5 things that I learned studying psychology for 6 years.
I have been studying psychology for around 6 years now. Just now I finished my master thesis and earned a master degree in management psychology and supervision and I have a bachelor degree in psychology. Those 6 years I have learned so much that I want to share 5 things I think are the best value learned in this study journey. In the end I want to share my opinions about psychology studies overall.
- You learn about emotions and ability to aware it.
I was interested in psychology before I applied to university. So I was a little bit aware about emotions and how they develop and what it actually means etc. But when I dived deeper into the whole emotions world you start to understand their categories. Emotions which are absolutely standard on all human beings are cognitive emotions and their developing process in our childhood. Next big things is when I started learning little bit about depression, let’s say mood changes first obvious reaction — no i don’t feel that kind of anger, but actually we all we anger and it’s not bad and not good and as weird it sounds the main thing you learn to accept after studying emotions that there isn’t bad or good emotions no matter you feel happy or you feel sad it’s still a emotion.
2. You start to accept differences all about people, emotions, opinions, behavior etc.
As I mentioned before, I recognize that I have naturally developed understanding and accepting the meaning of emotions that no matter what you are feeling it stays the same. It’s an emotional feel. And more I starting to learn and dive into cognitive knowledge it also evolve me as psychologist and in short time I starting to recognize that I am accepting people behavior, opinions etc. in manner that is absolutely normal they just act and think and talk in they way and it’s their way but how you see it an accepting is your thing and with practice you develop a very helpful skill — tolerance no matter if people with anger starting to yell, or after emotional event some starting to crying, or listening someone opinion about politics and you starting realizing that it won’t impact your behavior, emotion or opinion but you accepting different ways of thinking.
3. You start to see your bad sides.
After some basics and all psychology processes you start to recognize about myself a lot, like I mean a lot! Starting from good sides towards bad and very dark sides for me i noticed that i was more angrier than i realize, cause i had developed deeper understanding meaning of feels it also reflects on myself cause a advanced self emotion recognition gives a gift and curse to notice from where it comes, and you have to face it to crack open maybe way forgotten things in past what makes you angry after 10+ years. And I started to see a lot of different things in myself either good or bad, mostly in the first couple years I will start to see bad things about myself that you thought about someone or any process was actually a bad emotion. But there is a very big but, with knowledge in psychology I have slowly learned to develop this tolerance not in others but in myself as well and it gives you strength to accept guilt, accept emotional pain, accept unexplainable behavior etc. Firstly it is incredibly hard to face it but with practice you learn to develop what psychologists call a zero level which gives you an ability to see both sides deeper and lighter.
4. You evolve in a psychological manner, empathy and reflection.
More I study, the more I become professional and start implementing my knowledge in real life after facing a lot of my sides, emotions, behaviors and the work system of your brain. Then it come what is a core value in every genre of psychology and it is reflection, you will start to recognize a skill to reflect verbally not your emotions, feels, behavior and events what happened with you inside and outside but it will implement in your daily communication as well staring with friends you may notice a sentence yo use (what i use a lot when I notice) for example “ I hear that you are angry for this event’’ your conversations starting shape an bit more reflective what gives other person sense that you are actually listening, because you are. Active listening is a secret skill what you learn in psychology and it give a gift to use empathy and what is the other important , and as you starting to develop reflection skill in parallel process you will develop other skill for example in more serious conversations you may starting use words as “I see that you are feeling anger, and it absolutely normal reaction, can you please if you want tell me more about this situation who creates anger’’ etc. and then you will realize that you just naturally merge empathy with reflection and it’s the first steps to become a young professional.
5. And finally you learn how to implement psychology knowledge in everyday life.
As I mention before I was like not knowing develop a real skill what I used in practice and when you starting the master degree it contains a lot practice work in real life on real people with guidance and safety cause you are still not that wise and you working with real people with real situations which involves emotions, behaviors and need for fix (what I call some sort of consultation) and no matter of what you are in or out of practice those skills are definitely present all the time in any conversation, you may not saying at all but inside your head you are recognize your emotion your feeling etc. and in situations when you talk in a deeply conversations the empathy and reflections is a natural behavior what was in a starting study absolutely strange and uncomfortable feeling and it’s normal. And this goes into all random daily stuff working with clients, speaking in conversations with friends, asking for advice, there is no situation where you can’t use skills learned in psychology.
And now grand finale after spending sold 6 years of studying psychology and starting my first steps to legally practice consulting clients (need to goes to all certification process) and starting to think about next step to develop my psychologist skills I can say in 6 year I am grow a very hard rock skills for ease my daily life, it has give me opportunity to diverse my vision and how to see things, how to feel about certain things and of of most important benefit is to grow mentally and sustain my well being.
