Non-APA California School of Forensic Psych

[forensicpsychjy]

Hi all!

I'm a first year, going onto second year forensic psychology doctorate student (psy.d) at Alliant University. CSFS is a new branch to Alliant, and while CSPP is accredited, CSFS is still on its way.

I'm interested in assessment and treatment, custody eval, MSO, competency, and working with people with PTSD and abuse. I would like to work in a hospital or prison setting and do some of what I stated on the side if possible.

I know accredidation is important, but I want to know how difficult it will be for me to get a job in these areas if my school isn't accredited by the time I graduate. *crossing fingers!!* Any advice??

I can transfer over to CSPP but general clinic psychology is not what I'm interested in. Thanks for any help!!

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[AcronymAllergy]

Hi all!

I'm a first year, going onto second year forensic psychology doctorate student (psy.d) at Alliant University. CSFS is a new branch to Alliant, and while CSPP is accredited, CSFS is still on its way.

I'm interested in assessment and treatment, custody eval, MSO, competency, and working with people with PTSD and abuse. I would like to work in a hospital or prison setting and do some of what I stated on the side if possible.

I know accredidation is important, but I want to know how difficult it will be for me to get a job in these areas if my school isn't accredited by the time I graduate. *crossing fingers!!* Any advice??

I can transfer over to CSPP but general clinic psychology is not what I'm interested in. Thanks for any help!!

The response you'll get from many posters here will likely be something along the lines of:

APA accreditation at the doctoral program level is very important, especially given the growing internship imbalance and competitiveness of those and post-doctoral positions. Anything you can do to make yourself marketable (or avoid doing that would make you less-marketable) is something you should look into.

More specifically, highly-specialized programs at the doctoral level are not accredited because the APA (and, at least in my experience, most trainers and current practitioners) believes that doctoral training should be general. Once you have this solid foundation of general clinical knowledge, you are then better-equipped to branch out into a field of specialization. Should that specialization occur early on at the doctoral level, though, you may miss out on fundamentally-crucial knowledge and skills.

Given the adversarial nature of forensic work in particular, I would imagine that any "knock" that can be made against your credentials will be brought up during deposition and/or testimony. Not having APA accred. at the doctoral level would certainly count as such a knock, and can even make simply becoming licensed to practice difficult.

 

[busybusybusy]

Why is this even a question...APA Accreditation is important. If it wasn't important then you wouldn't be worrying about switching your program.

I would suggest reading the following thread:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=808023&highlight=Forensic

As the APA stand right now (and most likely for the future) they will not be accrediting any specilized programs.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Excellent posts above.

To quote myself in another thread:

This is akin to asking, "Ignoring the huge hole in the side of my boat...do you think I'll have any problems sailing it?" There are plenty of APA-acred clinical psychology programs that provide training in forensic psychology, why go somewhere that has such a huge disadvantage?

Bottom line...you will struggle to find employment in what you want to do if you do not come from an APA-acred program. If you want to do any work involving the court system, at a minimum you should attend an APA-acred program and APA-acred internship. Opposing counsel will look for any excuse to try and discount your assessment data, and training is the first place they will look. Anything that deviates from the "gold standard" will leave you open to scrutiny.

One of my former professors is a very well know forensic psychologist, and he told me that if I get anywhere near a court room, I better have my ducks in a row. I personally wouldn't actively pursue forensic work without being ABPP'd, but I am admittedly conservative about these things.

 

[starsinnight]

These are questions I played with too.....

Would I rather a forensic focused program or counseling program?

And if it boiled down to acceptances, would I accept at a non-APA program rather than none at all?


Personally, I chose the counseling PhD in the thinking that I can specialize via internships, research, post-docs, etc. My MA internship was forensics and I had a Counseling masters, without any forensic training. The very well-known forensic psychologist there also had a Clinical Psych PhD with no forensic courses. This is what helped me make my decision.

And speaking of non-APA accreditation, exactly as the others said, why limit yourself more when the field is already limited?

If I were in your shoes, I'd be applying and begging for admission to the APA clinical psych program in your school asap, and then specialize in forensic placements and research later on. But that's just me.

 

[PsyDGrrrl]

I can transfer over to CSPP but general clinic psychology is not what I'm interested in. Thanks for any help!!

But general clinical psychology is what you need to learn in order to become a licensed psychologist. "Forensic" psychologists are licensed CLINICAL psychologists who specialize in forensic assessment/consultation. In order to be a good forensic evaluator, you need to know the foundations of clinical psychology (diagnosis, assessment).

There's already a lot of criticism of CSPP on these boards, which you can research and think about, but I will also add that the CSFS has not impressed me one bit. What I have seen of the students and the program are not positive prognostic indicators.

 

[turtleturtle]

I am pretty sure there is no way that program can be APA accredited ever if that is what you are hoping for or if that is what they are telling you, it doesn't seem like it meets the requirements for a clinical psych program (you could prob contact the APA accred people and ask and i think that I have been told that about the forensic programs at Alliant, that APA doesn't recognize any forensic specialty so essentially it is a marketing tactic

 

[turtleturtle]

oh i do know a guy who works as a "psychologist" at San Quentin with death row inmates and is not licensed and has a psy.d. from an unaccredited school so getting a job is possible —I think the state prison system has some strange requirements

 

[2012PhD]

oh i do know a guy who works as a "psychologist" at San Quentin with death row inmates and is not licensed and has a psy.d. from an unaccredited school so getting a job is possible —I think the state prison system has some strange requirements

Sure getting a job is possible, but you don't want to play with those kinds of odds. If you go to an unaccredited program, you most likely won't get an APA internship. Most programs won't even let you apply to their internship. If you don't do an apa internship, you are barred from many great employers, including the VA hospitals. APa accred. is also minimal criteria these days for many starting level positions so why even mess with that?

