Advice for changing career to clinical psychology

[LililiPsych]

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Hi all,

I am seeking advice on transitioning into clinical psychology and would appreciate perspectives from faculty, graduate students, and licensed clinicians, etc..

A little bit about me,

- B.S. in Statistics (outside US), M.S. in Machine Learning & Data Science
- In my early 30s, about 7 years industry experiences in IT industry as data scientist (focus on data analysis, experimentation, and causal analysis), ~2 years in machine learning engineer (focus on research-oriented modeling for production system)

Over the past years, I've been realizing that I would regret if I keep doing the current work for entire life. I have always been interested in clinical psychology (also its intersection with philosophy part) and have started exploring fields thru coursework, reading, and volunteer opportunities.

One thing I am struggling with is that my goal isn't simply to become a competent therapist. I am deeply drawn to develop a thorough understanding of psychology as a discipline. I enjoy integrating ideas, identifying patterns across cases, and thinking broader conceptual frameworks rather than focusing only on individual treatment.

Even if I ultimately spend much of my career doing clinical work. I'd like to preserve the possibility of contributing through research, teaching, or developing new ways of thinking about psychological problems, etc.. Bc of that, I am considering a doctor degree is more appropriate and master degree would be somewhat limited.

Does this sound like the kind of motivation that typically points to doctoral training, or am I misunderstanding what doctoral programs actually provide?

Along that direction, I wonder how competitive would someone with my background be for doctoral programs? What would you consider the biggest gaps in my profile? If my goal is to keep both research and clinical practice as future options, what experience would have the greatest impact in the next one year?

Thank you for your help!

 

[PsyDr]

1) First question was your approach. You're literally saying that you intend to change a profession, for which you have no training. Think about that. Literally no education in a subject, yet you're going to improve the subject in which you have no education. That approach is unlikely to be received well. Take any profession. Tell their admissions committees that you intend to change the entire data analytics game/plumbing game/medical game/etc. They're unlikely to think "My God, Luann. This applicant knows nothing about the field and wants to change it!". That's different than an applicant that investigates trans theorectical blha blah blah, and applies to a specific program studying that. Or an applicant that wants to apply novel data analytics to a specific type of psychology thing. No one applies to a PhD program stating they intend to win a Nobel.

2) Second question was about your options. Could you get into a program? Probably. There's a bunch of challenges, required geographic changes, required low income, and required stress for 5-7 years. Those problems are usually the bigger barriers, that people are unwilling to accept.

3) Third question was about all together: If you present yourself as an arrogant person who thinks they know everything, your chances will be poor. If you present yourself in a way that shows you're able to learn, offer something unique to a specific program, it's probably good.

 

[cotn_psych]

Honestly, after going the other way PHD > data science, I'd keep your day job and do some volunteering at a crisis center, suicide hotline or something. If you really want to put your statistics knowledge to use and see if you like the clinical/academic path, volunteer at a local university in the clinical department as a research assistant. You'll need at least 2 years of low paid, research assistant type work to prepare for a PhD plus an additional 5-7 years to complete it. If you don't care too much about losing a decade of your prime earning years for a vague "regret", you probably just need to scratch an itch to give back to the community.

 

[Sanman]

Serious question, how do you feel about spending 7-10 years being broke, moving around the country 2-4 times, and eventually (after 10 years) making the same or less money than you do now? Because that might happen.

Most teaching gets paid around $3k/semester. To do any sort of research outside of grad school, you will need 5-7 years for a PhD and 1-3 years as a post-doc to get licensed and build up a research CV. A good salary is $150k. If you do clinical work, vacations will be more complicated. If you are licensed, moving becomes more complicated.

 

[R. Matey]

Most teaching gets paid around $3k/semester. To do any sort of research outside of grad school, you will need 5-7 years for a PhD and 1-3 years as a post-doc to get licensed and build up a research CV. A good salary is $150k. If you do clinical work, vacations will be more complicated. If you are licensed, moving becomes more complicated.

If the OP wanted to teach/research at an AMC, the pay can be considerably higher than the quoted figured but success will hinge on their ability to bring in funding.

OP, the thread so far has done a great job of highlighting the costs of pursuing a psychology doctorate, but there are a considerably number of pros to consider. For one, data science and machine learning backgrounds are in very high demand atm so provided you did well in undergrad and have completed the requisite coursework, I foresee that you will be very competitive for lab positions. One way to start would be to see if any local medical centers labs in either neuroscience or psychiatry are hiring analysts. Also, it seems that you might be more interested establishing yourself as a content expert in addition to having data science skills. That's a rare combination, which can make you competitive for some industry positions and may be more personally meaningful than "make the data say this, data scientist" that I so often here of from friends and patients, which also matches my own experience.

If you wanted to pursue clinical work, I would ask that you think through very carefully what you want your day-to-day to look like. W-2 clinical work can pay slightly better than data science or initial UX researcher positions (~$10-20k more, IME), with the former likely facing a serious threat from AI. Happiness as a clinician will depend on your ability to put up with the typical trappings of being a clinicians as listed above. If you're more interested in a research position, that could be a path forward, but mobility and opportunity cost are real factors to consider.

 

[PsyNeuro37]

OP may be aware of this path already, but I also wonder about their thoughts on potentially pivoting into biostatistics? Back on fellowship our AMC had a PhD biostatistician that helped us with research design and analysis for one of our manuscripts. They were fantastic and allowed us to do some pretty complex modeling for the paper that was well beyond anything I learned in grad school. If the major career pivot to clinical psychology is too tricky, that feels like a more relevant way with their skillset to at least be involved in applied clinical research.