Repeated training contracts can seriously damage your mental health.

There’s an argument that, if you knock on enough doors, somebody’s bound to open the door eventually.

However, there’s also a sage argument that repeated setbacks can lower your mood and motivation. In the animal literature, animals which receive repeated electric shocks, despite whatever their behaviour to obtain reward, develop depression; this is the basis of the learned helplessness theory of depression.

Where there is no psychological link between your efforts and the outcome, that’s when mood can plummet. If you get depressed about the world, yourself, and your future, like if you see yourself being  left on the shelf while everyone else gets a training contract, you might develop Beck’s traditional triad of depression. In other contexts, you might be a good candidate for cognitive behavioural therapy.

If, on the other hand, you receive an email stating that they would like to invite you for interview, this sudden mismatch between expectation and event could lead to such a profound rush of the chemical dopamine in your brainstem that you might feel genuinely euphoric. This would be like somebody who likes smoking feeling a high on seeing a lit cigarette.

Getting a series of training contract rejections can lead to distorted thinking about you and your relation to the world. You can develop paranoid delusions, believing that graduate recruitment managers are incompetent, or even worse that you are no good. In which case, it’s time for some non-pharmacological therapy, like working hard at your LPC or pro-bono, and don’t let the buggers grind you down!