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Showing posts from March, 2019

Why yes, I knew you were going to say that!

I just realized I blasted through the last post. My b. I should probably introduce myself. I'm Shawn. I'm a first year doctoral student in Clinical Psychology. I love helping people figure life out, and feel okay doing it. It's why I decided to go into this field. It's also why I'm starting this blog. I wanted to do a YouTube channel, but I can't make sense of that, so here we are! Good, old fashioned (digital) print! I want to use this blog to help make psychology less mysterious to people I interact with on the interwebs. I also want to help clear up some confusion people experience with the rumors and misunderstandings people hear about psychologists and what we do. Today's topic is about what psychology isn't.  It isn't  a lot of things, but I'm mostly going to stick with some of the things I hear most often. When I tell someone what I'm studying, I invariably hear a lot of the following: "Oh no! He's going to analyze me!&

Psychology: More than just a couch

Just imagine it: A man, lying on a couch, talking about his life and his problems and staring at a nondescript point just beyond his gesticulating fingertips. Behind him, another man, with thin, wire glasses perched on the end of his nose, staring professional and concerned at a legal pad with a regal ballpoint pen, scribbling away on his right-over-left crossed legs. That is probably one of the most classic pictures of therapy that exists, especially in all the memes these days. Truth be told, it is actually a legit form of therapy that some select psychologists, counselors, and psychiatrists may use from time to time. But it is far from what therapy looks like anymore, on the regular. What comes to your mind when you think of the word "therapy"? What thoughts, images, phrases, problems, etc...do you come up with? As a graduate student in clinical psychology, I have heard a lot of responses, even though I'm only in my first year of this five-year program. I have