Yeah, well, it's all well and good you want to do research, but this forum is STUDENTDOCTOR, not STUDENTACADEMIC or STUDENTRESEARCHER. I'm a psychiatrist, not a psychologist. One of problems I have with "clinical" psychology is that while I believe a good clinician should be skilled in research methodology, he/she should not be trained primarily as a researcher. In other words, I do not support the scientist-practitioner model; it's a dichotomy that in my opinion is unncessarily artificial.
A CLINICAL psychologist should be a practitioner, not an ivory-tower egghead interested in securing tenure. While I don't think near diploma mill PsyD programs are good for the field, the PsyD model is on the right track; it focuses on CLINICAL skills, not research skills.
In every other field, a PhD trains researchers, but somehow, magically, in psychology, it's different and produces scholar-clinicians who are capable of doing both, right? That's laughable. In reality, most PhD psychologists either do clinical work or research; they might vacillate between both early on, but once established professionally, either do practice or research, not both. That doesn't mean psychologists are poorly trained, but I think that's part of the problem in PhD programs in psych; they overemphasize research, research design, stats, and pedagogy, NOT clinical skills, NOT pharmacology, NOT medical/physical assessment, etc.
Perhaps if you earned a professional clinical doctorate, (PsyD) rather than an academic doctorate (PhD), you'd be seen more as health care specialists than glorified SW or "therapists". Your training should be more like that of physicians, attorneys, dentists, optometrists, vets, pharmacists, etc., rather than sociologists, linguists, art historians, and other academics.
How psychologists are trained is going to cause their untimely demise. With managed health care calling the shots, do you honestly think psychologists are going to be reimbursed for talk therapy when clincial research data actually shows psychopharmacological intervention is more cost effective and successful, more often than not, for a myriad of disorders ranging from dysthymia to schizophrenia? Who's going to pay your checks ten years from now? MSWs and LPCs will fill in the psychotherapy gaps, and internists, FPs, and psychiatrists (and even PAs and NPs) will provide the meds.
Psychology is going to become extinct unless you revamp your training. Optometry did. PT did. Audiology did. Unless you guys do it, you'll end up going the way of the Dodo bird.
If you professionalize your training and move away from a standard graduate research degree (PhD) to a clinical professional degree, you'll move into a much needed area. Psychologists have a great deal of skill, no doubt, but the PhD takes too long to complete, is underfunded, and impractical in today's managed care world of health professions. Psychology needs to incorporate more medicine, pharm, phys assessment, and less stats, research, and design in order to maintain credibility and necessity.
So, yeah, I apologize for being harsh about the researchers; they are needed, but I would say more in experimental psychology and research psych programs, not on a clinician-based forum.
Sorry,
Zack
