Psychology Student, Huh?

Hey you! Yes, you! I can see it- you’re a people watcher. People fascinate you. It’s nothing to be ashamed about…as long as you’re not creepy about it. If you’re not creepy, you’ve picked the right field of study. Psychology and social work are right up your alley.  Hopefully this study will take you where you want to go, where you can people-watch to your heart’s content while you counsel and help people. There are some things that you should know before you get much further, though.

School and Experience

            Since you are at the beginning of your career exploration, there will likely be a lot of questions about requirements for classes and other school-related issues. Let’s start with the basics. Yes, you do have to take all the dreaded GEs. Trust me- they’ll be worth it. These classes will make you much more well-rounded, which will help you in talking to a variety of people. And those pesky pre-requisite classes will be helpful in their own ways, too. If they weren’t necessary, they wouldn’t be part of the curriculum. Pay close attention, too, because before you know it, you’ll be out in the real world, and a lot of the concepts you learn in class will be very applicable. What you don’t realize as you’re taking these classes is that every piece of information that you learn that seems more applicable to another field will help you relate more to people in general. If you know a little bit about civilization and anthropology and science, you’ll be able to converse with a larger population and build your credibility as a therapist. Even though they aren’t required, take some sociology classes, in addition to the psychology classes. These classes will help you understand human behavior and community dynamics that will be important to social work.

            Taking classes and going to school will not be enough to prepare you for real social work settings. Internships and research will give you the best understanding of the field. Real interactions with people will give you the most experience and give you the best perspective, so make sure you are looking for opportunities to broaden your horizons. I was lucky enough to find an amazing opportunity, interning at the Utah State Prison. In this setting, I get to work with a lesser-valued population, one on one, under the supervision of a license psychologist. There are also social workers in the prison that I get to shadow. I get to administer psychological tests and interact with inmates in a controlled, psychological setting. This opportunity has been invaluable to my learning. I have been able to apply concepts from classes directly to my internship, which has helped me get a better idea of the field.

It's about Character!

            One of the first things you will learn early on in this field is that it is not just about watching people. There will be countless social interactions with people of all ages, religions, cultures, and opinions. If you’re really in it for the right reasons, you aim to lessen people’s suffering, to understand why people do things, and to create a community that gives people opportunities for improvement. That being said, you’re going to be interacting with a lot of different people and it’s important that you don’t say the wrong thing and that you abide by a few rules.

            In medieval Catholic culture, social work evolved with the idea of almsgiving. In giving alms, people would give to those less fortunate to alleviate suffering. They would give food, money, service, and time to the poor and needy. This idea started with the Church commandment to act with charity and love. Today this same idea, of selfless service and giving, is central to social work and highly prized in many psychology settings as well. It is a long-standing practice that values respect. One way of showing respect to people is understanding their culture and talking with compassion, intent, and conscientiousness.

Communication is Key

            As a social worker, you have to be able to read the situation and react appropriately. There’s going to be a fine balance of informing people about what they need to hear and making them feel comfortable with what you are saying and building a thing called rapport. Rapport is a place of comfort when you build an attachment with someone and gain their trust and can easily talk to them. Gaining rapport means that you have to be gentle and understanding and show empathy to get people to trust you. Unfortunately, sometimes in this profession, you need to tell people things that they don’t want to hear and that can weaken the rapport. If you have built rapport first, your negative, but necessary messages will be taken better. This is why reading the situation and understanding circumstances and people is very important.

            Let me give you an example of a situation you could face. “Marie” is a woman with two children who were recently taken away because of her addiction to drugs. The goal of the social worker in this setting is to help her understand what she can do to get her kids back and sooth her anger and sadness. If Marie were to come into my office, I would start out by asking her to relay the situation to me to the best of her abilities. I would listen intently, ask questions when necessary, and tell her how much we care to see her family back together and to keep her family safe. All of these things would likely bring her comfort and build rapport without compromising my position to keep her kids safe. Originally, I would seem like the “bad guy” but after sitting down and understanding the situation from her point of view, hopefully she will see me as helpful and not harmful. The next step would be to tell her what she needs to hear. It would be helpful to understand laws and history to be able to tell her the things that she can be working on to get her family back. I would end the situation by asking if she had any questions or if there was anything that she would like help with. This would once again establish rapport and maintain the trust already established. Granted, not all situations will be this smooth- in this line of work; because we are “the bad guys,” we are likely to be met with a lot of opposition and anger. You will need to work on speaking with compassion, but neutrality; equality, but authority.

            Other situations when you’ll need to watch what you are communicating is in the case of written reports. In this situation, it is not as important to give compassion as it is to give truth. You will be doing a lot of paperwork, documenting interactions and requests. These need to be written very formally and honestly. Most of the time, these reports are sent to people with greater authority, allowing them to make decisions on behalf of clients. Because these higher authorities don’t always have contact with the clients, it is important to give an honest and unbiased account of the situation. For example, in writing notes about a client’s behavior, it would be more proper to write “Mr. Adams gave little eye-contact during our interaction, and only spoke once, and very quietly” instead of “Mr. Adams is shy and doesn’t care about therapy.” As you can see, the second report very well could be a correct interpretation, but the first is more accurate and unbiased. It is written in a way that allows for interpretation by multiple people, since no one can truly know another’s motivations and thought processes. It could be that Mr. Adams had a cold and didn’t want to speak and that he had been crying all day and was ashamed to make eye contact because his eyes were red and puffy. Of course, if they were red and puffy, those would be observational notes I would make, too. If Mr. Adams were going to court to determine his eligibility for clearance in his Alcoholics Anonymous program, if I had written the first report, the court may consider that Mr. Adams is not taking his program or therapy seriously.  What you write and portray could mean the difference between a positive or negative court decision for the client. This type of work is very common, so get used to writing objectively and without bias.

The Basics

            These examples showcase the importance of reading a situation, being educated in the history and practices behind social work and psychology, and knowing how to speak and write in a way that facilitates the desired results. I wouldn’t go into this field if you can’t speak eloquently and tactfully. I wouldn’t continue on this path if you were worried about being unbiased. Of course, there will be situations in which you have a very strong opinion, but these are not situations in which you can lose your professionalism. Good reading, writing, and speaking are all necessary to this field because it helps you to establish credibility and professionalism with your clients. No one is going to trust a therapist that they believe is uneducated, lacks compassion, and is biased.

            Hopefully, this account of the work you will be doing and the necessary components won’t scare you off too much. If you take your education seriously and really care to learn about people, you should be fine.