2 answers
Emma
Student
Elk River, Minnesota
5
Questions
Asked
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What kind of mental strain is it being a forensic psychologist?
I've been considering a career in forensic psychology for a while now, but the one thing that has always stopped me is the mental strain. How hard is it to go to work everyday and focus on criminals and horrific cases?
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2 answers
L'Marie Armstrong
Behavioral Modification Specialist, Vocational/Avocational Personal & Professional Growth CCHt, MED, NCB, ORDM
3
Answers
Los Angeles, California
Updated
L'Marie’s Answer
Pursuing a career in forensic psychology is both rewarding and challenging, especially considering the emotional and mental toll that working with complex cases can have. It’s natural to have concerns about the mental strain, especially when dealing with traumatic cases or criminal behavior. However, there are strategies to safeguard your mind from exhaustion and protect your well-being while engaging in this important work.
Managing Mental Strain in Forensic Psychology
Forensic psychologists often work with individuals who have experienced or perpetrated severe trauma, which can make it difficult to maintain emotional distance. That said, it is possible to mitigate these challenges by adopting certain practices:
1. Self-Care and Decompression: Set aside time daily to practice mindfulness, meditation, or breathwork to help reset your mind and body. Physical movement, such as yoga or walking, can also release accumulated tension.
2. Therapeutic Supervision: Engaging in regular professional supervision allows you to process difficult cases and emotions with a mentor or therapist. This is a common practice in mental health fields and helps prevent burnout.
3. Boundaries: Develop clear emotional and time boundaries, ensuring that work does not bleed into your personal life. Establishing a wind-down routine at the end of the workday can help shift your mindset from work mode to relaxation.
4. Mindfulness in the Workplace: Take short breaks between sessions or cases to breathe and reset. Try incorporating grounding exercises, like focusing on your immediate environment, to stay centered throughout the day.
5. Support Networks: Surround yourself with a strong support network, whether through colleagues, friends, or family, who understand the emotional demands of your job.
Additionally, keep in mind that forensic psychology doesn’t always involve direct exposure to criminals or traumatic cases. Many professionals work in research, policy-making, or advisory capacities that involve a different type of intellectual demand without constant immersion in trauma.
Alternative Professional Fields with Forensic Psychology Degrees
While working with criminals is one path, there are many other career options for someone with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in forensic psychology. These include:
1. Victim Advocacy: Work closely with victims of crime to provide support and resources, guiding them through legal processes and helping them heal from trauma. This path focuses on restoration rather than on perpetrators.
2. Law Enforcement Consulting: Offer psychological insights to law enforcement agencies, advising on criminal behavior patterns, profiling, or strategies to approach suspects and witnesses.
3. Correctional Psychology: Work within correctional facilities, but rather than focusing only on criminal cases, help inmates with rehabilitation and reintegration, supporting mental health and behavioral change.
4. Family and Juvenile Services: Focus on family courts or juvenile cases, where the aim is often mediation, rehabilitation, and support, rather than punishment or the darker aspects of criminal cases.
5. Policy and Research: Develop public policy related to mental health, crime prevention, and rehabilitation. Research careers can also involve studying criminal behavior, the effects of trauma, or systemic improvements for legal processes.
6. Teaching and Academic Roles: With a strong background in forensic psychology, you can also go into teaching at a college or university level, mentoring the next generation of professionals and contributing to the academic body of work.
By combining proper self-care, support systems, and mindfulness, you can engage meaningfully in the field without depleting your own emotional reserves. Each professional pathway within forensic psychology offers the opportunity to contribute to society, and there is flexibility to choose a path that aligns with your interests and emotional capacity.
Managing Mental Strain in Forensic Psychology
Forensic psychologists often work with individuals who have experienced or perpetrated severe trauma, which can make it difficult to maintain emotional distance. That said, it is possible to mitigate these challenges by adopting certain practices:
1. Self-Care and Decompression: Set aside time daily to practice mindfulness, meditation, or breathwork to help reset your mind and body. Physical movement, such as yoga or walking, can also release accumulated tension.
2. Therapeutic Supervision: Engaging in regular professional supervision allows you to process difficult cases and emotions with a mentor or therapist. This is a common practice in mental health fields and helps prevent burnout.
3. Boundaries: Develop clear emotional and time boundaries, ensuring that work does not bleed into your personal life. Establishing a wind-down routine at the end of the workday can help shift your mindset from work mode to relaxation.
4. Mindfulness in the Workplace: Take short breaks between sessions or cases to breathe and reset. Try incorporating grounding exercises, like focusing on your immediate environment, to stay centered throughout the day.
5. Support Networks: Surround yourself with a strong support network, whether through colleagues, friends, or family, who understand the emotional demands of your job.
Additionally, keep in mind that forensic psychology doesn’t always involve direct exposure to criminals or traumatic cases. Many professionals work in research, policy-making, or advisory capacities that involve a different type of intellectual demand without constant immersion in trauma.
Alternative Professional Fields with Forensic Psychology Degrees
While working with criminals is one path, there are many other career options for someone with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in forensic psychology. These include:
1. Victim Advocacy: Work closely with victims of crime to provide support and resources, guiding them through legal processes and helping them heal from trauma. This path focuses on restoration rather than on perpetrators.
2. Law Enforcement Consulting: Offer psychological insights to law enforcement agencies, advising on criminal behavior patterns, profiling, or strategies to approach suspects and witnesses.
