She Said It Out Loud with Emma Young

Clinical Psychologist, EMDR Trainer and Mum of Two Dr Jacinta Hatton!

• Emma Young • Season 1 • Episode 38

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 22:05

Ever wondered what it takes to be a Clinical Psych? 

I sit down with Dr Jacinta Hatton at her Subiaco practice and discuss what it takes to become a qualified Clinical Psychologist. 

Dr Jacinta is the founder of the Aquila Centre where she specialises in perinatal and complex trauma training. We also discuss how she manages to juggle being an EMDR Trainer as well as being a Mum to two young girls. 

Dr Jacinta Hatton is a perfect example of someone who manages a work life balance with her busy career as well as the daily life pressures of being a Mum to two young daughters. 

Suss out Dr Jacinta at @dr_jacinta_hatton

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

SPEAKER_01

You're listening to She Said It Out Loud, where real women share real stories without sugarcoating a theme. I'm your host, Emma Young, and I'll bring you unfiltered conversations with ambitious women who faced challenges, made bold moves, and learned a lot along the way. You'll get real takeaways, honest lessons, and stories that you're gonna relate to. Righto, let's get started. Hey there and welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Emma Young, and this is, of course, She Said It Out Loud. Today's episode is kindly sponsored by Shane and the team down at the Broom Closet. They are conveniently located on Dampier Terrace here in Broom, but they are upstairs, and it's this hidden little magical bar. Trust me, you've got to go on down there, especially now during the dry season because it is the most magnificent dry season weather. Head on down there with some of your friends, suss out their cocktail menu because they have plenty to choose from. Alrighty, on to today's episode. My guest is none other than Dr. Jacinta Hatton. She is a clinical psychologist and is the co-founder of the Aquila Center in Subiaco in Perth. Now, she does specialise in complex trauma and is an accredited EMDR trainer. This episode is an interesting one because I had never met Jacinta before. As in, I only heard about her through interviewing Dr. Liv, the Bondi vet, way back in January. Dr. Jacinta happens to be one of her best friends. So when we met in January, she said you must get Dr. Jacinta onto your podcast. So of course I naturally had to reach out to her and she agreed. And trust me, you're gonna enjoy this podcast because not only is she an incredibly intelligent woman, she is just genuinely wholesome. Here's our conversation. Welcome to the podcast. Doctor, I have to say that because that's a professional title. Look, I'm very excited to have Dr. Jacinta Hatton on the podcast today. Now, not only is she a clinical psychologist, she is the founder of the Aquila Center here in Subiaco. Some of my listeners are going to be sitting here going, How the hell did Emma even manage to find Dr. Jacinta to start with? It's actually a bit of a funny story because Dr. Olivia, the Bondi vet who I interviewed back in January, this is one of her best friends. Yeah. And so when I interviewed her, she was like, you know, you really need to go and meet. And she lives in Perth. My friend Jacinta. So we got in contact. We actually met back in March for a coffee. And then here we are today. So welcome to the podcast. Hi. Hi everyone. Thank you. It's so exciting to have you here today. And I appreciate you because I haven't had a clinical psych on the podcast yet. Woohoo!

SPEAKER_00

I'm the first.

SPEAKER_01

I'll give a good impression. You are the first. Just going forward, can you explain to my listeners out there a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Um, so I'm a clinical psychologist who specializes or has a special interest in working with complex trauma, which is like PTSD and perinatal mental health. And I've come from working across a lot of different agencies throughout Perth, and now I have landed in my own private practice in Subiaco in Perth. Yeah. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01

