The Main functions of the psychologist Are analyzing problems, assessing behavior, listening, explaining, reporting, providing resources and strategies, motivating for change, providing guidelines and accompanying change.
Although the image of the psychoanalyst who lies on a couch and asks you about childhood and sexual desires no longer prevails today, the fact of attending a psychological consultation continues to create some confusion.
What does a psychologist do?
Sitting in front of a therapist who will start asking you about personal issues and who you will have to explain all your problems is a situation that, a priori, can cause feelings of insecurity or discomfort.
However, many of the beliefs about the functions of a psychologist are not entirely true and can lead to misguided associations, such as that only people who are crazy go to the psychologist or that therapists are individuals who are responsible for solving problems .
It is true that Not all psychotherapists work in the same way , Interpret treatments equally or perform the same actions during their therapies.
However, it is also true that all therapists have the same goal, to get patients to improve their state of mental health and acquire greater skills to function properly in their respective lives.
Thus, the main job of a psychologist is to evaluate and analyze the patient's situations to find interventions and strategies that may be beneficial to improve their psychological functioning.
The treatments and the techniques of intervention can be very diverse but they all lie in the same idea: to understand a certain problem and to find actions that allow to solve it.
Psychologists, then, are not magical people capable of reading your thoughts or who can know what you are thinking. Neither do treatments that last for many years and talk about falling in love with children and parents.
In fact, a therapist can work with any type of person, whether this is a mental illness or not, and regardless of the problems they present. In addition, it is important to keep in mind that psychologists do not solve problems or fix the lives of their patients.
Any change that an individual can make through psychotherapy will achieve it himself. The therapist will be limited to To guide you in the course of this change And train you with all kinds of tools that will enable you to deal with your different problems.
Given all this, we can define the figure of the psychologist as a professional expert in human behavior that applies different therapeutic methods to help people deal with their problems and acquire a healthy psychological state.
10 main functions of psychologists
To see more clearly then we will comment on the 10 main functions performed by any psychologist.
1- Analyzes the problems
The first thing that any psychotherapist does is to analyze the problems that affect the life of the person.
Most individuals come to the consultation for a specific reason and to solve a specific problem. The problems are understood from a multidisciplinary point of view, that is, they can deal with relational, social, personal or labor aspects.
In this way, a patient can go both for To have depressive symptoms Or anxious, for Present a stressful job situation Which can not be catered for or have different relational problems with your partner, family or friends.
In fact, the most common is that people present different problems together, so a particularly stressful work situation can be accompanied by symptoms of anxiety and discomfort, and problems in the family.
Whatever the main reason for the psychological consultation, the first step that any therapist makes is based on analyzing, evaluating and understanding the problem in question.
A psychologist can not perform his work if previously the problems have not been well delimited and well understood, just as a person can not solve their problems without first analyzing and interpreting them.
Thus, the psychologist is placed in the patient's skin and begins to work together with him to properly analyze what the issues to be treated during the sessions.
2- Evaluate the behavior
The main feature that characterizes a psychologist is that he is an expert in human behavior and behavior. Thus, the main key for therapists to help their patients lies in assessing and identifying their main patterns of behavior.
In assessing the behavior of the individual, the psychologist acquires more information about the"why"of their problems and can begin to clarify which interventions may be useful.
Psychology is based on studying aspects such as thinking, behavior, emotions or the actitudes Of human beings.
People have a number of characteristics in these components and we accept them automatically without paying much attention to their qualities and the possibility of modifying them.
When the psychologist is consulted, the psychologist conducts a wide evaluation of these aspects, which is why therapists often ask multiple questions or administer questionnaires and tests.
The information collected will allow to define the main points in which to work with the patient and the modifications that may be relevant to achieve improvements in their psychological state.
3- Detects and accepts the way of being
Another central aspect of the work of psychologists is to detect the personality And the way of being of patients. This fact may be invasive or uncomfortable seen from the outside, but rarely is it for individuals who come to the psychologist.
The therapist makes it very clear from the beginning of the sessions that to help have to know. Knowledge about human behavior and functioning is useless if it is not applied in a particular case.
Thus, if the psychologist does not know specifically what are the main characteristics of his patient, it can hardly help him at all.
For this reason, therapists often administer personality tests and ask questions about the past life, relationships, and experiences the patient has experienced.
4- Listen empathically
To achieve all of the above, psychologists listen to their patients Empathic form .
This means that they show empathy for each story that the patient expresses about their personal problems or experiences.
Put another way, the therapist tries to put himself in the patient's place when he explains his different problems and experiences.
