PODCAST
Introduction ourselves + evolution of our vision of psychology from the first year of study to now and the evolution of our idea on our professional careers.
The script :
Q1 -Ines: Hello, excuse me, Are you Salma the Master 2 student I reached out?
Q1 -Salma : Yes, and you are Ines, right?
– Ines : Yes !
Q2 -Salma : Hello Ines, how are you in these difficult times?
Q2 – Ines : I’m fine thank you, I’m just annoyed by the sanitary crisis… As students, I think we are highly impacted. Fortunately, my internship tutor let me decide if I’d rather keep doing my internship in november or if I wanted to pause it. I chose to pause it for a month because I didn’t feel able to spend a whole month all alone, in my small flat, talking to no one and spending all my days in front of the computer for our online courses. And since the first of decembre, I came back to Nantes to continue my internship ! So I think I can say I am a lucky student in this situation. And you, how are you doing?
– Salma : I feel good, thank you. I’m happy to be back at the university and be able to have time to exchange with my classmates and teachers. This health crisis has shown us once again, how important social interactions are. Also, because of the pandemic, I was not able to integrate the palliative care service for my internship, because it is necessary to reduce contacts with patients, to preserve them from the Virus as well as possible. It is becoming difficult to concretize the projects we have imagined for our career or even to project ourselves in the months to come.
Q3 – Ines: I find it interesting that you talk about the projects you have imagined for your career, because lately I was meditating on the evolution of my vision on psychology in general but also on my vision of my professional career. And I was wondering if I was the only one who changed my ambitions for my professional career since the first year of my bachelor’s degree. What is it for you?
Q3 – Salma : My years of study in psychology have shown me that with the evolution of time and the knowledge we gain, our interests change and our curiosity is nourished by the discovery of the various fields of psychology.
When I joined the University of Nantes I had the project to apply for a master’s degree in neuropsychology and clinical neuroscience. I have always been passionate about psychology but also about biology, having obtained a scientific baccalaureate in life and earth sciences, I was interested in the functioning of the organs of the human body. But psychology remained the center of my interests. Thus, I aimed to combine the two of my passions by obtaining a Master’s degree in Neuropsychology. But that was before. As you can see, I chose another path, which was motivated by the various teachings of my university course and also the work in institutions.
And you, have you always wanted to join the Master in Clinical Psychology and Integrative Psychopathology?
– Ines: No, no! Not at first. Actually, before I began to study psychology, I thought that THE name we had to know and the reading we had to do were about Freud. He is called the father of psychology. So my vision of psychology was through this prism, through psychoanalysis.
After my first year, in Brest, I was sceptic about what some teacher taught us. They were talking about psychoanalysis as if this was the one and only true form of psychology (at least, this is how I understood it). So
Q4 – SALMA : Ok ! And what made you lean towards this master?
Q4 – Ines: I started to do some researchers on my own. I was looking for a larger vision of psychology, I did not like the way other theories were criticized in my former university. From my perspective, it was really important to be inclusive, because the same symptoms can be explained by many reasons, so other theories are essential to fully understand the patient we have in front of us and his problems.
Eventually, through my research, I found the Integrative Master of Nantes, so I came to the University of Nantes to finish my bachelor and to give me more chances to integrate the Master.
So today, I think it is very important to have as many tools as we can have to understand the patient as a whole. I also think that we have to be flexible. By that, I mean that we can receive two patients who look like they have the same issues, and finally, one will need a systemic approach while the other one will be more receptive with cognitive and behavior therapy.
I think what matters is to focus on what the patient wants ; does he want tools to learn to live better with his issues (CBT) or does he need introspections to understand the human being he became today.
What about you ?
– Salma : The diversity of approaches attracted me a lot to this master, I found it interesting to have a deep knowledge and a good training on the main approaches of psychology. We both know that depending on the problems and also the type of patient, you can’t use the same approach everywhere. And I was able to observe this during my Bachelor 2 internship in addictionology where we worked mainly with cognitive-behavioral therapy, while during my Bachelor 3 internship in psychiatry we worked exclusively with the analytical approach. Thus, it was obvious for me to choose a master’s degree that would deal with clinical psychology and psychopathology as a whole and not only from one point of view. And it was these experiences, combined with theoretical courses related to clinical psychology and my various volunteer works, that trained me to understand the suffering of people in their singularity and in respect of ethics and deontology, using various tools such as diagnosis, assessment, accompaniment, support, and also psychotherapeutic care.
Q5 -Ines: Could you tell me about your obligatory internship experience during your Master 1?
– Salma : I did my required internship of master 1 during 6 months at the therapeutic family foster care center for adults, where I participated in the co-construction of individualized care projects for psychotic patients or patients with personality disorders. With the aim of initiating a psychic restructuring in a clinical situation, close to the social and cultural reality, while allowing care in a containing environment. This in collaboration with a multidisciplinary clinical team composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, a sector nurse, a social worker and a medical-administrative assistant. This internship allowed me to discover the various stakeholders in patient care projects, such as day hospitals, medical-social service, establishments and work assistance services (ESAT), and curators who take care of patients’ finances since they are under tutelage.
Q5 – And you, Are you satisfied with the content of your Master 1 internship?
– Ines: I’m really glad I found this internship. It is in a Rehabilitation and Functional Center. So we receive patients with heart diseases, vascular diseases, and obesity issues. My tutor is great, she already gave me a lot of autonomy, which scared me at first but now I really appreciate it. And she really takes the time to communicate about psychology with me, she listens to me, my concerns and she shares her point of view. This is really empowering. My next challenge, in January, will be to set up a therapeutic education workshop for patients who went through an amputation.
Q6- Ines : Considering your personal and professional experiences, how do you imagine your job as a psychologist in the coming months?
– Salma : For this last year of the Master’s program, I wanted to discover a sector where I hadn’t yet practiced, and I was very interested in the palliative care service to train myself in the care of the seriously ill and to get closer to the suffering at the end of life while respecting the quality of life of patients. However, given the impossibility to carry out this internship due to the health conditions, I turned to the medical-psychological centers for children and adolescents, in order to train myself in the care, prevention, and therapeutic treatment of children and adolescents with cognitive, developmental, and relational difficulties. And why not continue to work after graduation in this type of institution in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team.
Q6- And you, tell me how do you imagine your job as a psychologist in the next year ?
– Inès: I would like to be a psychologist in an association that helps the women victims of domestic violence. Helping those women is something that really matters to me. And above all, I really hope that this sanitary crisis will be over because I really don’t want to do my clinical reviews through Zoom or Discord!
Thank you for sharing your experience with me, I’m glad we had this conversation. See you !
Salma Zreouil & Ines Millerot