In the sense that I'm thinking to me, it sounds like not only would it be a stressful job, you would be taking on obviously a lot of emotions and a lot of stories from people. And I mean, for myself, at the best of times, if if I'm listening to stories, I get emotional at like Instagram videos of strangers and people that I don't even know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So I'm assuming that this work for you is just obviously a passion that you've had.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's uh definitely a passion that I've had from a very young age. Um, I was sort of always drawn to helping others, and that sort of I guess is always at the forefront of my mind. So whilst I'm an empath and very emotional, what draws me to this is being able to do something about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Now I'm curious to know how long does it take to become a qualified clinical psych? Just a little bit of time. I mean, this sounds like a lot of study.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it it was and it still is, and it's quite competitive, but so worth it if anyone's thinking that this might be your path. So for me, it was a three-year undergrad, uh one year honours degree, so that's four years. Okay. And then I did the doctorate degree in clinical psychology. So that was meant to be another three years on top, which turned into four years because it became a little bit more like a PhD. Oh my gosh. So it was about eight, nine years all up.

SPEAKER_01

Holy cow. Okay, I just want to backtrack a little bit. What do you mean by highly competitive? As in, there are a lot of people that want to do it, or you just mean a lot of people want to do the psychology degree?

SPEAKER_00

You know, there's a lot of people that want to do psychology, I believe. And that's always kind of be this been the standard, like it's quite a popular degree. It tends to titrate a little bit as people go along, like they might do an undergrad, and then quite a few people will do honours, and then from there on, it's like, do I really want to specialise in this and go on to become a psychologist? So there's lots of different pathways, I guess, to becoming a psychologist. I just wanted to go for as much, I guess, endorsement as I could get. So I went for clinical. It is quite competitive. So back when I did it a long time ago, a good few years ago, you know, you had to get your D's and HDs in order to keep going through the degree. Yeah. So yeah, a lot of study, a lot of hard work, but so worth it. Holy cow.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That's on a whole other level. I think just a little bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What made you want to specialise in complex trauma though? Firstly, I want to say that I first, when I was very young, like really, really young, I started uh working with people. So I worked in aged care from the age of like 16. So I always knew I wanted to work with people. Okay. I think that was quite odd as a 16-year-old to be wanting to work with wiping bottoms on a Saturday morning hungover. Yeah. Everyone's like, what are you doing? But I just loved it, loved it, and did that for a good six years whilst doing my degree and working and studying on the side and doing prat. So fast forward, I also worked with like autism quite a bit early in my career. I worked again, like I did a doctorate thesis in older adults, actually. So totally different. But how I ended up in complex trauma was that my first prank in university as a 21-year-old was um at a sexual assault center. Oh, okay. And yeah, let's just say it was an eye-opener and the best experience I could have ever asked for. There, we saw only really only complex trauma presentations. So that's how I fell in love with treating trauma from a very young age. So yeah, from then on, I've just gone on to sort of specialise in that area, I guess, or learn more and more about PTSD and yeah, across a different range of presentations.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm just thinking like that takes, besides taking a lot of courage and patience and really all of those things combined, the empathy thing I think is the main thing. Like I'm just reflecting on myself. It's not that I wouldn't be empathetic of somebody that's gone through a situation like that to work in it. I feel like you just take somebody that's special, but not only that, somebody that's committed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, you do have to keep up skilled. Like, so it's a lot of study, and it's not to turn anyone away from doing this. Because I I, you know, I love love, and a big part of my job now is in supervision and training. So I love nothing more than seeing people enter the field and supporting them. My brain works that way. Like I love I love learning. So I guess for me it was just learning on the side. It was like it didn't feel like work. Doesn't feel like a chore. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's great. Yeah. I won't go into full-on details, but I mean, people that know me know that I have had this done. But I myself received EMDR training, and this was at least a decade ago. So I'm thinking this is closer to 11 years ago now for an incident that I myself experienced, and I actually believed that this is what really helped me to overcome like a past trauma and sort of set me on this major healing path and kind of changed my wiring in particular. Now, not everybody knows what EMD are, and they not everybody knows what that is, and they don't know what that entails. Can you explain to people out there what type of therapy this is?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so it's not a new therapy, it's been around for many decades now, but it is certainly it's a gold standard treatment for trauma. It's very frequently used by a lot of psychologists throughout the world, not just in Australia, but it stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. So a bit long-winded. Um, EMDR. And what EMDR is, is basically when a trauma event occurs, the brain sort of processes it in a way that it's almost like it's stuck, right? So it's processed in a way that it's in its raw format. So every time that someone, every time someone gets triggered or reminded of an event, it's usually very somatic in like their response or very emotional. You can kind of see it as if like we're giving a computer analogy, it would be like the computer's not filing the memories away in its appropriate files, right? So you have a desktop and you have lots of folders, and usually our brain works in a way that it would file away things that have happened in the past into their appropriate folders. Whereas when something traumatic happens, that filing gets interrupted, right? So the file isn't in its correct format, so the computer cannot store it properly, if we're giving that analogy. So essentially what EMDR does is it allows the brain to process the raw materials so that the files can get stored away properly. Um, so that means that once you go through EMDR therapy, those events no longer feel traumatic in the sense that if someone does get triggered or I'm reminded of an event, they won't have that somatic response or they won't feel as emotional as the aim. That they could just sort of think of that event as if it's something else that had happened in the past.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Okay, so thanks for sharing that. That's a really good explanation of what actually EMDR is. I've seen that you travel Australia. I don't know if you do internationally, but oh, you're you're at speaking events in regards to this type of therapy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I'm super passionate. EMDR is one of my main sort of therapy approaches, but yeah, very, very passionate. So I was trained in EMDR a good 12 13 years ago now as a 21-year-old. Sort of gives away my age, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01

