International Master's degree in clinical psychology-Equivalancy?

[Advice101]

Im looking for some advice and I hope someone here can help me.

Here is a little background info:
I have BA in Economics and Psychology. I graduated from UC Santa Cruz almost 2 years ago. I have always seen myself working as a therapist. But I also have an urge to move out of the country and study in an international university.

I want to earn a Master's degree in Clinical Psychology. My fear is the degree I will earn abroad will not be accepted here, in CA, at all and I will have to start the whole process over again. I still have not decided what country I want to study in but I am looking into Australia, Austria, even maybe South Africa.

So my question is this:

If I move back to CA, will it accept my Master's degree? I know I will have to take the state license exam to practice, but will the degree be equivalent to a Master's degree obtained in the US, esp. CA?

I will appreciate any advice that I can get. Thank you!

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[Therapist4Chnge]

The vast majority of clinical psychology masters degrees are not meant for licensure, they are meant as a stepping stone into a doctoral program. You'll be better served by a terminating degree like an MS in Social Work, Counseling, etc.

 

[Hadashi no Gen]

The best way to work internationally as a therapist, with reciprocity, is probably with a Masters in Social Work.

 

[psypipe]

The best way to work internationally as a therapist, with reciprocity, is probably with a Masters in Social Work.

...

 

[Occlumentia]

Hi Advice101, I'm from Australia, a country where most of our clinical psychologists and clinical neuropsychologists are Masters-trained, rather than Doctorate-trained (although many do choose to pursue a PhD as well, as psychologists in general are quite into research - however, this is not a *requirement* here).

I don't want to get into a debate on which system is better (1. there is a pretty thorough comparison of the Aust/US models here: http://www.neurognostics.com.au/AcademicEquivs/OzziePsychoCringe.htm although it's a few years old 2. recently Australia has 'imported' the clinical/professional doctorate model - PsyD - so more recently we have started to have more Doctorate-level clinicians). The most important thing is ensuring that your credentials will be recognised when you return to the US. I would guess that if you did the PsyD in say, Australia, it would be easier to get it recognised than the Masters.

Brief comparison of Australian degrees:

Masters - 2 years comprising clinical work (~1000 hours, across 4-5 clinical placements in hospitals, clinics, correction facilities, etc), coursework (~4 subjects a semester, covering assessment, a few different therapy modalities, some psychopharmacology, child and adult psychopathology, etc) and a research project and dissertation (roughly journal article-length).

Clinical Doctorate - 3 years, similar to the Masters except you do ~1500 clinical hours, and the 3rd year is dedicated to research, so you produce a bigger dissertation of 40,000-70,000 words.

PhD - purely research-oriented and it will not allow you to practice clinically. 0 clinical hours, and 3 years of pure research, produce a dissertation of ~100,000 words. You pretty much need this to become an academic and full-time researcher.

I have no idea about Australian Social Work degrees, although I do know that our social workers only need a 4-year Bachelor degree to practice.

 

[Hadashi no Gen]

Clinical Doctorate - 3 years, similar to the Masters except you do ~1500 clinical hours...

I'm not trying to be competitive or anything... but this is only 300 more hours than my Masters program requires.

 

[Occlumentia]

I'm not trying to be competitive or anything... but this is only 300 more hours than my Masters program requires.

...and as you can see above, it's 500h more than our Masters programs

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

That link comparing australian training to american training is.....different. I skimmed through it, and it was clear that the writer definitely had a bone to pick with the US education system. Her comparisons of what it takes to get into a good training program in the US is really off. She cited the bare minimum of what is needed to be reviewed, but as many SDN'ers can attest, it is far from what actually is needed to be accepted into a program.

At the end of the day, a US-trained clinical psychologist is the gold standard. I actually have looked into opportunities in Australia, and US-trained clinical psychologists are sought after and definitely are viewed favorably down there.

 

[Hadashi no Gen]

...and as you can see above, it's 500h more than our Masters programs

Correct. 300 or 500 hours, whatever the difference, that is not a very large gap between masters and doctoral-level training. I am wondering about the advantage of a person getting their clinical doctorate, as opposed to a masters. Or, what a person hiring a doctoral-level clinician in this sense would gain?

 

[Occlumentia]

T4C - I don't really know enough about the US system to comment apart from what I see on SD. We have a set of competencies that form our standards, and our training is a lot more uniform than across US programs (again, judging from SD). It would be great to have data on Aus vs US outcomes for mental health patients, although even then, things like the overall health system, economy, etc would complicate the picture making a simple comparison impossible. All I can say is that we regularly and thoroughly evaluate our mental health programs and initiatives and these seem to serve the population. Where we need improvement is not in the calibre of professionals, but in numbers, more federal funding for the different programs, more clinics/hospital space, and better penetration of service in under-resources and under-serviced areas, such as rural Australia, Indigenous population, low socioeconomic background, and so on.

Hadashi - the clinical doctorate is fairly new here, and I myself can only take a stab at what some of the advantages would be. It's implied that more clinical and research experience would make one a better clinician so better mental health outcomes for patients. In terms of benefits for providers, there aren't that many - if you work in the public sector (usually hospital) you start on a slightly higher salary, but the progression is the same. In private work, the fees (or at least the fees that are covered by our health system) are the same afaik.

I forgot to mention that both the Doctorate and the Master require a further 1 year or 2 years respectively (1800-3600 hours) of post-qualification registrarship, where you work as a generalist psychologist under supervision before being able to call yourself a clinical psychologist. In addition, all clin psychs have to do a fair bit of formal continuing education and development each year to maintain their registration (about 30 hours).

I've had a brief look at the licensure requirements for California (here: http://www.asppb.org/HandbookPublic/handbookreview.aspx) and if you include pre-doc hours, and registrar (so post-doc) hours in the total, experience required seems about equivalent (minus the licensure exam).

In any case, this may be moving quite OT, as the OP was wondering about Masters-level degrees obtained overseas