Sorry, I'm not a fortune teller
A few days ago, I and my friend visited a small village in the province of North Sumatra. There we met Susan, she is a friend of my friend. While at Susan's house, Susan's parents asked me about my college and major. I told them I was majoring in psychology. His cousin Susan immediately said with an enthusiastic tone, "Wow, great, you can predict, can't you read other people's minds?" the cousin said.
I was immediately speechless and amazed. How can they think that a psychology student like me is considered a fortune-teller? It turns out that there are still many people who are mistaken with psychologists or students majoring in psychology. In fact, I was in college studying about a person's soul and behavior, not learning fortune-telling. Studying psychology takes a process to conclude about the phenomena that occur in a person's personality. Not with cards or spells. Aspiring psychologists like me continue to train my skills so that I can accurately infer a person's personality.
So, for those of you who are still mistaken and think that psychologists are fortune tellers or shamans, I will explain what the duties of a psychologist are in this article. First, psychologists can explain how and why a person's behavior can occur. From the visible indications, the psychologist explains the descriptive results.
Second, psychologists must be able to describe the events and behaviors that occur in a person's problem. This is done by observing and interviewing, sometimes reading journals or from related sources.
Third, a psychologist can predict a person's behavior using observation, interviews, or psychological tests to produce the right prognosis and prediction.
Fourth, psychologists can control deviant behavior into better (expected) behavior. This is done using prevention, assessment, to treatment. Depends on the patient's needs.
Such is the explanation of the job of a psychologist. So, for those of you who are still confused with a psychologist or aspiring psychologist like me, don't ever ask to predict or guess your personality, let alone ask for match predictions or lottery numbers that will come out today. I can not.
The lead image source by Unsplash
I liked reading this... I like reading about psychology, especially about personality and feelings, (not too deep into behaviors,) and this field fascinates me and makes me afraid at the same time.
Afraid because you can tell a lot about a person with their subtle behavior, it makes me afraid of the signals I subconsciously project that doctors and those who studied psychology can pick up on.