• Question: What is the hardest bit of being a psychologist?

    Asked by anon-315983 on 11 Mar 2022.
    • Photo: Hannah Howman

      Hannah Howman answered on 11 Mar 2022:

      The hardest part for me is that you have to let some thoughts and ideas for experiments go. You only have some much time in the day, and it can take quite a bit of time to analyse and write up your work. This sadly means that you have to select what to research carefully, and some fun and interesting ideas can get pushed aside for some time.

    • Photo: Fay Sweeting

      Fay Sweeting answered on 12 Mar 2022:

      Sometimes in my area of work I will come across things which upset me. It’s important to have a good support network and to look after yourself when this happens.

    • Photo: Reece Bush-Evans

      Reece Bush-Evans answered on 12 Mar 2022:

      I have to agree with Hannah. It can sometimes be so difficult and frustrating to have to let some research ideas go. Generally, as each study can take quite a while to set up, run, analyse, and then prepare for publication, you just have to let some ideas go unfortunately.

    • Photo: Jamie Chan

      Jamie Chan answered on 14 Mar 2022:

      Sometimes I encounter people with sad experiences and sometimes that’s hard to cope with.

    • Photo: Nadine Mirza

      Nadine Mirza answered on 17 Mar 2022:

      Because I work with people living with dementia and their loved ones the hardest part of my job is hearing their stories of suffering. There is a lot of pain, tears, anger- people share how much they struggle and sometimes I need to pause my work and just take their hand and be there for them.

      It can be very emotional and tough but thankfully my supervisor, who is someone who guides me, always let’s me talk about these experiences and sees if I need some comforting.

    • Photo: Sophie Callis

      Sophie Callis answered on 18 Mar 2022:

      There are two things I find particularly hard.

      In therapy sessions, I’m hearing about some difficult things that people have experienced. Sometimes this can make me feel upset, especially if it reminds me of things that have happened to me or my friends or family. But we as therapists have good support systems in place to help cope with this, so if you’re seeing a therapist you never need to worry about upsetting them by being honest about how you’re feeling. They’re trained in how to manage this so it’s not your responsibility to think about!

      The second difficult thing is the limitations of the NHS. There are never enough staff or resources! Lots of people might have to spend time on a waiting list before they’re able to start therapy, and then they might only have a certain number of sessions. We as therapists do our absolute best to help people with the time and resources that we’ve got, but it can be really difficult to know that we can’t help everyone as soon as they need it.

    • Photo: Michelle Newman

      Michelle Newman answered on 23 Mar 2022:

      When you can’t fully help someone. Sometimes, an individual may not ever recover fully from their injury, and that can be very emotional for them, and frustrating for you as you want to fix it, but you can’t.

Comments