As a psychologist, jobs might not always be as satisfying as you thought. On the surface, it can seem like the dream job. Usually, psychology will have to have been a sustained passion for an individual for many years to reach this point. So, you’d assume, when you’d get the chance of practicing what you’ve learnt it’s a dream come true. However, this isn’t always the case. In this article, we’ll be looking at some of the reasons why this occurs.
Before having a closer look at some of the problems, it’s important to add that there are a great many positives to this sort of role. This article is intended to shed some light on some of those areas not looked at so often with psychology, and make it clear that it can’t be expected to be a job without any downsides.
Of course, one of the drawbacks is all that time spent in education. Often, it can be a brutal process sticking with the education needed to become a psychologist. Getting offered positions to study is one thing, often the barrier can be financial too. There is the chance of scholarships, but these are always fiercely competitive.
If you’re working in a healthcare setting, you can often find yourself working all types of hours. Sometimes on shifts as long as twelve hours, dealing with a whole variety of patients. If having regular working hours is a must for you, there are psychology based jobs within schools and other institutions that can offer this.
The emotional strain in this field cannot be underplayed. Often, you’ll be dealing with a large and individually complex caseload. While actual therapy sessions can often be quite testing for someone’s emotions if it’s based in trauma or other similar areas.
Often a psychologist can find themselves being the only person working within their department in certain roles. This means that isolation can creep into many aspects of the job for far too long for many to handle. Working within hospitals and other larger healthcare settings you’re much more likely to be part of a larger mental health team.
It’s relatively uncommon, but there is a chance of patient violence within psychologist roles. Or, what is more common, psychologists can often feel there is a real risk of situations escalating into something that involves patient violence. Of course, de-escalating is large aspect of psychology. However, you want this not to be something you rely on to stop violence from occurring and to protect yourself.