I give away my age all the time.

SPEAKER_00

13, 14 years ago, yeah. Uh very young and have been using it every day in my practice since. Okay. And then a few years ago, I ended up getting trained up to be a trainer, which means that I now train other therapists Australia-wide. So I get flown by a training company here to go around Australia and and train other therapists, which is super rewarding. And oh man, that's so cool. So you're like this, you're a wanted person. Well, I think there's a lot of wanted people in the world, right? But or like therapists out there, but I'm very much very passionate about sharing knowledge because I know it works. Like I've got the confidence that AMDR does what it claims to do, which is to treat trauma memories in a very successful way.

SPEAKER_01

That's really cool. Yeah. What made you want to start your own practice? Like versus obviously working for somebody else?

SPEAKER_00

So, yeah, so I I worked at the Sexual Assault Center for 13 years, a very long time. Oh man, that is a very long time. A very long time, alongside lots of other jobs on the side over the years. And then, you know, I sort of in COVID times started to think maybe I could do some private work and set up my own company. And then I became a mum, which is like my main job. And and I thought, you know what, I need more flexibility and I want to have a little bit more of a say over sort of um how my day rolls out, I guess. And and um, yeah, just more of the flexibility, I think. And and I work with so many lovely people still in the private sector. Um so I'm very blessed to still have a lot of colleagues, yeah, have sort of come along and joined me in private in their different ways. So I feel I don't feel isolated at all, and it's just allowed me to grow my passion so much more.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's good. Yeah. And speaking of that, so yes, you're a mum to two little girls, a two-year-old and a four-year-old. So obviously they are keeping you incredibly busy.

SPEAKER_00

So busy, so so busy. In all the good ways, of course. But yeah, life is chaotic to say the least. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01

And look, that was gonna be my next question. How do you actually balance because you're such a professional and you know, your work environment, how do you manage mum life?

