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