Internship, advocacy, and professional issues in psychology

[smalltownpsych]

DEFINITELY. A pre-psych person can skate to an UG degree taking the fluffiest courses you can imagine. That is certainly not an option for pre-med students. But you can't make the UG as rigorous as pre-med, really. Psych departments are often massive enrollment departments, and they would never lose that.

Where I did UG, in Canada, we has several forms of the degree. You could get a three-year BA, which would let you be eligible for government jobs requiring a college degree; a basic four year degree, which was a little more advanced; and a four-year honors for the kids who wanted to go to grad school (you would take 2 graduate courses and do a thesis, as well as a few other more rigorous things).

I would have loved a tiered system in undergrad. I had a hard time finding other like-minded psych majors who actually wanted to be a psychologist. I also had to put up with a lot of juvenile antics from those less committed students who apparently thought they were still in high school and were taking psychology because it was an "easy major".

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[AcronymAllergy]

DEFINITELY. A pre-psych person can skate to an UG degree taking the fluffiest courses you can imagine. That is certainly not an option for pre-med students. But you can't make the UG as rigorous as pre-med, really. Psych departments are often massive enrollment departments, and they would never lose that.

Where I did UG, in Canada, we has several forms of the degree. You could get a three-year BA, which would let you be eligible for government jobs requiring a college degree; a basic four year degree, which was a little more advanced; and a four-year honors for the kids who wanted to go to grad school (you would take 2 graduate courses and do a thesis, as well as a few other more rigorous things).

Yeah, I do like the honors program concept in general (not just for psych), particularly as it often allows/requires undergrads to complete a thesis. And I also could very much buy in to the idea of having two separate psychology degrees, sort of like how some undergrad institutions have two types of basic science classes--"for science majors" and "general." Perhaps even consider doing something as minor as changing the degree name--leave Psychology for the more general degree, and then change the more grad school-oriented degree to, "Psychological Science," "Advanced Psychology," etc.

 

[bmedclinic]

DEFINITELY. A pre-psych person can skate to an UG degree taking the fluffiest courses you can imagine. That is certainly not an option for pre-med students. But you can't make the UG as rigorous as pre-med, really. Psych departments are often massive enrollment departments, and they would never lose that.

I dont necessarily advocate for the goal of the degree to be as difficult as pre-med. However, I distinctly recall a Biology professor, Dr Dini and his feared course and how that in effect caused a lot of "fluffier" pre-med majors to instead become Exercise Sports Science majors. Good for them. Would love to see something in the Psych department that would have that effect.

 

[QAsPsych]

At my undergrad institution, there were two majors; a B.A. and a B.S. To get the latter, you had to take several additional basic science and math courses. However, a lot of the people who were serious about psych ended up pursuing the B.A. instead in order to take on minors or second majors.We also had a course in biological psychology that was designed to be extremely challenging, and acted as a kind of "weed-out" course effectively. A lot of people ended up switching majors at that point. When people from other schools describe it as an easy major, I sort of scratch my head; I believe it but I'm just not sure what those other programs look like....

ETA: I am not so sure about adding more basic science requirements, anyway, given that it's pretty close to irrelevant for a lot of research in psychology.

 

[JeyRo]

I think psychology professors at UGs should be up-front with students bent on pursuing advanced clinical degrees about the brutal realities of going the pro-school route vs. holding out for a funded doctoral or masters program, or choosing other routes (LCSW, MFT, etc).

I recall when I was in college as probably a sophomore or a junior (this was nearly 20 years ago), and one of our psychology profs was speaking to a group of us as part of a professional development seminar. She talked about professional schools as a viable option, and that after graduating from a pro-school you could be successful as any other psychologist, and simply just have an extra bill to pay (I remember her saying "like an additional electric or heating bill, not much more than that.")

Notably, this particular professor graduated with a PhD from Duke and probably didn't really know what she was saying at the time.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

At my undergrad institution, there were two majors; a B.A. and a B.S. To get the latter, you had to take several additional basic science and math courses. However, a lot of the people who were serious about psych ended up pursuing the B.A. instead in order to take on minors or second majors.We also had a course in biological psychology that was designed to be extremely challenging, and acted as a kind of "weed-out" course effectively. A lot of people ended up switching majors at that point. When people from other schools describe it as an easy major, I sort of scratch my head; I believe it but I'm just not sure what those other programs look like....

Biopsych, stats, and research methodology courses all have the potential to be beefed up in seemingly many universities, and would then likely serve a role similar to what organic chemistry does for pre-meds. More importantly (although don't get me wrong, I do actually think weeding out folks who aren't genuinely interested in and/or may not have the specific aptitude for advanced study in a discipline is worthwhile), it would allow folks interested in further study to get a better idea of what psychology actually looks like in research and practice. It'd also provide education that directly transfers to grad school.

Heck, even my undergrad's English department had a "weed out" course of sorts (which, incidentally and perhaps unfortunately, was more difficult than any of the psych courses I took).

