Thank both of you.
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I've been taking what undergraduate courses I can to prepare me on the reality of the career. I've done a course on the skills needed to be a therapist, which involved in class graded roleplays where one student was a client and another was a therapist. I took a course on Adult Psychopathology. Both courses were taught by a guy that was a professional in the field. He told us tons about what his experiences and others' experiences in the field were like. I talked with him one on one more than a few times about career advice and for more things from the field that he didn't mention in class.
I know Community Mental Health is going to suck. The professor explained that you usually got loaded up with as many clients as possible. You would have people show up for their first court ordered session and then never show up again. You would have addicts that came to you repeatedly that wanted to be clean, but just kept falling into the same patterns over and over again. You'll have people try to get you to say that they have a mental illness because they want a disability paycheck. You'll have clients that are doing great, but start to backslide because they start missing sessions because they can't take off work or they have to take care of their child. You'll have clients that are pedophiles or murdered one of their children. You'll have rapists. You'll have people confess things that you never wanted to hear. You'll have clients that just refuse to listen, but keep showing up day after day.
In spite of all that, I still want to do it. I understand that it won't exactly be the time of my life. However, it is a step towards a private practice, which is something I want as an end goal for my career. Plus it will give me plenty of experience to draw from when I do go into private practice.
1) That is true. Most people would say that they are good at understanding other people.
2) I haven't worked there yet, as it is hard to find much you can do without having your Master's, counselor license, or Doctorate. I tried to get into through my college's internship program, but there was no openings for positions in Community Mental Health that fit the requirements of the program that I could actually do.