I’m Stephan, a psychology undergraduate student, and last month, I did an internship at Insights. Here are the 5 things I enjoyed the most: 

 1. Report writing 

Every client that takes a psychological assessment at Insights Psychology receives a report. The reports contain long and detailed recommendations and summarized information from the numerous tests and questionnaires that the client completed, which is why multiple psychologists and administrators will often collaborate on one report. Two administrators patiently taught me parts of the process and by the end of the internship I was able to work on ADHD, autism and dyslexia reports.  

2. Trainings 

I got to observe multiple trainings during my time at Insights Psychology, such as a Basic Life Support training, a workshop on adapting clinical practice to neurodivergent clients, and a call center training for the Insights Psychology admin team. Some of the trainings were for employees, and some of them were for parents or clinicians from outside of the company. Going into them, I expected them to be very serious and business-like, but I was pleasantly surprised by the casual and friendly energy, everyone pitched in and gave tips and tricks from their own experiences.  

 3. Being myself 

Insights is a neurodevelopmentally specialized clinic, meaning that they specialize in conditions such as ADHD, autism and dyspraxia. People with these conditions often “put on a mask”, meaning that they hide some behaviors to not seem so different to other people. For example, I’m autistic and prefer to avoid eye contact, but when I meet new people, I usually engage in eye contact anyway, because if I don’t, people might think that I am not interested in them. However, at Insights Psychology, I did not feel the pressure to mask because I knew that everyone would understand, and that was a big relief, because masking takes a lot of energy! I was able to use this energy for other things instead. 

 4. Presentations 

One of my favorite experiences at Insights were the presentations I was asked to do, two on Autism and one on “AI in therapy”.  They involved a lot of research, because I knew that I would be presenting to professionals. Right before the presentations, I was very nervous and felt impostor syndrome, the feeling of “I am not smart or experienced enough to be doing this”. When I was presenting, however, the psychologists and therapists were very interested asked thoughtful questions, and I learned just as much from the questions and discussions as I did from my research! These presentations were the most challenging experience for me, but I am really grateful that I did them. 

 5. Observations 

An observation means joining and quietly watching a psychological assessment or therapy session. You need the client’s permission, and understandably, not every client is comfortable with having a third person present, so whenever I had the chance to observe, I felt quite lucky. And it was very fun! I got to watch “real psychology” happen: How does the Psychologist greet the client to make them feel comfortable? During an ADHD assessment, which stories told by the client indicate that they might have ADHD? How do Occupational Therapists playfully motivate children to participate in movement tasks? What do Speech and Language Therapists sing to encourage speech in kids who need help talking? And many more questions. After the observations, I chatted with the practitioners about their job, which was super valuable for me because I got to meet new people and learned about which jobs I might be interested in doing in the future. 

Overall, I had a great time as an intern at Insights!