SPEAKER_00

It's definitely not easy. Okay, and I don't I wouldn't say that I'm I've got it all down parked yet. Like I'm still learning, right? So look, it's hard, but the biggest thing for me is uh like I've always been very career-driven and I've always wanted to demonstrate or show my girls that women can have careers as well. Like it's not just men. Yeah, and so I think I've been a pretty hard advocate for that. The balance has been hard because it has meant that obviously my girls come first, so I have to, you know, sacrifice maybe isn't the right word, but I sort of have to realise what's most important to me. And that has meant at times reducing things or less commit not committing or not overcommitting to so much with work. And the balance has, I guess, being in private has allowed me to have more of that balance because I have the flexibility to do school pickups and drop-offs and choose my own hours. But of course, it's not just me, it's my husband as well, who's super supportive, and it does take a village to raise children, as you probably know. Like I'm very grateful to have a village around me, but I do rely like on family support sometimes, which is very important. Yeah, and my husband who understands that my career is just as important as well. So like it's about how can how can we utilize our support networks or how can people, you know, who can we have around us to help us to maintain that growth because we worked too hard. I didn't study for nine years for nothing. Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, holy cow, that's a long time. Yeah, so yes, yes, yeah, I feel like you've got every right to be like that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and just showing my girls, right? Like it's just showing our own kids that anything is possible. Right.

SPEAKER_01

If you were to meet somebody that or know of, like a high school student or somebody that's so very close to graduating and they were considering becoming a psychologist or even in the future a clinical psychologist as a career path, is there any sort of advice that you would give to them? It's the best career ever.

SPEAKER_00

It's so worth the investment. It it is hard work. Okay, you probably don't see the benefits of the career until you get out in the workforce because there's so much study, so much f when I say free work, but free learning, I guess, uh like you know, work experience and stuff that's required where often it's not paid. Yeah. But if you keep your end goal in mind, that's super, super important. So for me, I was just like, whatever, whatever experience I could get at the time, I I would take. So uh there were times where I was working three to four jobs just for the experience. So things like like it it could be as easy as starting off doing some nanny work or childcare work alongside your studies because that's then exposure to working with children, for example. Yeah. I remember this is gonna bring back some old memories, but I remember um signing up to volunteer at Greylands, like the community. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Because no, but do you know what I was doing there? Like you wouldn't believe it. And this was just again, this was like exposure to mental health, like uh it wasn't anything related to psychology. I was pushing a food trolley around to everyone to give out their their food for the day, like they could buy lollies or chocolate and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01

But I guess in that moment you would have been able to see how one person one day can be completely different, and then the next day it's like you're talking to a whole other person.

SPEAKER_00

And getting absolutely and getting exposed to uh community facilities, right? Like treatment centres and stuff like that, and just how it all operates in mental health, what the precautions are that you've got to, you know, take on board and all the rest. So being safe. Being safe, confidentiality is a massive thing in psychology. So all of those things. So it didn't matter what it was, I took it on. Like if something was offered, I'd take it on. If it was like doing community-related work, and then it went to some paid work, and again, the pay wasn't great, but it was like if I can put it on my CV, awesome. Now I think there's a lot more opportunity for people to go and maybe work in like a private practice as an admin support or something like that. So it's always thinking of that end goal, like what will that help you to achieve?

SPEAKER_01

I know you said that you obviously love it, and I can see even just hearing your voice, yeah, just how much you love this profession. But if you weren't being a clinical psych, is there something else that you would be doing?

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, like this I know this career is is for me, but it is a serious career and it is quite heavy in terms of what you're dealing with day to day. My other little side passion is I love real estate and interior design, something so, so different. And it's very different. Yeah, yeah, so different. But I I think I call it like my creative outlet. Like if I obviously I'm sitting all day on a couch, well, not always, but I'm you know, up training other people, I'm constantly using my brain. Whereas like interior design, I'm creating, like I'm creating and just a little side note. So we I've set up multiple psychology offices and I've styled every single one of them and furnished them all, and you know, that's that to me is so much fun. Um I mean it sounds fun. It is so fun. That and and I love like architecture and housing and I love, love, love like just real estate in general. So, you know, if I had the opportunity in another lifetime, I'd maybe jump into that. Wow. Yeah. Well that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I like that. I could I can definitely see you doing that, that's for sure. Now, if your younger self met you today, what would surprise her the most, do you think?

