What do people ask you when they learn that you are a clinical psychologist?

First, I tell them, you have to be affected in order to be effective. If you are not, the patient can feel that you don’t understand or are not too interested. So I have to be affected. As to putting their problems into the proper so they don’t affect me too much, I tell them that it’s a discipline to concentrate intensely on their problems alone for a full 50-minute hour, and then let them go. When you think about your patients’ problems outside of the session, that means you are working it out in your head to understand it better for the subsequent session, or you like thinking about this particular patient. That’s called countertransference. In either case, I put it in the proper place by doing “clinical talk” with my wife, a psychiatrist, very briefly – not more than 5 minutes, separate from all the other things husbands and wives talk about.

Colleagues who are not married to someone in the profession also need occasional “clinic-ing” with other colleagues. This is to process counter-transference issues, make sure you see the big picture, and that your interpretation isn’t incomplete or narrow. So no, I don’t think about my patients after the session. Except when I feel I need to discuss with my wife, which I am fortunate enough to be able to do so, except if she also knows the patient personally. I take the disciplined effort of not thinking of them in between sessions, but the minute they have to call me on the phone, I am connected immediately. I just need to hear their name and voice, and their entire history and issues are already in recall, more often than not. Besides, I see to it that all my patients have direct access to me thru my cell phone. That’s 24/7 presence, ready to be engaged personally.

The main challenge is to keep myself mentally and emotionally clean, light, and nimble so that there will always be a safe, quiet nest for anyone who needs it most. Avoid any spiritual dirt.