Liam,
One of the single most challenging, and potentially dangerous things one can do is fly single pilot IFR. There's really no other duty in aviation that requires as much concentration or effort, or has as much potential for loss of control.
One of the most dangeroub bits of advice that can be thrown about is that IMC flight is no big deal. It is. Not just navigating from A to B, not just handling inflight abnormalities such as a partial panel situation (loss of some instruments), but routine, simple, plain-jane maintaining control of the airplane.
The few hours spent teaching reference to instrument flight "under the hood" using a view-limiting device isn't adequate to prepare someone to fly IMC, and it's designed to give rudimentary introduction in the event a situation is allowed to develop in which flight by reference to instruments is required. Such a situation without ample proper training should be considered an emergency...and the truth is that inadvertant flight into IMC continues to be a regular source of fatalities.
There are many reasons for this. Everyone experiences illousions that do not occur nearly as readily during flight under a hood. I experience a sensation of continually rolling to the left. Some people experience other things. I just got done with recurrent simulator training, and even in there I watched professional after professional have challenging moments doing simple things such as maintaining altitude, heading, or flying a basic approach. These are folks flying IFR in the system every day using varying degrees of automation...but in an operation where everyone handflies every takeoff and climb and every descent and arrival. Still there were challenges.
Don't let anybody kid you or fool you about inadvertant flight into IMC. It IS a very big deal and continues to be a killer, just like controlled flight into terrain and fuel mismanagement. IMC flight is nothing to be taken lightly.