Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

The image above is taken from my mentor's website which entails her credentials and other information regarding her practice.

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

My mentor is Dr. Maureen Burney and her current place of employment is at the Chino Mental Health Associates, where she works as the director of psychology for her private practice of therapy.

What I believe makes my mentor an expert, is not just the years of study she did to complete her doctorate in psychology, but also the time, dedication and mass experience in different branches within the the overarching dome that is psychology; having it be work with troubled children or in the suicide unit at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, my mentor has reached out to each branch in order to get a taste of what each one is like.

2.  What five questions will you ask them about their background?

1. Was the field of psychology something that you always knew you would be invested in or was it something you discovered when you entered college?
2. What made you decide to become a private practitioner?
3. What type of experiences would you say are the most beneficial when you decided what branch of psychology you wanted to specialize in?
4. How many years have you dedicated your life in the field of psychology?
5. What would you consider the most rewarding aspect of your career?
6. In addition to having sessions with patients, what is demanded from you as a therapist (patients, maintaining license, seminars, etc.)?

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

The senior project has seemed like a breeze, however when it comes to typing out an interview, having god-like speeds would make it a lot simpler. 

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?  

Throughout these few weeks of working on my senior project, so far what has been working well is my very lax and open ended schedule with my mentor, which is something I am very grateful for. As an individual, there are a lot of time restraints that I have and being able to work at a self determined schedule has been working wonders for me. Since my mentor works an open range of hours, coming in every week for 5-6 hours is a simple task I try to accomplish on Fridays when school lets out early.

Ultimately, what has made this project a positive experience is the relationship that I have been able to develop with my mentor. In complete honesty, I tend to be really awkward when I am really nervous and during my first several hours that I completed with my mentor I have been able to reach a variety of levels of comfort with my mentor. Since my mentor is really talkative, striking up a conversation is never that difficult and when I have something to discuss regarding my topic, my mentor is always eager to help and feed me information based upon either research or her personal experiences with patients.   

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

What I have personally have found most difficult concerning the senior project has been time management, which is something that I have to learn to balance on my own. There are times where I put a lot of time and effort into one small detail and forget about the big picture that my mentorship or research is suppose to be.

Separately, something I would recommend revising is the transcribing of the interview. I understand that the purpose of the transcription is to make sure that it is not plagiarized from the internet, however my interview was about an hour long and even with the use of dictation websites it was still excessively time consuming. Personally, if the transcription could have been simply a summary of the interviewee’s answers instead of the entire dialogue is the interview exceeds 20 minutes, it would have been a lot simpler, considering that we were also supposed to upload our interview onto our blog as an entry.

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

Sometimes the key to opening the mind is simply renewal. For many, this means looking at new information, and for other it means completely starting over.

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

The most important thing that I learned from this interview is that in order to be good in the field of psychology, you have to be able to keep up with the current research being let out every few months. As easy as it may see, many psychologists often lag on updating their tactics, causing their clients to progress very slowly or even feel no change throughout their entire course of sessions with their therapist. On rare occasions this can cause even the death of a patient.

For example, many therapists still believe that by having suicidal patients sign a “suicide contract” their patients will completely feel abided to follow it, however in no study has this ever been proven remotely effective.

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

Yes, I in fact did receive additional resources from this interview, 2 sources that have never even considered before this interview.

One of the first things that we discussed was the broad spectrum which psychology embarks. There are many professions that connect regarding the types of patients they take in. Whilst focusing on “suicide” social workers, counselors and other therapists are often the ones that get put hand in hand.

My mentor immediately mentioned the organization of Tri-City mental Health and immediately was able to give me the information to one of her friends who is a counselor there. In addition to that, it suddenly came to my conscious mind that I actually have a family friend who is a social worker and works with teenagers as well, who I hope to interview soon.

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me?

My interviewee, along with being my mentor obtains a doctorate in psychology with a specialty in clinical and health psychology. Throughout her education, she took advantage of opportunities to test out different aspects of psychology, such as working with troubled children, working with adolescents, and working with adults. In addition to this experience, she has also performed more than 30 years in her field and has been able to gather knowledge.

Links to the interview are provided below:

Pt. 1  Pt. 2  Pt. 3  Pt. 4  Pt. 5  Pt. 6  Pt. 7  Pt. 8

Blog 4 - House Advisory Prep 1

 

"If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose."

Write a short explanation of what you are hoping to accomplish through your senior project topic.

Senior Project, an entire course of its own, has been designed in order to give students a glimpse of what future careers, educational paths and experiences are like. By forcing students to look into a variety of resources (e.g. hands on learning, interviews, shadowing, etc.) individuals are able to look deeper in a topic of their own selection. Throughout the course of the year, my biggest goals whilst completing my senior project is focused primarily on deciding whether or not psychology is a field that I would like to enter.

Like many of my peers, I am an undecided on the field that I would like to enter. Of course I have my interests, and psychology is one of them, but as far as having a set path I plan on using this year as a test to see if clinical or health psychology is something I should pursue as a future career. I have always known that I want to help people in whatever way that may be - whether it be in an office one-on-one with a client, in a research center, working in law enforcement or even catching criminals.

In addition to establishing my foot stone to my future, a goal which I plan on fulfilling throughout the course of this project is finding the key to a healthy relationship between a psychologist and their patient. This is one of the most essential things for myself to learn because this is a skill that can be applied to life outside of a career. It is one thing to be able to listen to a friend, but a complete other skill to be able to help them keep looking forward and assisting them in finding a solution to their problem.  

Blog 3

Interviewing a new person is a bit like looking for a pot of gold, the more you search, the closer you get to finding treasure.

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

The person who I initially plan on interviewing is my mentor, Dr. Maureen Burney who has provided me with an enlightening view on the overall career of a clinical psychologist this past summer. In addition to this, Dr. Burney has demonstrated how the muse to her career is more than just helping her patients move past a problem, but it is also to find the crux of their overall problem to help her patients take a step forward themselves and finally be able to take action in their own hands. This type of inspiration has shown me how much passion an individual can have towards a career and is something that I hope to be able to unravel in my first interview with Dr. Burney.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?  

• Upon the initial session with your patients, what is your approach in identifying the underlying issue that a client may have? How long does this process take?
• Why do you believe that so many people in your profession often skip looking for the root of a problem which a patient/client may have?
• Having worked in this profession for several years, what have you seen to be the most important factor in approaching a client upon their first session with a psychologist?
• In what ways has deciding to become a psychologist affected your life experience? What led you to realize that this was the profession for you?