 

[smalltownpsych]

At my undergrad, biopsych and research methods were the weed-out courses. Unfortunately, there was an "easy" prof and a "hard" prof so students could easily find their way around it. I took the hard on both accounts, biopsych was easy for me, but the research methods was a huge challenge and was actually the best course I ever had. We had two separate research projects to complete including a partial report for the first and a complete write-up for the second. This was all in one semester so the workload was definitely heavy and it included statistical analyses, as well. I just wish that it had been a year-long course or that there were electives that were more research based. I just took a look at the current course offerings of my undergrad institution and it has changed dramatically - for the better. Too bad it wasn't like that then.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

From my read of the zeitgeist, it seems departments/universities are looking to beef up undergraduate enrollment instead of curtailing it. Recently, undergraduate enrollment has been dropping
(e.g., http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2116059,00.html; http://news.msn.com/us/the-burning-question-why-has-college-enrollment-dropped)
and colleges are scrambling to make up for the numbers. I am noticing a greater push to attract the "online crowd" and to standardize teaching across different instructors. So, universities are trying to go away from the traditional "sage on a stage" approach and trying out new techniques.
(e.g., MOOCs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course; https://oli.cmu.edu/; http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/).
From personal experience, this actually decreases "actual learning" and attracts/retains less capable students.

I agree with others that the problem starts at the undergraduate level. Unfortunately, most undergraduate courses are not taught by clinical psychologists and many (not all) clinical psychologists that do a lot of undergraduate teaching are not well informed about the current state of affairs. So, its difficult to change how things are done at that level.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

btw, what will take for our field to experience this phenomenon?
http://abovethelaw.com/2014/02/ouch-the-law-schools-with-the-biggest-drops-in-enrollment-since-2010/

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Q: What's the difference between running a large university and running a large corporation?
A: Not much these days.

Higher education is still about money, just in a slightly different context. Significant changes need to happen to the loan system or there is little incentive for ANY place of higher education (Bob's Technical Institute of Stuff to State U) to look for ways to maximize taking federal loan $'s.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

Q: What's the difference between running a large university and running a large corporation?
A: Not much these days.

Higher education is still about money, just in a slightly different context. Significant changes need to happen to the loan system or there is little incentive for ANY place of higher education (Bob's Technical Institute of Stuff to State U) to look for ways to maximize taking federal loan $'s.

loans need to be tied to outcomes. Its not the best method, and institutions will find loop holes to take advantage, but it will help a great deal.

more germane:
accreditation needs to be tied to outcomes (e.g, match, EPPP, something). Its not the best method, and institutions will find loop holes to take advantage, but it will help a great deal.

 

[smalltownpsych]

loans need to be tied to outcomes. Its not the best method, and institutions will find loop holes to take advantage, but it will help a great deal.

more germane:
accreditation needs to be tied to outcomes (e.g, match, EPPP, something). Its not the best method, and institutions will find loop holes to take advantage, but it will help a great deal.

I think that it would be difficult to tie loans to outcomes and that is more of an overall academic/political systemic fix which is not easily influenced by psychologists. On the other hand, making requirements for match statistic standards to maintain APA accreditation is direct and within our control. I would suggest that a 75% match rate might be a good starting place before placing an institution on probation. that might seem low, but this could be raised as the system begins to adjust.

 

[SmithPsy24]

One thought I've had that might be useful is developing consortium models that help smaller APPIC-level internships in an area branch to APA accreditation. The weakness of this is that they are often connected to specific training programs...which makes sense, since a program would want some reward for taking on that administration responsibility, and a university could easily handle both the administration and didactic responsibilities. It's really striking in the Philadelphia area how many internships at local agencies are tied to university PsyD programs (currently two of these are APPIC members but both are applying for APA in the near future). They don't accept anyone but their own students until Phase II. Still, a consortium model allows these agencies to train predoctoral interns even though they probably couldn't sustain a cohort on their own and probably cuts down on some of the paperwork by doing a first evaluation of applicants.

As someone in a PsyD program based in an academic department, the accreditation issue is really thorny. Several of my classmates have taken non-APA internships and for the most part they are confident that their careers can go forward with that choice. I've known some really great psychologists who did not have APA internships and they seem to be doing fine despite how that can limit the scope of their career (mind you, they started from a place of knowing they weren't on a strict academic track, were willing to give up the possibility of VA work, etc.). Maybe some of those internships have gained accreditation at this point, maybe not. On the other hand, I know people in APPIC member internships that have had experiences of such poor quality that they feel like their skills declined during the year. It's hard to know how that's going to go until you're there, unfortunately.

 

[Rivi]

few years ago, I remember I was in an APPIC meeting and mentioned discrepancies in C-20 data and APPIC's data on program match rates, and was shouted down by the NCSPP chair. Now, several years later, there is recognition of widespread creative accounting of those statistics by programs..

I apologize if this is asking too much, but I am really curious here. What did the NCSPP chair say when you quoted the data? How did the other APA members respond to someone shouting you down? To me, this is completely unacceptable coming from someone in that position. It seems like a complete abuse of power to me, and potentially part of what is taking the APA so long to implement an effective strategy.

