C
ClinPsycMasters
As someone with a master's in clinical psych, I can not open a private practice. I have been looking at more schooling but I'm not sure if I can handle getting a PhD (and postdoc). So I was thinking about MSW. With MSW, you can open a private practice, the big selling point for me. I do like doing cognitive assessments (my current position) in the hospital but recently I've been feeling really stressed from the work (our particular patient population, low pay, limited freedom and decision making, nature of the position which is essentially "casual", unpredictable workload, role conflicts, etc etc).
So I figured I could divide up my time between private practice and doing assessments in the hospital (something like a 3:2 ratio.)
So my question is this: Anybody here do private practice on the side? And with the worried-well YAVIS? Given the sort of freedom and control you can have in private practice, I expect it to be much less stressful than my hospital work. Yes, yes, the business side can be stressful but are you able to attract, say, the young lawyer who feels his life is empty and is looking for a refreshing dose of Kohutian self psychology, or do you end up with the poor patient with cluster B traits, whose significant other just left her, calls you day and night, weeping into the phone when not making threats?
I'm an idealist (as are many of us) and not particularly practical, so let me know if I am dreaming.
*Dreams of sitting on a vintage style leather chair, wearing a jacket with elbow patches, smoking a pipe, adjusting his glasses and nodding thoughtfully, making references to Heidegger and Rumi...oh, and charging $300/hr.* 🙂
So I figured I could divide up my time between private practice and doing assessments in the hospital (something like a 3:2 ratio.)
So my question is this: Anybody here do private practice on the side? And with the worried-well YAVIS? Given the sort of freedom and control you can have in private practice, I expect it to be much less stressful than my hospital work. Yes, yes, the business side can be stressful but are you able to attract, say, the young lawyer who feels his life is empty and is looking for a refreshing dose of Kohutian self psychology, or do you end up with the poor patient with cluster B traits, whose significant other just left her, calls you day and night, weeping into the phone when not making threats?
I'm an idealist (as are many of us) and not particularly practical, so let me know if I am dreaming.
*Dreams of sitting on a vintage style leather chair, wearing a jacket with elbow patches, smoking a pipe, adjusting his glasses and nodding thoughtfully, making references to Heidegger and Rumi...oh, and charging $300/hr.* 🙂
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