Personal maturity and professionalism of a practice psychologist
Professional and personal qualities of a psychologist are closely intertwined. Students specialising in psychology are marked by the creative attitude to life. They are highly focused on the issues related to self-esteem/attitude to oneself and purpose in life. Being a psychologist means having an active, dynamic life that includes creative professional self-realisation. At the same time, the strive for self-improvement and self-sufficiency as well as an excessively positive view of human nature can have consequences for their personal maturity. Professionally important qualities of a psychologist include a prosocial orientation understood as a disposition to help others. When training psychologists, it is necessary to distinguish between the two levels of professional functioning. Psychological education, psychodiagnostics, psychoprophylaxis can be successfully carried out by psychologists at the so-called role level provided they have good knowledge and effectively perform professional duties. Consulting requires a deeper personal involvement in professional interaction and needs personal maturity. At the role level, the psychological mechanisms of compliance with ethical norms for the adequate achievement of professional goals are external motives of moral regulation (knowledge of the ethics code and fear of administrative sanctions for negative consequences). Fulfilling professional duties at the personal level necessitates internal motivation for moral behavior (understanding the importance of assistance for the client, appealing to conscience in moral dilemmas, existential meaning of professional interaction). Thus, the main personality qualities of a psychologist and the ability to act both at the role and personal levels of professional functioning are the creative orientation, the development of moral consciousness and internal motivation to make moral choices in different settings.