Women’s Mental Health with Victoria Harrison | Peace of Mind #2

Women's Mental Health with Victoria Harrison | Peace of Mind #2



In the second episode of our brand new video podcast series ‘Peace of Mind', Health Assured's Head of Clinical Support, Kayleigh Frost, speaks to counsellor Victoria Harrison about the specific issues and barriers that women face when it comes to talking about and getting help for their mental health both in and out the workplace.

My name's Kayleigh Frost, I'm the Head of 
Clinical Support at Health Assured and I'm joined today by Victoria Harrison and we're 
gonna be talking about women's mental health. Morning Victoria, are you okay? Yeah I'm really good thank you, thanks 
for inviting me along to do this today. Not a problem at all, so so excited to 
get these podcasts kickstarted as well and to showcase the talent of our 
counsellors. You're all absolutely amazing and there's so much in terms of knowledge 
and insight into clinical support that you guys can provide, so lets hear 
it straight from the horses mouth. So obviously we're gonna talk about women's 
mental health today but first do you just want to tell me a little bit about 
your experience, what got you into counselling? Why are we here today? Why 
are you sat here as a counsellor Victoria? Um, I'm sat here today because I wanted to 
make a difference in the job that I do and through my own life experiences of pain and 
things that had been modelled to me that I didn't kind of agree with and I learnt 
about as I got a bit more experience in the world really doing the jobs that I did. My 
experience in counselling, I've been a counsellor for about four years now and I've worked from 
being a school counsellor in a primary school through to working in a homeless 
agency with ex-military males- Very varied Yeah yeah and then I have a Private 
Practice that's quite busy and then the work that I do with Health 
Assured, it's very varied what I do. I don't know how you have time to do anything 
else at all – and look after your own mental health – and physical health as well, very 
very busy lady. But your experience, I mean, yes you've been a counsellor for four years 
but the stuff you've crammed into that is just phenomenal. We can sit and talk about all 
of it and I'd love to but we're gonna speak about how to support women and talk 
about women's mental health in general. Now, when you, when you're 
speaking with female clients or maybe service users who are 
accessing the immediate support line, what do you see are the biggest struggles 
at the moment that women are having? Um, the biggest struggles really tend to be, 
they're not being authentic to themselves and there's this kind of label of ‘yeah but 
I need to be strong as a woman' and it is you know ‘to be strong' is great and to have 
those strengths is great but underneath all of that are we using that as an excuse to 
avoid looking after our own mental health. Well this is it, we've been, 
we collectively us as women, we've been faced with so much in terms of 
prejudice and discrimination anyway throughout the years for centuries and to get into a 
situation where we are empowered and we can look to be successful and to be strong women, 
we're frightened of showing any weaknesses – I mean I am talking on behalf of all women, so sorry 
everyone – but, that's my personal feeling and is that something that you can personally can 
sometimes struggle with or might think about? Yeah no definitely, for years I was 
having this internal war inside of me of what I should do, you know what I would 
do, what I could do – all for others, and I had a lot of anger and frustration myself 
and it was all because I wasn't being true and I was looking for that positive regard 
externally, so while keeping the peace and pleasing everyone else externally I was creating a 
chaos inside of me and I see that quite a lot with clients and the ladies especially that I speak 
to, because we are known to internalise our mental health and our feelings and this is why ladies 
struggle a lot more with anxiety and depression in kind of the research that I've done and even 
as well as the experiences on the line that I do. Just touching back on something that you said 
before – what do you mean by positive regard? So positive regard is basically, when 
we're kind of wanting external validation, we want to make others happy, 
you know people pleasing. I get that, I get that. Right okay. Yeah yeah I feel you for that yeah yeah 
definitely. I think that is something personally probably struggled with at least all of my adult 
life and probably every woman I know and I'm sure the same with yourself as well, it's something 
that we've been stuck with unfortunately. Yeah. Is that what you work with with 
your female clients then? You know, how do you go about working with that? Yeah it is what I work with, obviously every 
client is a different, a different person and I always try and explain it to my clients 
you know ‘you're all a different flower' and every kind of flower that is out there has 
different kinds of needs. So I do look at it on an individual basis but you know in working with that 
it's about ‘where does that voice come from?', ‘who is it that's telling you that you should be 
taking care of other's needs first, that you're not worthy or that you're not loveable, 
to look after you' and doing that kind of inner work there of ‘who is that voice?', we tend 
