Uni Psych Symposium (Part 1) by Claudia


Some of you must have attended this year’s UniPsych Symposium right? How was the experience?
Our guest writer will share what she has learnt and took away from the symposium.

Working as a Clinical Psychologist in Addictions by Dr Sandor Heng (Clinical Psychologist at National Addiction Management Service)

Dr Sandor shared that a clinical psychologist is a non-medical specialist in the study and treatment of mental/ emotional disorders. He/ She may provide psychological evaluation, assessment, testing, but does not prescribe medications.

The myth about psychologist is that:
We read people’s mind.


Does that sound familiar to you when you tell people that you study psychology? In fact, psychologist do not read mind. We observe how people behave, think and view the world. We also observe the certain pattern in people’s life in order to predict or make a hypothesis of how people might behave or think.

Dr Sandor Heng also shared that working in National Addiction Management Service required you to be able to:
  • Do group support with counsellors (peer support and psycho education)
  • Develop programme for patients or evaluate programs that are not working
  • Be able to identify different types of addictions such as gambling (cognitive-based), drug (feeling-based), gaming and other

In order to become a clinical psychologist, it usually takes 4 years with honours in Bachelor in Psychology and another 2 years in Masters. We need to learn to detach from work and be able to do self-care regularly to prevent ourselves from burning out from work.

Reflection

Reason of choosing this talk is that our guest writer would like to pursue a career as a clinical psychologist and at the same time to seek some opportunity for any internship openings. During the talk, Dr Sandor answered a lot of questions from the audience which our guest writer felt was helpful for students as a lot of them were curious about what it takes if they would to pursue this career. Dr Sandor was described as open, patient and honest when addressing audiences’ concerns and it did not paint just the glamorous side of clinical psychologist but the not so glamorous side too. Other than that, our guest writer has also learnt that self-care is very important for a clinical psychologist as there are a lot of times, attention and emotions are being given to the clients that sometimes psychologist will forget what it takes to care for ourselves and to ensure we do not view the world so negatively that it would hinder our objectivity towards our clients.

Behind the Violent Extremist: Insights from psychology by Neo Loo Seng (Principal Behavioural Sciences Research Analyst at the Home Team Behavioural Sciences Centre HTBSC)

According to the speaker, HTBSC is a training and research centre. The centre has to report to Deputy Secretary (Policy) and Ministry of Home Affairs. The centre aims to enhance the operational effectiveness of the Home Team officers through behavioural sciences research analyst training.

Their key research areas are:
Understanding Crime and Criminal Behaviour
ü    Unlicensed money lenders (‘Ah Long’)
ü    Drug offence research (e.g. drug abusers)
ü    Sex trafficking
ü    Cyber crime (scams, risky online behaviours, cyber staling, happy slapping, kinetic cyber, sex-tortion)
ü    Local casino gamblers
ü    Database of Crime Case Studies (e.g. Yishun Triple Murder)
Investigation Support
ü    Detection of Deception
ü    Investigation Interviewing (e.g. Video Recorded Interviews)
ü    Threat Assessment (e.g. stalking, family violence)
ü    Crowd behaviour
ü    Security Questioning Project
Crisis and Command Leadership research
ü    PROTECT Model (personal effectiveness, recognition of situation awareness, operational knowledge, team management, effective decision making, crisis communication and task management)
Psychology of Violent Extremism
ü    Online radicalization
ü    Psychology of lone wolves
ü    What makes ISIS psychologically attractive
ü    Reducing bystander effect in violent extremism
ü    Behavioural markers of violent extremism
ü    Insider threat and risk profiling
Cyber Psychological Resilience
ü    Cyber hygiene and Fake news
The Day After Scenario
ü    Be resilient in the aftermath of a terror attack and measuring National Resilience


In order to join the team as a Research Analyst, you will need a Degree in Psychology, Sociology and Communications. As a psychologist, you will need a single major (in psychology) with 2nd Upper Honours. Also, you will need to be willing to learn, be open minded, able to multi-task, comfortable with research, training and operations and be a good team player. You will definitely have to be interested in psychology and law enforcement work in order to join this career.

Some attractive perks to join this career is that you will be able to get the supervision hours and training hours. You will be able to explore the opportunity of continual education with sponsorship, overseas study trip or overseas conferences. For students, it is a great opportunity that the team offers mid-year internship (10 weeks), December internship (5 weeks) and part time internship. The interns are to acquire practical experience in applied setting, skills and training in various psychological work, commitment to ethical standards and professionalism and exposure to civil service setting.

Reflection

This talk is our guest writer’s favourite talk by far. She has participated in Criminal Behavioural Analysis Competition before and have opened up her options of being a forensic psychologist. The speaker was described as very eager to help every student that he could by encouraging them to send him emails to ask any questions that they would like to know or how he could connect them with people that might be able to help. The talk was said to be very engaging as the speaker shared his 20 over years’ experience in the field. The speaker also joked that his sense of humour has turned dark after all these years because of the number of dead bodies he sees. The guest writer would be open to apply as an intern in HTBSC next year as she would want to learn more about what it takes to be in this field if she would pursue this as a career option.



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