 

[MCParent]

I apologize if this is asking too much, but I am really curious here. What did the NCSPP chair say when you quoted the data? How did the other APA members respond to someone shouting you down? To me, this is completely unacceptable coming from someone in that position. It seems like a complete abuse of power to me, and potentially part of what is taking the APA so long to implement an effective strategy.

I was a student at the time. I said the findings that my group had, and he (NSCPP rep) interrupted with stuff about APPIC counts not reflecting students who match in the clearinghouse, and I didn't get to my point about the WAY the data was being misreported (i.e., that the number of total applicants was being underreported [that the denominator was artificially being made smaller], not that students might have matched in clearinghouse). No, others in the room on CCTC/APPIC did not advocate for me, probably due to a desire to not even have the conversation if I had a guess about it. That goes to your second point--yes, I think many of the musical chairs people on APA (i.e., the ones who are just in whatever board has an opening and don't care about the work), really just don't care to have challenging conversations.

It's largely irrelevant to me now; CoA has recognized the creative reporting some programs are doing, and all I care about if the future of the profession, not whether I'm the one who blows the whistle. Other things like that happened when I was a student too (e.g., the chair of APAGS, Milo Wilson, called my paper with John Williamson "finger-pointing" in a gradpsych article though curiously did not say the same about Greg Keilin or Emil Rudolpha's papers that were direct PhD vs. PsyD analyses). Certainly during my time on APAGS that was not the only instance of disrespect for students I witnessed. As a faculty member now, it's also not something I would further tolerate to myself, or witnessing occurring to students.

On the flip side, at APA this year I'll be on presidential hours for an internship panel. I'll be sure to revisit this and similar issues in that forum. Folks should come.

 

[beebom]

Okay, so I might be about to totally put my foot in it here but... as a current student at one of the schools that has been mentioned as a major culprit for flooding the "market" with psychologists (the one that has its accreditation, not the one that lost it) I feel compelled to defend myself. And let me be clear, I'm defending myself not the school. I agree that these places are psychologist factories and should, frankly, be ashamed of their admission standards. I agree that they're insanely expensive, poorly run and are part of the problem behind the internship crisis. But in my case I had every intention of attending a PhD program abroad; I got accepted and was just about ready to go when life happened. So things had to change to fit around my new lifestyle and that's where the PsyD program came in. It's not great and I'm not proud (which I realize is its own issue) but I wanted to become a psychologist because this work is what I love to do. It seems a bit like there has been a generalization made that everyone at these places are idiots and that's what I'm taking issue with here. In our training we're supposed to hear individual stories or get to know people before jumping to conclusions about
diagnoses, presenting problems, etc. I had been feeling connected to some people on here in our discussions about matching and in stumbling onto this thread learned that there's a lot of hostility towards my school and other similar offenders. I can't speak for my cohort or the university but I do hope that we can have an honest dialog about the issues that arise in the profession that doesn't just devolve into program bashing.

 

[sockit]

nvm

 

[KillerDiller]

Okay, so I might be about to totally put my foot in it here but... as a current student at one of the schools that has been mentioned as a major culprit for flooding the "market" with psychologists (the one that has its accreditation, not the one that lost it) I feel compelled to defend myself.

I understand why students of these schools feel attacked in threads like this one, but I want to assure that there isn't a need to defend yourself. We aren't attacking the students at these schools, we're attacking the schools themselves. I don't think anyone believes that all students at these programs are dumb or inferior. Certainly the options these places present can tempt people for all sorts of reasons. Keep in mind as you participate in these threads, the very best advocates for change will come from inside these systems, not from outside. We don't need to be on opposite sides of the fence just because we graduated from one program or the other.

 

[CheetahGirl]

beebom, I may be one of the offenders...but my references to Psychology Today are meant to be comical...after all who can take that publication seriously!?

I clearly know that we should be looking at a case by case basis, but life does happen (as you said) and the market is flooded (as we all said), so perhaps it becomes the position of 'us' vs. 'them.' I think you are one of 'us' because you recognize the problem and are having a discussion about it.

I'm always thinking of one my friends who I met on externship and goes to a professional school when I write my posts...she's definitely one of 'us,' and she agrees with the problems of large class sizes, inadequate mentor-student support, poorly-trained practioners and flooding of the market. However, her gripes are retrospective b/c she's finishing her program now...and we both worry about how she will pay back her loans. Good thing she was a super-star entering grad school @ 21yo. She now has her entire life to pay it off.

 

[JeyRo]

I think it would be very easy to tie loans to outcomes. Make education loans dischargeable. That at least will give all private lenders pause before they hand out outsized loans to wide-eyed twenty-somethings who know nothing more than wanting to be called "doctor" someday. Won't solve the issue of the federal government's monopolization of the student loan industry otherwise (federal loans), but it would be a great start. And it's under consideration currently - might benefit from a lot more weight thrown behind it: http://www.news10.net/story/news/education/2014/03/27/student-loan-debt-proposals/6969197/

Tying loans to outcomes would remove an enormous perverse incentive for these fly-by-night programs to exist, and provide at least some discipline / market regulation to a system that's otherwise broken. I don't disagree with any of the other proposals but I think it's a lot like trying to push the proverbial boulder uphill when there's all this money out there sloshing through the system.

