Tag Archives: Psychology

APAGS Convention Tracks – Professional Development

APA 2016 bannerThis year, the APAGS Convention Committee has put graduate student programming at Convention into tracks: Diversity, Professional Development, Science, and Internship. We’ve done so with an eye for how certain programs and talks might go together, so that students can set their goals for convention (e.g., get the skinny on how to research efficiently) and feel assured that they hit all the talks.

My self-care activity throughout grad school has been hiking. For that reason, my mind is making connections between our APAGS tracks and hiking routes. Imagine each track as a particular hiking path. Sometimes they intersect with other paths, and sometimes you can hop between paths based on your needs. In fact, the hiking analogy can be extended further! Hydrate during convention, pack good footwear (lots of walking), and tie up your food at night so that grizzly bears hungry grad students don’t get into it.

First track: Professional Development!

Length: The longest track, this is the main path that connects all the other tracks together                                                                                                         Preparation: make a mentorship goal, what to wear

  1. Connecting with our Queerness: Being an LGBTQ(A) Psychologist (also in Diversity)
  2. Two P’s in a Pod: Balancing Parenthood and Training (also in Diversity)
  3. Stats Phobia: Learn How to Learn Stats (and Work Past Beginner’s Anxiety)
  4. International Roundtable (also in Diversity)
  5. Shadow of Debt: Student Debt in Psychological Training
  6. Networking with a Purpose: Making a Plan, Building Relationships, and Maintaining Connections (also in Science)
  7. Alternative Career Paths with a Doctorate in Psychology (also in Science)
  8. Exploring Intersectionalities in Advisor/Advisee Relationships (also in Diversity)
  9. Individual Development Plans for Students and Postdocs (also in Science)
  10. Unlocking Your Leadership Potential: Keys to Future Success as a Leader in Psychology, by the APAGS Leadership Institute

Happy trails!

Editor’s Note: Each day this week we will highlight a different APAGS Program Track. Find out which track is right for you! Also, check out the full schedule of APAGS programming.

How Long Is The Path To Success?

I sat in the small waiting room of a staffing agency waiting for my interviewer to arrive. She was ten minutes late, and I hoped she knew that I’d been on time because I’d busted my butt and yelled at several yellow traffic lights in my attempt to be early.

I didn’t want the jobs they could offer me. I’d strictly adhered to the idea of not taking jobs outside my field. I didn’t want to be one of those psychology majors who gets seduced by an accounting firm and ends up staying for life. I loved my field, and did not entertain the thought of selling out. However, two months after graduating with my B.A., I had no job prospects.

I was bored, broke, and felt like a failure. Two kids I’d graduated high school with had been drafted to major league baseball teams. A friend of mine lived in Manhattan photographing famous models, another had topped the singer/songwriter charts on iTunes. I sat in the waiting room of a staffing agency hoping to impress with my typing speed.

My interviewer finally came out- a tiny, tanned woman with a super wide smile. She led me to a cubicle labeled “Wildwood,” between cubicles “Belmar” and “Point Pleasant.” Cute.

“Seventy-two words per minute, that’s impressive. Recent grad, creative writing minor…a psych major, huh? How’d you get into that?”

Oh. I suppose I should’ve expected to be asked why I chose my major in a job interview, but in this open office, it was too uncomfortable to give her the real reason. I stumbled for a few seconds and ended up with:

I love learning about people, so I thought I’d make money doing it.”

She smiled and wrote something on my resume- I assumed she liked that I enjoyed people. But I felt stupid for giving such a perfunctory answer.

The thing, I realized, is that “what got you into psychology” opens a can of worms that “what got you into finance” or business, or fashion, rarely touches. Of course, there are highly personal reasons to enter any field, but with psychology, highly personal is the norm.

My roommate chose psychology because much of her family struggles with addiction and she wants to help others get sober. Someone else I know comes from a military family, so she’s invested in the treatment of PTSD. I chose psychology to help couples solve their marital problems so fewer children are stunted by the weight they bear from their parents.

