Searching for a supervisor

At an early stage in the training process you are set a challenge:  finding a supervisor.

You might be one of the more fortunate trainees in that your post in your workplace as a trainee forensic psychologist means that you will automatically have a supervisor to take you through Stage 2.  Not everyone is going to find the process this straight forward, so you may need to negotiate through your organisation for a chartered forensic psychologist to provide you with professional supervision.  But there are difficulties involved with this, such as the capacity of the psychologist, the cost to your department for their time and their availability.  

In all job posts you will need to be receiving clinical supervision from a manager, you may also arrange to have peer supervision which has many benefits for you and other trainees including sharing practice and learning without the appraisal aspects that may be part of clinical supervision.  Clinical supervision is about your work and can be undertaken by a manager but in order to charter you need a coordinating supervisor who is a chartered forensic psychologist.  Managers or clinical supervisor can be named as your designated supervisor for particular pieces of work and this counts towards your 4 hours of supervision a month but you need to have at least 2 hours supervision a month with your coordinating supervisor who will need to be a chartered forensic psychologist.

 If you decide to find an independent supervisor to be your coordinating supervisor you will need to contact Alex Johnson, the Qualifications Officer at the DFP.  Alex has a list of current supervisors and their contact details so that you can start canvassing for supervision. The only thing the list doesn't provide is information on whether the supervisors have any current availability. Whilst some chartered forensic psychologists do not take on independent trainees as they feel we are unable to get the experience, many others see the benefits of having independent trainees not just as an extra source of income but as essential to the development of the wider forensic psychology arena.

I also made sure to note what areas they had experience in and where they worked as it helps to have a supervisor who holds the same interests in forensic psychology as you do, for example, if you do not agree with the prison system and do not want to work in that setting, you want to look for a supervisor who perhaps has experience of secure units, police or community work. Furthermore, if your interest is in the courts and eye witness testimony etc, you may find a supervisor who has only worked with offending behaviour and mental health more difficult to work with. On the other hand, a good supervisor may be able to support you despite your differences in interests.

Trying to secure a supervisor is very similar to sending your CV out for a job. You have to sell yourself. It can take some time between finishing your masters and securing a supervisor.  Supervisors will then want to know what you have been doing in the mean time to keep your skills sharp, to gain experience and to continue your professional development. 

This is where volunteering and placements can come in handy and if you need help in organising and logging your continued professional development (CPD) then the BPS have a great CPD site on their main website which allows you to keep a record of your CPD, your learning and your reflections. 

British Psychological Society



It can be hard to know what it is supervisors are looking for in order to sell yourself to them, SO, I asked my supervisor what she looks for and what she thinks other supervisors look for in a trainee. 

Essentially she feels supervisors are looking for people who are motivated and able to work independently; supervisors are there to advise and guide and it is made very clear that you will be doing the work for yourself. You will need to demonstrate a high degreel of organisation so that a supervisor can be certain that you are capable of working at this level. She agreed that a variety of experience is also helpful even if it is voluntary work. 

She did add another useful point.  As with any job or placement, demonstrating that you are mature and professional in your approach to securing a supervisor can make the difference between being accepted and not, so a strong CV and cover letter stating your intention for supervision, what stage your are at with your CPD and training and where you want to go in the future are a must.  

The independent route to chartership does have one special difficulty and this is associated with supervision, and that is finance.  Unless your workplace will fund this training, you will have to fund supervision yourself. 

Supervisors costs vary but are usually between £50 - £100 an hour, and half again for marking work that you send to them. Ouch.

Ok, deep breath, don't panic. You only need to see your supervisor for 4 hours a month once you are enrolled on Stage 2.  Furthermore, it can take up to a year to do all the preparation and have your application completed and approved and you won't need to see your supervisor for 4 hours a month during that time. It is once you are enrolled that you must see a supervisor for 4 hours a month.  However, this can include a designated supervisor who is overseeing your examplar work at your placement or in your workplace. S

For example, if you are doing a placement with a college for one of your exemplars then someone has to be named your designated supervisor and you can see this person for 3 out of the 4 supervision hours a month, saving you a bit of money. A word of caution, your coordinating supervisor is there to make sure that your work is up to standard and to ensure that you are practising appropriately, therefore if they feel at any point that you are struggling then you will need to see them more often. This isn't a bad thing and can only help to improve your practice and the likelihood of passing your exemplars first time.  For some ideas and tips about funding, see my blog post of:

Money Matters for Training Success

Publication - perils, pitfalls and pleasures

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Publishing is a tough challenge in any field, not least in a specialist area such as forensic psychology, and peers will describe it as a minefield to be negotiated with lashings of skill, a peppering of caution and a large helping of courage.

