Consistency (& Inconsistency) in Clinical Psychology Training

[bcliff]

As I've been interviewing at different schools, I've started to notice inconsistencies in training and curriculum within different clinical psychology programs (e.g. when you start internal practicum, when you can start external practicum, what your clinical/research duties consist of as a student, etc.)

All of the programs that I've applied to have pretty solid stats (good funding, good research productivity, small cohort size, match rate > 85%, good EPPP pass rates), so it doesn't seem like any of the programs I've applied to are preparing incompetent clinical psychologists, but I'm curious if any current students or PhD/PsyDs can offer input on the potential effects of these differences in training?

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[xXIDaShizIXx]

As I've been interviewing at different schools, I've started to notice inconsistencies in training and curriculum within different clinical psychology programs (e.g. when you start internal practicum, when you can start external practicum, what your clinical/research duties consist of as a student, etc.)

All of the programs that I've applied to have pretty solid stats (good funding, good research productivity, small cohort size, match rate > 85%, good EPPP pass rates), so it doesn't seem like any of the programs I've applied to are preparing incompetent clinical psychologists, but I'm curious if any current students or PhD/PsyDs can offer input on the potential effects of these differences in training?

Actually, I've wondered the same thing. I wonder how it will affect me (or anyone in general) career wise later on too.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Great question.

You should check out Training & Education in Professional Psychology. I've read quite a bit from the past handful of years and found it to be a pretty good collection of articles about various aspects of training/education.

 

[PsyDr]

The only thing I have ever noticed is that a bunch of condescension about having a PsyD from PhDs. Referral sources and academia never cared.

 

[WisNeuro]

People do different steps of clinical training (in house, assessment, externships, etc) at different times. It's more important that they happen at quality places and that there are enough hours in different areas. At least when it comes to ranking interns and postdocs.

 

[Justanothergrad]

It's a good question. Honestly, we don't know. The state of literature on training for clinical programs is minimal and infantile. Ditto for supervision. It's one of the greatest areas where we, as a profession, need growth imho.

The only thing I have ever noticed is that a bunch of condescension about having a PsyD from PhDs. Referral sources and academia never cared.

My experience with PsyD's over the years has been that there are great ones (my favorite co-worker to date was a PsyD- incredible clinician) and horrible ones. There is far greater variability in the quality produced is what I have observed. Just today I met one who did their dissertation with a sample of 75 based on a single pearson correlation, as an example. I think this is why PhD's hiss and hum about PsyD. It's not the potential or the greater ones- it's the flooding due to a few, very specific programs.

 

[PsyDr]

Eh. I've seen incredible researchers from top ten programs who were awful clinicians. I've seen incredible clinicians who couldn't begin to describe auc.

I personally think it's a throwback to when psychologists had control of the market due to scarcity. Now that scarcity is a thing of the past, psychologists are complaining rather than innovating. It's happened in many industries before. The industries that didn't innovate did not fare well.