Day in the life of
Psychologist – Dr. La Keita
Being a psychologist is very rewarding, yet fatiguing work. We get to help people reach their mental health goals and move dysfunctional behaviors and thoughts to functional ones. We hear the most painful stories EVER and help others realize their potential to be healthier human beings. However, listening to people and helping them heal can be draining. We often sit for the majority of the day and listen, reflect, question, comment, and analyze others’ lives.
Depending on a psychologist’s position, the day may look different. For some psychologists, the day includes seeing patients from 8 am to 6 pm for 45-50 minutes. In between sessions, we are doing a combination of returning patient phone calls, writing case notes (so that you don’t have a ton of notes to write at the end of the day), going to the bathroom, eating, and decompressing (in time for the next patient). Each patient should get a fresh version of you, so it’s important that you don’t carry the weight of your last session or the last few hours into your next session. Practicing psychologists also may be running groups or have couples. This means that some hours of the day are even more draining because there are 5 people in a group that are experiencing addiction problems or interpersonal problems, for instance. The psychologist must attend to all of them. If a psychologist is also a clinical supervisor (which means that they train psychology graduate students on how to conduct therapy or testing), then the day could include an individual supervision session. These are 1-on-1 meetings with the supervisee. The psychologist reviews the patients on the intern’s caseload and talks about best practices, interventions, and techniques for that patient. Individual supervision typically happens once per week. If the psychologist has more than one intern working under their license, they may also hold group supervision with all interns at the practice. This allows interns to learn from each other and the psychologist. If the psychologist has a hand in administration, they may be doing administrative tasks to run a program. For example, they may be conducting interviews for new employees for the treatment program or meeting with community groups who have expressed the need for mental health services with their group. All of this still happens amidst patient sessions. In other words, a psychologist who also runs a program may have patients at 9-11 am, a team meeting at 11 am, a community meeting at 12pm (with a school who wants a presentation about ADHD for example), a patient at 1 pm, program planning from 2-4 pm, and then another patient at 5 pm.
Pros
There are a myriad of pros to being a psychologist, the most important of which is to heal people. People tell us things that they believe they can’t tell their spouse, parents, children, and even God. We get to witness the growth of people right before our eyes and help them overcome really different things like rape and other traumas, grief, loss, and more. We get to teach people tools to help them become better at communicating, listening, supporting, and loving others (and themselves).
Cons
The cons of the job are that it is exhausting. Think about how you feel after you end a phone call with a friend who is going through a crisis. You may feel drained or empty. Psychologists do that every hour of every day. Of course, not every patient is in crisis. However, every patient is struggling with some aspect of their lives or they wouldn’t be on your couch. It can also be difficult when the mental health concerns turn toward the psychologist. For example, a woman who is working on anger may lash out at the psychologist, the very person who is trying to help. Handling suicidal patients is also a very scary and difficult situation that psychologists deal with often. Overall, it’s a rewarding job and the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, in my opinion.
