quotes for thought

In the aftermath of having her romantised idea that her choice of career would “help her to help people” torn apart by the reality of what it entails to get there, my female owner picked up three insightful quotes.

i) The best thing you can do for anyone is to listen to him
My female owner likes this phrase coz it reminds her of the human-to-human connection that everyone needs and that at the end of the day, it’s really not about how much she knows about treating disorders that matters, but how much she is able to show care and empathy to her clients (before treating them).

ii) You are not a student, you are a professional psychologist in training
This helped to put things into perspective, as my female owner is currently in her lamentive (is there such a word?) stage where she whines about how tough her course is and how little time she has to enjoy overseas student life. That’s it. She’s not a student waiting to graduate. She’s a professional, training to enhance her current skills.

iii) Your time is worth money
She finally realised why professionals in her field can command up to $200/hr for just merely “listening and talking”. The amount of training and resources put in to churn out psychologists is intensive (so many people are needed to train one person). And psychologists do lots of behind-the-therapy preparation in order to formulate cases and treat clients. (Actually, this quote was spoken in the context of her class having to charge their clients for the therapy sessions even though they are just interns. So the teacher was trying to highlight the amount of preparation/supervision that would go into each case and hence, the class should not feel bad about charging fees.)