On the surface it can seem as if only certain types of paper are published. To a degree there is some truth in this; you are more likely to be published if you are aligned to a recognised organisation or institution, for example., or equally if the research on which the paper is based has been funded by a well-recognised and respected body. Publishers are very aware that what they publish needs to be read and respected by their readership if they are to retain both their finance and their reputation, so they will more readily gravitate towards papers produced with this type of backing. They are also very sensitive towards the current trends in terms of research and thinking around a field of expertise. For example, these days, a randomised control trial study is more likely to be accepted for publication than a naturalistic study for assessing effectiveness and efficacy in therapy.

Publication as an end result of a research project should form an essential part of the research planning and development process. Success in navigating the minefield that is publishing starts before the research. If it is left as an afterthought or as a consideration towards the end of the project, it is going to be much tougher to find a publisher willing to take on your paper. 

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When planning a project, it is well worth the effort to spend time considering which publishers may be interested in your work, why they might be interested and what it is about this research that is most likely to appeal to them. As a researcher, you may be passionate about a particular project, but you will need to prove to a publisher that there are compelling reasons to publish. Your paper will also have to show a degree of quality that enables the publisher to feel confident that their reputation in the field will be enhanced at best and maintained at the very least. Publishing an article is a risk not just financially for the publisher, but if the work is not of an appropriate standard or the research has any weaknesses, the publisher's reputation as well as your own will be adversely affected. Publication is a state of exposure for both the writer and the publisher. Having this worked out before you launch into the nuts and bolts of your research will help you to devise research that will feed a publishable paper.

For example, you might want to consider the following:

• Is your project essentially small and perhaps requires a follow up so that the results are more robust, strong enough to carry academic criticism which is what publication will raise from experts in your field?
• If you need the results to be robust and stand up to challenge, what type of data will you need?
• How will you analyse that data in order to come to definitive and clear conclusions?
• What research methods will you apply? Are these current and relevant?
• How will you account for bias?
• How will you be able to demonstrate that the study is valid and reliable?

A particularly important aspect to consider at this early planning stage is to identify which journals are most likely to publish your work. This form of research will mean a close study of the journals, analysing what they typically publish, which areas of research they seem to particularly focus on, and the style of writing they employ. For example, is the language particularly complex and academic or is the style more easily accessible and plain? You will also need to be aware of the style of referencing and of the abstract: getting this right at the submission stage will help make your paper that much more attractive for selection by the publisher. This close analysis will also help you to identify current research interests and gaps in the research that your study can look to address.

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There are, of course, thousands of journals, but what at first can seem a dizzyingly high cliff to climb can usually be whittled down by selecting only those journals which specialise in your particular area of research and which publish articles most relevant to your area of study. You can then work out from these, but only as far as you need to.

Once you have completed your research, painstakingly drafted your paper, checked it, revised it and prepared it, you gather up the courage and submit to your chosen publisher. There is no avoiding the wait that will then ensue as the publisher gets round to reading your submission and decides whether they will accept it and if so, when it is to be published. This process could take months, and when you do receive a response, it may be a rejection, whereupon you will need to seek an alternative publication to submit it to. Thorough research in the early stages will mean you have a list of publishers in the order in which you want to submit, so it may mean moving down that list several times over the course of many months.

Inevitably this process can be frustrating and it can be disheartening. The longer a period of time that ensues between drafting the paper and publication, the older and less relevant the results of your research becomes. Alternatively, you find that another article with similar theme is published instead - it is very difficult to come up with original research, as an earlier blog post points out.

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Feedback from the publisher can be harsh, or hard to take - after all, this paper is the results of months and months of planning, research, analysis, overcoming all sorts of challenges and the sheer graft of writing. However, it is important to look on the positive. If your paper is not quite to publishable standards, you have this opportunity to learn your shortcomings and improve. Sometimes it is a matter of presentation needing improvement and since this is different for each publisher, a rejection can teach you to ensure that you follow each publisher's guidelines closely. For example, a rejection could be triggered by not having enough theoretical basis in the literature review, leading to the results not being sufficiently guided by theory. This might result in a full re-write of the literature review, as well as alterations to the results section and discussion section of your paper as you endeavour to improve the theoretical basis for the results.

