The Importance of Professionalism
Professionalism refers to the conducts and behaviors that are expected of a person at a work place. Professionalism encompasses various attributes such as specialized skills, competency, honesty and integrity, accountability, self regulation, development of emotional intelligence, be politeness The purpose of this literature review is to focus on the importance of professionalism and understand the various qualities that need to be possessed by the person to become professional.
In psychology, professionalism is an important aspect and can be traced back since the middle ages. This is important since, in psychology, the mental state of a person is analyzed and hence the professional attitude of the counselors or experts in psychology is essential. The various qualities that a person needs to posses to be professional are as follows:
According to Birden et al. 2014, to be professionals, specialized knowledge needs to be possessed by the individuals. In context of psychology, the specialized skills of counseling and psychology are essential. The counselors as well as psychological experts need to have specialized knowledge in the areas of expertise and with those skills, they might be called professionals.
A person to achieve professionalism, the person has to be competent enough. The competencies include communication and interpersonal skills, individual and cultural diversity, ethical and legal standards, assessment, intervention, supervision. The competencies in communication and interpersonal skills include effective communication in the professional place. Moreover, positive relationship has to be established among each other, to make the workplace culture a healthy and positive one (Lamiani, Borghi & Argentero, 2015). Demonstration of self-awareness as a professionalism is also essential.
Being professional also includes individual and cultural diversity. The cultural awareness among the people is also essential. Being professional includes maintaining effective relation among various professionals belonging to cross-cultural diversities. Display of professional behavior as well as engagement in self-assessment is important. A person needs to engage in continuous self-assessment as a part of professionalism (Bragard, Dupuis & Fleet, 2015). Professional identity is demonstrated as a part of professionalism. Moreover, the ethical as well as legal standards are to be followed as a part of professionalism. The ethical and legal standards are to be abided by the person, as a part of being professional. The ethical considerations such as following the ethical standards and abidance to the ethics strictly, are to be done. Cross-cultural communication is essential to be maintained and cross-cultural diversity is to be maintained efficiently. The differences of opinion based on the cultural variations are to be accepted gladly, as a part of being professional.
Attributes of a Professional
Honesty is a great professional virtue that needs to be maintained by every professional. Honesty and integrity among the professionals are to be maintained sincerely. As a professional, the work that a person does has to be trust worthy (Garzonis et al. 2015). The integrity of work has to be maintained. As a true professional, the person has to be humble and helpful. The humble nature makes the person easily reachable and the helpful nature of the person makes him popular as a professional.
Professionals hold themselves accountable for the mistakes they do and makes sure that they rectify it as soon as the mistake is detected. This personal as well as the professional accountability, makes the person, even more professional. Holding someone else accountable for the mistakes of another person is a sign of lack of professionalism (Thurlings, Evers & Vermeulen, 2015).
Self-regulation is an important aspect of professionalism. This includes self-assessment, self-monitoring, self-regulation. Even under pressure, self-regulation and self assessment is done by the professionals. Genuine professionals tend to show respect to all other professionals and extend their hand of assistance to other colleagues.
Professionalism also includes delivering the work within the stipulated time as promised. Fulfilling the commitments is an essence of professionalism. It is essential to develop a philosophy and a sound rationale for professional practice. As a true professional, it is important to think before reacting to any situation (Van, Vanheule & Inslegers, 2015). The outcomes of any reaction are usually predicted by a true professional, before he reacts to any situation. Professionalism includes the power and expertise to resolve conflicts (Zumbach & Koglin, 2015). Conflicts might take place in workplace, or among the psychological expert and the person being counseled. In case of conflicts, the resolution of the conflicts needs to be done tactfully, without letting it grow any further.
As an alternative to the psychology career in the community, various other career options include the following types of counseling programs.
Marriage and family therapy: One of the alternative career options to psychological career is marriage and family counseling. This profession is closely related to the counseling program engaging the families and married couples. This profession could be suggested as an alternative to the psychological career.
Social work: As opined by Moritsugu et al. 2015, this is another profession that could be suggested as an alternative to the psychological counseling. Social work includes a wide knowledge of psychology. Private practice or engaging with an NGO could also be suggested as an alternative.
Alternative Career Options to Psychology
School psychology: As an alternative career, school psychology could be suggested. This profession involves training of the professionals about children’s psychology, parental guidance. This is a good alternative and the professionals taking up this profession could facilitate the school, by providing counseling to the children, and guiding them to take up the most appropriate career option.