to find out ‘well actually, that's not my voice'. What kind of, what voices are there, I bet there's some common themes when you're 
working, so what root causes are there? So root causes is, there's definite ones of our 
mother figures and what they kind of model to us. You know you could be growing up with a mum 
that's shown that the needs of the partner, the father is always put before hers and the 
needs of the children and we can grow up kind of playing that out ourselves. There's even 
kind of expectations at work that a woman's voice isn't heard as a loud as you know, a male 
voice, so there's lots of different root causes but in kind of realising where that voice comes 
from it opens up a doorway to explore further. I feel like I'm in a counselling session right 
now, I feel so at ease chatting with you. How, in terms of the general 
mental health struggles of women that you speak to either on the helpline 
or through private practice or whatever, what are the most, what would you say are the three most 
common mental health struggles that they have? Um, there's anxiety and depression definitely, renowned in women's mental health but I'm 
seeing a lot more around hormones as well, a lot more women are kind of researching into 
what hormones are doing and playing a part in and in you know kind of researching myself, it's 
given me a little bit of understanding on me and the way that my kind of body works and believe 
it or not there's less known about women-only issues and that's why it takes a lot longer for 
us to be diagnosed with things like endometriosis, PMDD, basically it's to do with our hormone cycle 
that we go through and how it impacts us so much, you know our brain and our body are not two 
separate boxes, it's all joined into one and with the hormones that we have on that cycle, 
the beginning of the cycle we have estrogen and when that estrogen is high we actually 
have better verbal skills as women, our memory is better, we are happier in our moods 
but then when it comes to the progesterone – I always say that word wrong, when that kind of 
then increases, we then find ourselves in that low mood, struggling with depression – I don't 
know about yourself Kayleigh but I'm really clumsy Yeah, I am, yeah yeah, I've broken 
this wrist twice just from walking in a straight line – sober as well, sober as well Yeah, you know the clumsiness or there'll be 
like tears, you know I've experienced myself tears and I'm thinking why am I 
so upset about this? And there's actually the science behind it is those 
chemicals are taking over our brain. You know what very recently, I started tracking 
my period – I know it's a bit of an uncomfortable subject for some people to listen to but I think 
it's amazing and you know what it's recently since I started seeing a PT and going to training 
sessions – he knows more about my menstrual cycle than I do so I started tracking it and for me, I 
guess it's different in different women isn't it but the week before I'm due on – erratic, angry at 
everything you know someone looks at me the wrong way, puts a piece of paper down on my desk and I 
wanna launch myself over the desk at that person and then ten minutes later also just wanna sit 
in the corner and sob and now actually tracking when that is due to happen – I've been 
doing it for about three or four months now, it kind of makes sense and I know to start 
looking after myself you know a little bit more during those two or three days 
during my menstrual cycle, so, I guess that's something that a lot of women could 
look to start implementing, it's not difficult, I mean I think I just do it on my phone to track 
everything and log my symptoms and stuff like that but it's really interesting because people are 
gonna be able to work out when these chemical levels and hormone levels are gonna be spiking 
and put measures in place or controls I guess to look after themselves. What kind of, you know 
some people – I feel like we're just gonna talk about periods a lot now so apologies – but when 
you know, if people are, if women are struggling with those hormone spikes, what kind of 
suggestions would you have for them to maybe try out, put in place to look after those mood 
swings, I guess that's what they are aren't they? Yeah yeah, you know when those chemicals 
are at playing, causing havoc in us. You know, every woman's body is different so to 
speak and some may not have the same effects as what you and me have but I always think it's 
good to look at boosting that serotonin, that happy chemical. So it could be, 
completely different to all different women but for me it's things that 
make me smile. So it could be– You're always smiling! [Victoria laughs] Well I've got a lot to be happy 
about, life is good, um but a piece of music, you know, cooking for myself, something 
nice, booking myself a break away on my own So it's not necessarily you have to go get, 
have a counselling session and go and speak to a counsellor at those times, that's not needed, 
it's not an extreme but you don't have to go to that level of clinical input it's just remembering 
what it is that makes you happy as a person. Yeah, yeah, you know some may find it really 
supportive talking to a counsellor at that time but you know there's so much we can do to help 
ourselves and it's about making you know that, more aware, that awareness out there 
of you know how do we help ourselves when we're feeling in these low moods, you know 
