If it hypocritical for a loner to want to be a psychologist?

Question

I'm a loner and a psychology student with aspirations to be a counseling psychologist. I've got a near perfect GPA in my major. I'm curious about people and how I can help them. People tell me I'm insightful and a good listener. I just don't need to be around people as much as most, and I enjoy my solitude. A few people have said its hypocritical for a loner like me to want to be a psychologist. That I'm not involved enough with other people to truly understand them. What would you say?

Answer 1

I will tell ya what.... if you think that a loner type of a person, someone semi non-social can't help people or become a psychologist, you are wrong...

I am in a helping profession, and it is the easiest thing (not really, but you know what I mean) to help others (not by telling them what to do but by gently guiding them to go in their own healthy direction in life) when you can't do a friggin thing to help yourself.

Now, of course, this does contribute greatly to compassion fatigue and other various problems and may and quite frankly, would probably increase your own personal problems, be it being a loner, depression, drug addict, cheater, lying, stealing, living pay check to pay check, etc... whatever....

There are soooo many people in helping professions with problems of their own. They have personal problems, they are HUMAN... any helping profession person who says they don't have personal problems of their own are liars! I don't think there isn't at least 95% of all counselors in drug and alcohol rehab centers that haven't been an addict in some way in their life... hopefully they are fully recovered when they start to help. That is especially a hard job to do if you aren't in strong recovery.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing for you to remember is that by you HAVING ANY kind of personal "problems" of your own, even ones you haven't dealt with, makes you a MUCH better helping professional. And when you have the problems, and you have successfully dealt with them, which you will do along the process of study of psychology and college and life in general.... you will be able to help others with problems similar to your own, or at least be able to offer one suggestion for solving a similar problem.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I don't think it's hypocritical, and you might do very well as a counseling psychologist in part because you can be emotionally detached and therefore more objective in your work.

You probably have a much better understanding of what you can and are able to do and what is required of a clinical psychologist than most of the people who are telling you your are being hypocritical. I would simply smile politely and tell them "that's interesting," and then press on.

If you don't like the work later on you can certainly use the education for something else.

By the way, I was a loner in school and still am to some extent, but I like people and relate very well to them now. I don't think being a loner is in any way a terminal disease and you seem to have all of the tools you need to succeed and still be a loner.

Answer 3

I think that you should do what you want to, and don't listen to those morons. Just because you would rather not be around people all the time doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't help them, it just means that it might be a little harder to use yourself as an example when they have questions about being around people or maybe not even. That makes me kind of mad to hear that because I am pretty much a loner and have decided that I think I might want to go into the field of psychology or sociology. I think that the ones that say that are jealous because you know exactly what you are going to do, and meanwhile they might not. I don't know just keep with it and who cares what others say as long as you want to then you can.

Answer 4

I go to a psychologist and I say they are wrong. That would make it easy to keep work at work and home at home which is truly hard for most people and causes job burn out more quickly. I would suggest going for psychiatrists because if you tire of people you prescribe meds and let your counselors deal with the people after you have a strong practice going only seeing the new patients or the severe... Good luck with your future.

Answer 5

Here's a fragment from an earlier edition of former psychoanalyst Alice Miller's famous book, The Drama of the Gifted Child. (Her later edition, which unfortunately I don't have, reflects her departure from old-timey psychoanalysis, and is easier reading, with less high-falutin' jargon.)

"So far, I have stayed in the realm of more or less well-known facts. The following thoughts are derived more from observations made in the course of analyses I have conducted or supervised and also from interviews with candidates for the psychoanalytic profession. In my work with all these people, I found that every one of them has a childhood history that seems significant to me.

* There was a mother who at the core was emotionally insecure, and who depended for her narcissistic equilibrium on the child behaving, or acting, in a particular way. This mother was able to hide her insecurity from the child and from everyone else behind a hard, authoritarian, and even totalitarian facade.

* This child had an amazing ability to perceive and respond intuitively, that is, unconsciously, to this need of the mother, or of both parents, for him to take on the role that had unconsciously been assigned to him.

* This role secured "love" for the child -- that is, his parents' narcissistic cathexis. He could sense that he was needed and this, he felt, guaranteed him a measure of existential security.

This ability is then extended and perfected. Later, these children not only become mothers (confidants, comforters, advisers, supporters) of their own mothers, but also take over the responsibility for their siblings and eventually develop a special sensitivity to unconscious signals manifesting the needs of others. No wonder that they often choose the psychoanalytic profession later on. Who else, without this previous history, would muster sufficient interest to spend the whole day trying to discover what is happening in the other person's unconscious? But the development and perfecting of this differentiated sensorium -- which once assisted the child in surviving and now enables the adult to pursue his strange profession -- also contains the roots of his narcissistic disturbance."

Simply put, Miller believes that it's the child's adaptive dysfunction that lets him evolve into a sensitive therapist!

Answer 6

All sorts of people get to be psychologists or any other type of mental health professional. An individual therapist only has to interact with one patient at a time. Of course, it would be highly problematic for such a person to go thru a full course of studies and training in mental health field where it's expected they'll have to interact with groups of people: colleagues, teachers, students, strangers, etc. Some shy people who are able to do things in spite of that limitation can potentially get to be good psychologists if that's their only initial limitation and they are able to at least partially overcome it as training goes by. If it's truly a matter of choice then you should be able to choose to accept that sometimes you'd have to interact with groups. You should see the "quirks" that exist among mental health professionals!

Answer 7

It is not hypocritical. Being a counselor is 80% listening. As long as you have an interest in it and want to help people what is wrong with being a "loner?"

Answer 8

Since when are psychologists perfect people, who have no personality flaws or personal problems?

Of course you can go into counseling....... go for your dreams.

Answer 9

You need to like people and be a "people person" to be a good psychologist. You need to play well with others or your patients will sense that you are purely analytical and they will not tell you what they need to know for you to help them.

Answer 10

no hearing other peoples problems might help him find the answer to his alone