As with the research project itself, planning and preparation is essential to achieve success in publication of your paper. You can, of course, publish on-line either yourself or through various on-line publications. However, to achieve the recognition that your work deserves and your career requires, you need to achieve recognition by journals or magazines with the gravitas of publications such as the Oxford, Sage or Wiley journals. Publication in any of these journals is a gratifying reward for the effort of researching and writing a fitting paper. Practice makes perfect when learning how to submit for publication.

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Essential Ethics

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You have a keen interest in a particular area of study and you're chomping at the bit to get going with some original research - it's hard enough as it is to come up with an original idea to follow up and you know that the more time you spend getting geared up for the research, the greater the risk of someone else getting to publication first.  At this point, before you go any further, you have to pause and think - does this project fall within ethical guidelines?

Ethical approval is essential in any sort of research.  The coulds, shoulds and woulds of research must fall within the boundaries of scientific investigation and ethical norms in order to carry validity.

With Stage 2 training, as with any advanced degree such as a Masters, students have to go that extra mile in order to demonstrate impeccable ethical practice; arranging for an ethics committee to sign off a project alone is not enough.

There are guidelines for trainees to follow, including the BPS Code of Ethics and Guidance, and the DFP Resources pages, which provide ethical guidelines specific to Forensic Psychology.  These are the rule books which should provide the background to whatever work you carry out on any aspects of competence in the Stage 2 training.

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It helps to extend your thinking when planning your research in order to ensure that it falls within the guidelines. With technological advancements moving at lightning speed and within the easy grasp of trainees, the ethical guidelines agreed by committees may very quickly be left behind or fall short.  Trainees should demonstrate that they have applied the principles of ethical research to each situation and taken ethical issues into account regardless of whether committee guidelines have allowed for innovation.

For example, if using online survey tools, you should be checking what the survey providers do with the data submitted, how long this is kept, how secure it is and is the data sold on to third parties.  Their policies on the use of cookies or privacy will have to be looked into, always with a view on how these might affect the participants.

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The best way to cover as many of the ethical issues as possible is to associate the research with an organisation that has an ethical board who will consider and agree the project.  Without this, you and your supervisor will need to demonstrate thoroughly that all ethical issues have been considered and that they have been managed within overall guidelines.  In addition to this, I would recommend that you obtain permission or a statement from your particular governing body, such as the DFP or BPS before proceeding with the research project as this can be submitted as evidence that you have applied ethical consideration to your work and that you have been permitted to proceed.

Although I have focused on ethics in research, it is wise to remember that ethics permeates every core role in the Forensic Psychology Stage 2 training, and your approach and consideration to the principles of ethics will apply to training, assessment, intervention and consultation.  Ethics, in other words, is essential.

Readiness to Research and Publish

Research is a hot topic for trainees in this discipline.  It is also important for academics and professionals throughout their career, so it is essential for trainees to master the art of carrying out research and, equally important these days, having it published.  

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There is a current, rather heated debate on issues around publication of research.  There are those who voice concerns that there is a distinct lack of replicable studies, while others state that many published studies may replicate others but that this serves to confirm outcomes and push forward political or policy agendas rather than theory.  Critics of the latter focus on their belief that there currently exists too great an emphasis on novel research, or randomised control trials and that there is not enough theoretical development emerging from each study. 

Added to this discursive mayhem are the voices of those who point out that only particular types of research appear to be popular in terms of receiving funding, and there are those who complain of receiving unnecessarily caustic, even personal, criticisms from peer reviewers.  When faced with all this, as well as the ever-present possibility of rejections from editors, it is unsurprising that trainees will feel disheartened at entering this apparent academic minefield.

However, there are ways of achieving publication and recognition for your research.  A good starting point would be to ensure that if you are replicating a research study that you have a very strong case to do so - ideally you will show that you are addressing any recognised flaws in the original study, or you are developing a strand of theory that emerged from the original. If your rationale for replicating  a study is not solid,then it would be best to develop a novel research study.

Trainees in the prison service find themselves with an additional challenge to overcome since they generally have no options as to the research that they carry out: they usually will receive instruction on this as part of their duties.  Independent trainees are fortunate to have greater freedom, but their particular challenges are difficulties in obtaining both funding and access to participants. Research can sometimes be affected by the issue of access to participants since independents sometimes have to resort to researching with willing members of the public rather than a specific sample.

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The discussion must then be had on whether the first step for research is the theory or idea to be tested, or whether the research should be developed from the feasibility of certain areas of study.  When searching for research ideas either or both of these issues may be hugely influential.  