there's been days when I've just stayed in bed. [Kayleigh] Aw yeah, love those days, yeah yeah absolutely, scrolling on 
TikTok for seven and a half hours. Yeah, but it's that realistic as well and the 
expectations of women you know, going to work, I've been there myself, hot water bottle burning 
my stomach to make sure I can be there and I can function and I'm as balanced as what I can be but 
am I being true to myself in doing that at times? I mean, I think it's really important, I never really planned to move onto the subject 
of menstruation, it's definitely not here on my talking points but I think when you're looking 
at women's mental health it's really important to look because we do have those extra hormones 
and unfortunately those extra chemicals are often imbalanced and not on our side and 
like you say cause havoc and chaos don't they. Um, what about – have you supported many 
women who perhaps that are perimenopausal or menopausal as well? You know what kind of things 
do you see when you're supporting those women? One that I was speaking to the other day you know, and it was really sad, there's these unconscious 
biases that we have in society, in the workplaces for women. They're sharing things to me that 
are like ‘I'm being judged', ‘it's like I'm having people waiting for me to make a mistake 
because of my age, my hormones are all over' and you know that struggle is real for women and 
it's like, is it being recognised? Are we doing enough? Is there enough support out there for 
this? It's about holding you know the clients that are struggling in that moment and kind of 
giving them that psychoeducation that you know, this is what your body's doing, these are the 
hormones at play here you know and how can you be kinder to yourself as you're going through 
this – what is it you feel that you need? Talking about hormones and this unconscious bias, 
I think there are such such negative connotations to that. You know, just the word hormonal 
in itself just has this stigma and taboo and thinking about the older generations of women 
would never of even talked about that for fear of that being ‘she's crazy', ‘she's hormonal' 
– so I make a conscious effort to be very open the peaks of my menstrual cycle, I'm like ‘oh I'm 
due on' and I make it very very clear you know and I want to kind of break down the stigmas that 
are attached to that and normalise talking about things that once really oppressed women for 
fear of that being linked to them being crazy or hysterical and I still think there's 
a lot of stigma attached to that because people don't want to talk about how their 
hormones are impacting them or just struggling about their mental health in general because as 
I mentioned in the beginning, we already face so much prejudice as women anyway. If you start 
throwing other risk factors that might put things in jeopardy like your successful career, 
flourishing social life and you know thriving in life you don't wanna start talking about things 
that take those big milestones away from you. Do you, I'm kind of waffling on now, but do you see 
many women or speak to many female clients that are really frightened about what opening might 
do to them, like the implications of doing that? Yeah, there's plenty that will ring us and reach 
out and they'll say ‘I just don't know what to do, I feel so stuck' and I'll kind of reflect and 
it's like ‘you're putting on an Oscar worthy performance here' I was like you know ‘you must 
be exhausted in pretending that everything's okay when you're actually really struggling here' and 
it's about really giving them that empathy and like you say normalising it and letting them 
know that they're not alone in this journey. You know more women do need to speak up about 
their hormones and if they're struggling and also- And just mental health conditions in general Yeah yeah, well it's all interlinked 
isn't it so if our hormones and our mind are kind of up and down, it is going to 
impact our mental health and you know it needs to be looked at, it needs to be addressed 
so women do feel comfortable in sharing it, you know is there a way that we work around 
that in workplaces and you know these times are coming up and you know certain women 
struggle more than others as well with it What do you think– so you know I speak more 
to the employers, you know in our line of work, I speak more to the employers, you speak more 
to the employees so you're on the the ground you know, with the guys, you know and I'm there 
speaking to senior leadership but you have got the insight from speaking to people that are 
maybe struggling, talking about mental health, being open about mental health in the workplace 
– what suggestions would you have for their employers or for the workplace in general, I 
guess a culture shift is what's needed isn't it? Yeah, well you know is it about having those 
conversations, if they were comfortable, with the females in the workplace, you know, do you 
struggle with your hormones? Are you struggling with your cycles? You know, making themselves 
approachable and not a taboo subject so to speak, is there some way that their rota can be worked 
around their needs so they are able to rest on those few days a month when it is more difficult 
because you know these rigid expectations that are put on us from society, interjected values from 
families, workplaces, you know that ‘you're here to do the job', ‘this is what should be done'. 
