Post-Internship Reflection

The program has come to a close! I have a final presentation for my internship course tomorrow morning and then I fly back to Minneapolis on Saturday.

I picked Borderline Personality Disorder as the topic for my presentation. Many of the patients at the clinic had observable symptoms of their disorders/illnesses; However, there were a few who's symptoms weren't apparent at all. I found myself wondering why they even needed to be there. Many of these patients are diagnosed with BPD, which is partially what sparked my interest in researching this disorder. From the group psychotherapy session that I sat in on, I understood that many of them had issues with regulating their emotions and had extreme reactions to events, as well as negative self-image. I ended up learning quite a lot about its symptoms and treatment. This also helped solidify the concept that you can't always tell what people are experiencing just by being around them.

I agree that this internship has offered me an unique experience that I would have never been able to have as an undergrad in the US. I've been able to interact with the patients in a very candid way and see the cultural differences between caregivers in Spain versus in the US (in terms of geriatric patients, of which I have had a lot of experience with in nursing homes in the US).

The largest takeaway from this internship experience, for me, is that I would definitely be enthusiastic about working in a similar environment to this some day.