One of my biggest passions in life has always been psychology – a natural curiosity and determination to understand human behavior. Why? I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s a mixture of my own experiences with this internal motivation I have always had for people. I always wondered why people behave the way they do, why we affect each other so much, and who I am. So, this was the straightforward career path I have been relentlessly on since I was 14. When I chose my career path I was quite young.This is not representative of what another person might do, but it kind of just fell on me pretty confidently. This path, though, is a hard one.
Opportunities might not come as fruitfully as business-oriented students have, and may not be as demanding as medical students, but it is hard. It’s hard to find ways to practically apply the knowledge I have gained during my university time in an actual setting where psychology can thrive. That is why when the opportunity to join Willingness came forth as a summer internship, I jumped at the chance. I have been telling myself even before the internship, and still now when I approach the end of it – something like this will not come along again. And this is true. I may find another clinical internship, but nothing will be like Willingness.
This internship has far exceeded my expectations. Well, truthfully, I did not really know what to expect. You can only gather so much from a description on a website. Starting the internship, I was quite nervous, anxiously seeing if I will be the intern they were hoping for, if I will get along with the other interns, if the supervisors and managers will eat us alive like you see in the movies. This was not the case, as everyone was really nice! I remember sitting one day appreciating how supportive and team-oriented everyone has been. The atmosphere of together-ness resonates even through a Zoom call on a laptop-screen. This was especially radiant in the multidisciplinary team meetings and the family clinic meetings where we could observe how the Willingness staff come together to talk about case reviews. Here, I was inspired by how every voice was heard, acknowledged, and healthily challenged. Hearing the real-life cases that you have only read about in a university textbook finally being applied felt like a dream-come true and reaffirmed the reason why psychology was the field for me. The support and level of open communication from the supervisors and managers is also something I am grateful for. It felt like our welfare was a priority. We were consistently checked up on, asking “How are you doing?”, “How are you feeling?”, “Is there something you want to share, or things we can improve on?”. Which, in some organisations I would expect would place a heavy emphasis more on the company functionality, but as an intern, I felt my belonging and my experience also mattered just as much. And Willingness truly lives up to the statement of “We love feedback!”.
From pursuing assignments like a clinical audit, creating my first systematic review with my family clinic interns, taking part in the team meetings, writing blogs, and having presentations from the staff themselves on different modalities of psychology, I can wholeheartedly say this was a very valuable two months. One that is a stepping-stone in offering greater clarity for what I want to do in the future and who I want to be as a psychologist. Regardless of where I end up and who I become; the Willingness way will be part of the path that brought me here. Besides that, now I really need to visit Malta.
If you want to learn more about Willingness internships you can reach out here.
Chloé Möller currently has a Masters in Clinical Psychology and is further pursuing another in Work & Organisational Psychology. She works at Willingness as an intern.