Counseling Psychology and Health Psychology?

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JackD

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My distant goal is to be a health psychologist, helping people with serious (non-mental) illnesses and maybe those with somatoform disorders. I have always heard of health psychologists as being clinical psychologists and health psychology being a branch of clinical psychology. However, could someone with a counseling psychology degree be hired for that work or is that unheard of?

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As long as you are licensed and have experience with the relevant populations you would be a viable candidate. The developmental/life-span focus of Counseling Psych is definitely congruent with this path. I think the PhD. still carries a little more "weight" in the medical domain too (or is at least more familiar). For many jobs, especially outside academia, the selection is based on where your direct clinical experience in training has been, so you would want to find practica and internship that had a health focus and helped you learn to work in a multidisciplinary medical setting.
 
I'd say look at psych-housed counseling departments first, before ed-housed. You can subspecialize in Health Psych at my (psych-housed) counseling dept, for example.
 
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I'd say look at psych-housed counseling departments first, before ed-housed. You can subspecialize in Health Psych at my (psych-housed) counseling dept, for example.

Why? You can specialize in health psych at my ed-housed psych department as well. And get great health-related practicum experience.
 
Why? You can specialize in health psych at my ed-housed psych department as well. And get great health-related practicum experience.

Because ed-housed psych serves the mandate of a college of education and psych-housed counseling serves the mandate of a college of arts or arts and sciences. They tend to offer different varieties of experience for that reason. I'm not saying you *can't* get the experience in ed-housed, but in my experience you have more resources to get it in psych-housed.
 
Because ed-housed psych serves the mandate of a college of education and psych-housed counseling serves the mandate of a college of arts or arts and sciences. They tend to offer different varieties of experience for that reason. I'm not saying you *can't* get the experience in ed-housed, but in my experience you have more resources to get it in psych-housed.

Can you explain what you mean by the mandate of a college of education vs. the mandate of a college of arts or sciences? I am under the impression that if both are APA accredited they are more likely to be serving the mandate and requirements of APA. And what is your experience - i.e. on what data are you supporting your claim?
 
Can you explain what you mean by the mandate of a college of education vs. the mandate of a college of arts or sciences? I am under the impression that if both are APA accredited they are more likely to be serving the mandate and requirements of APA. And what is your experience - i.e. on what data are you supporting your claim?

Nerd Fight!

No wait, that isn't what i came here for. Don't many colleges actually have ways to specialize in something like that? I have seen many colleges offer post doctoral training in specializations. Do those carry any weight or would prospective employers not think much of that.
 
Nerd Fight!

No wait, that isn't what i came here for. Don't many colleges actually have ways to specialize in something like that? I have seen many colleges offer post doctoral training in specializations. Do those carry any weight or would prospective employers not think much of that.

No, no, there's no fight, just a discussion with differing opinions is all. I won't deny that I'm a nerd though.

There are a lot of postdoctoral training programs for these specializations & I'm very much hoping to land one of those as well. But a solid record of research, prac training, etc. will of course help to land one of those.
 
Can you explain what you mean by the mandate of a college of education vs. the mandate of a college of arts or sciences? I am under the impression that if both are APA accredited they are more likely to be serving the mandate and requirements of APA. And what is your experience - i.e. on what data are you supporting your claim?

I think what he means is that if the program is housed in an Ed program, it may have more of a focus on educational/social areas, while psych-based programs may tackle more of the 'health' related areas. This is obviously a very general statement as I'm sure there are Ed-based programs that have hospital experiences, it just seems that they are less frequent than programs housed in a psych dept.
 
I think what he means is that if the program is housed in an Ed program, it may have more of a focus on educational/social areas, while psych-based programs may tackle more of the 'health' related areas. This is obviously a very general statement as I'm sure there are Ed-based programs that have hospital experiences, it just seems that they are less frequent than programs housed in a psych dept.

Are they, though? I can see that in terms of 'face validity' that would seem so, but I'm not sure that the facts support this. I guess the only way I'd be convinced is if I took a look at the programs in schools of education and found this to be supported. In mine, there are so many opportunities to work at hospitals that it seems strange to think that the focus would be on educational/social areas.
 
I think what he means is that if the program is housed in an Ed program, it may have more of a focus on educational/social areas, while psych-based programs may tackle more of the 'health' related areas. This is obviously a very general statement as I'm sure there are Ed-based programs that have hospital experiences, it just seems that they are less frequent than programs housed in a psych dept.

That's exactly what I meant. An ed-housed psych department justifies its existence (and funding) to the college of education, and so has to do things generally in alignment with what the college of ed wants. A college of arts/arts and sciences has a much, much wider mandate. I'm not saying it's a rule, but I definitely think there's a strong trend.

JackD, if you do a pre-doc specialization you're more likely to land the internship in that area (do a health subspecialization and you can get a health psych internship). Who do you anticipate your "future employers" in the area being?
 
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