Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Psychology student

Heya!

I'm a third year undergrad psychology student, with an end goal of getting into clinical psychology. Ask me anything!

Do you ever find yourself using what you've learned in your writing and characters? I feel like you must have a very diverse perspective of consciousness and the various ways in which minds work and think, i'm curious as to how that allows you to build onto a novel/hypothetical situation, must make for some wonderful detail !

Pretty regularly, actually!
I do try to encorporate as much as I can into my writing- part of the learning process and all, but it in particular helps with creating convincing and compelling character backgrounds. I don't particularly flesh out my character backgrounds in their profiles, at least to begin with. But when it comes to actually writing out how past traumas, personality traits and personal affects are portrayed IC, it helps imo to have that idea of what is and isn't realistic and to understand the ways in which those aspects manifest in an actual person. Makes them more relateable and grounded, I think. 😁

Seeing your last answer, do you have any advice then on how to make a character more believable?o:

Also do you have a favorite thing within psychology? Maybe looking into a certain disorder or other topic?

I'm able to incorporate what I've learned from school through a deeper understanding and appreciation for the ways the human mind works- as is the point of studying psychology at university lol. It's more of a learned skill, so to speak, so I'm not really sure how to condense it down to one reply 😅 that said, if you're interested in learning the basics of psychology as implemented in characters, "cinema therapy" on YouTube do an amazing job of breaking down the psychological personalities and behaviours of popular movie characters in an incredibly easy to digest format. I can't recommend them enough!

As for my favourite thing within psychology, I think it's gotta be learning something that I find super fascinating- be it a statistic, concept or what have you. A lot of psychology is reiterating stuff that, at first glance, seems incredibly obvious. But then you've got these topics that come out of left field and blow your mind.

For example, I have a thing called aphantasia, which means that I have a complete absence of visual mental imagery. I can't close my eyes and see an image I'm thinking of. I didn't know that was a thing before I learned about it- I still think about things in the same way anyone else does, but my mind represents those thoughts conceptually as words and constructs known as "schema" instead of images, which is how i always thought everyone thought. On the flip side, I have hyperphantasic auditory imagery, thanks to being a musician, meaning that I can hear things in my mind with perfect clarity. Though I can't always fully control them, thanks to having adhd. But if I have a song stuck in my head, for example, I can hear that song perfectly as if I'm listening to it with headphones.

What brought you to the field to begin with?

Mostly a mix of my own mental health issues and a desire to help others who have/are going through the things I went through in my youth. I had actually attempted to study a few other fields, but I couldn't really connect with any of them, but at the back of my mind was always an interest in psychology, so I decided to stop ignoring it and take the plunge. And well, I love it aha

Psychology is a field in high demand nowadays, so its commendable that you've chosen to pursue it! My irl partner (in crime) is also majoring in psychology, and has similar motivations to you about it. One thing that they've mentioned is that, depending on the college someone goes to, they might hear a lot about one particular story or another throughout their time there. Usually these are notorious studies or individuals (Phineas Gage, for example). Have you had any such individuals or studies pop up time and time again during your studies?

It certainly is in high demand! The wait to see a psychologist in my local area is currently at about 3 months, which is nuts haha.

As for repetitive stories... yes. Constantly. Every time I think I've heard of Sigmund Freud for the last time, or have been told about how clinical research is conducted, I'm forced to slog through another text book that covers the same thing I've already read more times than I care to recall 😂 don't get me wrong, these stories are rarely the focus of the textbooks now that I'm in year three, but there's still the odd chapter dedicated to them here and there.

Good to see you around, VeraVe!

1. So, what about the mind fascinates you the most?

2. What do you find the most puzzling thing about the mind?

3. What advice would you give to someone who hasn't taken a psychology class but wants to play a character who is a 'therapist'?

What advice would you give to someone struggling with mental health?

Without knowing any specifics, a therapist should always be the first step. If you're suffering from any mental condition- depression, anxiety, ptsd, what have you, a licenced therapist is trained specifically to help you work through it. They're trained to ask the right questions to guide your through to a positive outcome.

Good to see you're still kickin' about too, Knight!

1. I think the thing that fascinates me the most is just how mind-boggilingly complicated it is. It's a morphous blob of muscle, made up of 100 billion neurons that fires 5-50 tiny little sparks of electricity every single second. And it was formed by pure chance over the course of millions of years. Now ain't that something.

2. I'm not too sure what I would consider the most puzzling thing about the brain. I guess I've got so much to learn still that I wouldn't even know where to start haha.

3. It depends on how relevant therapy is to your character. If you're just planning on making a therapist, but not actually writing them in therapy scenes, then there are really just a few skills, per se, that is integral to being a therapist that would likely come through in a therapist character. The first is perspective taking- being able to see others points of view is one of the most crucial parts of being a therapist, and so naturally that comes through in individuals who have been practising for a long time. Writing them as naturally understanding is a good start. Another would be a calm and collected individual. The ability to divert attention away from oneself is important, as the therapy js about the client, not the therapist. As such, it makes sense that a therapist character would do well under stress, and be able to remain calm in stressful situations.

That's just a couple off the top of my head, and if course not every therapist displays those types of personalities, but it's at least a start!

Sorry if I just didn't see this already answered -- do you have a particular area of specialty in mind within clinical psychology?

That's okay, it has not!
I'm not totally sure, to be honest. I'm thinking men's mental health, as that is an area that desperately needs attention, but there's so many interesting areas to choose from that I just can't decide haha

That makes complete sense to me!