Ideas for research often do emerge from the participants that trainees can access.  To a much lesser extent, however, there are still possibilities to have an original idea by exploring the literature and the current research base and be able to create a successful proposal and gather relevant participants - so trainees do need to hold on to that thought.

Research does need to have a sound rationale based on existing academic literature, theory and  relevance in the current socio-political climate. Although, as scientists we might all wish we could easily research on subjects we feel are of pure scientific interest.  There is a two-fold purpose to this: firstly, the rationale will support at an ethical level why the researcher wishes to test participants; secondly, the rationale will provide a firm foundation with which to approach funding and supporting organisations, groups of participants, and, eventually, publications.

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With some creativity, trainees can develop a successful research proposal where they explore a field of study in which they have an interest, without funding, with access participants even if this might be time limited, and can find theoretical support or gaps in the current literature.  Trainees ought to consider these questions when contemplating developing a research project: Is this research going to be useful to the wider community and if so, why? Does this research open up the pathways to further study, and does it have implications for policy? Does it have current cultural and societal relevance and form a useful addition to the field?

I think most trainees have some great and creative ideas for research, but it is important to pare these down to those which have the attributes of relevance, feasibility and uniqueness in the field.  The research projects that can clearly show these attributes will be the successful projects.

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Trainee research projects do not have to be vast, however, trainees should be aware that though small,concise and thorough may be effective and achieve interesting results, they may be limited in terms of being attractive to publishers.  For example, pilot studies are rarely published unless part of a much wider piece of research.  It is much easier to achieve publication if the initial results are followed up and this work forms part of the paper presented.  Trainees looking to publish research may need to consider adding this dimension of time as a factor required in the research preparation and proposal.

The preparation of research studies is important to trainees and should be neither forgotten or underestimated.  With your supervisor and aided by your review of the literature, your initial ideas will be developed so that you can refine a hypothesis, define your aims, prepare your research questions, decide on the type of data you need and develop your methodology and analysis.  Working through all this with your supervisor will help you to move from an initial research idea into developing a working and feasible proposal and then creating a working project.

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A final, essential issue that must play a part in your preparation to research, is that of ethics.  In many ways, this should be obvious to trainees: research, in its idea and proposed execution, must be ethical, and wherever possible be approved by an ethical board.  Independent trainees who do not have access to an ethical board would be well advised to obtain confirmation of the acceptability of their research from the DFP or BPS in order to cover themselves and also their supervisor.  Furthermore, trainees should always demonstrate strong management of ethics by checking data protection usage and data storage, for example, if using online surveys with the general public.

The labyrinth that needs to be negotiated in order to achieve publication will be addressed in my post later in the month, but for now, happy researching.

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Time for training

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No-one expects advanced training in any profession to be a walk in the park, not least those of us who embarked on the training for chartership as forensic psychologists. When we set off down that particular road, we know that there will be huge demands on us.  We will be applying our academic abilities, our abilities to analyse and interpret research, apply this in a practical setting and much more.  We know that the training will be demanding and involve a great deal of hard work. 

One of the difficulties I encountered was that of managing my time so that I could fit all this additional challenge into my daily life.  Like most trainees, I needed a day job, but there is a vast amount of work to get through to achieve chartership. How people manage their time is very much up to their individual circumstances and to their personal priorities.  For example, I chose to go straight onto a three-hour placement as soon as my day at work had finished, usually twice a week,sometimes more often.  Then, also after work throughout the rest of the week, I had to find the time to write up all the notes and also make sure that a supervision session was squeezed in. I also had to find pockets of time to shop for food, cook and eat it, do the chores and - he is a remarkably patient and supportive partner - give my relationship with my partner, my family and  my friends some attention. Not everyone will chose to do it this way, nor will be able to because of their personal circumstances.

It is important to be realistic as to what you can achieve in any given timescale.  If your day job is particularly demanding, for example, how much time outside of this you can dedicate to your training requirements may be more limited.  That does not mean giving up, but just setting goals that can be achieved in small chunks, and accepting that the qualification will take longer to achieve. 

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It is also helpful to plan meticulously.  For example, if your job is such that you cannot guarantee leaving at a specific time on a specific day, you may not be able to schedule your placements or your supervision that easily.  The stress that this sort of situation can cause you will result in your being disheartened and will certainly not be any good for the organisations you are volunteering in or their service users.  While planning, it is worth taking into account just how much a particular placement will suit you and your personal circumstances and balance this against the core roles that you can achieve in that placement.  Instead of evening placements, then, perhaps a weekend placement may be more suitable.

