Health Psych-interested in PTSD among Vets

[cmtruman]

OK, so I am currently a Masters in Psych student on the clinical track. My ultimate goal is to assist with treating vets with PTSD (although I also have experience working with HIV/AIDS victims and love that as well). Is my best bet to apply to a Clinical program with a concentration in health psych? Or is there another path? Thank you for any advice!

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[Ollie123]

Bit confused.
Are you interested in health psychology or PTSD research? They aren't mutually exclusive if you want to look at health behaviors among PTSD, but if your area of interest is actually PTSD - that isn't really health psych.

If you are interested in health psych - yes, look for programs with tracks, but to the best of my knowledge there is no "certification" for health psychology, thus I doubt it makes a big difference.

For example, we have lots of health psych researchers here and I'm in a very well-known health psychology lab, but no formal track. I don't expect to have any difficulties, and in fact am in a MUCH better position to set up my career than I would if I had gone to say <insert random professional school> that may have had a health psych track, but no particularly large health psych labs.

I guess what I'm getting at is, coursework in grad school is pretty meaningless. Concentrations are generally based off coursework. If you can get one, great, since more courses relevant to your area is obviously better, but I would never pass up the opportunity to work in a great lab for a school that offered a coursework-based concentration.

 

[shock-me-sane]

I applied to all clinical programs with health POI. Not in your specific area, though a couple are doing PTSD (like with immune function and depression). What I did was search through just about every clinical program from here http://www.socialpsychology.org/clinrank.htm
I looked through faculty research interests and email POI off of that to see if they would be accepting students. Also wrote down all their full diclosure data about GRE score, gpa to see if I thought I would be competitive.

Anyhow. Clinical psych would be the way to go. But maybe you aren't looking for health exactly.

 

[deleted176373]

OK, so I am currently a Masters in Psych student on the clinical track. My ultimate goal is to assist with treating vets with PTSD (although I also have experience working with HIV/AIDS victims and love that as well). Is my best bet to apply to a Clinical program with a concentration in health psych? Or is there another path? Thank you for any advice!

There are some VERY good clinical programs where you can get exactly this kind of experience. You don't have to have a health or med psych program to accomplish this, many clinical psych programs would be appropriate. I know for a fact I will be working with the ASD and PTSD community just because I'm in the military, so it would be hard to avoid doing that kind of work in the future.

Mark

 

[73BARMYPgsp]

There are some VERY good clinical programs where you can get exactly this kind of experience. You don't have to have a health or med psych program to accomplish this, many clinical psych programs would be appropriate. I know for a fact I will be working with the ASD and PTSD community just because I'm in the military, so it would be hard to avoid doing that kind of work in the future.

Mark

I also think that kind of niche might better be carved out at internship or post doc. At all 5 of the Army internship sites there is a health psych rotation and most of the patients are returning vets who are being med-borded out. (ergo, lots of them have PTSD) If you can deal with the military, that might be a way to go.

 

[cmtruman]

Ollie- I was a bit confused too

There just seem to be so many concentrations branching out I was confused which would suit me based on my interests. It sounds like a solid clinical program will do the job. Thank you guys for your advice

 

[deleted176373]

Ollie- I was a bit confused too

There just seem to be so many concentrations branching out I was confused which would suit me based on my interests. It sounds like a solid clinical program will do the job. Thank you guys for your advice

I wouldn't rule out some of the counseling programs either. You'd be amazed at some of the crossover and some of the excellent counseling Ph.D. programs out there. The lines have blurred quite a bit between the disciplines.

Mark