If you have ever thought about becoming a psychologist, then this article is for you. You will learn everything you ever wanted to know about becoming a psychologist, where they work, how much they get paid, what kind of additional in-service training they need, how you can become one, some of the dangers involved in the job, when you can expect to retire and how you can make difference in the life of the people you serve. I want people that want to be a psychologist, to know what they have to expect in this line of work.
Psychologists build a strong relationship between them and their patient, so they can have a good trust and that the patient can open up more than without this trust. Psychologist often listens to heavy or emotional stories that can impact their mental health. When a patient makes great progress, a psychologist can feel a lot of satisfaction.
Psychologists engage in research, practice and teaching on topics about mental health. Some psychologists specialized in working with animals rather than humans.
On a typical day, a psychologist clock in and have meetings with their patients. Sometimes they have meetings with other psychologists to discuss a complicated case. Psychologists also work on their patient's folder to deepen their cases. If the psychologist is a teacher at university or college, then his/her day will be completely different as they would not see patients, and would go to school like every teacher and teacher psychology. On another case, if the psychologists work in research, then he would team up with other psychologists to come up with improved test and research to help humanity move beyond what we have at this moment in terms of knowledge in mental health.
Some psychologists work in research and faculty at universities and at governmental or non-governmental organizations. The others mostly works in hospital, school, clinics, correctional facilities, certain program and private office. Some also works as consultants in corporations and various organizations.
To become a psychologist, you need to get a bachelor's degree in psychology and then attend graduate school and obtain a master's degree and/or a doctoral degree. But, before all that, you need to go in cegep in Social Science (no matter the profile).
A psychologist does around 38,60 $/h at the start. After some time, and having gained experience they will get a raise and it can go to 60 $/h, per year this is around $100 000.
Psychologists need to know about the many techniques that exist and how to apply them in real life situations. They also need to do some in the field training while being at school because it is very difficult to be a student and then the next day a psychologist without training.
Being a psychologist is dangerous, because their mental health can be impacted very fast compared to other work field. Psychologist hear about problems every day and try to help them get better, but at the same time they get worse, because their mental health is the same as everyone, they aren't immune to what everybody says, they also can get traumas by what they hear.
The chances that robots replace psychologist in the near future are pretty low, because it isn't a work that can be replaced by a program. Every client is different, and they need a different situation. Without the human contact, the clients might not truly open and talk about the problems that the psychologists need to do their job.
Psychologists retire around the age of 60 to 65 years old after having work and gained a lot of experience in their life.
At this moment I am still in college in Social Science psychology program. I will be going to university next year to start my bachelor in psychology. I want to become a psychologist and so everything that I said in this Q and A apply to me.
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Rationale: to inform or educate
Authority: government
Date: still relevant
Accuracy: probably true
Relevance: relevant for this document
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Rationale: to inform or educate
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Date: still relevant
Accuracy: probably true
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