Humans are from Earth, Psychologists, too!

It's hard to put oneself in others' shoes. It involves being able to see from their perspectives, and knowing where they come from, and therefore understanding their circumstances. People think psychology students, and of course, psychologists, are super good at this, and we are therefore super understanding people who probably are pacifists and therefore don't fight.

But nope, we're just normal human beings like everyone else. We have our quirks and foibles, and our own stereotypes and prejudices, just that maybe, just maybe (and it's a very big "maybe"), we are more aware of our own thoughts and thus able to view it with a certain amount of objectivity. We get angry when we perceive we've been done wrong by, we get upset when things don't go according to plan, and we get upset when we're disappointed by whoever or whatever disappointed us. We are ruled by stereotypes and heuristics, just like all of you actually, so actually, we are the same as you.

Michelle told me she can be a clinical psychologist too. Well, why not? Personally, I think anyone can be anything they wanna be. Being a psychologist is not that much a stretch from being a normal human being, actually. Just listening, and responding appropriately, is already half the battle won, because you've got to get the client's trust. And anyone can do that. The other bit is the additional training that psychologists undergo, that probably makes them more sensitive in picking up the underlying issues. So how are we different from the rest?

One of the clinical lecturers said it's the quality of "warmth and fuzziness" that the interviewers were looking for. Yep, interviews are not as useful as taking psychometric tests, but he rationalized that the interviews were to get a feel of what the applicants were like, which were actually the "non-specifics" that they were looking for. By that, I guess they meant approachability, fluency in explanations (though I wonder how I passed that...), gentleness (?) etc. I don't know, really. Probably instinct for sniffing out probable backgrounds in clients? And then looking at these qualities, again, anyone can be that.

So I guess what differentiates psychologists from others is not how big-hearted we are, nor how understanding we are, but rather, the capacity to which we are interested in other people's lives, or how interested we are in making a change in their lives. I know I'm motivated by that, not that I'm anymore big-hearted or understanding than the next person. Hehe to put it crudely, I'm nosey. =p Really, we're not that different from you. We are just equipped with the training such that we SEEM to be better humans. But really, we aren't.

Life's Like That

"I'm really the wrong person to ask. I've been married twice and divorced twice, so I don't think I should be answering this question 'What have I learned?' There are going to be hills and valleys and what I've seemed to have noticed is that a lot of the young people today, they seem to want to quit at the first drop of drama or issues that they have. Even with my parents, there were the bad times. It's always going to happen and you need to work through those. If the love is there, you get through them together with trust and communication." -- Janet Jackson

This makes sense.