If, you have ever thought about becoming a psychologist then this article is for you. You will find everything you want to know, from the tasks of a psychologist to the dangers and difficult experiences that you can encounter. It will help you understand the different skills that you need to become a psychologist and what a typical day can look like. If I speak for myself, I would tell you that this article can be a really helpful way to know everything important about the profession. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to write this article, to help anybody who wanted to become a psychologist and didn't know what the profession was really about.
A psychologist has a lot of different tasks and most of them are about helping somebody to overcome any difficulties that they can encounter in their life. In fact, anything that is related to the human minds is the psychologist's field. Being a psychologist is a really gratifying profession because you make a change in people's lives and people are always grateful for your help. It can also be a really challenging and difficult job sometimes.
Their main tasks can be researching, teaching and most of all meeting patients to help with their disorders. In fact, a psychologist is known to study the mind and behavior. Their main goal is to help others to overcome their fear or mental illness and that is the most rewarding part, when you see all the progress your patient has made throughout the years. They also want to promote healthy behaviors.
There are two types of typical day for a psychologist depending on their settings, which can be research or health care. A research psychologist's typical day is basically developing hypotheses about different situations that a patient can live through and also collecting data. Some psychologists will do their research based on naturalistic observation and others on lab experiments. On the other hand, the health care psychologist's typical day is working directly with patients. Working with patients implies the conduction assignments of new patients, diagnosing mental disorders and performing psychotherapy.
A psychologist can work in different environments such as schools, mental health clinics, hospitals, universities, prisons, private practice or in research labs. The psychologist's workplace has many advantages. In fact, their workplace can be known as a peaceful environment to accommodate the patient and make them feel safe. This peacefulness can bring a higher morale to the psychologist, a better mental health and motivation to continue their work.
To become a psychologist you have to go through a lot of years of studying and practicing. It all starts with finishing university and then some coursework in quantitative research methods, statistics, and computers. After all of that, you have to write a dissertation based on original research and then you can begin to work in your work setting under supervision before your degree is completed. Afterwards, you will need to do at least another year of supervised work and then you can have your Ph.D and start your own career. The only condition to obtain your Ph.D is to pass the psychoanalysis and to obtain a good grade on your clinical experiences and exams. When you go all the way to your master degree in a graduate school, which is two years of full-time study and a one-year internship, you have the widest range of choice, but if you have your bachelor degree only you have fewer options.
The salary of a psychologist varies from their specialty. If you are a Neuro psychologist you can make an average yearly salary of $93,440, if you are a Psychology teacher you can make an average yearly salary of $85,050 and if you are a Clinical psychologist you can make an average yearly salary of $81,330.
Psychologists can have many ways to keep up-to-date their knowledge. They can always consult different websites that are based on scientific studies and you can always assist some conferences over the years to keep your knowledge up to date with the latest research. Another really simple way to keep you updated on any new methods can be to talk with your colleagues and compare your methods and knowledge.
The dangers of being psychologist can be to become too emotionally involved with your patient's problems and then develop some problems with your own mental health, such as depression. You can also suffer from professional and social isolation, relationship conflicts, such as a divorce and develop some bad habits or addictions because of your work and your patient's problems. In the worst case, psychologist can even think about suicide if their patient's lives affects them too much on their moral and personal life.
It is difficult to know what the chances are of psychologists being replaced by robots, but there is certainly a possibility because most of their tasks can be achieved by a robot. On the other hand, there is still some hope for psychologists to keep their job because they can feel emotions toward their patients and empathy, which robots still can't until this day.
Most psychologists retire between 60 and 64 years old because they find that they have reached their main goals. In fact, many psychologists retire when they think that they have done everything they can to have a positive impact in their patient's lives and well-being.
In my career trajectory, I am still in CEGEP studying Social Science but my goal is to finish CEGEP this year, and then pass immediately to University to continue on the right path to obtain eventually my master degree in Psychology. My main goal is to finish my semester and try to appreciate it even though it is very different because of the Covid situation,
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