I first heard about Willingness while attending their “Sex In Therapy” lectures in my home country Lithuania. I remember being so fascinated with all the subjects that were talked about, especially since many of them are uncomfortable to talk about and because of that are often avoided by professionals in our field. It was refreshing to hear someone talk about it in detail, not avoiding difficult questions or opinions.
I remember sitting there and thinking that when the lectures finish I have to ask if there is any way I could get involved – volunteering, interning, anything that would give me a chance to experience working with professionals that are all about breaking stigmas and making a difference. So when the internship opportunity was announced I was thrilled.
A few months later I was getting ready for my flight to Malta, full of high hopes and a bit worried that the nice things I’ve heard were just talk.
True, it was not all rainbows and butterflies – like the amount of work that can easily become overwhelming or the challenges that you face when working in a group. However, these were the two things that made me learn the most. Seeing professionals working in a team showed me how beneficial teamwork can be even at that stage of your career and made me realise that I should appreciate the times I get to work in a team more. All the work that we did here made me realise just how broad psychologist work can be and gave me a chance to test myself in different areas. Experience at Chat Bar showed me that I am capable of managing a group of adults and directing their energy in a way that it wouldn’t become destructive and everybody would enjoy it. Unexpectedly one of my most favourite parts of this internship was data inputting – getting to know the process of triage, questions that are being asked, and thinking of ways that I see fit to work with a specific problem. The part that I considered to be the most challenging – writing blogs – turned out to be not as hard as expected and even though I often had to push myself through it I still found it enjoyable.
I also appreciated the opportunity to see how things are run here. What I was the most impressed by and fascinated with was how seriously the feedback is being taken at Willingness. Every suggestion that has been made was taken into consideration and often times adjusted right away. That became even more clear when we had to pick a topic for clinical audit and realised that so many things were already assessed and then adjusted. And lastly – the thing that I think makes this internship even more special is how everybody is being treated like family. It is made sure that there is always time for you if you need to talk about any difficulties you are having – be it professional or personal.
This internship definitely helped me grow professionally as well as personally and gave me a better idea of how I would like to run my own business one day.
Ugnė Labutytė is a student at Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania and works as an intern at Willingness Hub.