This is to all my fellow psychology majors, graduates, and future students. What do you believe your role in the industry is?
To all my fellow mental health consumers, what do you believe your role is?
These are the two simple questions I have. I’ll share mine, and I ask for you to share yours in the comments below!
I am both a major and a mental health consumer, but both roles have shifted dramatically. I thought my role as a worker was to help people. I thought my role as a mental health consumer didn’t exist; I knew I struggled with anxiety, but I believed it was just another hurdle to get over, and I’d gotten over many hurdles before.
I learned my role in the industry as a worker wasn’t to help people, and that people are mostly capable of helping themselves. My role was one of support and guidance so that they may discover what they are capable of. My role has also shifted recently in this aspect. My schooling has shifted from the goal of counseling psychology to the goal of research and clinical education. I know I want to be one to bring science and empirical data to the forefront of the industry. All this glorious information is sitting there wasted because clinicians don’t take the time to read it, and because the system is built in such a way that paying for training and education is ridiculously expensive for clinicians. Research is becoming more biased and doctored and that’s obviously a problem too. I want peer support integrated. I want evidence-based treatment properly understood.
My role in the industry as a consumer has changed as well. It’s bounced back and forth between dependent and utterly independent. It’s bounced between needing professionals and shunning professionals. It’s bounced between feeling hopeless and feeling as if I’m finally healing. I also have learned that my role includes reaching out to others, accepting their help, while also letting others reach out to me.
I look forward to reading your thoughts below.
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The Philosophical Psychotic 
My role as a social worker in the mental health field is to listen and not judge. My role as a consumer is to understand i can’t be cured but i can make better choices to help in recovery.
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Thanks for sharing! I agree, it’s super important to be able to make choices that well promote our wellness instead of ones that don’t benefit us much.
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Hello I guess my role as someone with schizophrenia is to learn how to help myself. Medication can only do so much and even then it’s my responsibility to take them every day and to report my symptoms to my doctors so that they can make the adjustments that together we deem fit. I love that my current doctor involves me in those decisions.
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Hi! Thanks for commenting. I appreciate that you’re active in also helping yourself. Sometimes people lose that motivation in all the pain. I’m happy that your doctor works WITH you instead of against you! It sounds like they understand that you’re having the experiences and trust that you have some insight into what will work for you and what you’re comfortable with. Wishing you well!
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