 

[erg923]

Okay, so I might be about to totally put my foot in it here but... as a current student at one of the schools that has been mentioned as a major culprit for flooding the "market" with psychologists (the one that has its accreditation, not the one that lost it) I feel compelled to defend myself. And let me be clear, I'm defending myself not the school. I agree that these places are psychologist factories and should, frankly, be ashamed of their admission standards. I agree that they're insanely expensive, poorly run and are part of the problem behind the internship crisis. But in my case I had every intention of attending a PhD program abroad; I got accepted and was just about ready to go when life happened. So things had to change to fit around my new lifestyle and that's where the PsyD program came in. It's not great and I'm not proud (which I realize is its own issue) but I wanted to become a psychologist because this work is what I love to do. It seems a bit like there has been a generalization made that everyone at these places are idiots and that's what I'm taking issue with here. In our training we're supposed to hear individual stories or get to know people before jumping to conclusions about
diagnoses, presenting problems, etc. I had been feeling connected to some people on here in our discussions about matching and in stumbling onto this thread learned that there's a lot of hostility towards my school and other similar offenders. I can't speak for my cohort or the university but I do hope that we can have an honest dialog about the issues that arise in the profession that doesn't just devolve into program bashing.

I think we try hard to recognize that students can rise above what is often considered subpar training/training models. So, no. Certainly lots of these FSPS folks are NOT idiots and end up doing well...even if not trained in the scientist/scholarship aspect as much as many of us believe they probably should be. But they are taking a huge risk in doing so when you look at objective outcome data for many of these programs and then combine it with the debt to income ratio. Thus, some might view the choice to take said risk as approaching irrationality...obviously not a good trait in a MH provider/professional.

 

[cara susanna]

Okay, so I might be about to totally put my foot in it here but... as a current student at one of the schools that has been mentioned as a major culprit for flooding the "market" with psychologists (the one that has its accreditation, not the one that lost it) I feel compelled to defend myself. And let me be clear, I'm defending myself not the school. I agree that these places are psychologist factories and should, frankly, be ashamed of their admission standards. I agree that they're insanely expensive, poorly run and are part of the problem behind the internship crisis. But in my case I had every intention of attending a PhD program abroad; I got accepted and was just about ready to go when life happened. So things had to change to fit around my new lifestyle and that's where the PsyD program came in. It's not great and I'm not proud (which I realize is its own issue) but I wanted to become a psychologist because this work is what I love to do. It seems a bit like there has been a generalization made that everyone at these places are idiots and that's what I'm taking issue with here. In our training we're supposed to hear individual stories or get to know people before jumping to conclusions about
diagnoses, presenting problems, etc. I had been feeling connected to some people on here in our discussions about matching and in stumbling onto this thread learned that there's a lot of hostility towards my school and other similar offenders. I can't speak for my cohort or the university but I do hope that we can have an honest dialog about the issues that arise in the profession that doesn't just devolve into program bashing.

You might have seen this line of thinking elsewhere on SDN, and I am going to reiterate it: yes, life happens. Sometimes it is just not the right moment to pursue our dream. So many people use the argument of "But I wouldn't have been able to attend a program otherwise." I'm sorry that you and others have barriers in life that make pursuit of a doctorate in clinical psych at a funded, non-professional school program not exactly feasible. But I don't think that people wanting a doctorate and not being able to otherwise pursue one is a sufficient reason for these programs existing.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

You might have seen this line of thinking elsewhere on SDN, and I am going to reiterate it: yes, life happens. Sometimes it is just not the right moment to pursue our dream. So many people use the argument of "But I wouldn't have been able to attend a program otherwise." I'm sorry that you and others have barriers in life that make pursuit of a doctorate in clinical psych at a funded, non-professional school program not exactly feasible. But I don't think that people wanting a doctorate and not being able to otherwise pursue one is a sufficient reason for these programs existing.

As potentially harsh as it might sound, I agree. I don't necessarily like that psychology continually compares itself to medicine, but this is one situation where I feel such a comparison is warranted and worthwhile. The reason folks in general wouldn't have the same expectation regarding medical school is in large part because medicine as a whole has done a much better job than psychology of establishing an appropriate set of minimum standards regarding admissions, training parity, outcomes, and avoidance of market saturation. My take, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is that if a student can't get through a program doing the bare minimum required to pass and still at least be a competent practitioner, then that program is doing something wrong. This is the case in medicine. This is not currently the case in psychology (in my opinion).

 

[CheetahGirl]

My thoughts exactly.

As potentially harsh as it might sound, I agree. I don't necessarily like that psychology continually compares itself to medicine, but this is one situation where I feel such a comparison is warranted and worthwhile. The reason folks in general wouldn't have the same expectation regarding medical school is in large part because medicine as a whole has done a much better job than psychology of establishing an appropriate set of minimum standards regarding admissions, training parity, outcomes, and avoidance of market saturation. My take, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is that if a student can't get through a program doing the bare minimum required to pass and still at least be a competent practitioner, then that program is doing something wrong. This is the case in medicine. This is not currently the case in psychology (in my opinion).

