Paul Rankeillor

I am currently looking into a career in psychology after completing a doctorate degree in Counselling Psychology.  Although I completed this some time ago now I decided to embark on some other experiences after finishing it, such as spending a year as an English teacher in Indonesia. I wanted to experience living in a different country and to push myself outside my comfort zone.  I feel that this helped me to grow as a person and to get better at withstanding challenging situations. I was also drawn to the both practical and psychological nature of my current job which as an employability caseworker is a lot about helping people to become psychologically ready to take new directions in their lives, whether this is getting a job after long periods of employment or accessing education or Voluntary work. Often this is an outcome of many months of engagement due to the person having usually lost their confidence at some point in the past.  However, while I enjoy working in this field I am now keen to work more specifically in a purely psychological context.  This would allow me to more directly use the knowledge that I have gained from my course and the psychological tools that I have learned through both it and my work experience.  For example, Survive and Thrive, Motivational interviewing and REBT both which I was trained in and utilised at Turning Point Scotland.

I have completed 450 plus clinical hours in a variety of counselling settings, as part of my doctorate course, these included working as a child play therapist in a school, working in a community resource centre where counselling was an add on service, and in a more traditional counselling practice.

I have more than 12 years experience of working in the field of addiction, having work both in a homeless hostel, where the vast majority of residents had both substance use issues and mental health issues, and also in a recovery hub/day centre as part of the Edinburgh locality based module.  The later involved intensive partnership working with the NHS who were co-located there. Both these experiences allowed me to work in both a recovery orientated way and also a harm reduction one, while always being person centred. 

My more recent experience has been of living abroad for a year in Indonesia, where I worked as an English Teacher.  This was mainly to try something completely different and to push myself outside my comfort zone.  While I may not do this again it allowed me to gain many transferable skills, such as adapting quickly to new environments and withstanding challenging situations. 

My current job is working in a employability context, however this is not all about getting people jobs (although this might be one of the longer term goals) , as a lot of the work is about building people's confidence and working out what direction that they want to take next and helping them to take the initial steps.  This can be difficult for people due to the barriers that they face, as our criteria dictates that people must either have substance use issues, be homelessness or have criminal convictions.  Therefore it is still very psychologically focused, however I would like now to work in a more purely psychological context.

DCpsych Counselling Psychology and Psychotherapy. 

MSc  Foundations of Clinical Psychology 

BSc(hons) Psychology with Sociology and Social Policy (2:1)