When you ask someone “how’d you get into psychology,” you’re often asking them about traumas they’ve overcome, mental illnesses they may face. It feels so personal because it is personal. People who love psychology are passionate, big-hearted. We are special for being that way, and should not feel less-than because we’re not making millions after undergrad.

At the end of my interview, I filled out a W-4 and consented to being called with opportunities, and I felt okay about it. Armed with my new realization, I felt like I was making necessary sacrifices for my future. Conceding to a job outside the field only dooms you to losing sight of your dreams if you let it. On the contrary, this can be a testament to your dedication.

So, the fact that your singing is abysmal, or that you’re not the newest Yankee, doesn’t mean you’re not on the path to success. It might take a little longer for those of us who don’t choose a path where success can be so instant, but it’ll be that much sweeter when we arrive.

Editor’s Note: Nicole is a first-year graduate student in Seton Hall University’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program. She is a member of Psi Chi and a new APA member. Currently she works at Abercrombie and Fitch, folding clothes and making customers happy, but hopes to eventually open her own practice for couples and families.

A Note from your Chair: Orlando Strong

FloridaFriends and colleagues,

I sit with tears in my eyes as I write this. Just over 24 hours after hearing the news of the horrific tragedy in Orlando, I am still in shock, not sure what to say, and unsure of where I can feel safe in our increasingly violent, unpredictable world.

As a woman, an American, a psychologist, and as a lesbian, my heart is completely broken.To the other members of our LGBTQ community I send you love. Let us be strong, yet honest. Let us find joy in the beauty that does live all around us, yet may we always remember. Let us cry and laugh. Let us continue to embrace our differences, and lean into our enemies with love.

To our Muslim brothers and sisters. I am equally sickened by the hate directed toward you following this, and every crime used to vilify you as a people. It is wrong and unfair. You are beautiful, peaceful, and welcome. I send you love and I stand with you.

To our allies. Thank you.

To our psychology community as a whole. Let us stand up. Let us speak out. Let us serve. Let us help. I am reminded of a quote by Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” As psychologists we have much to offer this world in terms of healing, social change, and leading by example. Let us be this change together, using each of our unique strengths and psychological knowledge to influence the much needed change in our country and in our world.

To being the change and leading with love,

Christine
APAGS Chair

A few resources:

From CNN: How to help Orlando shooting victims

From APA: Managing Your Distress in the Aftermath of a Shooting

Recovering Emotionally from a Disaster

 

Ninth Annual Psychology Day at the United Nations: From Vulnerability to Resilience: Using Psychology to Address the Global Migration Crisis

From the deserts of Syria to the mountains of Central America to the coast of Thailand, the United Nations High Commission estimates that there are more refuges and internally displaced people today than at any time since World War II.  Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has described this not as a crisis of migration, but as a crisis of solidarity.  On April 29th, hundreds of psychologists, crisis workers and planners from academia, nongovernmental organizations, and transnational organizations from around the globe gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to discuss psychology’s contribution to the migration crisis.

Social justice and human rights were at the heart of this meeting, the latest in an annual series of U.N. Psychology Days.  This series has served to highlight the relevance of our field to the world’s most pressing problems, a relevance that was highlighted in opening and closing speeches by the co-hosts, the Ambassadors to the U.N. from El Salvador and Palau, two nations facing very different types of migration-related crises.  In a series of panels in between these speakers, the presenters focused on increasing attention to, and awareness of, the impact of forced migration on youth and children, and the importance of cultural context in understanding and ameliorating the impact of the migration crisis.

