https://soundcloud.com/laure-quenault/podcast-anglais?si=18ae2ba141f249a58477efa03c009579
M-A: Good morning everybody !
L: Hello !
M-A: My name is Marie-Aëla
L: and my name is Laure.
M-A: Welcome to our podcast.
It’s a pleasure for us to be here and to record this conversation that will allow us to … get to know each other.
M-A: It’s actually quite funny because we don’t know each other at all yet! For the moment, the only thing we have in common is that we are both psychology students.
But there are certainly others!
M-A: So to get to know each other better, we both prepared a few questions and I suggest you start.
L: Could you introduce yourself in a few words ?
M-A: Yes, so..First, i’m sorry, i have a cold
L: oh, sorry for you…
M-A: My name is Marie-Aëla Gambaccini, I’m 21 and afterward I would like to work as an educational psychologist. Moreover, it will be essential for me to include the notion of cross-cultural psychology in my future practice in order to maintain the integrative aspect that this master offers me. I also enjoy learning from different trades and therefore my future job will allow me to work in collaboration with child welfare, Medical and Psychopedagogical Center, courts, teachers, etc. What about you ?
L: So my name is Laure, I’m 37, I’m almost twice your age ! And I am also a student in master of development in Nantes, but in the second year. At the start, I had a background in sociology which I finished with a master’s degree in conducting cultural projects. And after that, I worked for more than ten years in the cultural and artistic sector as a project manager and coordinator of a structure.
And after a skills assessment I turned to this profession of psychologist.
So I had a second question to ask you, why did you choose this master’s degree in development?
M-A: In all fairness, this is the only master I’ve been accepted into. I happen to have been in the charity since I was 12, so it wasn’t my grades that mattered but mostly the fact that this is a real calling for me. However, this master suits me perfectly because it is very general and integrative as I said earlier. I really like the parenting, emotional and conative measurement classes, as well as the social development and disability classes. The period of adolescence being a turning point with the phenomena of identity building correlated with bodily changes, I find it all the more interesting to be confronted with all these developmental inter-individual differences. Tell me more about you ! How many masters did you apply to ?
L: So this is the only master’s I had applied for because my initial idea was really to orient my professional project towards developmental psychology. And because I’m 37 with a family life and children, I couldn’t go everywhere in France. So I only applied for this master’s degree. But I liked it a lot because I had done my bachelor’s degree here and, I agree with you, I really liked the integrative approach too. And developmental psychology really answers for me this very broad vision … It borrows from cognitive psychology, from clinical psychology, and it’s a global vision of the individual, not just categorizing them in a psychopathological approach and categorial.
M-A: You took the words right out of my mouth…
L: So that’s really why I went for this master’s degree. And what about you ?
M-A: This is my 4th year in Nantes because I did my psychology bachelor here as well. At first, I loved the psychophysiology classes because I didn’t do much in high school and learning how the human body works from atoms to all organ systems really fascinated me. Then, I gradually turned to psychopathological aspects and finally I loved studying eating disorders, early addictions and child protection during the Childhood and Adolescence courses that I did last year. By the way, which subjects do you prefer?
M-A: I also chose the courses on childhood and adolescence during the bachelor’s degree and I particularly appreciated them. But I have to admit that I really prefer the master’s courses because you can see the practical end much more clearly. Parenthood, for example, interests me a lot, perhaps also because I am a mother. It is also a theme that we see in Mrs Capponni’s courses in Master 1 and Master 2. Have you ever had it?
M-A: Yes ! She teaches us parenthood lessons, it’s super interesting!
L: Personally, I think that in today’s society, the need for parenting support is great. Professional life takes up a lot of time and parents often find themselves overwhelmed, with the addition of numerous societal injunctions on how to be a good parent. And today, with the lockdown and teleworking becoming more widespread, this support for parenthood is essential. In short, in 5 years time, what I would like to do is to always have at the centre of my approach to offer a listening space to children and an adapted support. I don’t exclude continuing my training with CBT for example, systemics… To be continued! And you tell me where you see yourself in 5 years ?
M-A: Good question ! To be straight, I don’t see myself becoming a psychologist in 1 year and a half. I do not feel ready, either professionally or personally, I find myself too young and I prefer to work on myself upstream. I will especially take advantage of the opportunity to reflect on what I want.
I don’t really know if I want to do an internship or a civic service abroad, to get a second master’s degree in clinical psychology or maybe even both!
As I already said, I really want to acquire cultural competence. So, in 5 years, I would surely have done a University degree in interculturality.
So that you get a better understanding of what I’m talking about, I’m going to give you the definition written by the Office of Minority Health in the United States: it’s “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that come together in a system or system. organization, or between professionals and promote effective work in cross-cultural situations. ” It is a deconstructing of prejudices that can hinder understanding and communication. In fact, it is at the center of my concerns with my subject of thesis.
Well, what is your subject, you’re definitely in it right now, no ?
L: So my research is part of Ramona Sandnes’ thesis. She works on attachment representations of children born very prematurely. And I decided to work on the feeling of parental competence and the attachment representations of children. In fact, it concerns children born prematurely and aged 3 years at the time of the study. It’s a fascinating subject but because of COVID, there were a lot of difficulties in getting the experiments through. But the subject is exciting.
M-A: Hmm, what tools and methods do you use?
L: So initially it should really be a quantitative approach and it’s going to be a qualitative approach with case studies. And the tools we use are the PSI, which is the parental stress index for mothers.And for the children, it’s the stories to be completed, which allows us to obtain a security score and thus the attachment representations of the children. And you, can you tell me about your thesis topic?
M-A: Once again, my thesis fits perfectly with my professional project. Indeed, I am studying the effects of a French-language learning device called neurolinguistic approach (ANL) on migrant allophone adolescents educated in a specialized class. We study conative aspects such as self-concept, self-esteem and well-being in the second language but also cognitive aspects concerning phonology, spelling and semantic aspects.
L: Ok very well, and I had another burning question, about internships! But I see that time is running out and we won’t have time to talk about it…. Anyway, thanks to you it was very interesting and fun to meet in this context!I just wanted to finish by wishing a lot of courage to all the students of the master because this first year is very busy with very theoretical courses. But if you are here, it is not by chance, so good luck to you all and good luck to you
M-A: Thank you for these reassuring and kind words Laure, thank you for your time and for listening to us. I wish you a very good day and see you soon !