Psychology or Counselling?

So, today it's my turn to share with you some thoughts.

As an almost qualified psychologist I have been pleasantly surprised over the last two weeks to hear 2 Christians comment about the value of m career. Why pleasantly surprised you ask? Well, as a Christian and a Psychologist I often hear people make comments about how my career choice is not as respectable as Christian Counselling. Now, don't get me wrong, Counselling is an important field and not all Counsellors are bad just as not all Psychologists are good. And, as a Christian, I think Christians in any field of work is fantastic, we need to get out there are show God to the people we work with. However, back to what I was actually talking about, I often find that Christian Counsellors do not fully understand what I, as a psychologist, do.

So you ask, what does a psychologist do, well, many things really. First we must understand that there is not only 1 type of Psychologist, there are actually about 8 broad categories that we classify ourselves under; Clinical (the one everyone seems to think of), Counselling, Sport, Health, Forensic, Occupational/Organisational, Neuropsychology and Development and Educational. I am an Educational Psychologist. To explain what all psychologists do would be huge but basically we counsel, some of us will work in the area of mental illness and to some degree diagnose, some of us work with development disorders or intellectual disabilities, we also run groups and programs as preventative measures and so much more. So as an Educational Psychologist I work across a broad range of activities within a educational settings such as school and universities as well as early intervention settings with preschoolers. So, I do what a counsellor does and more.

So you still ask, why was I pleasantly surprised that Christian's responded positively to my career? Well, all through my study I have heard people suggest that what I do is not Godly because we study evolution and we studied some really anti-God philosophers. Well, I think that as Christians we should get off our high horses and mix with the plebs and critically think about these issues. I bet Jesus would have been at the secular uni's loving philosophy where he would have out debated anyone and people would have really thought about what he said, who knows some might have been converted. I have learnt to critically analyse what I am taught and I tell you what some of my psychology lectures have shown me, God is amazing, he has made us incredibly amazing, did you know the brain can compensate for injury if it occurs young enough? The brain can re-wire and use a different section of the brain to ensure the vital things such as language and motor control are maintained, it's called neural plasticity and it is cool.

So that's my rant, it is time that we all got off our high horses, learnt what each other do and start to pull together rather than apart. Maybe one day I'll find more Christians acknowledging the value of what I do and maybe even the high level of education and training I have. Let's start a discussion to get to understand each other.