5 Mistakes Every New Psychologist Will Make

Every new psychologist will make mistakes. This may be a scary thought but it's true of every health professional. The trick is to try to watch out for mistakes so you can avoid them and to make sure that the mistakes that you do make do not have serious consequences. Here are 5 mistakes every new psychologist should look out for but that you'll make anyway.

Trying To Rush The Process

Every new psychologist wants to help people. You want to identify the problem and start fixing it. You want your patient to have a breakthrough and to have a better life because of your help. And you will want them to have this better life as soon as possible. There's one problem.

Patients make progress when they are ready to. You can help but it's not up to you. You will try to rush the process sometimes but you will learn how to tell when patients are ready to move forward and when they are not.

Making A Wrong Diagnosis

You are going to make a wrong diagnosis. It happens. What you want to do is always keep an open mind when listening to a patient so that you consider any information that might contradict your original diagnosis. You go on the information you have and do your best. Just remember that your best guest can be wrong.

Jumping To Conclusions

Sometimes you will be so eager to identify a problem that you will see one that isn't there. You may blow something out of proportion or you may just see something that is not there. You are trained to look for psychological problems and if you look hard enough you will find them. Just try to stop and consider if it's possible that what you think you see isn't really true.

Getting Too Involved

Many new psychologists get too involved and take their work too personally. It is good to care but at the end of the day you can't live anyone's life for them. To the extent possible, you want to leave your work at work and not carry the stress of your sessions into your personal life.

Accepting calls after hours, carrying the stress of sessions after they end, or going over the details of sessions in your mind when you are off work is a clear path to burnout. Some psychologists can manage after hours calls and such but you want to take care of yourself first. If you don't then eventually you won't be of any help to your patients.

Forgetting That Not Every Problem Originates In The Mind

This is a big one. You're a psychologist. You look for psychological issues but not every problem is psychological in nature.

Nutritional deficiencies, physiological problems, and many other health conditions can manifest with symptoms of psychological conditions. Remember this so that you are open to finding whatever the cause of a psychological condition may be. Even if you end up having to refer your patient to an expert in another branch of the health care field.

T. Rheinecker writes about how to obtain an MS in Psychology.