group vs individual therapy hours

[brain hugger]

Is it more important to have more individual therapy hours than it is to have group therapy hours? Right now, I have about 200 individual therapy hours and 400 group hours. Should I work on obtaining more individual therapy hours? Thanks!

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[DynamicDidactic]

short answer: I highly recommend you get more individual hours before you apply to internship.

side note: lets say a group session takes 2 hours, have you done 200 separate group sessions? that is a lot.

 

[brain hugger]

Thanks! So how many individual therapy hours would you recommend?

I only have so many group hours because I did a yearlong externship that consisted primarily of group therapy (7 hours of group per week).

 

[roubs]

short answer: I highly recommend you get more individual hours before you apply to internship.

side note: lets say a group session takes 2 hours, have you done 200 separate group sessions? that is a lot.

People in my program match with 200 or fewer individual therapy hours, a typical number is 600 contact hours spread between individual, group, neuro assessment, personality assessment, diagnostic interviews and supervision. And probably a couple more things I forgot.

 

[Ollie123]

I'm in a somewhat similar boat (not QUITE so many group hours though). I agree that more individuals hours would probably be desirable, but it also probably depends where you are going. I'm applying to substance use/beh. med tracks (both of which traditionally emphasize groups), so I'm not too worried.

 

[brain hugger]

Thanks everyone!

It's good to know that students matched with 200 or fewer individual therapy hours. I was a bit worried that it wasn't enough.

Also, I hadn't thought about how the makeup of the clinical hours is dependent on your track (which makes complete sense). Do you think VAs or AMCs care a lot about particular clinical hours? For instance, I know VAs highly value experience with substance abuse, severe mental illness, and testing but I'm not sure if they care about particular clinical hours (individual vs group, neuro vs personality testing, etc.). What do you guys think?

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Having some exposure to most/all modalities will help you, whereas having a complete absence in one or more will likely hurt you to some degree (although the extent will depend on each individual site). Beyond that, I'm not sure if there are many solid generalizations that can be made.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

People in my program match with 200 or fewer individual therapy hours, a typical number is 600 contact hours spread between individual, group, neuro assessment, personality assessment, diagnostic interviews and supervision. And probably a couple more things I forgot.

I stand corrected.

 

[G Costanza]

People in my program match with 200 or fewer individual therapy hours, a typical number is 600 contact hours spread between individual, group, neuro assessment, personality assessment, diagnostic interviews and supervision. And probably a couple more things I forgot.

I thought supervision of other students was separate from contact hours.

 

[roubs]

I thought supervision of other students was separate from contact hours.

I haven't applied, but someone who applied this year told me it was rolled into contact. Can anyone else shed light?

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I believe APPIC has a separate section for hours spent supervising students as opposed to working with patients, yes.

And I know hours being supervised is broken out (and is also further divided into individual and group supervision).