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Posted in the APAGS listserv....we have an ongoing discussion but curious to read your own thoughts about it.
APAG Members,
My name is Jon Weinand. I am a practicing clinician for about 15 years. Currently I am a member of div 12's (Society for Clinical Psychology) Education and Training Committee. The E & T is considering exploring the need for Graduate schools to be required to state the amount of loan debt that graduating members have incurred, as well as providing information requiring school's to provide median and mean average salaries in their Brochures and information packets.
As you folks know, your student debt is out of this world. In addition, this debt combined with stagnant salaries leads to a very difficult Debt/Salary ratio, which in turn makes it difficult to "get on" with the usual and customary social developmental life milestones such as buying a house, begin saving for retirement, or even beginning a family.
We are specifically looking at discussing the issue with CoA regarding having APA accreddited programs furnish this information Loud & Clear to students under consideration.
We would really like to hear your thoughts on this issue. I can be reached at [email protected]. However, I would like to see a listserv discussion regarding this issue. Thanks, JW
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Here is the latest and IMHO more passionate response:
Jon
Thanks for brining up this very important issue. I am typically a lurker but
this topic gets to me so I had to sit down and write a bit. As a clinical PhD
student who has just finished his internship, this topic hits home. I got my
masters in counseling psych from a terminal masters program at a college
designed predominantly to prepare folks to be LPCs. They did a wonderful job
in providing students information and support. Licensure (at the masters
level) and the financial realities were often discussed, and most if not all of
the faculty were very aware of not only state guidelines and environments but
national ones as well. The advisor I met with on day one spoke openly about
the cost of obtaining the degree as well as the employment pros and cons. I
mention this only to provide an illustration of what my (APA accredited)
doctoral program was not like. The cost of the program was never discussed,
the poor funding provided to doc students was glossed over and paying for
school was left entirely to the student to figure out. I am not exaggerating
when I say that licensure was NEVER discussed, neither was employment after
grad school. No one ever mentioned the myriad of hoops and time delays
associated with actually being able to use your degree after graduation. No
one ever discussed the pros and cons of post docs. No one ever told me that
unless I took a post doc that my loans would come due while I was still earning
near the poverty level. No one ever told me that after working for a year at
about 1/3 of what my future colleagues making that I would have to produce over
$1000 to get licensed. When I stated that my interests were in forensic
assessment, no one told me that it would be at least a year after internship
(and in some states more) before I could practice what I had been trained to
do. No one told me that I would need to spend thousands of dollars to secure
an appropriate internship.
As frustrating as this is/was, it is nothing in comparison to the abysmal
stipends provided for interns. No one told me in the beginning that I could
make more working at a fast food restaurant than I would make as an intern or a
post doc. Ive seen post docs paying less than 10K. I believe that the feudal
system of internship is a detriment to ECPs and the profession as a whole.
Would fellow licensed psychologists treat colleagues this way? Or maybe
internship/post doc supervisors believe that their supervision is worth $300-
500/hr. It just seems very difficult to paint the profession of psychology in
a very positive light, especially with other mental health and medical fields,
when the secretaries, psych-techs, rec therapists, CNAs and LPNs all learn that
they make 2-3 times what I do. Not to mention that this will be the case for a
few more years. Gosh, psychologists must be really valued. I believe that the
basic concept of internship is woefully outdated and in many cases
unnecessary. I went off to internship with several thousand hours of
experience under my belt, as do the majority of interns every year. These are
different times. This is not the good old days where students went off to
internship to learn the practical application of the field. By the looks of
the ever rising hours of experience reported on the internship application,
when most interns finish their internship they have acquired more hours of
experience that most ECPs had just a decade ago. I am personally very
disappointed in the licensed psychologists out there who have gone through this
process and look back and say Well I dont see that this in going to change
anytime soon. I am disappointed in the licensed psychologists that supervise
interns for accepting this feudal system and not working tirelessly to improve
it. The indentured servitude of internship and that little extra year is just
plain disrespectful and wrong. My relatives are simply amazed that with 20+
years of education I can still barely afford to pay my rent. Currently I am
very pessimistic and although a lot of this sounds really negative, I still
have a passion for the work that I do if only I could do it and make a living.
With regards to APA, I would personally like to see APA do something,
anything. I used to work around a lot of social workers and it seemed like the
NASW was an active organization. Im sure I dont know all that goes on but I
am on several listservs and I still get some APA literature, and I dont see
APA doing much of anything concrete to foster and steward this profession.
Having to make cutbacks for my internship year, I looked at keeping those
things that were beneficial to me, my APA membership was one of the first
things to go.
Regards,
********
Yet another one who DID NOT attend an APA accredited program. I feel for her..
I knew the salary range with the license was in the $70-150K range. I didn't know all the caveats of licensure or that licensure requirements could be changed while I was in the program. I was told to read the Rules and Regs and I did but understanding how the Board might interpret them was definitely a missing piece. I in noand internships is required for licensure programs that can't provide what is required for licensure shouldn't be open. I didn't know that it would be so hard to find supervision either. In my rural area it has been MORE than challenging. I was promised supervision by the agency but that dried up when all but one doctoral level staff left. Licensure in my state does not allow the supervision to occur in private practice but it can be off site. In other words to get my post-doc year I pretty much have to continue to work for $29K while simultaneously making loan payments. If I can't license I shouldn't have to make payments. MDs in residency get loans deferred, why not psychologists in post-doc supervision? I am an APA member and I support APA for the most part but we have a double edged sword with regard to licensure. I went through a non-APA program and did not get an APA internship. In spite of outstanding grades and a dissertation that is being nominated for an Outstanding Dissertation Award, multiple workshops taught and years of experience, the lack of APA's sanction of my program slams the door in my face in many states where licensure is concerned. There aren't enough APA internships to go around yet states make having one a requirement for licensure. There needs to be a way for students who do not have APA accredited programs and/or internships to meet the licensure requirement by equivalence or additional work subsequent to the granting of the degree. I can't get an LMHC with a clinical psyc degree yet my masters in counseling is too old and I'm not allowed to take additional courses to make up all that the Board deems is missing from the masters. It leaves students like me who incurred a significant debt, worked extremely hard to maintain a 3.9 GPA, and are working successfully in the field, shut out of that one piece of paper that would say we are qualified to do what we have done and are doing as well as or better than some who have licenses now. It's terribly frustrating.