Hello everybody! My name is Caroline, I’m 26, and I am a psychologist based in Amsterdam.
I was invited here by @thisisbenbrick who recently told me about Steemit and how it might be a good place to post my stories from working with people of all ages with differerent physchological problems.
I was born in Amsterdam, and grew up in a small town nearby. My parents moved to France five years ago, to trade normal suburban life for a wooded hill along the Dordogne river. I’ve travelled and lived in Sydney and London, but now I’m back in Amsterdam.
There’s lots I want to talk about - the issue of experience for example: I don’t mean the problem of gaining enough experience to get a good job in the field of psychology - don’t even get me started on that - I am talking about mental health professionals having experience with mental illness of their own. You might say this is a good thing:
‘You have to have experienced mental illness in order to help others with their mental illness.’
It means you know what it’s like to have certain problems, and can therefore better understand others who are currently struggling. But is it necessary to completely understand someone to help them? Can I help people that I don’t understand? What does it even mean to ‘understand someone’?
I’d love to hear from others - I hope there might be some interest in my thoughts and experiences for future posts and we can share ideas. My next post I’m planning to publish here is about how mental preparation is a trap so please follow me so you’ll find it.
Thanks for reading!