 

[PsyDGrrrl]

oh i do know a guy who works as a "psychologist" at San Quentin with death row inmates and is not licensed and has a psy.d. from an unaccredited school so getting a job is possible —I think the state prison system has some strange requirements

You can work there without a license, but you have to get it within three years or you lose your job.

 

[2012PhD]

oh i do know a guy who works as a "psychologist" at San Quentin with death row inmates and is not licensed and has a psy.d. from an unaccredited school so getting a job is possible —I think the state prison system has some strange requirements

Wow, what a great job opportunity---if you don't mind the overcrowding, inhumane conditions (60 people in one cell pissing on each other), and risky conditions. Prisons, especially in CA right now, are pretty inhumane places to work for psychologists. The california prison system just got sewed for ridiculous conditions. Not a good place to practice and provide psychotherapy.

 

[2012PhD]

Wow, what a great job opportunity---if you don't mind the overcrowding, inhumane conditions (60 people in one cell pissing on each other), and risky conditions. Prisons, especially in CA right now, are pretty inhumane places to work for psychologists. The california prison system just got sewed for ridiculous conditions. Not a good place to practice and provide psychotherapy.

I meant Sued.

 

[PsyDLICSW]

These are questions I played with too.....

Would I rather a forensic focused program or counseling program?

And if it boiled down to acceptances, would I accept at a non-APA program rather than none at all?


Personally, I chose the counseling PhD in the thinking that I can specialize via internships, research, post-docs, etc. My MA internship was forensics and I had a Counseling masters, without any forensic training. The very well-known forensic psychologist there also had a Clinical Psych PhD with no forensic courses. This is what helped me make my decision.

And speaking of non-APA accreditation, exactly as the others said, why limit yourself more when the field is already limited?

If I were in your shoes, I'd be applying and begging for admission to the APA clinical psych program in your school asap, and then specialize in forensic placements and research later on. But that's just me.

I agree with you on this one. My supervisor is ABPP in forensic psychology and does work with children (e.g. custody, abuse evals, competency of child to testify, parental fitness). I asked him how one gets to do this kind of work. He said there are three ways. The first is what he did and it is the most conventional way: work with someone who does this kind of work (and who has ABPP) and learn from them. Second attain an intetrnship with child forensic/forensic rotations and training. Third: do a post doc with forensic work. My advisor in undergrad is a ABPP forensic psychologist and one of his associates has a PhD in counseling psychology and she learned all the forensic knowledge from him. He is retiring and now she is doing most of his cases. So, I think you get a general degree and specialize in forensics later. I know someone else on the forum said that you have to have a degree in clinical psychology, but I know someone with a counseling PhD who does forensic work becasue she worked with a forensic psychologist; perhaps because we only have a general psychology licensure in my state (e.g. we don't have separate licesned for clinical and counseling psych like Virginia and MAryland do) and you have to be a licensed psychologist to get into forensic work. Just my two cents. I think a specialized forensic program at an unaccredited school is not to anyone's advantage.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I think a specialized forensic program at an unaccredited school is not to anyone's advantage.

It is marketing, not education.

This is also commonplace at the MA/MS level. The vast majority of MA/MS programs in "Forensic Psychology", "Neuropsychology", and similar are more fluff than substance. These are doctoral level specialities that don't really lend themselves to MA/MS level training. While I cannot say all programs are fluff, I am very skeptical of any speciality training program, whether it is at the masters or doctoral level, that espouses speciality training without first providing a solid foundation in clinical psychology.

 

[cara susanna]

My program has a lot of forensic-oriented people and they all did a general clinical degree.

 

[forensicpsychjy]

well to clarify, CSFS is accredited regionally but not APA. No forensic psych doctorate program is apa accredited.

 

[aequitasveritas]

well to clarify, CSFS is accredited regionally but not APA. No forensic psych doctorate program is apa accredited.

Its brand new-like last 2 yrs brand new, no track record whatsoever, no outcome stats because the first class hasnt even graduated yet...and it;'s hella expensive.

....no

 

[roubs]

Its brand new-like last 2 yrs brand new, no track record whatsoever, no outcome stats because the first class hasnt even graduated yet...and it;'s hella expensive.

....no

Bingo. Just want to add in that you should definitely xfer over to the accredited program. Several people from my program also pursue neuropsych/forensics despite not having a track. Others may have said this, but a track is a marketing gimmick. It's like if Argosy ever opens a medical school and decides to have a track for every medical sub-specialty(I bet this is their fantasy too 😛 ) They're just getting the training model ass backward. The forensic world is hella competitive and you're going to have enough of an uphill battle coming from a for-profit program.

 

[aequitasveritas]

Bingo. Just want to add in that you should definitely xfer over to the accredited program. Several people from my program also pursue neuropsych/forensics despite not having a track. Others may have said this, but a track is a marketing gimmick. It's like if Argosy ever opens a medical school and decides to have a track for every medical sub-specialty(I bet this is their fantasy too 😛 ) They're just getting the training model ass backward. The forensic world is hella competitive and you're going to have enough of an uphill battle coming from a for-profit program.

cspp & csfp r non-profit