An important aspect of managing time for training, is also to not neglect health.  The feeling of constantly working and striving can be stressful. Add to that the usual anxieties of trying to meet the standards required for submission and meeting the exemplars, and your immune system can feel under attack.  I know that I had to make sure I dedicated regular pockets of time to exercise and leisure activities by taking short breaks, occasional holidays and making sure I carried out some form of fitness activity every week - I went swimming, cycling, running, for example, and for a while I played in a ladies rugby team, which did wonders for my fitness, my resilience, my resolve, and my social life.  All of which somehow supported the dedication I was making to my training.

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The general rule of thumb is that the more active you are, the more energy you have to expend on more activities.  You may find that working a couple of evenings a week will enthuse and energise you and the progress you see yourself making all enhances the motivation that you feel to continue.  Having said that, it is very important to be self - aware, to look for those clues to low energy levels, to be open to those thoughts about being too tired to be bothered.  At this point, it is always worth taking a brief break - properly managed, of course, to suit the placement service users in particular.  This in itself is a key part of learning for your qualification and preparing for professional life.

If you are extremely fortunate, of course, you may well be able to negotiate a short sabbatical from work in order to take your placement, or in fact your work provides you with a particularly relevant placement.  Most of us are not that fortunate, however, so we must make ourselves familiar with the mantra of: plan, schedule, negotiate, balance.  In fact, we will become so good at it, that it will provide a tremendously strong base for us as professionals and in all aspects of our lives.

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Submission perfection - an eye for detail

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One of the skills forensic psychologists in training need to hone is that of paying attention to detail.  Thoroughness in everything is essential and can range widely, from verifying research sources and accuracy in referencing to ensuring grammar and spellings enhance the meaning of a written piece of work and that argumentation is logical and either supports or disproves a hypothesis.

Submitting a piece of work is sometimes daunting.  Writers talk about submission to publishing houses in terms of sending their babies out to face the world, and your sending in your submission does feel a little similar: you spend months if not longer gestating the idea, researching, developing the hypothesis, developing your research, analysing the results and then writing it up.  At this point, students would be well advised to read, re-read and read again their work.  No-one likes their progeny returned home unloved by the tough world of assessment.  Here are a few tips I have picked up along my road to Chartership:

• In submitting research you need to have a clear rationale for the work and demonstrate in as many ways as possible how you have considered the ethics of the subject matter at hand, and the ethics of how you intend to deal with it.  For example, if you are chartering independently and you do not have an ethics committee to approve your research, you will need to check this with the DFP and submit as evidence anything they respond with about whether the research can go ahead.  I was using social media and Survey Monkey to access participants and use an online questionnaire.  I asked the DFP if there were any ethical issues with this in their policy.  I used their response as evidence of ethical consideration, not only checking my submission would be valid and acceptable, but also enhancing my work.  I also evidenced how I would ensure people remained anonymous online, for example by removing IP addresses from the data downloads.  I gave further evidence in how I gained online consent, how to ensure that participants have read the information and have given informed consent, all issues with ethical ramifications that show you have considered and made provision for all the possibilities.  

•  In analysing data, you need to justify any analysis that you use and you need to provide an adequate depth in the analysis.  For the final write up you should bear in mind that the assessors want to see a report that could be published - you are providing evidence that you can write for non-researchers, such as non-psychologist stake holders.  You may have to write two reports, one of a publishable quality and one a summary of research and outcomes aimed at stake holders.  Trainees have been known to fail on the fact that they did not write for lay persons, or have failed because their final report conversely leaned towards appealing to the stakeholders and was not written with sufficient academic strength.  It is important to her able to separate the two different styles of writing and try retain focus on what is required of each piece. I was one of the trainees who wrote too much for the stakeholders and not enough for publication and so all that was required from me was a bit of editing of language and structure - which sounds simple, but can be time-consuming.

•  One of the requirements of Chartership is that you should demonstrate that you have conducted the research but the challenge in this is that submitting raw data is not acceptable as it could be used to identify your participants.  It is therefore important to apply some creativity in how you do this. Remember, the registrar has to approve it first in your exemplar plan and this should help avoid the situation that you collect lots of data and evidence and the assessors refuse to accept it.  Don't panic, listen to the registrars feedback and apply the advice.

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One  final point; if there is anything in your writing that could possibly identify even an organisation
or location, you will fail.  Be careful about headers, text, coding, letter heads and logos.  Every             identifier must go.

