Do we need to regulate unpaid internships and post-doct fellowships as a field?

[PHD12]

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There are tons of lawsuits being won over unpaid internships in the private sector. Students are suing even when they apply for college credits because they violate minimum wage standards. I was wondering whether all the unpaid full-time internships and post-doc fellowships in clinical psychology violate the US department of labor laws as well? I believe that APA or APAGS should make a strong statement against unpaid internships and post-doc fellowships in our field since they ultimately take advantage of students who are unable to secure APA internships. I also think that these unpaid internships harm everyone since they are more likely to allow incompetent therapists to enter the field. Plus, they lead to higher unemployment rates and reduced salaries and for all of us (some hospitals are eliminating hiring licensed psychologists and opt for unpaid fellows instead).

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, an unpaid internship is only lawful in the context of an educational training program, when the interns do not perform productive work and the employer derives no benefit. "If the employer would have hired additional employees or required existing staff to work additional hours had the interns not performed the work, then the interns will be viewed as employees and entitled to compensation under the FLSA."

If interns are working 40+ hours per week, carry a caseload of 20 patients, for only 2-4 hours of supervision, doesn't this violate labor laws? The employer is obviously deriving a huge substantial financial benefit from the interns/post-docs work.

 

[cara susanna]

That makes a lot of sense, and I agree that they should be further regulated.

 

[psychstudent5]

I agree it should be regulated. In fact, I think practica sites should be better regulated and pay students. I had one site that wanted practica students to make up the days they missed for internship interviews and holiday breaks. Yet, students were not paid and there were no benefits. One of the things that makes the unpaid practica, internship, and postdoc sites bad in psych is these are 9-12 month ventures. Internships in other fields are typically much shorter. Plus, there is more flexibility in being able to work elsewhere to make up for the lack of pay. Psych students are exploited.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I agree that they need to be more-heavily regulated. I suppose the argument from the sites' perspective is that were they not to have the interns, they simply wouldn't see those patients.

As for externships, I'm a bit torn on the issue. I think that if a site is going to require you to make up time you've missed, then it's venturing into the realm of needing to pay you for your services (I don't think I ever had a site require I make up time if they weren't funding me). Conversely, I can appreciate the desire to encourage that type of atmosphere to foster general responsibility and professionalism in graduate students, who might otherwise end up being a bit flaky (especially early on in grad school).

 

[MBellows]

While I agree generally that everyone deserves to get paid for their work and psych interns are no different, there is something to be said for the sanctity of consensual agreements and the questionable ethics of collusion by a legally protected number of providers to create laws that raise the market value of something that they and few others can provide. Also, how many more people have access to free therapy because of free interns?

 

[Psychadelic2012]

I agree it should be regulated. In fact, I think practica sites should be better regulated and pay students. I had one site that wanted practica students to make up the days they missed for internship interviews and holiday breaks. Yet, students were not paid and there were no benefits. One of the things that makes the unpaid practica, internship, and postdoc sites bad in psych is these are 9-12 month ventures. Internships in other fields are typically much shorter. Plus, there is more flexibility in being able to work elsewhere to make up for the lack of pay. Psych students are exploited.

I think there is also something to be said for sites that essentially use psych students as free labor (and the programs that sanction it) and sites that exist solely for training. There are some that strike the delicate balance in between those two extremes as well--because it's important to get "real" experience with real clients, rather than just a college student or something. But I think the training aspect is very important--is there a structure for learning beyond supervision? I do think the longer-term sites are valuable in terms of "real life" experience. Also, I agree about funding--ideally, either the program will fund the student so that additional pay is not required by the prac site or programs will allow/encourage paid practica/externships.

 

[PHD12]

While I agree generally that everyone deserves to get paid for their work and psych interns are no different, there is something to be said for the sanctity of consensual agreements and the questionable ethics of collusion by a legally protected number of providers to create laws that raise the market value of something that they and few others can provide. Also, how many more people have access to free therapy because of free interns?

If hospitals/clinics did not have free labor, there would be a shortage of low cost therapists initially. However, I do think that they would eventually have to fill in the gap by hiring paid therapists and getting additional MH funding through the government/grants. There would be more incentive to fight for MH funding.

 

[Ollie123]

I do think some regulation would be beneficial since as some have mentioned these are at the very least bordering on violation of labor laws. That said, I do think they are a symptom of over-supply and fixing the source of the problem would likely go a long ways to stamping them out. There is a reason you really only hear of these in California, with its outlandish number of questionable programs, and a handful of other "desirable" locales. I get that some may be geographically restricted, but I think if we eliminated schools accepting 100 students per cohort, this problem would go away (or at least significantly lessen) on its own.