 

[JeyRo]

You might have seen this line of thinking elsewhere on SDN, and I am going to reiterate it: yes, life happens. Sometimes it is just not the right moment to pursue our dream. So many people use the argument of "But I wouldn't have been able to attend a program otherwise." I'm sorry that you and others have barriers in life that make pursuit of a doctorate in clinical psych at a funded, non-professional school program not exactly feasible. But I don't think that people wanting a doctorate and not being able to otherwise pursue one is a sufficient reason for these programs existing.

The reason professional schools exist is to profit / generate revenue. They really don't exist for any other 'reason.'

 

[Ollie123]

As potentially harsh as it might sound, I agree. I don't necessarily like that psychology continually compares itself to medicine, but this is one situation where I feel such a comparison is warranted and worthwhile. The reason folks in general wouldn't have the same expectation regarding medical school is in large part because medicine as a whole has done a much better job than psychology of establishing an appropriate set of minimum standards regarding admissions, training parity, outcomes, and avoidance of market saturation. My take, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is that if a student can't get through a program doing the bare minimum required to pass and still at least be a competent practitioner, then that program is doing something wrong. This is the case in medicine. This is not currently the case in psychology (in my opinion).

In medicine there are multiple other avenues for folks who still want to contribute in similar ways but for whatever reason are unable to pursue medical school (unable to relocate, lacking the scientific background, etc.). These folks are encouraged to pursue advanced nursing, PA programs, etc. For whatever reason we do not do this in psychology despite the fact that many similar options exist (Social work, MFT, MA Counseling, etc.). I think this play a significant role in feeding into the current problems. Many of the students in these programs are perhaps better suited to these degrees. Indeed, from what I've seen graduates I honestly believe an Argosy PsyD on average is going to much closer to an MSW than to a Psychology PhD at <random state U> in terms of background and preparedness. Degrees are supposed to ensure a minimum bar, not maximum potential. Just like many nurses and PAs go above and beyond and provide better care than many physicians in positions commensurate with their training. I agree comparisons to medicine on this board are frequently overdone, but it seems logical here. There is nothing wrong with being a great LCSW, we SHOULD be encouraging that. We shouldn't be making psychology doctorates more like LCSW programs just because people would prefer the title of psychologist, but that seems to be what is going on.

 

[QAsPsych]

If you read these boards, though, people are encouraged to go for MSW's and other degrees all the time, but they come back with a thinly veiled "But I want to be a doctor!" There aren't any comparable med schools with no admissions standards located in big cities and popular areas like there are professional psych schools, so potential med students can't just say "screw it, I don't want to be a nurse, I don't want to leave SoCal, I'm going to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College." The existence of professional schools is the problem, it allows this cop out.

 

[erg923]

For whatever reason we do not do this in psychology despite the fact that many similar options exist (Social work, MFT, MA Counseling, etc.). I think this play a significant role in feeding into the current .

Well, we do on this board, as this seems common sensical to many of us. I do not think this happens much by academic psychologists who serve as the primary vocational/grad school advisors for undergrads though. When I was coming through, there was a big push to channel folks into psyds (and to professional schools to some extent) whilst having a snobbery disdain for them at the same time. I saw faculty passively encouraged students to go to those programs, but no one ever had a real "good" thing to say about them. It was weird. Quite unacceptable.

 

[MCParent]

Okay, so I might be about to totally put my foot in it here but... as a current student at one of the schools that has been mentioned as a major culprit for flooding the "market" with psychologists (the one that has its accreditation, not the one that lost it) I feel compelled to defend myself. And let me be clear, I'm defending myself not the school. I agree that these places are psychologist factories and should, frankly, be ashamed of their admission standards. I agree that they're insanely expensive, poorly run and are part of the problem behind the internship crisis. But in my case I had every intention of attending a PhD program abroad; I got accepted and was just about ready to go when life happened. So things had to change to fit around my new lifestyle and that's where the PsyD program came in. It's not great and I'm not proud (which I realize is its own issue) but I wanted to become a psychologist because this work is what I love to do. It seems a bit like there has been a generalization made that everyone at these places are idiots and that's what I'm taking issue with here. In our training we're supposed to hear individual stories or get to know people before jumping to conclusions about
diagnoses, presenting problems, etc. I had been feeling connected to some people on here in our discussions about matching and in stumbling onto this thread learned that there's a lot of hostility towards my school and other similar offenders. I can't speak for my cohort or the university but I do hope that we can have an honest dialog about the issues that arise in the profession that doesn't just devolve into program bashing.

I don't think anyone should have a problem with students of the programs. That's like trying soldiers as war criminals while generals get off. The problem is the governance of those programs and APA, not students. Students of those programs should be as behind these fixes as anyone else, even if only for their own self-interest they just want to shut the doors behind themselves.

