September Blog Post: First Interview Experience

              I had my first interview this month and I decided to choose my mentor, Flor Martinez. I was nervous to do this interview because I’ve never done one before. I was scared that the interview would be short and would be hard to get answers from Ms. Martinez. 

Ms. Martinez thought it would be best if we had done the interview somewhere comfortable, in a relaxing environment. She invited me to have a lunch with her at Victoria Gardens. So, we decided on a café and after we finished our food, I gave her the questions as prep so she could come up with good answers. So, I had given her time to think, then we got right to business and I started asking her questions.

            During the interview relief came over me by the way she was answering my questions. I thought she had given me more than enough of an answer through my questions. She had given me reasoning and things to back up her claims. I was so excited to learn so much! She also, guided me to some other things to research and another psychologist in the field to talk to.

An Example of a Book she told me to look up was “The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients” by Irvin Yalom . This book talks about certain case studies that Mr. Yalom has done with his own patients and decides to go into to detail what should be done in that case. She said this would help me think of my independent component. This actually did help me think of a great idea for my independent component.

Blog 6 - Second Interview Preparation

1.      Who is your mentor and where do they work?
 

·         My mentor is Flor Martinez and she works at two therapeutic places named Catholic Charites, which is located in Chino Hills, and also works for the County of San Bernardino.

2.      What five questions will you ask them about their background?
 

·         What college did you attend and where did you go for graduate school?

·         When did you start working at Catholic Charities and the County of San Bernardino?

·         How is practicing as psychologist at your current jobs? How do you feel about it?

·         Did you work anywhere else before your current jobs? If so, what were names of the practices?

·         How were your experiences at your past jobs?

·         How did you feel about completing with other female psychologist in the field? Knowing a lot of females go into this field.

Blog 5 - Mentorship Reflection

1.      Mentorship question: Describe your experience in how you found your mentorship?  If you haven't found one yet, describe your experience so far in the search of a mentor.

The way I found my mentor Flor Martinez, was I knew her as a close family friend. I would constantly ask her questions about psychology and her responses were precise. We would even have long conversations about certain topic of Psychology, I knew some background of it so we were able to go on. But, I also didn’t want to just base my knowledge off our conversations to determine if she would be my mentor. So, I asked questions like where she went to school, what degree she had in the field, and finding out where she currently works. I had found out she has a master’s degree and has been in this profession for years, with a job with the County of San Bernando. I knew she was a great choice for my mentor and I could trust her.

 

2.      Research question: What has been your most important article you have read so far and why?

All the articles I have been reading are equally important and to choose is tough decision. But, if I were to pick one it would be “Anxiety Disorders: A Guide for Integrating Psychopharmacology and Psychotherapy” by Stephen M. Stahl and Bret A. Moore. The reason is because it goes into greater detail about therapy and how it started. It even goes more into detail how it was spread out to different branches and it wasn’t just one thing. Then, it starts to say with any medication that you should go to therapy. Therapy helps keep control of the medication so worst symptoms don’t show up and it also keeps a client taking their medication. It gives an example of taking antidepressants and how thoughts of suicide always occur when taking them. But, with the help of therapy it could save someone life.