Personally, I'd stay in grad school before taking such a position. For post-doc at least, I would probably try to figure out some way to fund myself through grants, but I realize if someone has no research background that might be significantly more challenging.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

+1 for Ollie.

The challenge with acred. internships are that most cost more money to they dept/org than they produce. The cost issues tie back into billing, which is quite poor because hospitals (and similar) are very limited as to what will actually get paid. Legislation would need to be changed, insurance companies would need to change coverage, AND degrees would most likely need to be conferred prior to the intern year.

I view practica as part of training and more acceptable to be unpaid (if truly part-time 8-12h/wr), but not to offer unpaid internships and post-docs (40+hr/wk) seems to really twist the spirit of the laws governing "training."

 

[Ollie123]

I view practica as part of training and more acceptable to be unpaid (if truly part-time 8-12h/wr), but not to offer unpaid internships and post-docs (40+hr/wk) seems to really twist the spirit of the laws governing "training."

and I think this is an important point. I have a couple friends in programs in NYC (again, desirable locale with tons of programs though admittedly not as many questionable ones as CA). There are tons of practica sites there that are unquestionably looking for "slave labor". Many are looking to provide as little supervision as possible, seem to care little about the training and more about "How many pts can you see per day". They pretty much mandate extra hours, etc. I'm okay with doing some unpaid hours for the sake of unique training...heck, that's grad school. There are definitely limits to that though, and there is a big difference between getting some extra hours at a new site while still being paid a (meager but livable) wage by your program, and a working full-time for free. Yes, most of us are paid for specific duties in school (i.e. teaching a particular class), but I view that pay as part of an overall package designed to allow us to survive while we can avail ourselves of a plethora of training opportunities, paid or unpaid. That is a far cry from a site expecting 40 hours/wk without pay.

To me, those issues with practica are a failure of the school to step in. My program would NEVER allows our practica sites to behave like that. Some have tried - students have the freedom to leave if they want, other practicum opportunities will be found for them, and if things are bad enough they are removed from the list of practica sites. This is how training should work.

 

[G Costanza]

The flip side to this argument is that if you regulate free sites into offering compensation, they disappear as a viable option. I'm in the Midwest and if the APA forced our local sites to pay, we would no longer have any sites. That's not ok either.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

The flip side to this argument is that if you regulate free sites into offering compensation, they disappear as a viable option. I'm in the Midwest and if the APA forced our local sites to pay, we would no longer have any sites. That's not ok either.

For externships, as with Ollie and T4C (and others), I'm ok with them being unpaid so long as the requirements are in line with that (e.g., part-time and with appropriate supervision as opposed to a 20+-client, 40-hour commitment with 30 minutes of group "supervision" per week). For internships and postdocs, I have a less-favorable view.

 

[PHD12]

For externships, as with Ollie and T4C (and others), I'm ok with them being unpaid so long as the requirements are in line with that (e.g., part-time and with appropriate supervision as opposed to a 20+-client, 40-hour commitment with 30 minutes of group "supervision" per week). For internships and postdocs, I have a less-favorable view.

+1

I wanted to highlight the problem more on the internship and post-doc level than on the externship level (although it seems that there are problems as well with externship sites that take advantage of students). There is something very wrong though with working 50 hours per week at a hospital/clinic in an unpaid role at the end of your training or after completing your Phd/PsyD.

In some schools, the training directors have gotten together and devised a list of minimum standards for externships sites. They don't allow their students to work more than 16 hours per week and require at least 2 hours of supervision. From my experience, the best training places for externships were VA hospitals. They often provide 4-8 hours of training per 16 hours of work (including individual supervision, group supervision, grand rounds, seminars, etc.).

I think the APA and other organizations that represent early career psychologists need to take a stand and at least issue a statement against unpaid full-time internships and post-doctoral fellowships. This will deter sites from offering these full-time positions. If you look at the federal labor laws, they are actually not legal since the employer is deriving substantial benefit from a full-time unpaid intern/post-doc. I am concerned that unpaid full-time positions will become more of the norm in the future since they have really taken off the last few years, particularly with CAPIC.

 

[Pragma]

For externships, as with Ollie and T4C (and others), I'm ok with them being unpaid so long as the requirements are in line with that (e.g., part-time and with appropriate supervision as opposed to a 20+-client, 40-hour commitment with 30 minutes of group "supervision" per week). For internships and postdocs, I have a less-favorable view.

Agreed. The norm I am familiar with is 20 hour (weekly) unpaid practica, but people were paid through their research assistantships. Practica had to have appropriate supervision.

