@psych.meout
I think it’s partially based on ones overestimate of abilities, which is kinda math based, but mostly personality based.
@Magick91683
My opinions:
1) Psychologists have a bad work ethic. If you look at the hourly rate of some physicians, it is not super different than psychologists. The physicians are better at maintaining a stream of business, and actually billing for all of their time. We are not generally paid to write a letter, fill in a form, or return phone calls, but everyone does. A psychologist who actually bills 40hrs/week for psychotherapy to medicare will absolutely make over $150k. But the median salary is like $80k. Don’t you think employers would be lining up to hire a dozen psychologists if they actually brought in this revenue? They don’t though. In my first job, I worked 6 days/week because I was paid for productivity.
2) Psychologists are bad at providing clear results. Most professionals provide clear results. Go to a lawyer, they give advice or draw up a contract. Go to a physician and get a physical and a prescription. Go to a psychologist and it’s not as clear. This makes marketing to the public, insurers, and referral stream hard.
3) Psychologists are difficult. There seems to be a culture of arguing and fighting the power etc that’s inherent in the field. You could invent a cure for mental illness and most psychologists would spend a significant amount of time picking at the bad parts of your study while everyone else is cheering. This makes it hard to unite, and harder to get hired. In that same first job, the other ecp literally complained to the practice owner that it wasn’t fair that I made more money because I worked on the weekend. Seriously.
4) Wardrobe is generally less than business professional. Like it or not, the world respects a certain formality.
5) because of the low income/poor work ethic, and the fighting the power thing, psychologists are very very very bad at effectively lobbying. Pragmatically, it would be better for the profession if we kept negative things quiet and handled things in house like other professionals. We don’t. We put things into the public and argue about what to do. People freaked out a few years ago about like a $300 increase in apa dues. That’s bonkers. We should be contributing thousands.
6) the fetish with the brain is bad for a profession that mostly deal with behavior.
7) we don’t put money into advertising like we did in the past. Psychotherapy was cool at one point.
8) few innovators. There’s not too many professions that still practice in the same way they did in 1917. Few seem to care about this. We should.
9) ironically, psychologists are bad at direct communication. And passive communication seems more typical. I don’t care about the gender of it all argument. The pragmatics are that direct communication styles are the basis for most professionals.
Imagine going to a CPA because you have a tax problem. You show up, and the cpa is dressed somewhere between jeans and casual Friday at a typical office, tells you a lot of problems are due to systemwide stuff with the irs’s beliefs in something, gives vague advice like “there’s some form we can fill out, but not now.”, he charges $75, tells you to come back in a week and you’ll work on stuff some more, and he doesn’t have a computer, but he only sees 2 people a day because he’s emotionally drained afterwards, and only works tuesdays from 11-2.
You’d run like hell, right?
Now imagine going to a different cpa. They’re dressed in a nice suit, their office is nice, they listen to your problem, tell you a clear plan of action which has worked with others in a similar predicament, with a clear schedule of appointments and end date, politely deflects their personal opinions about stuff, and charges you $400.
You’d feel better about that, right?
Now imagine who you’d hire.
That’s some of the things screwing up psychologists.
I sound like my 10 year old. 
