Clinical Internship Insights - Ortega

Jediael A.
Ortega Clinical Internship Insights
In my 4 years of being a college student, being able to experience On the Job training or
internship is what I am always looking forward with. Summer last year when I was first assigned
on my clinical internship, I felt excited and wanted to be in a clinic where I will be trained and
able to have the opportunity to learn new knowledge in relation to clinical psychology. Looking
for the perfect clinical services in Cebu was actually hard since lots of students in different schools
were also having their clinical internship during that time. I landed on two different psychological
services which I did not expect to happen firsthand. However, being able to experience such also
gives me learnings and realization of what is like being in the actual industry.
The first clinical internship that I landed with is the Women and Children Development
Center or CWDO and Youth Home at Talisay City. This would have been a great on-site
experience since we are dealing with abused children and children who are in conflict with the
law. However, the center doesn’t have a registered psychologist who can assist and trained on how
to actually deal with them. We get to spent almost one and a half month on the center. It is such
great experience wherein we get to interact with the children and at least help them in such a way
of letting them forget temporarily their dark past for a short period of time. Prior to that one and a
half month being with them, we only get to do psychological activities like group play since we
are not allowed to do anything beyond our competence since we are still an intern. On the other
hand, our experience at Youth Home where children who are in conflict with the law situated, was
quite challenging. Being expose in an environment where I am surrounded with young people
whose having conflict with the law involving themselves in crimes is really nervous for me. There
is a time where I got to experience a riot inside the premises where these young boys were having
a fight, almost gives me a heart attack. It is challenging because these young boys were very hard
to make a conversation with because during that time, we are tasked to make a report and get some
information about them. Nevertheless, as the day passes where we get to interact with them slowly,
they got comfortable of expressing themselves to us. After a few weeks of rendering our internship
at CWDO and Youth Home, we decided to transfer a center or clinic with a valid reason. We
realize that, we will never be molded and taught things that we needed to learn since there are no
registered psychologist who can assist and supervised us at the center and so we come up with a
decision to end our internship at the center.
After deciding to transfer a center, I decided to look for another center where I will be
trained with a supervision of a registered psychologist. It took almost three weeks before I was
able to find a center. Sol Psychological Services is the clinic that I landed into. Sol is a Manila
based clinical so we render our internship online. During this time I already told myself that my
dream internship will never happen since I only have a short period of time. I have reminded
myself not to expect much since the internship is virtual. However, when we already started our
orientation with SOL I knew deep down the things I yearned to experience will soon be answered
by deciding to join their inter internship program. Rendering my internship with them taught me a
lot of things that I never thought I knew such as interpreting IQ test results which is very beneficial
for me since I am planning to take a licensure exam for psychometrician. It was our first activity
at SPS, Psychological Testing and I remember how happy I was to not just look, but also have the
opportunity to answer and interpret the original sets of psych tests such as Raven’s Progressive
Matrices Test, Bender-Gestalt Test, and Draw-A-Person Intellectual Ability Test. During such
time, I initially thought that the interpretation would be hard and confusing but Sir Job’s guidance
made it really easy to follow. After this, we did a Crisis Call Simulation which was an eye-opener
for me that being a crises call responder is harder than I though because being both emphatic and
critical thinker while under pressure is such a great skill, a skill where someone’s life is literally
and figuratively hanging on. Furthermore, we devised and conducted a Psych-education tackling
“Linguishing” which is new concept in Psychology and emerging nowadays due to the pandemic.
Given the change to deliver such presentation is such a fun and humbling experience. In summary
of my experience at SPS, we first hand had the experience to do psychologist tests, receive and
respond too crises calls and even have the opportunity to host a psychoeducation webinar
conducted by us, the interns and of course a whole lot more. Such experience molded me a lot, it
opened my eyes on the things that I neglected for years being in this program. Helping is my
passion. But I knew for sure that I lack at so many things. Helping made me sympathetic instead
of becoming emphatic. In psychology it teaches me to learn and memorize the bible, DSM-5 and
it made me judge o put label on people instead of being emphatic about it. They taught me that I
can never show vulnerability to the person I am helping with by SPS (Sol Psychological Services)
told me to try putting on your trauma informed lens. Only then that I finally had the clear view that
helping is loving, that helping is understanding, kindness and learning to go out from the box
without any hesitations and see the clear picture of the people who years and cries for help, to
check and to respond in any cases. I will forever cherish and treasure the knowledge and wisdom
that SPS had taught me and try to raise an advocacy to hear the people out there and to be with
them while battling the silent battles we all face.
Choosing Sol Psychological Services (SPS) is the best decision that I made because this
virtual internship gave me a lot of realizations as well as provided me a set of learning experience
that I will use in my future endeavor. People who manage and taught us during this internship are
so approachable and always considerate of the situation of us who utilizes online. I am extremely
grateful for the opportunity to be able to participate in the Sol Psychological Services internship
program. I acquired superb experience working with professionals who guided us in this journey.
Working as an intern at SPS has been an incredible experience for me as a psychology major with
strong interns in mental health. Its been fascinating how thy work together as a team just to provide
us proper training. I learned a lot and will able to apply my learning in the future. The task they
given to us are highly important and it felt good to know that we were raising community
awareness by assisting those in need.

Clinical Internship Insights - Ortega

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Clinical Internship Insights - Ortega

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Clinical Internship Insights - Ortega

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Jediael A.

Ortega Clinical Internship Insights

You might also like