 

[FadedC]

I'm a school psych student working in NYC, and the school unions have actually banned school psych students from doing internships in NYC public schools because they don't want them to drive down the demand for full time paid school psychologists.

Of course that's great for full school psychologists, but it's a pain for NYC students, who have to either find a non public school or go out of state. Luckily NYC does have a lot of charter schools.

 

[futurepsydoc]

Agreed with several of the posters above. When you are in a practica, so long as you are being adequately supervised, the experiences should be unpaid. The balance of supervision should be tied to the number of clients seen and the number of hours worked should not exceed 8-16 in first, second, or third year practicum. For fourth year students or advanced third years (i.e., came into program with an MA), who are taking 1 course and dissertation credits, 20 hours a week seems reasonable to me. The emphasis still, however, needs to be on training. Supervision should be geared accordingly, based on the students strengths, abilities, and competencies.

I think once you venture into full time anything, it should be paid. As psychology intern, which I think should phrased as "resident," you are a master's level clinician that is more or less at the doctorate level. As the internship year progresses, you get closer and closer to being done. So to not pay someone for working 50 hours per week is unethical. It is even worse for fellows who already have their doctorates.

 

[NotTheHoff]

All of this ties back to the global issue of respect of clinical psychology in general. We do a disservice to our profession by allowing systems that undervalue clinical services to go unchallenged, unpaid internships and post-docs included.

 

[8989898989]

The law has actually weighed in on unpaid psychology postdoctoral internships. I was doing my postdoctoral hours in psychology as a requirement for licensure as a clinical psychologist at a major public university in California, and was not getting paid minimum wage for all hours I worked. I filed a Wage Claim with the California Labor Commissioner for back pay at the California minimum wage rate of $8/hour. The University argued that I was enrolled in an unpaid internship, and said it met the criteria for unpaid internships under FLSA. The Labor Commissioner sided with me, found me to be an employee, entitled to at least minimum wage, and ordered the University to pay me over $14,000 in minimum wage back pay, liquidated damages, and interest.

There are people banding together to bring this practice to an end, some of whom can be reached at the email address [email protected] and on the Internet Labor Discussion Forum on Facebook (with this URL), The law already favors strict adherence to the position that all labor, even when characterized as an "internship," deserves to be paid.

 

[PHD12]

The law has actually weighed in on unpaid psychology postdoctoral internships. I was doing my postdoctoral hours in psychology as a requirement for licensure as a clinical psychologist at a major public university in California, and was not getting paid minimum wage for all hours I worked. I filed a Wage Claim with the California Labor Commissioner for back pay at the California minimum wage rate of $8/hour. The University argued that I was enrolled in an unpaid internship, and said it met the criteria for unpaid internships under FLSA. The Labor Commissioner sided with me, found me to be an employee, entitled to at least minimum wage, and ordered the University to pay me over $14,000 in minimum wage back pay, liquidated damages, and interest.

There are people banding together to bring this practice to an end, some of whom can be reached at the email address [email protected] and on the Internet Labor Discussion Forum on Facebook (with this URL), The law already favors strict adherence to the position that all labor, even when characterized as an "internship," deserves to be paid.

So basically at least half the internships/postdocs through CAPIC are technically not legal and violate employment laws since they don't pay or pay some ridiculous stipend. Should post this on the CAPIC forum for those that aren't getting paid on internship.

Did you wait until licensure to file a claim? Were you concerned about whether they would sign on your hours afterwards?

 

[DynamicDidactic]

I was doing my postdoctoral hours in psychology as a requirement for licensure as a clinical psychologist at a major public university in California, and was not getting paid minimum wage for all hours I worked.

your situation seems a bit different than unpaid post docs. It appears you were getting some payment but not enough. Can you confirm that?

To address a previous point, I do not think APA would ever come out with any statement b/c all APA accredited programs require salaries, so their statement is already sort of out there.

Someone should have taken that UCSF unpaid post doc and sued them afterward. Not sure how an employer is going to claim something is an "internship" in a field where we actually go through an official match process for internship prior to graduation.

FWIW, my opinion is this would not fly for practica, internship but it seems to definitely be illegal for post doc. Literally, people are out of school, already completed an internship, are not enrolled in any classes, and working/charging patients.

 

[bettertraining]

APAGS has a strong statement towards students having paid internships.

 

[bettertraining]

Too bad this couldn't count towards practica and externship! Or could it?

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Too bad this couldn't count towards practica and externship! Or could it?

We actually did get paid for externships in my program. That, TAing, and RAing were the main sources of funding for students.

However, I don't know that you're required to be paid for those, given that the argument is stronger that the main point is training rather than just service delivery.