Occupational therapy: As mentioned by Linde et al. 2015, the next alternative is the occupational therapy. Occupational therapy is synonymous to recreational therapy. This might include some of the elements of creative art therapy such as music therapy. In order to adopt this as a profession, the professionals need to be competent enough in art therapy as well as music therapy.
For some of the alternative of psychologist career, various skills such as effective communication need to be developed. Since any form of psychological career needs in depth counseling, hence, effective communication has to be given importance. Effective communication involves verbal as well as non-verbal forms of communication. Clarity in communication has to be maintained, such that the counseling could be done successfully. Courtesy in communication is important and has to be maintained. The courtesy between the counselor and the person being counseled has to be maintained. Correctness of the information shared has to be ensured. The information shared has to be correct. Incorrect information might result in incorrect treatment and therapy. Thus, as discussed above, there are various alternatives to the psychology career in the community. This career needs the required expertise such as communication skill, empathy, passion, and understanding of the various psychological theories necessary for counseling are necessary. The various alternative career options need to be explored by the students of psychology, as these are some of the unconventional career paths that could be explored successfully.
Educational qualification: Ph.D
She is working in W. P Caey School of Business under Arizona State University. She is also the director of academic in College of Health Solutions in the department of Public Health Program. She is also the health economists. The majority of his career has gone behind the studying work disability and discrimination those are related against the disability related. He also focused on serious mental illness of the person.
Baldwin is also the author as well as co-author of 50 articles and topic of the book chapters. He is the prime investigator for significant studies of labor market discriminations for the person having mental disorders. The study was sponsored by National Institute of Health. She is the member of American Society of Health Economists, National Alliance of Mental Illness and National Academy of Social Insurance. She also holds the position of adjacent faculty with University of Minnesota, a School of Public Health. Her son was suffering from schizophrenia in 1999. She wrote a new book Beyond Schizophrenia. She connects the economist perspectives with the family member for synthesizing the research and her experience from what she learned (Baldwin, n.d.).
Marjorie L. Baldwin is the author of the renowned book, ‘Beyond Schizophrenia’.
Educational Qualification- PhD
One of the selected experts is Craig Dowden. He holds a PhD degree in psychology with a business specialization. He is a famous speaker and widely respected for his knowledge and his passion toward the subject. He is frequent in sharing his insight on maximizing the individuality, teamwork and the potentiality through the speaking of the keynote and writing articles for various business publication and HR. Craig was recognized as one of the ‘Forty under 40’.
He is specialized in custom designing and the evidence that is dependent on the programs on development of leadership programs and the services. The main area, he is practices includes coaching in executive and in the career level, facilitation in the workshop and personality or the psychometric assessment.
He is dedicated in conducting and reviewing those researches that provides the proper insight for the issues that is most pressing one while facing a business. The commitment towards his work and the dedication he shows confirms that he might bring out some researches in the field of organizational and in the leadership sciences for the conduction of work (“Home – Craig Dowden”, 2017).
Craig Dowden is the author of the renowned book, ‘The Leader’s Code’
Marjorie L. Baldwin has a specialization in schizophrenia. She started writing on the book after she successfully made his son recover from it. Her book, ‘Beyond Schizophrenia: Living and Working with a serious Mental issue’ helps every schizophrenic employee and their families to fight back and survive with this mental disease.
Craig Dowden, is a personality focusing on the leadership and the excellence in the organizational development. Unlike Baldwin, he is coaches and guides for the positive leadership of any individual.
People often face psychological challenges and mental stress due to certain personal or professional situation. This case study evaluates a similar situation where a person has been found to struggle with the situation. One such person who had competencies from Ashford University was found to struggle. Robin (a fictitious name) used to stay as a paying guest with a family of four members. There were two boys aged 16 and 10 years and their parents. Both their parents were working professionals and thus could not afford much time to spend on their children. However, one day Mr. Steve (The Father) found out that his elder son Smith was addicted to online gambling. Mr. Steve was completely unknown from the fact and only came to know about the situation when the younger son, Stephen asked him about online gambling. Mr. Steve was shocked to hear something strange and absurd from his younger son. He immediately rushed to smith and enquired about the complete situation. To his utter shock, Smith revealed that he has been doing online gambling since a long time and that he has already lost many things in that including his pocket money and the last semester fees as well.
Mr. Steve enquired more and found out that his Smith had become extremely casual and non-productive towards his other duties that include studies as well as sports activities. This was the time when Mr. Steve was in utter dilemma and then he decided to discuss the same situation to his tenant Robin because he knew that Robin was a student of psychology. With a hope to get some solution, Mr. Steve opened up to Robin and asked for suggestion.
