Applying for the DClinPsy for the second year in a row was a very different experience from the first, and I was surprised by just how much had shifted in me over the past twelve months. Last year, everything felt raw, high‑stakes, and slightly overwhelming. I remember sitting at my laptop late into the night, rereading every sentence as if the entire trajectory of my life depended on the placement of a comma. I was driven, yes, but I was also anxious in a way that felt consu

I didn’t set out to become a psychologist. My early life was shaped more by survival than ambition - juggling school, a part-time job, and long commutes just to make it to class. I landed in banking, a career that offered stability but never quite satisfied my curiosity about the human mind. That curiosity began in childhood. I’m ambidextrous, but I naturally wrote with my left hand. At a family gathering, my aunt - who lived with schizophrenia - pointed at me and screamed th