Dr Angharad Rudkin, 32, clinical psychologist, NHS

“I work in a child and adolescent mental health service. Children and young people are referred to us from GPs, school nurses and other health professionals when they are having difficulties such as depression, anxiety or behavioural problems.

“These problems might be related to anything from their parents’ divorce to bereavement or being involved in a traumatic incident. Children experience these things every day but when there is another factor — say, they stop eating or are hurting themselves — they are referred to our team.

“Many children refer to psychologists as ‘muddle menders’. They or their families get into a muddle and, while we don’t have a magic wand that lets us fix everything, we are able to teach them to deal with the situation. A lot of families want me to take the pain away, but I can’t do that. What I can do is offer them information and advice. I help families to listen to each other in different ways — it’s about trying to give them a toolbox of different strategies to use according to the situation that they face.

“Working with little children is about finding practical ways of doing things. As they get older they are more able to think about thinking, so I can get them to consider their thoughts and then help them to change the way that they think using cognitive behavioural therapy. The longest that I’ve worked with someone is three years, but that’s rare — about ten sessions is the average. Often we need to spend only one or two sessions with a child to help them because this will be enough time for them to realise how they need to think about things, or to understand how other people feel about things.

“There is also a lot that goes on behind the scenes. In a 9-5 day I spent three or four hours with families, a couple of hours reading and writing reports and another couple in team meetings. And there are always phone calls to make, because in any assessment of children we try to involve everyone in that child’s life, from their immediate family to their teacher.

“Psychologists can deal with some upsetting situations and it can skew your view of the world — you could end up thinking that childhood is a pretty sad time because you see so many sad children. But we are trained to cope with things by thinking about how we think about situations. It’s not that I am thick skinned — sometimes I come home and all I can think about is a certain family or child, so I make myself relax, do some exercise and remind myself of all the positive things.”

A second opinion

Professor Jane L. Ireland, 34, forensic psychologist at a secure psychiatric hospital and the University of Central Lancashire

“A lot of people hear the words forensic psychologist and immediately think ‘criminal profiling’. But this isn’t like Cracker — it’s a real science. I do work with police, but on a very small scale and certainly not in a magic prediction way. I leave the crystal balls to Paul McKenna.

“I work at a high-security hospital, where a typical day for me starts at around 8am. It takes me 15 minutes to get in (and out) because of the security measures in place. Once I get in, my work could include preparing to assess a patient, running group therapy for violent offenders or consulting with staff.

“People often think we work only with offenders, but we also do a lot of staff training on everything from dealing with high-risk offenders to handling a hostage situation. I can’t talk publicly about what we advise because we don’t want potential hostage-takers to get that information.

“I also do a lot of work in court. This can mean being called as an expert witness in criminal matters and, particularly, in family cases; I am often called upon when courts are dealing with sex offenders who want contact with their children.

I do a risk assessment, which means looking at all the background information, using structured forensic tools such as psychometric tests and interviews, then compiling it into a formal report about what the risks are and how they can be reduced.

“As well as preparing reports and giving evidence in hearings, I train court staff on how to get the best and most accurate evidence from witnesses — for example, how to deal with suggestible people and how to avoid overwhelming victims. Family work is rewarding because the courts are so grateful for psychological opinion, but I also enjoy working with victims and offenders. The other part of my job is working at the university, where I conduct research and train students.”

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