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What intern oppurtunities are their for aspiring psychologists in NC?

I'm a junior in highschool and I have been on the search for a decent summer program or internship for a while and still no luck. I need help!
#psychology #frustrated #medicine #northcarolina

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Tinley’s Answer

Hi Erica! It's wonderful that you want to get into psychology. As a student without a higher education degree (yet!) I'd recommend two things to get into the world of psychology:

1. Volunteering – organizations like Crisis Text Line and The Samaritans (suicide hotline) are great ways to start to show an interest and development of foundational counseling skills. Additionally, volunteering at a hospital or mental health clinic in something like patient intake can help you flex those muscles too.

2. Research – look into psychology professors at local universities and cold email them asking if you can help out in their lab! Professors are often very enthusiastic about helping young students and even if you're just helping with administrative tasks like research participant recruiting, it's a great way to start to understand what an academic psychology lab is like.
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Andy’s Answer

In most situations, you cannot have an internship that would involve direct client contact without being enrolled in at least an upper division Bachelor's level program in Psychology due to patient confidentiality and liability issues. So you being able to observe a therapy session, for example, probably isn't going to happen & if it did, I'd question the ethics of the therapist/organization that allowed it.


You could however obtain an internship/volunteer position with a non-profit agency that deals with social services, some examples being: a homeless shelter, an immigration center, after- school programs (like homework help at a local library), Habitat for Humanity (helping to build homes for people that wouldn't otherwise have one), a senior center..the list goes on. You could even do something like train a service animal for a blind/deaf individual (that would be a very long and potentially emotional experience, but it would be a very relevant experience to human services/therapy/counseling).


I would talk to your school's career counselor/advisor to ask about potential internships at a non-profit. If you don't have non-profits in mind, think about the type of people you'd like to work with ( aka "the population" as a therapist would say) & what things you like to do. As a personal example, I love animals, art, and psychology, that led me to eventually obtain a Master's in Art Therapy & be interested in obtaining a license to perform Animal Assisted Therapy at the Delta Society in Seattle WA. A potential volunteer opportunity (if you were also interested in this) is offering art projects for homeless youth at a non-profit that helps homeless youth.

Andy recommends the following next steps:

Think about things you might enjoy doing for others. If you enjoy playing video games, for example, you could volunteer at a nursing home to introduce seniors to the latest video game system.
Think of the population (a group of people) you'd like to work with. Typically this is a group of people that you'd normally enjoy or has special meaning for you. A random example might be your dad was a veteran who was wounded in combat, so you want to work with wounded soldiers.
Talk to your school's career counselor or if your school doesn't have one, ask the school for resources that they can offer to help you find an internship.
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