The Growing Need for Psychologists

According to a worker at the Rogers Memorial Hospital named, Kyle Reneal, the growth and need for psychologists are slowly increasing along with the number of people with disorders. Rogers Memorial Hospital is a center for people with mental illness and addictions.

“I’m not a psychologist. I make training videos for the psychologists,” says Reneal. “I have been taking a course security class about how to interact with some of the patients in the facility. It is very interesting. There has been a constant growth in anxiety disorders which is calling for the need of more psychologists.”

Reneal says that anxiety disorders are becoming more common in all people with stresses of family life. He says this is often to the amount of stress people have to put up with at work. The therapists are taught to give the patients space and not to be close to them as this could make them feel panicked. They are however, allowed to give hugs or hold the patient if that is what they need to calm down.

“Anxiety is not the only increasing problem in the facilities,” says Reneal. “There many other common disorders such as paranoid personality disorder, better known as schizophrenia and others being obsessive compulsion disorder (OCD), aspergers and autism. These are all treatable to some degree with the right medications and the right types of therapy.”

According to Reneal, the growing commonality of these disorders calls for more help but is not necessarily known as to how these disorders are increasing. Why someone might get paranoid personality disorder is said to be completely random. Someone could be completely fine and then wake up one day with the disorder. It happens around the early twenties and is said to be more common in males.

“There are treatments that can be taken for paranoid personality disorders, but that does not cure the disorder for the long term. It is true that these disorders are increasing, but it is at a more gradual rate. With that being said, I think that is is necessary for Rogers Memorial to hire more counselors and therapists because these people are going to need help and with such a great facility, they will be in good hands here,” Reneal says.

Reneal says there are also issues with drug and alcohol addictions and with more easy access to drugs, there is a growing need for rehab and recovery.

“Rehab is the biggest department for Rogers Memorial. It has been for a long time and the growth of drugs calls for the need of more than one drug and alcohol rehab facilities. The Rogers Memorial Hospital in Oconomowoc, which is where I work, is dealing with addiction to heroin all the time with the bad drug issues in Oconomowoc and it’s surrounding areas,” says Reneal.

Reneal states that the Rogers Memorial Hospital is going to be hiring soon for anyone with management skills as well as master’s degrees in the field of psychology.

“Rogers Memorial Hospital is a great place to work in and is very interesting if you have an interest in mental illness and disorders. I would encourage any students who are interested in psychology to stop in and ask about job shadowing as well. This is a great learning experience if you are interested in this field of work,” says Reneal.