Psychology & Social Work in Greece

My name is Tahnee, I am from Mexico City. I’m twenty five and I’m studying psychology at the Open University in Madrid. (As I could ? today ? Erasmus plus) to be able to do my internship and my practices that are mandatory for me to be able to finish University and I chose Greece because I believe it is a very interesting country and in some ways it is a little like my country, so that’s why I thought I could fit in Greece. And I did, I really liked it. I really like the program and Iasis in general. I think it’s a very interesting and well founded organization. I am very pleased with everything that I’ve learnt. Even if it was in a different language, some things, I felt like really everyone was very welcoming and yes, I really liked it I am really grateful with my mentor Eleni. I am also very grateful with the whole team because I’ve actually learnt, I realized that I’m really studying the right thing, because of my practices so I’m really happy. I encourage anyone to come to Iasis and get to know everything they do because it’s a very big, interesting organization.
So, I’ve experienced many interesting things during this internship but I think for my field of work which is psychology and as I said, it was very interesting to be able to have very close contact with clinical population and I’ve learnt a lot about them and I think I realize that I want to continue working with people with mental health problems. I am very pleased about the program, the people I’ve met and about the diversity of different nationalities and volunteers they have. The activities were really interesting to me, like Greek dances so I’ve learnt a lot about a culture of the world which was a good adapt to my internship. I am looking forward to come back.

Hi, I’m Ankita, I am from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and I go to school at the University of Pittsburgh. I chose the internship to go abroad this summer because I’m going to graduate school in a year and I wanted some real life experience in something other than the US

About my internship, it was really interesting being here, I am at the Iasis day center, and we don’t really have something like a Day Centre back home in the States, so it was really cool to see a psychiatric work that occurs outside of the country and how it occurs in different locations. I am right now in Athens Greece and I’m doing my internship with Iasis as I said before, and I am so happy with the coordination from Cerca Abroad. This experience is something like, I never would have thought I would be able to go through a helping with group therapy and help with planning activities with patients and having a one- on- one connection. It’s just so incredible. I love staying in Athens Greece- that’s where I am currently located. I think it is so fun here and there’s so much to do besides just working. There’s just so much like fun staff I can do on the weekends and during the week days and everyone here is just so kind and generous.

Hi, my name is Lydia, I am from Kentucky in the U.S. I decided to come here, to Greece, simply because I have not visited here before. I wanted to do psychology because my major in college was speech language psychology, so it’s related to behavior mindset and brain therapy, so I figured that working in a general psychology workplace would be really helpful for me. And it was. I worked teaching beneficiaries who had multiple disorders such as schizophrenia, ADHD, and multiple personality disorders, bipolar disorder etc. and we were able to implement activities and work with them, while I also learnt Greek and teach them English. It was a very good experience. I’ve never experienced something like this before.
As far as living in Greece, that has been even more life changing than anything I’ve experienced before. Living in a city- I come from Kentucky, which is a little more rural- so I’ve never taken the metro before. I usually have to drive my car everywhere- here I did walk- and that was a really learning experience, needing to get to work every day. Also, everyone around us was speaking a different language. It was interesting using our non- verbal communication like facial expressions and gestures to communicate with people around in public- even at work.
I was able to meet a lot of cool girls. My two roommates are from Texas and California and it was really nice to bond and go to work with them. We’ve developed really good relationships. They were helpful and easy to communicate with. It’s just been a phenomenal time. I’m going to miss it. I wish I could go back.