I is a Professional!

So I'm not just a little psych whore, giving away my therapeutic skills to anyone for free, I am now a PAID MFT Intern on the weekends. W00T!

Did my first weekend shift at Juvenile Hall and survived. Did have a couple of crises to negotiate, but I survived and so did the clients. Whew!

So as of last Friday afternoon I no longer have a therapy portion to my doctoral practicum, but as soon as school is out next summer I'll pick up a counseling practicum and work with strictly couples and families. I'm looking forward to that, particularly because the supervisor is one of my very favorite teachers, who taught both at the university where I took some undergrad psych classes and now teaches at my current university. His Family Therapy class is what convinced me that I wanted to embark on this whole process! I did a masters practicum at this site and loved it (some might recall that my supervisor there died just as I was leaving... so I do have qualms about how it will be to go back without her there). But the kicker is that he is an old school systems therapist and will be doing live feed video supervision. That is just SO hard to find in this day and age! I'm scared shitless of the work (couples and families overwhelm me, and I haven't had good experiences with the latter) but seeing as I am an MFt and not just any old t, I really need to get past that. LOL! I have worked with all of two couples and both cases seemed to go really well, so I don't know why I'm so nervous. Maybe because of all the horror stories I've heard from other people. Anyway, I'll be learning from a master and he'll be there to hold my hand, just as I've always thought supervision should be, so maybe I'll live through it. =)

In the mean time my MFT supervisor was quick to remind me that I can VOLUNTEER as many hours as I want doing therapy at the Hall, I just can't use them for my doctorate and I can't get paid for any but the hours I contracted for on the weekends. Oh joy... think I should sign up for full time? Sheesh! I swear to you, these places will suck you DRY if you don't stay firm with them. At least all the hours I do for pay will count as experience on my CV and toward being paid more as I go along. Oh yeah... they count toward my MFT license if I opt to do that in the end.

So my house isn't getting decorated very fast and my holiday cards are still unprinted, but at least I have already covered our rent hike for January!

Off to bed so I can go back to whoring bright and early tomorrow...