A Day In The Life: Meet Expatriate Relocation Specialist Jill Kristal, Ph.D
Have you ever known a psychologist who specializes in helping expatriates through relocation transitions? Me neither. Talk about an interesting niche! So, how does one develop this kind of specialization?While living in London, England Clinical Psychologist Jill Kristal, Ph.D. of Transitional Learning was instrumental in transforming the US Embassy internal counseling center into The American Counseling Center, a community based organization hiring American trained and licensed therapists to work with the expatriate community. Since returning to the US, Dr. Kristal has continued to work with expatriates, served as Special Education Consultant to School Choice International and established a private practice in Larchmont, NY. With over 20 years in private practice, Dr. Kristal has worked with with children of all ages, adults and couples.Peek into a day in Dr. Kristal's life.
A Day In The Life
December 20, 20116:30 – 8am Started my day, which included packing lunch, dinner and snacks for the entire day as I won’t leave my office once I am there unless there is an unanticipated break because of a last minute cancellation.8am -8:30amDrive to a monthly supervision meeting. I use car time to listen to books on tape, currently Steve Jobs biography (fascinating) or think about patients I’m struggling with, listen to music (Bruce Springsteen, often) or talk on the phone with a friend (hands free!). Today I listened to Steve.8:30 – 10:00am  EMDR monthly peer supervision. I am a trained EMDR provider and I really look forward to this group every month. We take turns presenting cases and often discuss a particular aspect of theory or application.10:00– 11:30amDrive to my office and prep for the day. I am pretty fastidious about organizing my caseload and case files, so I looked through file notes from previous sessions and thought about how to structure a few EMDR sessions.11:30am – 12:20pmpatient session12:20 – 12:30pmlunch while walking around my office and stretching12:30 – 1:3pmphone meeting with marketing director who's helping me develop a social media presence1:30 – 2:20pmpatient session2:30 – 4:00pmMeeting with a new potential referral source got cancelled, so I used the time to reply to emails and to write up some ideas for an upcoming meeting with a relocation specialist. I also spent some time chatting with one of my office mates.4 – 8.30pmSaw 4 patients, one of which was an intake for a new child referral, ate dinner in between patients.9 – 11pmHome: chatted with my husband and hung out with our daughter who is home from university.11.00pmRead in bed – did some down time with a novel. Good night.
To learn more about Dr. Jill Kristal and her practice visit TransitionalLearning.com