Clinical to experimental?

[combinedphd]

Okay, I'm a long-time lurker and very occasional poster - big thanks to the contributors on this forum.

I'm a first year clinical phd student, and while I have very clinical/health research interests, my interest in practicing has gone from little to zero over the last year. There is an experimental focus in my department and I could theoretically conduct the same research as an experimental student. Does anyone have experience or thoughts on switching from a clinical to experimental track? Your contributions are appreciated...

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[psychgirl77]

It is typically a lot easier to switch from clinical to experimental rather than vice versa. I know someone in my program that did this. You would have to find out the rules of your program but I'm guessing it would be possible.

 

[futureapppsy2]

I do know someone who switched from a clinical program to an experimental program at the same university, keeping the same (very clinical) research interests (Her adviser retired shortly after she entered the program, so she obviously couldn't keep that the same). I don't know what year she was in when she made the switch, but after graduating, she now says that she's thinking that doing clinical work might not have been so bad.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I'd think it'd be possible, assuming (and this is a big assumption) your have a spot to go, faculty to support you, and the blessing of the administration.

You should consider the possible scope limitation down the road (as you won't receive the training needed to be licensed to conduct therapy, supervisor students in a clinical setting, etc). In the purely academic setting this can still be an issue because you may not be as attractive to a clinical/counseling program to teach/research if you can't supervise, even if that is just a small part of what you do. For a purely Experimental program or related it'd be a non-issue. Is your research area easily transferable to a more clinical setting?

Also you may want to give yourself some flexibility, as things can change during your training. I know I came in sure that I wanted to spend at least half of my time doing direct therapy, but by the time I was ready to apply for internships I was focusing on places that were primarily assessment/consultation with minimal individual therapy.

 

[Ollie123]

Have definitely had similar thoughts myself, but have decided to forge ahead with clinical for various reasons. Namely, that there are SOME aspects of clinical work that I really do enjoy (e.g. I may be the only person on earth who greatly enjoys report-writing).

You do limit your career options by switching. You may be okay with that. There are obviously plenty of "Basic scientists" in university and medical settings who have no clinical qualifications but still find jobs. One of the main reasons I forged ahead is because I think the feedback loop is important. In other words, I want my research (which is very much on the basic science side of things) to translate into clinical work, but I think all too often we stop there. There (ideally) should be a feedback loop where clinical work translates back into basic science and I think its often ignored.

Its a tough decision, and one I'm not completely settled on. In part, given the sheer volume of information I feel like I need to know given my interests (addiction research, cognition research, emotion research, neuroscience research, statistics, genetics, electrical engineering...the list is endless), I wonder how much time I could free up to learn about genetics or statistics if I didn't have to worry about things like how to interpret a WAIS, or how to assess suicidality or other such things I hope I will never (or at least rarely) have to do in my career. So for what its worth, I understand and you are far from alone

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Have definitely had similar thoughts myself, but have decided to forge ahead with clinical for various reasons. Namely, that there are SOME aspects of clinical work that I really do enjoy (e.g. I may be the only person on earth who greatly enjoys report-writing).

I enjoy report writing, though I am forever adding more assessments to my collection, so there is still a learning curve to understand how they all relate......but I enjoy the analysis, interpretation, and writing parts. I'm hoping to do a bit on the weekends to pay off my loans.

 

[Ollie123]

I enjoy report writing, though I am forever adding more assessments to my collection, so there is still a learning curve to understand how they all relate......but I enjoy the analysis, interpretation, and writing parts. I'm hoping to do a bit on the weekends to pay off my loans.

Its nice to know I'm not completely alone. Most people I know hate it. Personally, I'd much rather be writing reports than actually seeing the clients. Integrating assessment information, background, behavioral observations...boiling it all down and coming up with the treatment plan...that I find to be great fun. Now, actually getting that information, or implementing the treatment plan I came up with....that I can't stand Obviously it will never be quite that extreme, but I actually do think that's where the future of the profession is going to be, with doctoral-level psychologists taking a more active role in treatment planning and supervision, with less of a role in therapy. At the very least, the confirmation bias is doing wonders to sustain my belief that I'm not falling too far behind the curve

Though I will say, while enjoyable, my report-writing experiences have still been limited. No neuro (soon to be corrected). Pretty much SCID/SCID-II, BDI, BAI, OQ, PAI, MMPI-2, and ADIS. Hopefully I'll be adding a few more to that list, but as I mentioned before I feel like every new test I learn to use is one less gene or analytic technique I know so I'm trying to strike a balance!

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Though I will say, while enjoyable, my report-writing experiences have still been limited. No neuro (soon to be corrected). Pretty much SCID/SCID-II, BDI, BAI, OQ, PAI, MMPI-2, and ADIS. Hopefully I'll be adding a few more to that list, but as I mentioned before I feel like every new test I learn to use is one less gene or analytic technique I know so I'm trying to strike a balance!

I'm still at the beginning of starting to understand how to integrate all of the neuro stuff, but it is rather nice when things mesh well. I'm hoping to do some research in that area actually, but who knows if I'll get it through IRB in time to do something with it.

 

[combinedphd]

Thanks for the thoughts, folks. I do understand this would be a career-limiting move, which is why I hesitate to start the process. I don't necessarily plan on being in academia, though I'm always open to new ideas. I would prefer to work in industry (or the gov, depending on the direction of reform...) as a health outcomes/econ researcher. Or in some other applied statistics role in another field. FWIW, my research applies psychosocial predictors to primary care/surgical outcomes, and has the option to be fairly quant in nature.

I wonder how much time I could free up to learn about genetics or statistics if I didn't have to worry about things like how to interpret a WAIS, or how to assess suicidality or other such things I hope I will never (or at least rarely) have to do in my career. So for what its worth, I understand and you are far from alone

This is along my lines of thought. Glad to know I'm not alone! I spend a lot of additional time self-teaching statistics and software programming at the moment, and would love to have that freed up by not learning assessment or spending lots of time in prac.

Thanks again for comments!