In the field of practical psychology, you can work both as a consultant and as a trainer, while the main choice still remains: are you more of a psychotherapist or more of a teacher? Do you heal or do you teach? See →
Most often today this choice is made in the direction of psychotherapy. At first, this seems quite romantic: “I will help people in difficult situations,” soon a vision comes that the psychologist-consultant easily turns into a life service employee, hastily repairing rotting specimens.
Gulnaz Baiturova writes:
Recently, I talked with a woman from Switzerland, who used to be a psychologist, and gave up this interesting field. It turned out that she believes that psychology is a useless job of collecting garbage from someone’s soul. I think that she just did not know that it was necessary not just to consult, but to change views and a person through games, roles and pleasure.
The psychologist can work as a teacher.
There are more and more people who understand the need to merge theoretical and practical psychology. The best experiment is a formative experiment, the best theory comes from rich practice.
Every year there is a growing understanding that it is necessary to move from direct assistance to people with problems to prevention, preventing the appearance of problems. That it is necessary to engage in educational work, training, developmental psychology, that this is precisely the promising direction that will create a new person and a new society. A psychologist must learn to become an educator.
Probably, these are very clear and simple tasks:
- to raise the psychological culture and teach people to build relationships not when the relationship has already gone wrong, but while people are still happy with each other.
- not to pull out of the problems of people who have lost the meaning of life, but to teach them to live in such a way that every day life becomes richer in both joy and meaning.
- help in developing qualities that allow them to become socially successful, in demand by people, respected members of society.
Pedagogical mission of a psychologist
A psychologist-educator calls people to growth and development, shows how it is not to be a Victim, how to become the author of your life.
A psychologist-educator is one who brings into people’s lives a meaning sometimes forgotten by them, saying that life is a priceless gift, the very fact of which is the greatest happiness. See →