And he does not just try to put himself in his place by what he says, but taking into account all the knowledge he already has about personality and the way he is the patient.
Thus, although a therapist may have ideas or thoughts contrary to those expressed by the individual, he can put himself in his place by attending to the person who lives things as he lives them.
The psychologist, therefore, is able to understand and experience the things that the patient lives, his thoughts, ideas, emotions and acts that he performs, so he ends up understanding in the most detailed way possible the needs that each person presents.
5- Explain the things you see
Faced with the idea that psychologists possess magical abilities, they can know what the other person thinks or read the mind, the reality of the therapist's functions are totally opposite.
The psychologist does not evaluate, examine or ask anything by simple curiosity or by wanting to know more about the patient without any motivation.
In fact, it is necessary to take into account that during the sessions the therapists are working so all that is evaluated has a specific reason: to help the patient.
In addition, once the therapist has enough information to dare to do chapters and diagnoses about the problems and psychological functioning of the patient, he explains and explains in detail.
This fact makes the ideas of insecurity or mistrust disappear completely, since the patient lives first hand how all the actions carried out by the therapist are aimed at finding solutions and providing help.
In addition, the explanations provided by the psychologist can be very useful for the patient to begin to understand the things that are happening to him.
Popularly it is maintained that no one can know you better than yourself, and this statement can be considered, generally, as true.
However, in difficult times people may have trouble understanding the why of many things, why am I so anxious? Why can not I rejoice for nothing?
In these situations, psychologists, through an objective vision and supported by the advances of behavioral science, can provide extra information that allows people to better understand what happens to them and what can be done to modify the problematic situation.
6- Informs about psychological aspects
Another important function that the psychologists perform is to provide information on psychological aspects and, in some cases, About psychopathology .
When a person suffers from mental illness, he often does not have all the knowledge necessary to understand optimally what is happening to him, why he happens and what actions can be taken to intervene.
For these reasons, practically all sessions of psychotherapy begin with an educational phase, in which the therapist explains in detail the characteristics of the alteration that is suffering.
Contrary to the previous point, in this case the explanation is made generally, so that the patient becomes more aware of how the psychological components work and develop a more approximate vision about the problem that will help him to understand the later interventions.
7- Provides resources and strategies
The objective of the six previous points is to collect information, acquire knowledge, establish a climate of trust and prepare the patient with the objective of finding the resources and strategies that will allow the psychological recovery or the Improvement of mental well-being .
Thus, once the therapist understands the functioning of the patient, he begins to inquire what interventions will work well for him.
The treatments are many and varied, and the therapist is not sure that a specific intervention will work.
Psychologists are not magicians who know what works in each case, but they do have knowledge about human behavior that allows them to approach the most beneficial strategies.
8- Motivation for change
The psychologist provides strategies and resources that will be useful for the patient, but the change will not be made by the therapist, but will be performed by the patient.
In this way, as the strategies chosen by the psychologist are put into practice, they will constantly motivate the patient to Meet the objectives .
The therapist draws up a plan for recovery, but requires the patient to follow him or her to recover.
9- Provide guidelines
In parallel, the psychologist provides guidelines to the patient to help him maintain and continue the process of change.
Guidelines provided by a therapist are not advice. That is, the psychologist does not advise since the mere fact of counseling is a subjective act.
In this way, psychologists send guidelines backed by science but never decide for the patient.
They can guide you to a path but not through advice, but through techniques that allow the patient to perform a good analysis of situations and decide as accurately as possible.
10- Accompany during the change
Finally, the therapist ends up becoming the figure who has devised a plan for change in which the patient has believed and carried it out.
Along the way, the patient knows that he will not be alone, since the psychologist accompanies him at all times and the guide in the moments that most need it.
References
- Buela-Casal, G. and Sierra, J.C. (2001). Manual of evaluation and psychological treatments. Madrid: New Library.
- Haynes, SN, Godoy, A and Gavino, A (2011). How to choose the best psychological treatment. Madrid: Pyramid.
- Labrador, FJ (2011). Difficult situations in therapy. Madrid: Pyramid.
- Meichenbaum D and Turk DC. (1991). How to facilitate follow-up in therapeutic treatments. Bilbao: DDB.
- Miller, WR. And Rollnick, S (1999). The motivational interview. Prepare for change in addictive behavior. Barcelona: Paidós.
- Pérez Álvarez, M., Fernández Hermida, J.R., Fernández Rodríguez, C. and Amigó Vazquez, I. (2003). Guide to effective psychological treatments. Vol I, II and III. Madrid: Pyramid.