Shinri shoku no Manabi to Life Career (Learning to be a Psychologist and Life Career - Working and Living)

It has been almost a quarter of a century since counseling began to prevail in public society in Japan. For today’s children, it is no longer unusual to find school counselors in schools or clinical psychologists in hospitals. Under these circumstances, some junior and senior high school students may think “I want to study clinical psychology!” when considering university entrance, or “I want to become a counselor!” when thinking about their future career.
 
Such people may pick up books on clinical psychology to learn more about what is important and what to study to become a counselor, and reading such books may give them an idea of clinical psychology. However, I would like you to think about it for a moment. Having an interest in clinical psychology is not necessarily the same as becoming and working as a counselor. In other words, how well do you understand what it means to work or what life is like to live as a professional counselor?
 
Currently, not enough research has focused on what it means to work and live as a counselor. The author is originally interested in working and the inability to work as one wishes, and her research focuses on how individuals can live their life in their own way as clinical psychologists. As a counselor, she provides counseling related to work and life. For professional counselors, these matters are no one else’s concern. This book was written with the idea that it is necessary to present the vivid reality of how counselors themselves work and live, based on the author’s own personal experience.
 
The book consists of four parts, focusing on the themes of “being,” “doing,” “working,” and “living” as a counselor, respectively. In each part, the author compiles clinical psychology content and introduces the author’s own life and career path. In the end, the author emphasizes that these four aspects are interrelated and part of the same cycle.
 
While many books focus on “doing,” this book shows the cyclical relationship of “being,” ”doing,” ”working,” and ”living.” It starts with the careful description of “being,” which is the foundation of “doing,” and then provides an overview of the current state of clinical psychology in terms of “doing,” which develops into “working” by acquiring “doing,” which leads to psychologists “living” themselves, which in turn leads to “being” psychologists. The author hopes that, rather than a providing a glimpse into the knowledge of clinical psychology, this book will offer guidance on the human aspects of becoming a psychologist to middle-, high-school, and university students considering their future.
 

(Written by TAKAHASHI Miho, Professor, Graduate School of Education / 2023)