‘you can't be a little bit slower'. You know they need to be a little bit more flexible 
you know rather than being so rigid. Absolutely, I think that's been needed for 
a number of years hasn't it? I always say, when I first started with Health Assured and moved 
into the mental health space, everything was about breaking the stigma of mental health and talking 
about mental health but actually that's shifted massively a lot more people are comfortable 
talking about that but it's then the person they're talking to or the people they're talking 
to don't know how to deal with it because people don't know how to respond for fear of offending 
someone or crossing the line or overstepping the boundaries so I think that's where there really 
needs to be a focus now. And talking about women opening up – not just in the workplace – do you 
find, because I've certainly felt like this, where you compare yourself to your peers, your 
friends, your family – like ‘they've got their stuff together, they're like doing great and I 
can't tell them about these struggles I've got', so that constant comparison – do 
you see that a lot? Is that common? Yeah and we drive ourselves insane, our brain 
ends up becoming a bully within us you know and I can relate to it myself, there's 
been times when I've struggled and I've been too embarrassed to say something 
you know I've got dyslexia and dyspraxia, and you know to kind of say ‘I'm struggling 
here', now it's kind of, I've had to you know, work through those uncomfortable feelings of you 
know ‘well what if they do judge me?'. ‘what if they do think I'm no good?', ‘what if I'm maybe 
frowned upon in the job that I do because of these struggles that I do have?'. I've had to be brave, 
I've had to have that courage because if I don't push myself out into that uncomfortable zone, 
I'm never going to grow. Even doing this podcast today, I've been like ‘oh I feel really anxious 
doing', but I've had to push myself because as a counsellor we expect our clients to be able to 
push themselves, go into that uncomfortable zone in order to kind of work with their fears you 
know so we need to do that as well as counsellors. You should be really proud that you've come 
to do this by the way, I'm really proud of you and I'm really happy we get to spend 
this time together. I bet like after this though you'll just walk out and decompress like, 
you've probably been building this up all week. [Victoria laughs] No, thank you But you're absolutely right, I think um, when it comes to speaking to other people, what's 
really important to remember that the likelihood is that they're probably thinking or have 
thought the same thing like ‘”oh sugar, I can't tell Victoria this, I can't let her know that 
I'm struggling cos she looks like she's got her life together', whereas you're there on the other 
side going ‘oh god, I can't tell Kayleigh this cos she's got her life together, what's she gonna 
think of me?', so I think we just need to start talking about it, and no we don't mean after 
a couple of drinks in the bathroom toilet, crying to one another about – which is, 
I've been there as well, I'm sure you have Yeah, yeah But having a very healthy conversation, you know, 
going for a cup of tea together or something, going for lunch and opening up or 
just like texting your loved one, your friend saying, “I just need to have 
a chat, I need to sound off to someone, I'm not feeling too great”, I think we need 
to normalise those kind of conversations, really like, you know, between friends and family, 
making that a bit of a normal conversation. Yeah yeah, it's about that 
congruence and being real– What's congruence? So congruence is just being real and not holding 
back who we are or what's going on for us and you know I work very much in that way with 
the women that I work with because you know like you were sharing before women think “Ooh I've 
not got everything together, I maybe judged here” but in being real we're actually saying ‘I can 
relate to that' I've been there, it may not be exactly the same, the experience but you know I've 
had similar thoughts to that! And you know , in us being vulnerable to other women, what 
we are doing is we are empowering them. Yeah, yes! This is the perfect conversation with it just being International Women's Day 
– on that, did you celebrate it at all? Um, what did I do? In fact, I've brought something 
with me. I've got a quote that I wanted to read that I found on International 
Women's day, should I grab it? You love a quote! I do, I do love a quote, so each day I 
spend some time reading poems or quotes and I find this gets me to really reflect on my 
