Department of Mental Health Pesaro, Italy

Psychology Intern

Caterina Benini, 2010

Overall I think I performed very well in this internship: I carried out all of my duties and responsibilities well, was cordial to the entire working staff, I always offered my help to every person of the staff, and I always offered to do more than was asked of me. In the morning, I always arrived a few minutes before my supervisor, and left only when my supervisor went home and told me to do so as well because there was nothing else for me to do for the day.

I learned a great deal about the field of psychiatry in the course of the internship. I learned many practical skills, such as how to conduct an unstructured interview, how to deal with psychotic patients versus bipolar patients versus depressed patients (but I also learned that each patient needs to be dealt with in a different way even if he/she presents the same mental illness as others), how to administer certain psychological tests, that it is always better to prescribe one drug at its maximum dosage rather than multiple ones at lower dosages, and began to learn how to recognize symptoms of a certain mental illness for a diagnosis. I also learned that there is a wide variety of mental illnesses and each illness can vary greatly in its symptoms and effects from person to person, as can the therapies prescribed, and that patients, no matter how naïve and sincere they may seem, are often consciously lying about themselves and their behavior.

But most importantly, I learned that the best way to cure a patient and better his entire life is not by providing him/her with drugs only, or psychiatric therapy only, or alternative therapeutics methods only, or by ameliorating his/her social and familial environment only, but by providing him/her with a therapeutic program which integrates all of the aforementioned elements, and thus follows the patient in all the facets of his/her life.

I also learned a great deal about myself. In fact, I realized that having to deal everyday with mentally ill patients, often with very problematic and sad familial or social situations, takes a huge psychological toll on the person. I empathized so much with the patients every day that even though I really liked the experience of the internship, at the end of the four weeks I was glad on one hand that it was over. I learned that one really needs to detach himself/herself from the patients if he/she is to purse a career in this field, but I am not sure I personally would be able to do so.

In conclusion, I am very satisfied with the internship and with how I performed in it, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone; with the warning, however, that one has to be ready to be challenged not only from a learning point of view, but also and especially from a psychological one.

Contact the Career Services Office for more information on this internship!