To become a psychologist

What if this isn't what I want? Can I actually have wants? If this path requires sacrifices, if this life requires endurance, than why are we given ambitions, aspirations and passion?
Can I press rewind?

I am certain that I assist people with their problems for self-satisfaction and this is the real reason why I’d like to study psychology; later finding a profession where I am able to help people all day, thus satisfying my needs. Is this a wrong reason to get into your field (i.e., does this become an issue when I make this my living)? I understand we all have selfish reasons for all that we do, but is this what motivates you and others in your field or is there something I seem to be missing?

Yes, we all have to look after ourselves to a basic extent. If no one is going to give us shelter and food, then we have to earn the money to provide these things for ourselves. So, if you have to work for a living, you may as well do something you enjoy.

The practice of psychology, however, does put a twist on all this. A psychotherapist must work very intimately with the unconscious desires of another person, and it can be very easy for the psychotherapist’s personal desires to contaminate the desires of the client. That’s why the great psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan taught that the analyst’s only desire should be to help the client get close to his or her own unconscious and should ask nothing of the client but fair payment for a job well done.

The prerequisite for such intense work is personal psychotherapy—the more intense the psychotherapy, the better—so as to become familiar with your own personal unconscious issues. Most “bad therapists” are caught up in their own pride and ego because they are blind to them, and they do considerable damage to their clients as a result.

Therefore, if you believe you have a gift for psychology, then pursue it and let your own personal psychotherapy show you if you really have what it takes. If you can face your own inner darkness and grow from it, and can tolerate what is missing in life by not trying to use perversions to hide from yourself, then blessings to you.