- the parent williamson article was finger pointing

Well, my point was that other established people had done PhD versus PsyD analyses, which I would call much more offensive than what I did, which was to say that some programs (which are mostly psyds, but are not all psyds by definition) contribute more and we can do program level accountability rather than bluntly state "Phd good, psyd bad." Yet the APAGS chair chose to insult MY work, rather than the other work. I can't think of a reason other than the first author being a student and the APAGS chair perceiving that he could say bad things about a student but not a professional psychologist.

 

[researchgirl]

Well, we do on this board, as this seems common sensical to many of us. I do not think this happens much by academic psychologists who serve as the primary vocational/grad school advisors for undergrads though. When I was coming through, there was a big push to channel folks into psyds (and to professional schools to some extent) whilst having a snobbery disdain for them at the same time. I saw faculty passively encouraged students to go to those programs, but no one ever had a real "good" thing to say about them. It was weird. Quite unacceptable.

Ugh, this just fuels my desire to stay in an academic setting and provide actual quality mentorship to undergraduates who are trying to understand how to pursue graduate education. I see it as my personality responsibility (and all of yours!!) to present accurate information about graduate education and career paths to the undergraduates we interact with. I've definitely crushed a few dreams this way, but better to crush them now than have them poorly educated and $250,000 in debt 5 years from now.

 

[smalltownpsych]

It sounds like some of the posters are saying that the only option to becoming a psychologist should be fully-funded Ph.D. programs as opposed to having professional schools that are privately funded and then using medical schools as an example. I might be wrong, but wasn't the creation of the MD degree analogous to the creation of the Psy.D. degree? I.e., from a desire to have a more clinically driven training model. I agree wholeheartedly that standards need to be high and this serves us all, but i think some posters are barking up the wrong tree.
First, I doubt that the professional schools will ever go away so asking for their abolition is akin to tilting at windmills.
Second, it does seem that some of the professional schools have decent match rates and thus standards (or is it vice versa?).
Third, and this is going to go completely against many on this forum's perspective, maybe we would be better off if we had a unified clinical degree that people identified as an advanced level skilled practitioner so to use the MD analogy, then Psy.D. would be the way to go and Ph.D. would be reserved for the primary researchers and academics.
Please don't think that this final point means in any way that I accept what is going on in many of the professional schools, I have worked with some of their graduates Sometimes we suffer from functional fixedness and it gets in the way of creative solutions so I love to drop bombs like this.

 

[erg923]

Third, and this is going to go completely against many on this forum's perspective, maybe we would be better off if we had a unified clinical degree that people identified as an advanced level skilled practitioner so to use the MD analogy, then Psy.D. would be the way to go and Ph.D. would be reserved for the primary researchers and academics.

Why?

 

[smalltownpsych]

Mainly because of the confusion surrounding what we do. I paid my way through much of school by working in sales and I know that a big key to reaching customers is simplicity of message. My own family still gets confused about what a psychologist is or does no matter how often I try to clarify and I am good at boiling things down. First, people confuse us with psychiatry, not much we can do about that, but then they get confused about Ph.D. verses Psy.D., that could be fixed. I would choose the Psy.D. as the degree we should market as the clinical degree because that was the initial intent and second because it is unique to psychologists. In other words, philosophers and history and literature profs can all have Ph.D.'s but only a psychologist would have a Psy.D. just like only a medical doc would have an MD. The one drawback to this proposal is that I would hate to see us lose our identities as researchers and the diminishment of the central importance of research to our critical thinking skills that I see in many of the professional schools.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The physician equivalent to "I want to be a doctor [no matter what]" is pursuing training overseas. There are *plenty* of lower quality to downright bad training options out there, it just depends where the student is willing to move. However, the medical field has done a far better job regulating their residency programs, so the truly deficient students have a hard to matching into any speciality. Psychology has not adequately protected internship & post-doc, so supply-side pressure is forcing itself through.

Cutting off the cheap $'s (gov't loans) is a tall task, though so are any changes to state laws. The aim should be at APA-acred. of programs and internships and THEN states if/when the governance of APA are more in line with realistic solutions to the imbalance and over-supply of clinicians in the field.

 

[QAsPsych]

It sounds like some of the posters are saying that the only option to becoming a psychologist should be fully-funded Ph.D. programs as opposed to having professional schools that are privately funded and then using medical schools as an example. I might be wrong, but wasn't the creation of the MD degree analogous to the creation of the Psy.D. degree? I.e., from a desire to have a more clinically driven training model. I agree wholeheartedly that standards need to be high and this serves us all, but i think some posters are barking up the wrong tree.
First, I doubt that the professional schools will ever go away so asking for their abolition is akin to tilting at windmills.
Second, it does seem that some of the professional schools have decent match rates and thus standards (or is it vice versa?).
Third, and this is going to go completely against many on this forum's perspective, maybe we would be better off if we had a unified clinical degree that people identified as an advanced level skilled practitioner so to use the MD analogy, then Psy.D. would be the way to go and Ph.D. would be reserved for the primary researchers and academics.
Please don't think that this final point means in any way that I accept what is going on in many of the professional schools, I have worked with some of their graduates Sometimes we suffer from functional fixedness and it gets in the way of creative solutions so I love to drop bombs like this.

