Clinical Psychologist – Family Relationships
Discovering a college course in psychology led her in a different career path. Then she had to decide between psychological research and individual counseling.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
DR was the oldest of three sisters. Her father graduated from a two-year college. Her mother graduated from college and taught in an elementary school before having children. The middle daughter was initially enrolled in public school, where she was diagnosed with a “learning disability,” moved to a special class and tutored privately. The youngest sister graduated from college and became a ‘Special Education’ teacher.
CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER
Early on, DR though about being a teacher so she could try to teach arithmetic, reading and writing to people like her middle sister. In high school, DR thought she could help people with both their bodies and their minds by becoming a nurse.
SCHOOL DAYS
DR was self-motivated to learn all about her school subjects so eventually as a teacher, she would know more than her students, at least when the school year started. In high school, when she thought about becoming a nurse, she took optional, advanced science courses.
COLLEGE
When DR enrolled in college, she hadn’t made a final decision on a career path, so she kept her options open, after completing the required introductory courses, to enroll in both education and science classes. During a careers presentation by graduates from her college, DR was interested to hear from a psychologist about her career which combined both psychological experiments and counseling with individuals within a clinic setting. DR thought that she could be more useful to society by being a psychologist rather than a teacher, trying to teach basic math and English courses or a nurse, caring for individual patients in a hospital or private duty setting.
GRADUATE SCHOOL
DR learned that in order to become licensed as a psychologist, which permitted you to work with people one-on-one in a clinic or study them in experiments dealing with different behaviors, she needed to earn at least a Master’s Degree and possibly, a Doctorate in Psychology. So, she applied to – and was accepted by – several graduate schools and chose to attend the one with the least tuition expense, with a good reputation for its graduates working within the field of psychology as either professors, researchers, or therapists.
FIRST ADULT JOB MAY OR MAY NOT BE A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT
As a newly licensed psychologist, DR thought she should first work as an employee whose efforts could be supported by more experienced psychologists, rather than immediately trying to open her own business of counseling patients. Her decision also considered the financial challenges of opening your own business: having enough savings or going into debt to borrow sufficient money to rent office space, related equipment and furnishings and be able to cover your personal living expenses until enough patients sought your services to earn more income than your expenses. Accordingly, DR accepted an offer for full-time employment at a psychiatric institute, which at that time was a leading center for research and development.
After getting comfortable with the process of psychological research through creating behavioral experiments and observations, DR had to decide whether to devote herself exclusively to research or to work directly with people through counseling them so first, she could understand their problems and related causes, then second, help her patients to understand their problems and third, guide them to their own solutions (ranging from accepting the situation to trying to change the situation, to withdrawing from the situation).
Following participation in both experiments and individual counseling, DR self-assessed that she was more interested in working one-on-one with individuals who often had severe, mentally disabling symptoms also affecting their physical health, than to design experiments and develop theories applicable to large populations of both the mentally healthy and those in need of counseling.
Eventually, DR worked with individuals of all ages, couples, and families. She became interested in brain science and mindfulness. But above all, she stated, “I am totally interested in the uniqueness of the person or persons I am seeing. I try to be fully present and to resonate with what the client is communicating, to understand him or her and give the most helpful feedback that I possibly can.”
CAREER SATISFACTION
DR’s career influenced a new approach within psychology to understand that relationships within families should be examined as closely as the symptoms of the troubled individual.
Her patients were important to her, and she treated them like family. The insights she offered to her clients were genuine and unique since she was an astute observer of people and their stories.
Other psychologists sought counseling from DR.