 Above all, once you have submitted, don't let yourself become disheartened by feedback.  The assessors do try to find positive aspects of your submission and they are very clear about what it is they want you to rework and resubmit.  Sometimes they raise what might seem a frustratingly minor point, but this will be part of your learning to be thorough, to cover all angles, as is expected from a professional in any field.  Make sure you have your eye on the fine detail, and success will follow.

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Success in sight....almost.

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At a time when you least think that the going can't get any tougher, it can.  Not insurmountably tough, but there's no point dressing it up in finery.  Gaining Chartership is a testing experience.  It is a test of academic ability, intellectual ability, resourcefulness, creativity, stamina, and, not least, resilience.  The submission of completed exemplars is one of those areas where more than just your ability to gather the evidence necessary to prove you're meeting the standard and string it into words is being tested.  Putting together the submission means applying a multitude of skills, and just as you are beginning to breathe a sigh of relief at having done as much as you thought was necessary to complete everything, the submission comes back at you with stern comments on what you didn't quite get right, or you didn't get right enough.  This is where resilience and determination kick in.

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Firstly, I just want to spend a bit of time reflecting on those fine points of detail in making your submission that can affect how it is received.  You need to ensure that there is nothing confidential that can be identified in any way - there is no option but to be extremely thorough about this.  Just this point alone speaks volume about a trainee's professionalism.  Either remove identities or blank these out.  If posters advertising training events  you are delivering are to be used as evidence, any traces of any identities must be removed e.g. photos.  I'm sure there are readers who will contemplate, as I did, just how reliable evidence that has had all identity wiped clean can be, but it is something that must simply be done. A submission must be sent in duplicate hard copies as well as through an electronic version - the precise details as well as details of what must be signed by your supervisor is on the DFP site.  It is important to make sure you have original signatures because electronic signatures will not be accepted.

Then you wait for the submission to be returned and you will feel varying degrees of confidence almost day by day.  Recieving feedback can be difficult, and this is where resilience kicks in.  The first thing you focus on is whether competence has been demonstrated.  Perhaps it has and you will feel a welter of relief.  That's great.  More commonly, your first attempt - or indeed, early attempts - at submissions will come back with the glaringly harsh comment: "competence not yet demonstrated".  

At first impact the chances are you will move along a spectrum of emotions from outrage, to deep disappointment, to despondency, through despair, and then to grudging acceptance that something was not quite right with it.  I suggest putting it down, brewing a cup of tea and coming back to it once the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth is over.  Then read it through again because you may find, once you read it all through, that you  have passed all but one or two of the competencies, and then, there may just be some minor issues you have overlooked.  Feedback is there to provide you with a chance to improve that little bit more, to stretch youself those last few inches to reach the summit of your training, so it is worth making the most of it.

Assessors tend to give detailed feedback. Some may be more prescriptive in what they want you to submit and others less so. Once you have read through the feedback, discuss this with your supervisor so that you decide together what is going to be resubmitted in order to cover all the points.  Then you are up and running again.

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Most trainees do not pass their first submission.  But after five or more years working on this, not quite demonstrating competence is a difficult judgement to receive and accept.  In fact, when faced with having to rework a project that was completed perhaps a year or more previously, perhaps with a different employer, perhaps in a different part of the country, the task may seem completely impossible.  However, it is very rare for an assessor to want a submission completely reworked.  Usually there is a detail that is missing or needs further clarification or greater reflection.  Perhaps your practice diary may not be clear or a reference to a piece of evidence may be missing.  Most resubmissions are usually in the form of an additional report to demonstrate a very specific piece of learning, or perhaps another reflective piece, or new practice diary entries to show that you went over your statistical analysis and are content that you chose the right one, for example.  Breaking down the feedback and requirements of resubmission into its component parts will make the pill much less bitter to swallow, and the final stretch will appear that bit shorter.

What may be worth pointing out is that assessors vary in what they like and don't like to see in submissions. Some will compliment trainees on their reflective diaries, some may like a very formal approach, others will want a good deal of supporting evidence while others are less demanding as to quantity.  The best way of dealing with this is to make sure you have unfailingly followed the guidelines and that you have made clear anything that you are not sure about with the registrar.

For many trainees, dealing with some negative feedback and having to do yet more work before reaching the finishing post can be very disheartening.  I have written this from the perspective of someone who has to resubmit some work and I understand intimately the range of emotions that this sparks off.  But proving your professionalism and capabitlities is more than what you put on paper.  It is about taking the knocks, working with them, learning from them, shaking off the hurt and taking those next steps to achieving your goal.  Success is in sight.

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