What is the difference in training, overall experience and job opportunity (if any) between a Clinical and Counseling Psychology PHD program? Are there any consistent differences or are they nearly identical?
Clinical PHD vs Counseling PHD?
- Thread starter Tom4705
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Generally, Clinical psychology focuses more on the diagnosis and treatment of severe psychopathology through intensive research and practice whereas counseling psych focuses on less severe forms and employing more of a psychosocial approach to navigate challenges with major focus on multicultural/social justice competence. With that being said, it is also depended on the program you are being trained at and the mentor/lab you are working with which can be an exception (aka overlap in the areas I mentioned above).
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If I had to guess, I think differences in diagnostic focus, treatment of severe pathology, and research expectations are all more similar now than a couple of decades ago. Even university counseling centers (which have traditionally been more Yalom-ish from my understanding) have taken on a significantly more acute population in recent years.
A few differences:
- I would not expect Counseling Psych programs to do any/much work with children/adolescent whereas many Clinical Psych programs either have a child track or some child-related courses & prac experiences.
- I would not expect any Clinical Psych programs to do vocation/career related stuff, which is still fundamental to the Counseling Psych curriculum, even if very few people specialize in this as a career.
- You're more likely to do qualitative and mixed methods research in a Counseling Psych program than a Clinical one.
As for career outcomes, there is more infrastructure for Clinical Psych students to have assessment or forensic focused careers, including Neuropsych. Counseling Psych students are more likely to end up in university counseling centers while Clinical Psych students are more likely to end up in AMC settings that have a research component. But most employers (especially in generalist positions) don't seem to care much as long as you're licensed.
And I think the overall gap in differences will continue to shrink as Counseling Psych PhDs seem to have greater research expectations and requirements.
A few differences:
- I would not expect Counseling Psych programs to do any/much work with children/adolescent whereas many Clinical Psych programs either have a child track or some child-related courses & prac experiences.
- I would not expect any Clinical Psych programs to do vocation/career related stuff, which is still fundamental to the Counseling Psych curriculum, even if very few people specialize in this as a career.
- You're more likely to do qualitative and mixed methods research in a Counseling Psych program than a Clinical one.
As for career outcomes, there is more infrastructure for Clinical Psych students to have assessment or forensic focused careers, including Neuropsych. Counseling Psych students are more likely to end up in university counseling centers while Clinical Psych students are more likely to end up in AMC settings that have a research component. But most employers (especially in generalist positions) don't seem to care much as long as you're licensed.
And I think the overall gap in differences will continue to shrink as Counseling Psych PhDs seem to have greater research expectations and requirements.
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The research emphases in counseling psych tend to fall in vocation, contextual factors (i.e., gender), multicultural, process-outcome (e.g., common factors), and supervision. In clinical, it's much more common to find PIs with dedicated research programs on various areas in bone fide psychopathology, neuroscience, and clinical assessment. As others have mentioned, there can be considerable overlap depending on the training program. It's also not that uncommon to have clinical psychologists as faculty in a counseling psychology program so YMMV.
IMHO, it's mostly program dependent from a practice standpoint. It's probably more important that the program in question has good relationships with external sites that offer quality training experiences. My alma mater had several counseling grads in the local AMC so we were actively recruited as practicum students, which led to opportunities to get training in different subspecialties. There were also a few working in the prison systems, which offered folks forensics training so again YMMV. That said, clinical practice in sports psychology seems pretty heavily represented by counseling psychologists, at least from my perspective. I think it's because many athletics programs have relationships with the university UCCs, which has strong historic connections to counseling psychology training.
IMHO, it's mostly program dependent from a practice standpoint. It's probably more important that the program in question has good relationships with external sites that offer quality training experiences. My alma mater had several counseling grads in the local AMC so we were actively recruited as practicum students, which led to opportunities to get training in different subspecialties. There were also a few working in the prison systems, which offered folks forensics training so again YMMV. That said, clinical practice in sports psychology seems pretty heavily represented by counseling psychologists, at least from my perspective. I think it's because many athletics programs have relationships with the university UCCs, which has strong historic connections to counseling psychology training.
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I figure I'll chime in here as someone who applied to both and will be in a counseling program in about 2 weeks.
I would definitely evaluate programs as individuals rather than clinical vs counseling. For context, I'm a PTSD and Contextual factors kinda guy so I figured it could go either way. Still, there are two things I would bear in mind that I noticed:
1. Counseling PhDs housed in education departments seem to have much lower than acceptable first time pass EPPP scores. This didn't seem to correlate at all with how much research $$$, training opportunities, or just overall quality of the program but it's something I noticed and wished I was aware of sooner. FWIW, this ultimately didn't stop me from taking an offer from a counseling program in college of education that was just too damn good (I can RA instead of TAing, mentor gets a good amount of hard money so has better flexibility, stipend is extremely generous). You can actually see the thread I asked about this if you were curious.
2. This one is far more concerning to me, but I did notice some AMC sites just don't take counseling students, or at least a select few have stopped somewhat recently. For my own case I figure I'll be gunning for a VA internship, assuming my interest in PTSD remains, so ultimately I'm not too worried. But this has sat with me FAR more than the above.
I would definitely evaluate programs as individuals rather than clinical vs counseling. For context, I'm a PTSD and Contextual factors kinda guy so I figured it could go either way. Still, there are two things I would bear in mind that I noticed:
1. Counseling PhDs housed in education departments seem to have much lower than acceptable first time pass EPPP scores. This didn't seem to correlate at all with how much research $$$, training opportunities, or just overall quality of the program but it's something I noticed and wished I was aware of sooner. FWIW, this ultimately didn't stop me from taking an offer from a counseling program in college of education that was just too damn good (I can RA instead of TAing, mentor gets a good amount of hard money so has better flexibility, stipend is extremely generous). You can actually see the thread I asked about this if you were curious.
2. This one is far more concerning to me, but I did notice some AMC sites just don't take counseling students, or at least a select few have stopped somewhat recently. For my own case I figure I'll be gunning for a VA internship, assuming my interest in PTSD remains, so ultimately I'm not too worried. But this has sat with me FAR more than the above.
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It depends a lot on lab. Counseling psych faculty for 10 years, none of my former students have jobs in college counseling centers, several have AMC, PP, jobs in major industry/sport. We published in JAMA peds, J AM academy of child and adolescent psychiatry, health and IPV journals mostly. But I don’t think I was modal either.