life, my experiences and I share in my private practice – I have a page – I share on there 
and a lot of other women can relate to it and again it's making that connection that you're not 
in this alone and someone else understands you. You're so sweet Right let me just find– You are prepared! Is this 
like a book full of quotes? Well these are all my cue cards, I thought I might 
need them but we've just kind of gone with it. We've gone for it haven't we, I love it Um right okay I would've loved it if this was a book 
of quotes – quotes by Victoria Harrison [Victoria laughs] Can you imagine yeah Um so this is the quote that I read on 
International Women's Day but even reading it there's this unconscious bias of ‘He' begins 
so I'll read it to you. “Although the organism itself is present at the birth of a baby”, so 
that's who we are really, we don't come into this world feeling anxious or depressed, you know 
it's our experiencing of life. Think of yourself as like an onion and that core of that onion is 
who you were born into this world and all those layers of that onion are all your experiences, 
those values, those morals from family, friends, workplaces and sometimes we need to strip some 
of those layers off and get back to the core. Like Shrek? Yeah, yeah – maybe that's where I've got 
it from. Um, so the expression of positive regard which I mentioned earlier so that need 
to kind of wanting approval from everybody else, wanting to please them, towards him by someone 
significant to him becomes more important to him than his own organismic value and process 
and he begins to seek positive regard from others at the expense of any other experience. 
You know how many of us can relate to that? Yeah, although you're very 
right about the him and he Yeah yeah The unconscious bias is just everywhere! Yeah and you know until we kind of think, oh 
actually yeah, it's there, right in front of us – he, him, and how many times have we put our 
mental health at a risk to pleasing somebody else? Yep, probably more than once in my personal 
experience and I'm sure the same with yourself and you know what what's really quite, not 
sad, but the reality of it is, it's gonna, it's gonna always I think be be like that, I don't 
think we're gonna be fully able to eradicate that but there are so many ways and so many 
things that people can be doing to minimise you know make that less of an issue. I feel like we've covered quite a lot of 
ground here I mean is there anything that you think that you know would be really pertinent 
to bring to light or discuss that we haven't already discussed at all? I mean I've pretty much 
gone through you know the kind of things that I wanted to talk about and more and the rest, you 
know have we missed anything that you think would be really, for everyone who's listening that 
has access to support that maybe doesn't know to use, maybe needs that bit of a push – any 
final kind of thoughts on your side Victoria? That's what I was – in a roundabout 
way – that's what I was trying to say Yeah yeah, um yeah, to summarise really what 
we've been speaking about is ‘Don't be afraid to speak out to a counsellor if you do need that, 
we won't judge, we will give you that safe place and just because we counsellors doesn't mean we've 
got it all together because we're human as well– What! Yeah, can you believe, um and one 
thing that always sticks with me, it's an ongoing process we call it 
‘self-actualisation' and it's a process that we're going through every day and I even have 
to do these check-ins with myself, it's you know, we're never gonna be perfect because when we 
look at a landscape, it's not perfect is it? But we see it as perfect, so it's trying to look 
at ourselves as that landscape with that sunset, do we say ‘ooh actually, that sunset if it was a 
bit more orange and a bit more over to the left, it would look more beautiful', it's about 
accepting who we are, those quirks and you know through me accepting my own quirks, I've become so 
much happier, I'm not heavy, I'm not embarrassed about if I say a word wrong or if something, an 
old saying or quote is said back to front because of my dyslexia, I accept it and most people laugh 
with me and I laugh at myself now I can do that. I'm gonna do snaps for you Victoria, 
that was awesome, well thank you so much It's okay I think this is a nice natural 
end to the podcast today It definitely is Thank you so much for joining me and thank 
you for doing what you do, you're fabulous And so are you Aw, thank you cheers

#Womens #Mental #Health #Victoria #Harrison #Peace #Mind

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