For quite some time I’ve been following psychologists (and/or psychology related posts) here on Steemit.
Some of them aim to improve other people’s understanding about our profession and what psychology is really about. By reading these posts, it seems to me that there are a lot of misconceptions and not understanding what psychology actually is, even though the internet is full with free information today.
does a great job Discussing Misconceptions about Psychology.
always contributes with original posts about psychology like The construction loving Master Mind.
’s Ditch Your Addictions Series are something cool you should check out too.
Our Russian
colleagues are quite active with informing (but a bit trivial for me) posts as well.
This is just a small sample of the great posts about psychology which are here. Reading these articles got me inspired to create similar content, but with the purpose to somehow complete what my colleagues have started, meaning that I would like to present some facts from other point of view.
I would like to talk about “the consequences” of being a psychologist.
Positive consequences:
Being a psychologists first means that you are doomed to be a constant researcher and explorer.
The constant interest in what makes people “tick” is the driving force of the psychologists. They will not rest until they’ve found some explanation why certain people behave the way they do.
But in order to do that they need to obtain (or already should’ve started to obtain) a deeper understanding of their own behavior and the behavior of others.
This is maybe the most important ability a psychologist develops as a “consequence” of his or her job. It includes the ability to self-reflect, to analyze the events happening in your life and the life of others. It makes him or her capable to overcome traumatic events and crisis, and helps others to find a way to deal with theirs.
Understanding and constantly analyzing a person’s motivation and behavior makes the psychologist resistant to manipulation and negative influence by other humans.
Or at least makes him extremely cautious when he or she senses a manipulation attempt.
As a consequence the psychologist obtains the ability to successfully negotiate and obtain the information he or she wants in a delicate way.
Not only that but the ability which naturally follows is to learn how to influence other people’s thinking or helping them find their own path without directly interfering in their decisions.
Understanding why people behave in certain situations requires a lot of emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is considered both resource and consequence of the profession.
It means that the good psychologist should have a high level of empathy, a wider view of the world, inner and outer.
A good professional should never judge what one has done and at the same time not justify him or her.
This means that even though a psychologist understands why some person did something, it doesn’t mean that he or she will be justified about it. Especially if it’s a bad thing.
Another positive consequence of being a psychologist is that you become really good in your communication with others. You learn how to speak “different languages” depending on the person.
Psychotherapists are actually really good “translators” in that manner.
Negative consequences
Psychologists are not super humans. Quite on the contrary.
You will not mistake if you consider the psychologist as a sponge which absorbs every emotion or event happening to them. This means that every psychologist is a conduit for a lot of negativity.
We already said that the ability to self-reflect is a positive consequence. But it could be considered as a negative too.
It’s common for a psychologist to “project” negative problematics on themselves and their close relatives. If this “projecting” goes out of hand, the psychologist could become a very negative person who cannot be talked back to understand that there is a lot of positivity in this world too.
Constantly “diagnosing” other people.
Of course, the term “diagnosing” is used as a synonym of “analyzing”. If the psychologist has obtained and developed successfully the “positive consequences” the ability to constantly analyze and diagnose becomes automatic behavior. Trust me, even when they are denying, there’s always something on their mind regarding one’s behavior or personality.
Being a “teacher”.
If you’ve met a person who is actively working in the field of psychology you must’ve noticed how they always have something to say, to add to or to correct. It’s annoying I know. You might be surprised, but that’s annoying for the psychologists too. But we can’t help it.
Too much self-control and losing the ability to be spontaneous.
Again, due to the ability to over-think and analyze the psychologist might become a person who hates chaos, who always tries not to “feed” information about him or herself to others. This self-control actually robs the psychologist off some parts of their personality. We are humans after all – a bit of spontaneous behavior won’t hurt nobody.
Obsessive thoughts about “working on yourself”.
Remember that psychologists are explorers and researchers. They mostly experiment with themselves, meaning that they constantly persuade the need to self-improve in order to help others.
Emotional tepidness and cynicism.
Remember the sponge metaphor ?
Well I already said that psychologists are only humans like you are and by being such they have limitations. When the limitations are crossed constantly or for too long period of time, in order to escape burnout, some defensive mechanisms should be created.
Developing a cynical behavior is a common defense mechanism when it comes to psychologist. It’s not because he or she wants to be “the asshole” in the group, it’s just how they manage to disengage in order to save themselves as individuals.
The bad thing is that sometimes it leads to emotional tepidness which could hurt the closest people to the psychologist.
Final comment
As I said, with this post (I hope the first of many) I would like to contribute to the work of my colleagues here on Steemit (and people who post quality content about psychology).
I hope that for some of you it was useful and insightful. If you would like to add or ask me something, please feel free to do so in the comment section.
Pictures:
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