Ethereal

Butterflies

⚠️TW⚠️
Talk of self harm and abandonment

You look out at the crowd of students. You're usually confident presenting stuff like this, but for some reason you're nervous. You aren't used to younger crowds. You take a deep breath and start talking.

"Hello everyone, like Professor Davis said I'm Dr. y/n y/l/n. I'm a psychology intern."

A boy in the crowd raises his hand. He's slouching and wearing a dirty gray hoodie, his hair messy. He obviously doesn't want to be here. You look at him and point, signaling that you can answer his question.

"If you're a doctor, why are you only an intern?" he asks. You actually get this question a lot.

"Well, a psychology intern isn't a regular intern. I get paid for my job. I do things like conduct tests and experiments and I make patient assessments. I'm not a registered psychologist because I don't have my PhD in psychology." The guy nods and looks down at his notebook. He begins to write something down and that makes you feel a little better. You walk over to the desk and grab your clicker. You go to the first slide of your presentation and read the first sentence.

"Behavior in humans and animals is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individuals history. Can anyone tell me what antecedent stimuli is?" You look around the room. A girl with dark coily hair and glasses has her hand raised, along with a few other students. You point to the girl. She lowers her hand.

"It's a stimulus that cues someone to act on a learned behavior."

You nod. "Yes, correct. These behaviors can be big or small. They can be as simple as putting water on your toothbrush before brushing your teeth, or they can be complicated. I can't really give examples on complicated ones because every individual has different learned behaviors." You look back at the whiteboard. "Now individual history is a very important factor of behaviorism. Any moment or event in your life, big or small, good or bad, affects your actions. This includes accidents, promotions, family and romantic life, etcetera." You press the button on your clicker to go to the next slide. A picture of Albert Fish pops up.

"Take Albert Fish for example- He was an American serial killer who's wife left him and their six children, taking everything they owned with her. This caused him to start having auditory hallucinations of John the Apostle. He told law enforcement that the apostle would tell him to roll himself up in a carpet. He would also indulge in self harm by stabbing needles into his abdomen and groin." You switch to a picture of a x-ray of Fish's pelvic region, and the needles in it. You get some gasps and whispers from the crowd. You take a quick glance at Dr. Reid and notice that he's looking at you instead of the picture. When he notices you looking he quickly looks away. You try very hard not to smile too wide- again.

The rest of your lesson goes by very smoothly. You use a few more serial killers as examples, but you mostly go over points of behaviorism. You get asked a lot of great questions, all of which you answer with confidence. It made you happy to see all of the students taking notes as you talked. You really enjoyed teaching and by the looks of it, the class enjoyed themselves too. Even the slouching boy from before had a little more pep. There were a few times where you caught Dr. Reid staring, and it definitely put you in a good mood and gave you some confidence.

After an hour you finally completed your lesson. As you walk back to your seat you are applauded by the students, Professor Davis, and Dr. Reid. It makes you happy that they enjoyed something you worked hard on. As you sit down, Professor Davis stands up again.

"Alright everyone, now that Dr. y/l/n has finished her wonderful lesson Dr. Reid will start with his."

Dr. Reid stands up out of his chair and goes to the front of the room. He plugs his laptop into the projector with absolute focus. He furrows his eyebrows again and licks his bottom lip slowly. It makes your insides flip again. Once he has it on the whiteboard he begins to talk.