What skills and abilities are needed to be a psychologist?

Self deception would be the most important skill and ability if you want to be a psychologist. You must be able to convince yourself first of all that you are being scientific, while accepting the dogma shoved down you throat by other self deceiving professors of psychology. You must be able to convince yourself that humanity is nothing more than atoms, cells, body fluids, tissue, muscle and bones with neurons making all kinds of synaptic responses that control who we are.

You must have a skill for prescribing the latest pharmaceuticals to those who seek your help, periodically you will be asked to testify in a court of law as an "expert" on human behavior so you want to practice convincing people that you actually know what you're talking about. And when you find yourself around people like me, it is imperative that you insist that you actually help people and then attack the character of people like me, all the while smugly suggesting that people like me could really use your help. Or you could actually find a profession that actually does help people and be happy for the rest of your life Ok who ever wrote this is completely crazy.

I mean seriously. Having the skill of prescribing the latest pharmaceuticals? Being a psychologist myself I think it is most important to be able to listen and understand people and how they are thinking.

If you can do this you can relate to the person and try to help them. Understanding how they think doesn't mean getting into their mind or something like that it means that you should relate to them so you can help them more. And the part about attacking peoples character?

Psychologists are trying to improve and help peoples character not "attack" it. Who ever you are you have the whole psychologist thing wrong. They are here to help not "attack" although you might think otherwise.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.