My sophomore year at Wesleyan was full of exploration. As I declared a major in neuroscience and behavior (NS&B) and psychology, it was time for me to decide which major I wanted to focus more on. To decide, I took an Advanced Research in Clinical Psychology class in the spring of 2023. The students in the class comprise two components: administering a structured psychological interview and completing a collaborative research project.
The structured psychological interview, SITBI, assesses the presence, frequency, and characteristics of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. To administer the SITBI you must be confident talking about suicide. Suicide is a sensitive topic, and conversation around it can be uncomfortable and full of emotion. By learning more about suicide, I built the confidence to navigate the emotional weight that accompanies it. Additionally, it helped me record the lived experience of people with suicidal ideation and behavior more objectively.
To put my interviewee at ease and ensure that the interview didn’t feel as structured, I pulled from my experience as a listener at an emotional support organization. I tried to moderate my tone when asking questions, let myself be comfortable with silence as I heard my interviewee recount their experiences, and asked open-ended follow-up questions.
As for the collaborative research project, I worked with two other student researchers from the class to sift through data my professor had previously collected. We examined the interplay of communication patterns, stigma, and suicidal ideation disclosure among military couples. After generating possible research questions with my group, I became comfortable delving into Google Scholar to identify relevant research papers. In addition, I learned good practice in research by submitting preregistration before beginning the data analysis process.
My group utilized SPSS, a statistical tool, to analyze our data, where I performed a correlation and moderation analysis. We found some interesting results, which we presented at our university’s psychology department poster session at the end of the semester. This was my first experience presenting in a poster session!
By the end of this class, I still couldn’t decide if I wanted to focus more on neuroscience or psychology, but this class helped me realize two things: my passion for research and my enjoyment of interacting with people in research. This experience energized me to pursue something that would allow me to do both.
