Counseling Psych Compared to Clinical Psych?

[therapist89]

Hi all,

I am in the process of applying to Ph.D. programs this upcoming cycle. I have around 12-15 clinical programs on my list, and as I was about to finalize the list this week, a friend showed me a counseling psych program with a couple of faculty members whose research interests align very closely with mine. This program took me aback; though it focuses less on severe psychopathology than a clinical program would, it seems that their students do publish a decent amount and that the program itself offers a full tuition remission + stipend.

Now I'm just wondering if I've potentially overlooked a bunch of counseling psych programs that may offer comparative funding and research opportunities as clinical programs. Are there any that stand out to you that you would compare in quality to clinical programs (I know "quality" is subjective, I suppose I mean quality in terms of research training.) My research interests align with social justice and clinical psych.

Thank you in advance for your time!

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[Justanothergrad]

I did a masters in clinical and my doctorate in counseling. I've had a very productive time researching during my doctorate. What I found made me most successful was general support for projects from faculty; I opted to take less formal classes and did a lot of training by myself (self-teaching and such). I don't find clinical to inherently be of higher 'quality' than counseling programs. Some are even housed in the same department (e.g., UT Knoxville, etc.). I've seen faculty even shift from clinical to counseling and vise-versa and major R1 programs (more rare, but it happens). We generally end up with the same license at the same jobs after completing the same internships/practicums/etc. The greater difference is due to within program emphasis with the caveat that the two areas most likely to differ in terms of who is working there are medical centers and counseling centers (although, I know plenty of clinicals in counseling centers and counseling folks in medical centersh). For example, UW Madison and U Maryland are some other examples of great research programs in counseling. UT-Knoxville has a scientist-practioner-advocate model as their approach to training, and folks there are highly prolific publishers. There are plenty of others as well. I'm a firm believer that the biggest difference between the two you'll see is going to tie into program model and advisor. You'll not necessarily get a good feel of this purely by reading online. If your interests in social social I suspect you would find a large number of counseling psychology programs to be of interest;I would consider both clinical and counseling and look at what funding/training/etc are in those programs.

With all that said, if you have a list that you are happy with and believe would provide the training you need, accept that you won't apply to all the programs and that you have to cut it off somewhere (both the list and the time devoted to the process). Best of luck.

 

[MCParent]

My experience: clinical psych has a monopoly on the ULTRA-research programs (e.g., clinical science programs). But, following that, the range is roughly equivalent for PhD programs. There are many grant-funded counseling psych faculty at many universities, and many ultra-productive faculty. Not all counseling psych programs are especially low on dealing with psychopathology, either, nor are all clinical programs in places with multiple hospital/VA pracs.