top of page

What They Don’t Tell You About Becoming a Psychologist.

Kendall Allsop

The journey to becoming a psychologist is long and extremely challenging. There is hope though! It is an incredibly rewarding career. However, there are some things that might be helpful to be aware of if considering this career pathway.


The ‘Bottle Neck’ Problem

In Australia, places within university training courses are extremely limited. While in undergraduate programs there may be hundreds (if not thousands) of places available for students, for the fourth year and beyond the number of available places drastically reduces. While it is often not known or advertised exactly how many places are available, on average it appears to be about 80-100 places for Honours (the fourth year) and about 15-30 places in postgraduate courses - depending on the university.


The issue this creates is a ‘bottleneck’ where there are many students with a Bachelor of Psychology who are unable to progress into further education due to a lack of places available. Often, universities offer places to students based on their academic performance, which places a huge strain on undergraduates to attain the best grades possible. This creates a high-pressure environment of competitiveness amongst students, and sadly, some students who would likely make excellent psychologists but may be slightly less competitive with their grades, will sadly miss out.


Being Taught by Burnt Out Psychologists


While I am sure this is not the case at every university, during my undergraduate years I was taught and tutored by many self-admitted burnt out psychologists who had left clinical practice and returned to teaching and education instead.


This had a really interesting impact on me during my undergraduate years of education. It meant I became ‘hyper-aware’ of the problem of burnout within the profession and became almost fixated on being conscious of how to prevent it. I had zero interest in training in something for six or more years, only to become burnt out within the first year in the profession and having to leave. Sadly, this does happen.


Being highly aware of preventing burnout was something that informed a lot of my research and decision making when it came to considering job opportunities and factors that could promote or prevent burnout. There is so much to delve into in this area when it comes to finding the right workplace for you that it deserves a full blog on its own.


Soaking Up Every Possible Avenue for Experience and Professional Development


As well as academic grades, something that may set applicants apart when applying for higher education in psychology is having relevant experience and professional development.


However, given the delicate and confidential nature of a psychologist’s work, it can be difficult to find opportunities for relevant experience, and when you do, it can also be quite competitive to be selected. Psychology is different to other professions where university placements and experience starts much earlier, such as in nursing and teaching.


During my undergraduate and honours years I searched high and low for any experience that would be helpful in progressing with my chosen career. There were some opportunities that were absolutely amazing and I am so grateful for! They were really formative in my career. One such opportunity was a summer internship with Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health where we had a four-week internship across research, policy, and training teams. In other opportunities, I was part of a youth action committee (yes back in my youth!) and we worked on various campaigns and consultancy projects. One of these was to develop a range of workshops and activities for mental health week on topics such as mindfulness. That provided my first opportunity to present a workshop on mindfulness for study and learning (I still vividly remember how nervous I was!). I was also part of a positive psychology interest group that helped organise events and a regular newsletter on topics related to positive psychology.


Unfortunately, not all internships or work experience opportunities are quite so helpful. At one stage, I was offered a four-month internship with a company that involved completing reports for their clients. Those reports would be billable and the company would profit from that. The internship was unpaid and in addition if I was unable to stay for the duration of the internship, I would be asked to pay back a substantial sum of money to the company for the time invested in me. There was a group of around 6-7 interns ‘working’ there at a time, and once their 3-4 month internship was up, a new group of interns would arrive. This arrangement was quite frankly exploitative and contravenes many of the requirements for how internships should be set up (Fair Work Australia can provide further information on this). Once I was presented with the contract, I pondered it for the weekend and then went in first thing Monday morning and rescinded the opportunity in person. It did not sit right with me at all.


The Role of Privilege in Becoming a Psychologist


Studying psychology particularly at the postgraduate level requires a huge investment of time and energy into unpaid placements and obtaining hundreds of hours of practicum experience. Being privileged enough to be able to engage in this is a significant deciding factor in who is able to pursue this career pathway.


Although I often felt overworked and fatigued from the rigorous study and placement schedule (all day, all night, most of the weekend!) I was really fortunate and privileged to be in a position where I could do that. I was privileged to have enough stability behind me and support of my family and partner if needed.


Not all psychologists in training have access to this, and this is something we need to be acutely aware of as individuals and within the profession. The hours of unpaid work involved for many are unattainable, and we are sometimes encouraged to do as little paid work as possible during our training because of the need to be so dedicated to the course work and placements. In fact, some universities ask you to sign a commitment that you won’t work more than 8 hours per week during postgraduate coursework. Luckily my university did not ask me to do that. For so many people that would be completely unrealistic.


The flow on effect of this is that those within the profession often have inherently greater privilege than others, and this is something we need to be aware of when working with our clients who may be experiencing significant disadvantage or hardship. Some psychologists may find the hardship difficult to relate to, or to have a compassionate and nuanced understanding of what others may be going through. There is always the risk we could be (although well-intentioned) ultimately unhelpful in our approaches with clients when not being acutely aware of structural inequalities.


It is an unfortunate reality that because of how the unpaid placements are set up many psychologists have to grapple with managing this, and this may deter some from entering the pathway if it is not viable for them. It is a shame, and a loss to the profession overall. There are many who campaign for paid university placements which is admirable, although I worry that that may take several years to occur if at all. Others like myself have to creatively find ways to work in flexible jobs and earn an income alongside studying, while being ever grateful for being able to rely on family and my partner for extra support if need be.


It is important that as individuals and a profession we continue to reflect on this and be aware of how this plays a role within our individual sessions but also within our communities overall. And importantly, it is something we must discuss and acknowledge as part of the context of becoming a psychologist.

bottom of page