United Nations Event

  • The first panel focused on the role of cultural integration in the process of resettlement. Refugees and migrants find themselves in new and often very different cultures from the ones they left, and obstacles to integration may deprive them of opportunities to succeed – while depriving the welcoming nations from the opportunity to gain advantage from the skills, knowledge, and diversity of immigrants.  The panelists pointed to various models and approaches for the cultural integration of migrants, ranging from settlement houses to various modes of psychological crisis integration that can help ease the process of cultural integration.
  • The experiences, and unique challenges for migrant children and youth were the focus of the second panel, which highlighted the importance of supporting the needs, rights and well-being of minors who have rarely made a choice, themselves, to enter the process of migration. A resilience-focused approach was described by the panel as being paramount to understanding the impact of the process on this survivor population.  Other presenters focused on the impacts to mental health of the refugee journey, and highlighted the lack of mental health services available to minors, the obstacles to their accessing the services that do exist, and the role of language, culture, separation, and resilience in these young survivors.

Following the presentations, participants gathered for a less formal reception, where panelists, aid workers, psychologists – and students – could discuss the issues of the day, and form new relationships based on common interest and a dedication to advancing the role of psychology and mental health in addressing one of the world’s most pressing problems.

As a student, and a member of APAGS, UN Psychology Day was an uplifting experience: though the issues we discussed were challenging, seeing the body that represents the world’s nations put psychology at the heart of its discussion of those issues was inspiring, as was the opportunity to meet so many people who are working passionately to address and resolve the migration crisis.  Next year, the UN will host its tenth annual psychology day – I hope to see you there!

Samira PaulSamira Paul is completing her second year as a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the American School of Professional Psychology at Argosy, Washington DC.  She is the Diversity Chair for the District of Columbia’s Psychological Association, and the Advocacy Chair for the Maryland Psychological Association Graduate Students.

State Leadership Conference–Connecting With a Common Goal

U.S. Capitol 1793-1863 Washington, DC, USA

U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC, USA

This past month, I experienced the thrill of “hitting the hill” and advocating for psychologists, graduate students, patients, and community members around the country amidst the hustle and bustle of our nation’s capitol. It was legislative advocacy day, the finale to end my time attending the American Psychological Association State Leadership Conference (SLC) in Washington DC. I had just spent the last four days engaging in training with leaders in diversity, early career issues, social reform, legislation reform, and much more as I participated in passionate conversations with psychologists and graduate students from throughout the nation who shared a single vision—advocacy.

As I stood with clinical psychologists from across Oregon, I felt a sense of power, ownership, and support as we walked to meet several local legislators who wanted to hear about the state of mental health in our nation. While speaking to representatives and their staff, it was an amazing—and nerve racking—experience to share the stories of my patients who are struggling to access quality mental health care. So many times as a student, I have found myself becoming frustrated and discouraged when I met with patients who were experiencing a mental health crisis but who were forced to wait for care in emergency departments, friend’s homes, or on the streets. When I was standing amidst other students and psychologists who cared about people who were suffering and who were advocating for them, it filled me with a sense of hope.

This sense of optimism stemmed from so many individual experiences I had with other people attending the State Leadership Conference. One specific experience took place the night I landed in Washington DC. I was meeting several APAGS Advocacy Coordinating Team members (all happened to be women) for the first time at a local restaurant for dinner. As we sat together learning each other’s stories, I was struck by the amazing work that each woman was doing in her community. Additionally, I found myself genuinely interested in not only the professional accomplishments of each individual at the table, but also in her personal reasons for getting involved in advocacy and leadership with APAGS. It was comforting and encouraging seeing the faces of women representing various regions from across the country who cared about the same issues that I did.

I am incredibly grateful for the experience I had at SLC this year—for the connection, the support, and the engagement. From meeting with lawmakers who were honestly interested in hearing about the mental health crisis in our country, to engaging with fellow graduate students who had the tenacity to take on national issues, I have been energized by these interactions. I hope to take this same energy with me as I continue graduate school and grow as a future clinician; I hope one day to come back to SLC as a psychologist who is involved in meaningful change.

With hope,
~Roseann

[Editor’s Note: Roseann Fish Getchell is a clinical psychology student at George Fox University and a Northwest Regional Advocacy Coordinator for APAGS-ACT.]