People often wonder, are psychologists analyzing me when I meet them? This and other questions about psychologists (for example, Are psychologists crazy? Can I trust a psychologist?) are explored in this video. Most often psychologists have the interest and skills to support people and not to cause harm.
Welcome back, I’m Dr. Matt B and these are your Emotional Minutes. Today we are talking about Therapist myths. There are several things that people will think about psychologists or assume about psychologists. A big one is if we are analyzing you.
It’s funny, when I go out I hear these myths all the time. Then, when I say I am a psychologist, I get a lot of questions. It’s kind of interesting. Sometimes people will start to talk me up and get really interested. But other times there’s this effect where it can be a conversation stopper, like people don’t really know what to say.
First Therapist Myth: Are We Analyzing You
Oftentimes a very common question is “are you analyzing me right now?”. In a previous episode, I said, if you meet a psychologist, usually we’re not analyzing you. One of the main reasons for that is we don’t want to be at work when we’re not at work. We usually save that for the patients or the clients that we see.
Second Therapist Myth: Are Psychologists Crazy
Another myth is that psychologists are crazy or become psychologists to figure out something about themselves or try to heal their emotional scars. Sometimes this may actually happen. But usually, it’s people who have an interest in helping others or learning about psychological processes and the human condition.
So, I can tell you that we’re probably just as crazy as everybody else. Every group has a certain number of people who do experience emotional difficulties. These groups also have a certain number of people who are very emotionally functional. But mostly, there are a lot of people in between who have some difficulties but cope with them pretty well.
Third Myth: Can You Trust Us
The last myth I’d like to talk about is that psychologists are really untrustworthy. I’ve heard thoughts that psychologists screw people over or want to get things out of people. This has always been an interesting myth to me because, a lot of times, people who go into psychology do it because they genuinely want to help people.
Psychologists train to understand humans and their emotional difficulties. They study to learn how to best support people through those difficulties. As they train, a lot of psychologists gain the skills to be very supportive and understanding. We are not all trying to analyze you and we’d like to support people when we can.
