Last year, during the first year of my master’s degree, I did an internship in an ITEP (Therapeutic, Educative and Pedagogic Institute). In this post, I going to explain what I did during it, what I learn about myself and for my future career.
An ITEP takes care of children with behavioral difficulties. This internship was very enriching because all the children are different and had different behavioral difficulties, so we have to work differently with them. Indeed, we must adapt ourselves and our work methods to each child in a subjective way.
By doing my internship at this institution, I discovered a structure and a kind of disorder in the field. Indeed, I had only a little knowledge about the functioning of an ITEP and I study this kind of trouble in class, but I didn’t have already done an internship with it. It was very interesting to make links and senses between what I observed in the internship and the theoretical element I had.
During my internship, I could acquire many experiences because I observed and participated in activities a lot. For example, I could realize interview with children and the psychologist, participate in pedagogic activities, realize test execution or learn more about multidisciplinary work by observing team meetings. Moreover, most of the time I was independent, so this was very informative.
With this internship, I became aware of my skills and the difficulties on which I must work. Regarding my capacities, at the beginning of the internship, I was a little bit afraid to be in autonomy most of the time but I realized that I succeed at handling my time, my activities and my meetings. Moreover, I gain new knowledge about psychanalytic because the psychologist had a psychanalytic approach, so I learn new technics and ways of thinking in psychology. In addition, I gain confidence in myself and the capacities of a future psychologist, mainly thanks to the execution of a test, the writing of its report or my active participation during interviews.
Concerning my difficulties, one of the main ones is that I have a huge lack of legitimacy but also a fear of judgment, especially by adults more experimented than me. Moreover, during interviews, I noticed that I had difficulties positioning myself with the child. I had difficulties knowing which questions I could ask or if there were topics to avoid. I talked about this with my tutor, and she helped me to gain confidence during my interviews or activities.
To conclude, I appreciate this internship because I learned a lot of things that will help me when I will be practicing. This year, for my second year of my master’s degree, I found an internship in a new ITEP so I hope it will bring me as much as the first one. This one will be a little bit different because I will meet children but also teenagers. I’m excited to discover a new population and the technics of the psychologist.
Key terms : internship, children, psychologist, ITEP, behavioral disorders
Words I have learned :
- Legitimacy = légitimité