My opportunity with the UNLV practice POWER and CHARGE UP program will greatly influence my career. My hope is to become a clinical psychologist that gets to perform psychological assessments on adults. I have been able to shadow the graduate student clinicians and see them as examples of what I want to do for graduates school. I am using this guidance to help me look for a phD program that will continue to give me this experience. As far as educational requirements, I think that having 300 level courses such as abnormal psychology helped me understand what was going on in the assessments. I would say abnormal psychology helped me understand diagnostic criteria for these assessments. Now that I have seen the first hand process and been able to connect with patients that my internship is helping, I am inspired to continue in this career. I see we are making a difference and relieving a lot of youth from their worries. It is clear to succeed in this career I would need training in a phD clinical psychology program. I would say having an understanding of the DSM-5 and therapy practices is essential training for this field. For incoming interns, I would say be patient when it comes to the shadowing process. There will be times where clients do not consent to having someone else in the room and that is okay. It took me a while to finally get to become HIPAA compliant and be in the top where everything is happening. Remember that this is a privilege and shadowing does require a lot of consent from the whole team.
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