Plenty of currently existing funded Ph.D. programs are focused on clinical work first and research second, and produce primarily clinicians. The difference between M.D.'s and psychologists is that we have a shortage of M.D.'s at this time, and an overabundance of psychologists. Basically to do what you are saying we would have to eliminate a currently working training model (the funded Ph.D.) and replace it with a model that at current does not seem to be working very well, however well designed it was for dealing with things at the time the Vail model came about.

In re: tilting at windmills, I'd rather we acknowledge the problem than talk around it. As John Snow pointed out earlier, the internship crisis is the professional schools.

 

[erg923]

Mainly because of the confusion surrounding what we do. I paid my way through much of school by working in sales and I know that a big key to reaching customers is simplicity of message. My own family still gets confused about what a psychologist is or does no matter how often I try to clarify and I am good at boiling things down. First, people confuse us with psychiatry, not much we can do about that, but then they get confused about Ph.D. verses Psy.D., that could be fixed. I would choose the Psy.D. as the degree we should market as the clinical degree because that was the initial intent and second because it is unique to psychologists. In other words, philosophers and history and literature profs can all have Ph.D.'s but only a psychologist would have a Psy.D. just like only a medical doc would have an MD. The one drawback to this proposal is that I would hate to see us lose our identities as researchers and the diminishment of the central importance of research to our critical thinking skills that I see in many of the professional schools.

The counter is that you do all that you just get rid of the Psy.D degree and have ph.d degree that teaches elements of both science AND practice competencies. It can be done, ya know.

Then you can have well trained practitioners who also like research (sciencey types are good for this field, generally) and move the field forward by having an indepth understanding of how to utilize it, apply it, and harness it in their service delivery. There would be variability within programs regarding how much focus is on the applied vs research/bench science aspects. Some would be balanced in their training in service delivery and scientific competencies/productivity, some would be focused much more on using the science/research in dissemination and policy application, whereaas some would focus on bench science. Seems, uh, kinda familar....

 

[smalltownpsych]

The counter is that you do all that you just get rid of the Psy.D degree and have ph.d degree that teaches elements of both science AND practice competencies. It can be done, ya know.

Then you can have well trained practitioners who also like research (sciencey types are good for this field, generally) and move the field forward by having an indepth understanding of how to utilize it, apply it, and harness it in their service delivery. There would be variability within programs regarding how much focus is on the applied vs research/bench science aspects. Some would be balanced in their training in service delivery and scientific competencies/productivity, some would be focused much more on using the science/research in dissemination and policy application, whereaas some would focus on bench science. Seems, uh, kinda familar....

But this doesn't address the marketing and financial aspects of our profession as a health care provider which is what the med docs are so much better at than us.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

But this doesn't address the marketing and financial aspects of our profession as a health care provider which is what the med docs are so much better at than us.

In my mind, the degree letters themselves aren't particularly important in this regard (think DO vs. MD or DDS vs. DMD). What's more important is the professional title (i.e., "psychologist"), which we've at least legally protected in most/all states.

Yes, the Psy.D. was initially envisioned as a way of producing a professional degree akin to the M.D. or J.D., and to address the fact that some Ph.D. folks studying clinical psychology were getting little to no actual clinical experience (which, I believe, is also why the mandatory clinically-focused internship was adopted). However, I would make the argument that particularly at the time of the Psy.D.'s inception, psychology as a discipline wasn't nearly as mature as medicine, and thus wasn't (and perhaps still isn't) ready for a fully professional degree. Beyond (and related to) that, our conceptualizations of mental illness are continually in flux, even to the extent of attempting to define what the "normal" human mental/emotional state entails, which largely is not the case with medicine and physiology where absence of disease is (generally) more readily-identifiable. Thus, to universally adopt a practice-oriented degree is to then distance ourselves from research; however, I feel it's our significant training in, and understanding of research that is one of our greatest strengths.

And as JS mentioned, given the average salary of psychologists, I feel that the fully- or at least mostly-funded modality is the most appropriate model, particularly as there isn't evidence it wasn't capable of meeting supply-side psychological needs.

Edit: Although yes, to address the last part of your point, physician lobbies and professional groups are much, much more effective than ours. Probably because they give them lots more money. Then again, ask many physicians and they'd probably tell you that nursing lobbies and organizations blow theirs out of the water.

 

[erg923]

But this doesn't address the marketing and financial aspects of our profession as a health care provider which is what the med docs are so much better at than us.

You dont market a degree. You market a service.

 

[smalltownpsych]

In my mind, the degree letters themselves aren't particularly important in this regard (think DO vs. MD or DDS vs. DMD). What's more important is the professional title (i.e., "psychologist"), which we've at least legally protected in most/all states.

