I thought my unpaid internship was different, because I wasn’t being exploited. I defended it against people who told me unpaid internships were inherently bad, but I was wrong.
I moved to a new city and signed up with this private psychology practice that my close friend recommended. I was told that the culture was very supportive, but in reality, there was a complete lack of engagement and nothing really happened. None of the government requirements for my eventual registration as a psychologist were being met at all. I needed 10 client sessions a week, and I got zero. In the two months I was there, my supervisor never organised a single client session for me. Instead, I waited in a room for hours every day, built Ikea furniture for the office, and walked the therapy dogs. Sometimes my supervisor invited me to come and watch him do the things he was already going to do. This was actually a good introduction to the profession; I’ll give him that. I got to sit in on his meetings with other psychologists and some of his client sessions. One week of that would have been a good amount, but it continued for two months.
I tried to talk to him about it several times, emphasising that there are requirements I have to meet. But he just dismissed it saying “trust me, I’ve done this a million times”. And it’s true, he has successfully supervised many psychologists, and many of them still admire him. But some don’t, and I had to dig around a bit to find that out.
The point is: the internship being unpaid removed any incentive for my supervisor to value my time. Interns, in this profession, are supposed to provide billable services to clients which allow the business owner to make a profit and pay the intern. Without that, the owner is free to just let the internship drag out and give you no attention. I wasn’t exploited, I was neglected. My supervisor was not a mean person (it is extremely hard to imagine him intentionally harming anyone), he was just not motivated to fulfill his role in the agreement. He was also extremely late to everything: all his meetings and client sessions. It wasn’t because he was forgetful, he knew when he was running 30 minutes late, but he just kept doing whatever he was doing. Everyone knew he was like this and just compensated for it. He would simply take whatever indulgence he could get away with…
Eventually things got heated and we had a civilised argument. I accused him of being a dirty capitalist basically. I don’t think he wass motivated by money (although he did own a yacht), but he was definitely motivated by status. He said clearly that he believes he is entitled to the profits of the business because of the work he has put in to get it up and running. This, to me, is the fundamental error of capitalist thinking. To be fair though, he has heavily subsidised the business out of his own pocket and has definitely not yet made a positive return on his investment. He also paid higher wages than most other practices. I did two days a week of paid admin work there, which was actually decent work with decent pay. I admitted to him that it’s not my place to criticise him for running a business, because we all have to get by in this capitalist world. But I did suggest that I would really respect anyone who tried to implement a more horizontal ownership model. He asked how that would look… I didn’t really know what to tell him. Does anyone have any ideas on how to convert a capitalist business model into something more humane? I might tell him if anyone has any good ideas