SPEAKER_00

Probably two things, I guess. One is that I love travel as well. Like I absolutely love my travelling and seeing different places in the world. And one is that I I'd I'm surprised that I've somehow managed to make a career out of like doing travel as well as um being a psychologist. So I'm I'm very proud. Like I think my younger self would love that if if she knew that one day you'll be going on planes, you know, across Australia as part of being a psychologist. I just think that's so cool. That is very cool. And the other thing is just like think over time, like I've like again, I didn't have a lot of confidence when I was younger and wasn't really an outspoken person, or like you know, I'd always be like very much like a I'm very social, but I'd always be like, Oh, someone come with me, someone do that. So I think over like time I've grown a lot of confidence and independence. Like I can do these things and you know do it on my own. Oh, okay. And I think when I was younger, it was always the thought that it had to be done with someone else.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, a bit random, but but that's that's really cool because um I know we've only met. This is the second time we've officially met. I can't imagine that. Yeah, because you come across incredibly confident, yeah. And just everything about you, your body language, your posture, the way that you speak. Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00

I never would have pictured that at all. Yeah, so no, I think it would be safe to say I was a bit of the opposite. Like I always I always would put myself out there, like I'd because I was super studious, so like public speaking, for example, I never never enjoyed it, and I always used to get super nervous as a child, but I probably came across as if I was confident, right? Yeah, but now it's like I've grown that confidence over time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Look, we're coming to the end or close to the end now, and these are my rapid fire questions that I've got for you. So the first one I want to ask is what's something that you're proud of?

SPEAKER_00

I'm really proud of to be a mum, to be honest. Like that's the biggest um achievement. Being a mum is the hardest, the most rewarding, you hear this all the time, right? The most rewarding, but by far the hardest job in the world. And it is, yeah, I'm super proud of like having raised two young kids alongside a career. For sure, you should be proud of that.

SPEAKER_01

Um look, if I was to get three of your friends and say, hey, you know, give me three words to describe Jacinta, what three words do you think they're gonna they're gonna say?

SPEAKER_00

Probably warm, compassionate, fun. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty fun like it. I think part of being a psychologist is to make sure you have a lot of fun outside of work. So Oh yeah, I bet. Yeah. You know what?

SPEAKER_01

I don't reckon, I I love this question. It's one of my favorites, but I don't reckon anybody has ever said the word fun. Really? Never. I think you are the first person because I feel like it takes a lot of confidence to say, yeah, I'm fun. Like if somebody was to describe me as fun, I'd be like, I am not fun.

SPEAKER_00

Well, if any of my friends listen to this and think that I'm not fun, I'll be saying, What are you talking about? No, um, we call it in psychology, it's like happy child. Okay. So, like to to embrace your happy child part, you know, the happy child self. And I think that's so important. Like, life is so serious. Yes. And we're so used to wearing different roles like hats for different roles, but we forget about um investing in the fun stuff, like spontaneity, just being able to be yourself.

SPEAKER_01

Definitely. Oh, I really love that. That's really cool. Thank you for sharing that. You're welcome. Listen, lastly, now I didn't even tell you this, but I'm gonna tell you this now. I know you've listened to the episodes, but at the end I do a shout-out. Yeah. So I do a shout-out, it can be to whoever you want it to be, but this is your chance to obviously give a shout-out to a woman that's inspired you, that's made you the person that you want to.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay. If in any way, can I just shout out maybe um it's gonna someone in particular, but just really to actually all the survivors of trauma like out there, because I know that might sound strange, but really that has those people seeking help to shape who I am today, and like I'm just so grateful for their courage. And women are so brave in general, um, not just women, but men as well. Yeah, so I just want to shout out to anyone that has been a survivor of something difficult in life and very grateful for their bravery and for helping shape who I am today.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's really good. Yeah, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. It's been a great conversation, and I'm sure there's going to be plenty of women out there that'll listen to this and will be grateful to have had me come and ask you questions as well. So thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to She Said It Out Loud. If you took something away from today's episode, I would love to hear from you. Come find me on Instagram at officially Emma Young. And hit follows to new episodes plant straight in your feed. See you next time for more real and honest stories from legendary women.