Where is this frustration coming from? I know how you feel, because at my hospital, I constantly have doctors belittling the psychology field. Yet, I've learned to ignore them, let them parade on their high horse.
BACKGROUND
My Associates degree is in Fine Arts (drawing).
My Undergrad degree says Philosophy and I must explain why. After transferring my General Education credits to my university , I decided to be a Philosophy/Psychology double major. Spring Semester of my Junior year I failed a biology class by 2 points. This class was a requirement for my Psychology major. As a result my excellent guidance counselor pulled some strings and converted me to a Philosophy major (going into my senior year). If you look at my transcript, all of my classes were in each field. As a result my Bachelors degree is in Philosophy.
Compared to the other majors at my undergrad university, the psychology department was the most popular major, yet the most archaic. The dual degree option wasn't available, the cool internships weren't available and all of the "weeding out classes" were required for psychology majors (because it's my universities most popular major since 1987). I was told by my guidance counselor that roughly 20% of the students that chose psychology as a major graduate with that degree.
The two main reasons were :
1. A psychology degree is worthless at any level beneath a PhD. Many parents, friends and family members alert the student to this reality. You can't make instant money with it (unlike education, engineering or a bachelors in social work).
2. My former biology professor fails 56% of her class every semester since she started the department in 1956. Granted her class is always 300-458 students. Therefore, my previous university is very aware of her horrible reputation. Yet she maintains her job because she's the department head/ founder.
My Masters degree is in clinical counseling. The interview board was surprised that a philosophy degree/ Art degree holder would be interested in counseling, but once they reviewed my transcript (they understood why). Therefore my accreditation was in CACREP for my Masters in Counseling. I also got a chance to start using Art Therapy
Now I'm in a Social Psychology PhD program. It isn't my first choice, I wanted Clinical Psychology. All of my current electives are within the clinical psychology branch. Even the lab I'm a part of is in the clinical psychology branch (my cohorts call me Judas every change they get, because I'm not staying loyal to the social psychology family). Even my advisor isn't to happy with me being in a lab that's outside her jurisdiction. Luckily the state I live in doesn't differentiate the Psychology specialties (when I'm done, my business cards will say Psychologist, not Social Psychologist).
BACK TO THE TOPIC
I gave you this background so that you can see where I'm coming from.
At the hospital where I conduct my internships, many of the doctors talk down to me when they find out I'm their doing Art Therapy and/ or I'm a Psychology student. They don't see it as a real science. The doctors that know me well and are supportive of me, openly tell me that even with a PhD , most hospitals have no need for psychologists. He tells me this because I'm very open about wanting to work at my internship site after I graduate (in what seems like 10,000 years). I see 15-31 patients per day, many of them the Psychiatrists off-load on me. Yet they still don't see the value of psychology. I have many compliments on discharge survey's about my Art Therapy or traditional "talk" therapy and yet many doctors still don't see the value. As a result I hang around the LCSW's and nurses at the hospital because they are more down to earth.
I understand why you want the profession to gain more respect in the eyes of the public. The APA has no motivation to increase the marketability of the field. Psychology is considered an Allied Health field, but, the APA isn't lobbying hard to make it a law in all 50 states. The insurance companies rape us every change they get when it comes to billing for our services (again, the APA does nothing about this). We fight amongst ourselves all the time, because clinical psychology graduates/students know that they get the larger piece of the pie (when compared to the other branches). In my own cohort my dissertation focuses on counseling within the African American community. It is seen as clinical psychology more than social psychology (I will admit it's an attempt to merge both). My social psychology advisers, and others within the branch, wish I did something more social psychological (like the effect of positive thinking). In order to get the data for this, I have to be within the clinical psychology lab, yet my own social psychology cohorts forget the "social" aspect of what they are doing.
Their is a lot of in-fighting amongst ourselves in the real world. It shouldn't be like this, because it makes us look more divided. I've had plenty of patients that have a negative perception of psychologists. They assume all of us "hold hands and sing around a camp fire". Yet for a Psychiatrists, they feel that they will get better treatment. Our PxP movement might help increase our usefulness within the medical field.
I'm so sorry for writing such a long post. I've only had 3 hours of sleep and I only have $20 to my name (and I'm hungry).