Robin proposed a number of solutions to Mr. Steve. As pointed out by Amandine et al., (2016), compulsive gambling is a progressive illness that can haunt the victim. The ill effect of this type of gambling often results in a situation that leads the victim to lie, steal, blow through their savings and to the worse it can result in missing out the rest of their lives. However, the victim can overcome compulsive gambling by the means of professional help. In such cases, the current situation of the victim has to be evaluated. It has to be understood that the symptoms of compulsive gambling develop after a quite long time, perhaps 2 years later after continuous gambling. There are very few cases where compulsive gambling becomes evident even before 1 year into the gambling. The major factor that results in compulsive gambling is the impact of fellowship as well as environmental condition where the person belongs.
It has to be understood that whatever might be the situation, the victim can be brought out of the situation and they can be set back to lead a proper and influential life. The foremost thing that has to be done is to provide support to the victim. In the above case, it has to be understood that Smith is a young boy and thus, his thinking can be molded if proper precautions are taken. It is recommended that the parents would talk with him and try to diagnose the situation that has lead to the situation where Smith is now (Amandine et al., 2016). Depending on the diagnosis, it is expected that Mr. Steve would take severe action against the fellows who has influenced Smith. In addition to this, he should also block the different online gambling sites that is the main reason behind the degrading situation of Smith. It is recommended that primarily, Smith should be consoled with much care but if the situation do not fall under control then it is also recommended that strict action has to be taken against the situation (George, Varghese & Khawaja, 2015). It should be kept in mind that Smith has a long future ahead that has to be secure and productive enough to support his own life.
By the end, I would like to mention that while emancipating the case study I faced with an ethical dilemma because my friend Robin had discussed the situation with me with the expectation that I would also suggest him some solution. He was similarly nervous and worried about the boy because he always considered Smith as his younger brother. However, here when I have discussed the complete situation, I feel guilty to some extent. Keeping the similar situation into consideration, I have not used the actual names of the members and concealed the same by using fictitious names.
References
Amandine, L., Ruben, M., Laetitia, G., Laure, T. M., Arnaud, C., & Henri-Jean, A. (2016). OR-04: cognitive control training in online problem gambling: an online randomized controlled trial among non-treatment seeking problem gamblers: Rationale and methods. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 5(S1), 5-6.
Birden, H., Glass, N., Wilson, I., Harrison, M., Usherwood, T., & Nass, D. (2014). Defining professionalism in medical education: A systematic review. Medical teacher, 36(1), 47-61.
Bragard, I., Dupuis, G., & Fleet, R. (2015). Quality of work life, burnout, and stress in emergency department physicians: a qualitative review. European Journal of Emergency Medicine, 22(4), 227-234.
Garzonis, K., Mann, E., Wyrzykowska, A., & Kanellakis, P. (2015). Improving patient outcomes: effectively training healthcare staff in psychological practice skills: a mixed systematic literature review. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 11(3), 535
George, W. T., Varghese, R., & Khawaja, I. S. (2015). New Onset of Compulsive Gambling Associated With Modafinil: A Case Report. The primary care companion for CNS disorders, 17(1).
Home – Craig Dowden. (2017). Craig Dowden. Retrieved 6 March 2017, from https://craigdowden.com/
Baldwin, M. Beyond schizophrenia (1st ed.).
Lamiani, G., Borghi, L., & Argentero, P. (2015). When healthcare professionals cannot do the right thing: A systematic review of moral distress and its correlates. Journal of health psychology.
Linde, K., Sigterman, K., Kriston, L., Rücker, G., Jamil, S., Meissner, K., & Schneider, A. (2015). Effectiveness of psychological treatments for depressive disorders in primary care: systematic review and meta-analysis. The Annals of Family Medicine, 13(1), 56-68.
Moritsugu, J., Vera, E., Wong, F. Y., & Duffy, K. G. (2015). Community psychology. Psychology Press.
Thurlings, M., Evers, A. T., & Vermeulen, M. (2015). Toward a Model of Explaining Teachers’ Innovative Behavior A Literature Review. Review of Educational Research, 85(3), 430-471.
Van Roy, K., Vanheule, S., & Inslegers, R. (2015). Research on Balint groups: a literature review. Patient education and counseling, 98(6), 685-694.
Zumbach, J., & Koglin, U. (2015). Psychological evaluations in family law proceedings: A systematic review of the contemporary literature. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 46(4), 221.
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