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Asked by anon-315999 on 14 Mar 2022.
Question: What inspired you to be a therapist?
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Jamie Chan answered on 14 Mar 2022:
In my area of psychology, I don’t deliver therapies but I was inspired to be a psychologist because I was always curious about why people act the way they act and why some people act or think differently than others. I think that’s the main reason why I started studying Psychology. Eventually, I chose to specialise in ‘social psychology’ because I enjoy learning about people’s behaviour with one another. I don’t think a person inspired me but it was more of the subject that drew me to it, but my decision to do a PhD was inspired by my teacher (lecturer) in university – she is super cool and is great at her job.
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Hannah Howman answered on 14 Mar 2022:
Similar to Jamie, in my area of psychology I don’t deliver therapies, but I first became interested in psychology when studying the subject at A-level. So I then decided that I wanted to study psychology at university, and I became more interested in having a career in this area when I was given the opportunity to help a lecturer with some of her research. It was the first time I was involved in a study and I loved being a part of it. That lecturer supported me throughout my undergraduate degree, and inspired me to come back to studying psychology after a two-year break. Now I love the research I’m involved in and working out why people behave the way they do online.
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Reece Bush-Evans answered on 14 Mar 2022:
Similar to Jamie and Hannah, in my area of psychology we don’t typically deliver therapies or treatments. I am, however, working on a research project with health psychologists relating to online gambling. We are offering therapy and treatment to those individuals who are at risk of problematic gambling. This can be super challenging.
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Nadine Mirza answered on 17 Mar 2022: last edited 17 Mar 2022 6:06 am
I don’t currently work as a therapist but I did used to deliver therapies and it’s definitely what I want to get back into one day.
The reason I do started when I was 16. It’s such a silly reason to me now (but cute) that my friends would always tell me I was a really good listener, that I helped them vent and made them feel comfortable when they shared their problems. They kept saying “You’d make a good therapist” and without knowing what that meant I thought “Okay!”
When I was 17 we finally started studying psychology in school and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to stick to my therapist plan. It was the perfect combo of understanding all the learning and still being interested in it. And the rest is history! -
Sophie Callis answered on 18 Mar 2022:
I didn’t really know I wanted to be a Clinical Psychologist until towards the end of my university degree. It was a broad course called “Natural Sciences” where I studied Maths and different topics in Biology, including Psychology. I decided I wanted to work somewhere in the field of Psychology, and the idea of getting to work one-to-one with people really appealed to me – I could get a chance to better understand them and help them better understand themselves.
Also, working as a Clinical Psychologist isn’t only about being a therapist! I also work with hospital teams to help them better understand the patients that they are helping, I did psychological research during my postgraduate degree, and I continue to use research skills in a clinical setting by monitoring how effective our work is in helping people feel better.
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Michelle Newman answered on 18 Mar 2022:
Although I do sometimes work in a healthcare setting, I am known as a research psychologist rather than a practitioner psychologist. In fact, most psychologist are research psychologist rather than therapists! However, what inspired me to look work in the area of brain injuries was watching a video during my undergraduate degree about a 30 year old who had had a stroke and was not able to talk afterwards. I was the same age and it really stuck with me thinking about if that was me. It was then I decided I wanted to work on understanding more about what happens when the brain is damaged and how we can help those people. Being a research psychologist in this area is super important, as practitioner psychologists carry out their work based on what we learn within research. Some practitioner psychologists – like my supervisor – are both practitioners and researchers!
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