Evaluation of Clinical Practice Options: Teaching and Becoming a Behavioral Therapist

Evaluation of Clinical Practice Options
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Evaluation of Clinical Practice Options
One can occupy different possible career positions with either a bachelor's degree or graduate education in clinical psychology. One position for the bachelor's level is a behavioral therapist. These clinical psychologists attempt to help individuals leave undesirable behaviors and form desirable ones (Boyko, 2022). One role in the graduate level of clinical psychology is teaching. Particularly, one could become a lecturer at a university if they have a doctorate in clinical psychology. This role entails sharing knowledge with learners and equipping them with the skills necessary to become a professional in clinical psychology.
On a daily basis, the behavioral therapist could be counseling clients/ groups. In most cases, the sessions will be predetermined so the therapist is aware of the kind of clients they will interact with every day. In most cases, a session will only last about one hour, and there are follow-up sessions at dates determined at the end of each session. Behavior change takes time, and therefore the behavior therapist walks with the client until they have sufficiently acquired desirable behaviors and are able to work them out on their own (Dobson, 2018). On the other hand, a teaching role would have different dynamics. On a day-to-day basis, the lecturer is expected to plan lectures. For effective delivery of knowledge, the lecturer should determine the material to be covered every day so that it is not too much or too little for the learners. The lecturer must also arrange practical sessions where necessary (Naufel et al., 2019). Another key role of the lecturer is to set and mark examinations as well as be available for consultations by students.
It goes without saying that client interaction will be very different in the positions described above. The behavioral therapist will have a one-on-one session with clients who need psychological help to change their behavior. The lecturer, on the other hand, will deal with students and provide knowledge to them. The kind of sessions a lecturer will offer will mostly be simulations of what is supposed to happen in real-world practice. Due to confidentiality requirements in practice, a lecturer may not expose students to an actual session with a client.
The behavioral therapist may use the motivational interviewing strategies of engaging, focusing, and evoking to create fruitful sessions with the client. Engaging is intended to build a friendly environment for the client; focusing is for making the goal of the therapy clear, and evoking is for guiding the client toward focusing on the identified goal. While it may not seem like the lecturer may practice these strategies, they do in the following ways. First, the lecturers must have a good understanding of the aforementioned motivational strategies together with more. The reason for having a good understanding is that the lecturer will be responsible for teaching these approaches to learners. Secondly, the lecturer must have a good understanding so that they can actually demonstrate these strategies to learners through simulations or other mec...