Ok, smart folk, what are my options?

[SingleGirl]

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I'm going to pretend it's 2001 and I'm 22 again and looking at the world with bright eyes. Let's also pretend that it didn't take me 7 years to confirm what I already knew and that I'm choosing my career path based on the following...

I only want a career doing testing/assessment/consulting/diagnostic evals. I am very interested in neuropsych stuff and have a knack for understanding brain/body/physio/pharma stuff. I am not trying to settle into academia but I would love to teach as an adjunct at some point in the game. I want to work with clients but ONLY on a non-continuous basis. Multiple evals are ok but traditional psychotherapy is NOT for me.

My non-pretend experience is about 7 years working with mutli-dx children & their families and 2 years working with SPMI adults. I enjoy policy/advocacy. I enjoy being in charge. ha I enjoy groups... I could do group therapy without it draining my soul. I enjoyed acute care inpatient. I have a clinical social work masters degree behind me. My two major research projects were brain/SSRI tx & ptsd/rural tx.

Any program ideas? I'm open to ideas. I need ideas. I haven't asked for ideas in about 8 years. I don't even think I know where to start because my brain is still processing the old information. Thanks in advance.

 

[erg923]

Well I'm not exactly sure of what you're asking here, but I'll give it a shot.

If you like assessment and evals and "understanding brain/body/physio/pharma stuff," but not therapy, you sound like the typical neuropsych person. Kinda like me, although I don't really dislike therapy, just not my careerer focus. I'm in a Ph.D in clinical that has a specialty neuropsych track. Is this what you are looking for? If you like children, but not really doing therapy with, you could look into school psychology programs I suppose. A friend of mine is in a school psychology Ph.D program with a neuro emphasis. Any generally trained clinical psychologist can work on inpatient units doing psychological and intelligence testing as well.

 

[SingleGirl]

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for... sorry I wasn't more clear. It's late and I have hives... they are very distracting. ha

As for the school, I had considered that in the past, just tonight, I found a program called "pediatric school psychology" and it has a lot of neuro classes mixed in with the school psych classes. Ever heard of that track?

I've never researched clinical w/neuro focus. This is kind of exciting. My last go around at applying for doctoral, I had a health focus but I'm not sure why...I think it's because I just really liked that professor's lab.

That just triggered something. I know someone I could beg for a research position in neuro. He does mainly TBI clients but he's pretty well established within the field. I think he might have even headed up that apa division at some point. Thanks, see, ideas breed ideas. Yay.

Edit: The MSW/LCSW would allow me to work inpatient and do some diagnostic assessments now. Inpatient, I could be content if I had a good unit but outpatient, I'd be limited to comprehensive clinical assessments/intakes unless I wanted to do therapy. So, I guess I am most worried about outpatient opportunities.

 

[erg923]

..ok...well...my friend is getting her Ph.D at the University of Northern Colorado. I don't know the name of the program. I think its just a school psychology program with a neuro specialization. To be honest, I don't really understand this much. She said none of the grads do do post docs in neuro after that program. So I'm not really sure what would qualify them to do a neuropsych evals on children. You cant just do a little bit of neuro in my opinion. If you don't have appropriate training in the neuroanatomy and neuroscience etc. you are not really doing neuropsych. I respect school psych totally, but if my son might have a LD, or phonological processing disorder, I'd prefer a formally trained neuropsychologist who has experience with kids, as opposed to school psych with a neuropsych background. You sound like you have some pretty varied interests, or had anyway. In that case, clinical neuropsychology might not fit well. One has to be totally dedicated to that subdivision of the field in order to be competitive and be good at it.

Anyway, hope you figure things out. 🙂

I realize MSWs can do clinical interviews and psychosocial histories, however, you should NOT be doing formal psychometric assessment and interpretation (MMPI-2, PAI, WAIS/WISC, or other cognitive measures, etc) without formal training on these instruments. I don't really think thats what you were implying, but i just wanted to make sure.

 

[SingleGirl]

Thanks again.

Since I never really considered neuro, I don't really know how well it would match me. I just emailed the one neuro professor I worked with... Literally started it with... "you didn't like me too well but you gave me an A so I think it worked out in the end." ha 🙂 He was notoriously hard, everyone complained, but for whatever miracle of the skies involved, I rocked an A.

I basically told him what I told ya'll. I am ready to admit that I'm miserable and I would be happier doing x, y, z... what do I need to do to prepare myself for a career in x, y, z?

My interests are fairly varied. To be truthful, that's why I never pushed myself into PhD programs so many years ago. I never wanted to work on paring down my passion to one particular project. That is a lot of p's... My umbrella interests are health, poverty, education/learning, and policy. Underneath those, obviously, falls almost everything, everywhere since the invention of the earth.

To be truthful, I just gave myself the willies thinking about spending the next 6 years focusing on one receptor site in the brain. So, I don't know, can't I just get paid to shop and sleep and leave this whole career mess behind me?

Thanks again for your help... and yeah, I know about the testing. Here, diagnostic assessments are what every new mental health client has to have before entering services. It's just the state name... I think they can choose between those, comprehensive clinical assessments, and psychiatric evals. Just a lingo miscommunication.

The testing is why I had all intentions of getting my psyd/clinical before even realizing how much I mis-match with the core of clinical therapy. People used to try and talk me out of testing. "You'd hate that, all you'd do is testing all day." Now, what I wouldn't give to just administer tests allll day long... Oh the sweet joy of something structured... ha.

 

[erg923]

Ok well, not sure if that was the best or most professional way to open that email to the professor, but maybe you can do some work with with him or something. If psychological testing/assessment are what you are really wanting, than you will haver to get a doctorate in clinical. Not sure there is way around it. But yes, social work and clinical psychology come from very different schools of thought on psychopathology, so it will be a shift.

 

[SingleGirl]

I think he'll enjoy the email. He's an all honesty, balls to the wall kinda guy. After the first test I took, I handed it in, and he told me, "I hope you know you are going to fail this test, you aren't the kind of student to deserve an A." I had missed his study session the day before... I think... I can't remember. In the end, we had a very open/honest discourse that spanned the rest of the semester. It was refreshing.

What do you see as the differences between psych/socialwork concerning views on psychopathology?

I really didn't see that too much. The main difference I saw were the overall goal of each career. I saw social work more as service to the individual client for the good of that client and psychology more as service to the advancement of the practice in order to help more clients.

I'm trying to think of any differences I remember concerning specific theories of development but they were pretty much all the same. Refresh my memory if you have any handy. That way, my brain won't have to ponder it all day.

What most troubled me about the social work curriculum was just the lack of depth. Things were very superficial compared w/my psych studies. There might have been more emphasis on systems theories than was necessary... but that was more related to the social justice stuff than individual psychological development...

I'm excited for the prof to write back, he'll know of what opportunities to pursue in the area. I'll feel much better once I have some understanding of what else is out there.

 

[erg923]

The lack of depth with respect to development and conceptualization of psychopathology in social work, vs, clinical was mainly what I was referring to. Clinical focuses alot more on underlying theory of normal vs abnormal behavior, and views psychopathology as pathology of an individual, rather than from a social systems perspective