3. Correctional Psychology: Work within correctional facilities, but rather than focusing only on criminal cases, help inmates with rehabilitation and reintegration, supporting mental health and behavioral change.
4. Family and Juvenile Services: Focus on family courts or juvenile cases, where the aim is often mediation, rehabilitation, and support, rather than punishment or the darker aspects of criminal cases.
5. Policy and Research: Develop public policy related to mental health, crime prevention, and rehabilitation. Research careers can also involve studying criminal behavior, the effects of trauma, or systemic improvements for legal processes.
6. Teaching and Academic Roles: With a strong background in forensic psychology, you can also go into teaching at a college or university level, mentoring the next generation of professionals and contributing to the academic body of work.
By combining proper self-care, support systems, and mindfulness, you can engage meaningfully in the field without depleting your own emotional reserves. Each professional pathway within forensic psychology offers the opportunity to contribute to society, and there is flexibility to choose a path that aligns with your interests and emotional capacity.
Thank you for the advice.
Emma
Mary Marrs
Social Work
8
Answers
Seattle, Washington
Updated
Mary’s Answer
Hello Emma
You pose a very important question and it is great that you are being realistic about the potential about the stressful situation that this type of work can expose you to. I spent 30+ years working with criminals and horrific cases so let me see if I can help answer your question.
When you first start in this type of work it is very hard to go to work, but the excitement of the new work can help alleviate the stress. You will come across very ugly situations and very sad situations. Give yourself grace at all times, BUT you have to focus yourself and remember why you are there. You are there to do a job, to complete specific tasks and to be the best professional that you can be. Keep that as your focus for the first year or two. You will find yourself overly focused, as you strive to learn, to figure out how to be the best. Then take 10-30 minutes after you leave the scene to decompress, to self-care, and to staff with a senior worker who can walk you through what just happened. If you have a mentor or a trainer, that is the best scenerio, as they will have experienced what you just and made it through. Crying is not okay at the scene, but it is okay in your 10-30 minutes of decompression. You are allowed to cry, but keep it controlled, as you are still a professional.
After a while, you will find a new focus. You will find going to work easier and easier, because you have work to do that is so very important, that people are dependent upon you and your professionalism and your skills. You are there to help, to solve, to figure stuff out. You get to be your best while you do your best. This is where the job becomes the most satisfying. You have found your "sweet-spot" because you are growing and helping others.
Then you get to be the mentor, you get to be the trainer, you get to be the best professional you get to be.
Self-care is always important. You don't take your work home with you, as much as possible. I would cry at home, maybe once every 6 months. Your partner/spouse, needs to know that you just need to cry and maybe babble half-sentences. No advice is needed or wanted, no solutions are possible, just need to cry. Crying is okay. Crying is healthy. But you shouldn't be crying every day, if you are, then you are not processing information professionally, you are processing personally. Be professional, this is a job. But crying is okay to let your personal feelings released, so you can go back the next day and be professional.
This type of work is not for everyone, and that is okay. If you find that you are not meant for this, that is okay. Accept that decision and find another niche. BUT, if you find that it is for you, then you will be needed, welcomed, wanted and the best that you can be.
Does this help?
You pose a very important question and it is great that you are being realistic about the potential about the stressful situation that this type of work can expose you to. I spent 30+ years working with criminals and horrific cases so let me see if I can help answer your question.
When you first start in this type of work it is very hard to go to work, but the excitement of the new work can help alleviate the stress. You will come across very ugly situations and very sad situations. Give yourself grace at all times, BUT you have to focus yourself and remember why you are there. You are there to do a job, to complete specific tasks and to be the best professional that you can be. Keep that as your focus for the first year or two. You will find yourself overly focused, as you strive to learn, to figure out how to be the best. Then take 10-30 minutes after you leave the scene to decompress, to self-care, and to staff with a senior worker who can walk you through what just happened. If you have a mentor or a trainer, that is the best scenerio, as they will have experienced what you just and made it through. Crying is not okay at the scene, but it is okay in your 10-30 minutes of decompression. You are allowed to cry, but keep it controlled, as you are still a professional.
After a while, you will find a new focus. You will find going to work easier and easier, because you have work to do that is so very important, that people are dependent upon you and your professionalism and your skills. You are there to help, to solve, to figure stuff out. You get to be your best while you do your best. This is where the job becomes the most satisfying. You have found your "sweet-spot" because you are growing and helping others.
Then you get to be the mentor, you get to be the trainer, you get to be the best professional you get to be.
Self-care is always important. You don't take your work home with you, as much as possible. I would cry at home, maybe once every 6 months. Your partner/spouse, needs to know that you just need to cry and maybe babble half-sentences. No advice is needed or wanted, no solutions are possible, just need to cry. Crying is okay. Crying is healthy. But you shouldn't be crying every day, if you are, then you are not processing information professionally, you are processing personally. Be professional, this is a job. But crying is okay to let your personal feelings released, so you can go back the next day and be professional.
This type of work is not for everyone, and that is okay. If you find that you are not meant for this, that is okay. Accept that decision and find another niche. BUT, if you find that it is for you, then you will be needed, welcomed, wanted and the best that you can be.
Does this help?
Thank you for being honest about how hard this kind of career can be. This helped me a lot and now I have plenty to think about.
Emma