Meeting with Paul Shaw. LICSW

On the first day of June, we met with Paul Shaw, LICSW, who is the Vice President of Outpatient Services at South Shore Mental Health in Quincy. As a board member of Quincy Asian Resources, Inc. (QARI), and someone who enjoys helping others, Paul was happy to speak with us about his career in social work and mental health.

As the Vice President of Outpatient Services at South Shore Mental Health, Paul organizes groups of psychologists, social workers, and mental health professionals to help people in the schools and homes who have mental health challenges. Paul enjoys developing these home-based programs and working as a team with other professionals to help people. At the clinic, doctors, social workers, psychologists and other health professionals often work together as a team to find the best approach to helping clients.

Paul also works part-time in private practice as a therapist, specializing in marriage counseling. In his private practice, Paul is able to work much more directly with people to counsel them on the challenges they are facing.

To become a licensed social worker like Paul, you would need to have a Masters degree in social worker and have two years of post-graduate clinical work experience and pass an exam. Paul holds a Master in Social Work degree from Boston College. He completed his undergraduate education at Tufts University.

To become a psychologist or social worker, Paul believes it’s important to have general curiosity, a desire to help people, and a desire for greater understanding of yourself and others. If you relate well to other people, have an open mind, and make connections with others easily, you may want to look into clinical psychology or social work, where you get to work directly with people.

We were very curious about the field of psychology and Paul told us about the many fields of psychology. The most common is clinical psychology. For the most part, these psychologists are trained to counsel the person, in order to prevent, understand, and lessen problems. Unlike clinical psychology, forensic psychology deals with the legal system. These psychologists may attend court, work with the police, and do profiling. In the field of school psychology, professionals study school systems and such to resolve schooling and learning problems. Research psychologists conduct experiments on people and animals to study cognitive and behavioral processes. It is important to not confuse psychologists with psychiatrists. Psychiatrists are medical doctors who prescribe medicine for mental health problems.

We really enjoyed talking with Paul and hearing more about his experiences and his career. Being half Japanese and half Caucasian, Paul talked about his bi-cultural identity and experiences. Because his father was a diplomat, Paul lived in many countries when he was growing up. Being very open-minded and having had diverse experiences, he allowed us to learn so much about him, and also about ourselves as well.