Yes, the Psy.D. was initially envisioned as a way of producing a professional degree akin to the M.D. or J.D., and to address the fact that some Ph.D. folks studying clinical psychology were getting little to no actual clinical experience (which, I believe, is also why the mandatory clinically-focused internship was adopted). However, I would make the argument that particularly at the time of the Psy.D.'s inception, psychology as a discipline wasn't nearly as mature as medicine, and thus wasn't (and perhaps still isn't) ready for a fully professional degree. Beyond (and related to) that, our conceptualizations of mental illness are continually in flux, even to the extent of attempting to define what the "normal" human mental/emotional state entails, which largely is not the case with medicine and physiology where absence of disease is (generally) more readily-identifiable. Thus, to universally adopt a practice-oriented degree is to then distance ourselves from research; however, I feel it's our significant training in, and understanding of research that is one of our greatest strengths.

And as JS mentioned, given the average salary of psychologists, I feel that the fully- or at least mostly-funded modality is the most appropriate model, particularly as there isn't evidence it wasn't capable of meeting supply-side psychological needs.

Edit: Although yes, to address the last part of your point, physician lobbies and professional groups are much, much more effective than ours. Probably because they give them lots more money. Then again, ask many physicians and they'd probably tell you that nursing lobbies and organizations blow theirs out of the water.

Some great points. It leads me to think about why our research wasn't at the forefront in the development of the DSM-5 which is a whole other issue. I am enjoying this discussion thoroughly and feel that these are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Some great points. It leads me to think about why our research wasn't at the forefront in the development of the DSM-5 which is a whole other issue. I am enjoying this discussion thoroughly and feel that these are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

My thoughts? Two words: politics, profit. To be fair, there are some things about the DSM-5 I actually prefer to 4 (e.g., the new neurocognitive disorders diagnoses vs. "dementia due to _____"). But as a whole, I feel it's an incomplete product that seems to have a history of failing to incorporate research findings and that was prematurely rushed to market.

 

[smalltownpsych]

You dont market a degree. You market a service.

Tell that to the professional schools!

 

[Ollie123]

If we could start over from nothing, would I prefer a standard doctorate in clinical psychology have PsyD as the initials? Maybe. I agree with you it might make marketing easier, but I also believe its largely irrelevant at this point. The model itself doesn't work. The relatively few halfway respectable PsyD programs operate more like PhD programs (e.g. university-based, at least reasonable tuition if not waived, substantive research component with dissertations held to a higher standard than the average middle school science fair entry, etc.). There are many reasons to dislike these programs that range from philosophical (e.g. what does it mean to be a psychologist? it used to be someone who studied the mind/behavior in a scientific way) to the purely pragmatic (e.g. do these models require people pay more tuition than they can realistically afford to pay off).

I think its a mistake to approach this by asking which letters would be easier to market. We might not have done a great job so far, but knowledge about these degrees IS out there. You're instead talking about re-branding, which is whole different ballgame and arguably much more difficult than establishing a new brand from scratch. If we swapped the initials of the degrees today, would it not create more confusion than it would resolve?

 

[Rivi]

I was a student at the time. I said the findings that my group had, and he (NSCPP rep) interrupted with stuff about APPIC counts not reflecting students who match in the clearinghouse, and I didn't get to my point about the WAY the data was being misreported (i.e., that the number of total applicants was being underreported [that the denominator was artificially being made smaller], not that students might have matched in clearinghouse). No, others in the room on CCTC/APPIC did not advocate for me, probably due to a desire to not even have the conversation if I had a guess about it. That goes to your second point--yes, I think many of the musical chairs people on APA (i.e., the ones who are just in whatever board has an opening and don't care about the work), really just don't care to have challenging conversations.

It's largely irrelevant to me now; CoA has recognized the creative reporting some programs are doing, and all I care about if the future of the profession, not whether I'm the one who blows the whistle. Other things like that happened when I was a student too (e.g., the chair of APAGS, Milo Wilson, called my paper with John Williamson "finger-pointing" in a gradpsych article though curiously did not say the same about Greg Keilin or Emil Rudolpha's papers that were direct PhD vs. PsyD analyses). Certainly during my time on APAGS that was not the only instance of disrespect for students I witnessed. As a faculty member now, it's also not something I would further tolerate to myself, or witnessing occurring to students.

On the flip side, at APA this year I'll be on presidential hours for an internship panel. I'll be sure to revisit this and similar issues in that forum. Folks should come.

Sorry that this happened man. I look forward hearing about the internship panel.

 

[LightBulb]

My take on a few items:

There is another concern in this field that is largely ignored. It is the use of our tax dollars to fund *free* mental health services at which mental health practitioners are paid very low wages. If these services were eliminated, there would be a greater need for practitioners who bill insurance and are able to support themselves. Clients who are SMI receive medicare or medicaid and would not be lacking services.

Regarding the imbalance, the entire match program is costly for all parties and should be eliminated completely and students should not be paying tuition while in internship. They should be able to graduate and then complete a post-doc.

Student loan debt must be addressed. It would be helpful if members of our profession would let their government representatives know their position on these topics as we know that the large organizations do not always speak on the behalf of the students.

We also need to address the encroachment on our profession in realistic and meaningful ways.