Psychologist, psychotherapist

Briefly explain what you do for a living.

I work as an occupational health psychologist and a psychotherapist, and I have my own practice in Helsinki. I also work as a trainer, participate in the development of mental health services, and work in other tasks in the sector requiring special expertise, such as an advisor in the minduu.fi psychotherapy portal.

How have you ended up in the profession of your choice?

I have always been interested in what guides human thinking and behaviour. Especially in general upper secondary school, my interest in psychology deepened. I am a mediator character, which means that in this sense, too, a psychologist’s career was a natural choice for me.

As I was studying at the university and doing my work practice in a prison mental hospital, I understood that I am best suited for clinical mental health work, or work with customers. During my career, I have expanded my competence through further training.

Describe your typical working day or week.

I spend most of my working hours meeting with customers. I also work as a project coordinator developing occupational health services, which mainly involves meetings, planning, and communications.

What kind of work environment or working hours do you have?

I work at my practice, in the premises of business customers, and remotely.

I mostly work during office hours. I try to limit my weekly workload to 45 hours but being an entrepreneur, I sometimes have to be flexible, depending on the work situation. During busy periods, I sometimes have to work long hours, and occasionally I also have to work in the evenings, and on weekends.

What kind of competence or qualities are required in the profession?

The work is based on human interaction, and for that you need the ability to feel empathy for other people and the ability to discuss difficult matters. Such skills are not inherent but you can learn them over time. In this work, you also need extensive theoretical expertise and understanding of how companies operate.

In this profession, you must have the will to learn and improve yourself continuously and be interested in human mind and communities. You also need the ability to tolerate the fact that there are issues with no clear solutions.

What is the best thing about your profession?

This work is rewarding and meaningful because it improves people’s mental health, quality of life and wellbeing at work. You get a nice feeling when your customers tell that they have received help. The work is suitably challenging, and learning new things makes you more enthusiastic about what you are doing. In this profession, you also have good chances to earn well.

What are the downsides of the profession or what seems challenging?

Mental health work is stressful because the topics you discuss usually involve problems of human mind, working life, and human relations. For example, the consequences of political decisions are tragically reflected in my work. Especially during the early years of my career, I was heavily burdened by the difficult topics I had to deal with in my work. However, as I have become more experienced, I have learned to handle the emotions they cause.

What would you tell a person considering the profession of a psychologist & psychotherapist?

There are dozens of special sectors and specialist options in psychology. For example, the Master’s degree in Psychology gives you the competence for scientific research tasks and healthcare professions. Comprehensive information on different work tasks can be found on the website of the Finnish Psychological Association.

The number of psychologists has increased substantially in Finland in recent years, and there is practically no unemployment in the sector. The profession has become more attractive, which means that getting accepted to the training has become more difficult.

How do you see the future of your profession?

Artificial intelligence is not about to replace psychologists because it lacks the emotions, personality, life experience, and other characteristics essential for human encounters. A psychologist’s work is based on interaction, empathy, and in-depth understanding of humans. These are all characteristics that technologies cannot fully simulate.