Being a psychologist is a very challenging job. You have to assess, sympathize with, and help the person go through whatever they’re going through. You are there to help them understand themselves so that they can avoid unhealthy and self-damaging acts. Being a psychologist doesn’t mean that you just have to listen to your patients’ rants and give them advice. If you are interested in psychology, here are some of the characteristics that you should have.
- Good communication skills
The role of a psychologist is to help you understand yourself and give approaches that may help the patient. But before they can give the patients the techniques and mindsets they have to apply, the psychologist should first get to know the patient. This is done through talking. Having good communication skills is very important because you cannot learn anything from your patient if there is no effective communication going on. Some patients may suffer from anxiety and have a hard time expressing themselves. So it is really important for a psychologist to be good at communicating to make the patient feel comfortable.
- Organized
Analyzing and translating data is a very heavy job. There are lots of things to consider before making a sound decision. Being organized helps you do this process quickly. Creating schedules, graphic organizers, and charts will help you keep track of the important pieces of information. This will also help you do things smoothly, which increases efficiency.
- Emotionally stable
Being a psychologist means that you will encounter a lot of depressing and sad stories. This means you will be absorbing the negative energy that the patients give from the sharing. Having control over your emotion prevents you from acting irrationally. Hearing disturbing stories may negatively affect your performance at work and may even cause you to have psychological disorders.
- Compassion
As someone who gets approached by people who suffer from different illnesses and traumas, having compassion will help you understand the patient, sympathize with, and comfort them. Being empathic with the patient will help them open up and converse more comfortably.
- Analytical
Psychologists follow different approaches, theories, and techniques. However, not everything is applicable to everyone. It is important for psychologists to be analytical to be able to properly interpret the data and come up with the best approach that fits the patient’s personality and situation.
- Boundary-setting
Following their code of ethics, psychologists are not allowed to have personal relationships with them. This means that they cannot date or be friends with their patients. Sessions may be emotional, but setting boundaries allows the psychologist to keep their relationship professional. This strict professional relationship will help the psychologist make decisions that are not based on their decisions. Setting boundaries will help the two parties with their individual responsibilities.
- Trustworthy
In order to help the patient, they should first open up for the psychologist to know the patient. However, trusting people with your traumas and biggest secrets is not easy, especially if the patient has trust issues. A psychologist should be able to build trust. This can be seen by keeping the stories to themselves. They must be able to maintain the trust that patients give them to prevent them from damaging them more and allowing the psychologists to help the patients.
Most of the things that were mentioned are developed within themselves. Every job requires its employees to have soft and hard skills. These characteristics and skills won’t be highlighted if you do not have a well-written resume. You can check out some examples of resumes to help you generate some ideas on how to create one.
Top 10 Skills Every Psychologist Needs | Florida National University (fnu.edu)