I was so thankful to be able to pull out my stats notes from Alison Fisher’s lectures during my undergraduate degree. These were a saviour at the eleventh hour!!!
Current role
I now work as a Clinical Psychologist in the Children’s Psychological Medicine Team at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. I love what I do, and the work I have put into getting here has been worth it, thank goodness! I find it so rewarding to support children with physical health conditions to live their lives to the fullest.
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