Ph.D

[GBDiaz]

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I'm in my Junior year of undergrad, and I'm looking into different schools to see their requirements, etc... I've always been interested in working with drug abuse patients, and I've recently picked up an internship in a hospital clinic. Have not started yet, but I will in the next week or so. My question is, what would I have to search to be able to get the information I'm looking for? What would substance abuse fall under when searching for schools?! Seeing as I'm posting here, I'm obviously looking to get a Ph.D, but I have no idea where to start. I know time is ticking, and I'm looking into this a little late, but that's why I'm trying to get the ball rolling!

I'm sorry if this has been discussed already, but every time I search something about substance abuse schools, they're literally referring to rehab centers and stuff. Even when searching, "Drug abuse schools SDN," lol.

-GBDiaz

 

[Doctor Eliza]

This is not an area of interest of mine, so this is just an observation, but the chemical dependency field seems to be dominated by master's level professionals who are licensed chemical dependency counselors. It seems that many doctoral psychology programs provide only limited training with regard to this issue. I know mine provided almost no opportunities or education with regard to substance abuse. In fact, I work for a practice which has a strict policy of only contracting with doctoral level providers. The only exception is that we have a few MSW's who are chemical dependency specialists because it isn't possible for them to find enough PhD's/PsyD's with appropriate substance abuse training. I also would add, if your intention is to do largely clinical work, a doctorate might even be a hindrance to finding employment. It seems many agency positions are seeking/budgeting for master's level clinicians.

Of course, if you want to do largely research, that is a different story...

Good luck,
Dr. E

 

[AcronymAllergy]

It's definitely going to be heavily program-dependent. We had a couple faculty at my grad program who were very focused on substance use (both research and treatment), but as Dr. Eliza mentioned, even then, it wasn't a guarantee that those of us not in their labs would get significant exposure to that area without explicitly requesting it.

It's likely going to be predominantly clinical psych programs that have substance abuse-focused faculty, but counseling psych programs might have some as well. I'm not in that area, so the University of Washington is the only school that immediately springs to mind as one that might have a strong substance abuse focus. However, I'm sure other members here will have inifitely better-informed advice to offer than do I.

 

[Ollie123]

When you say drug abuse, are you including alcohol? Research on abuse of "hard" drugs is somewhat more difficult to find in this field, but if you include alcohol and smoking your options are pretty wide open. I suspect the majority of clinical programs will have at least one person on faculty doing research in that area. A fair portion will have more than one.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

When you say drug abuse, are you including alcohol? Research on abuse of "hard" drugs is somewhat more difficult to find in this field, but if you include alcohol and smoking your options are pretty wide open. I suspect the majority of clinical programs will have at least one person on faculty doing research in that area. A fair portion will have more than one.

Good point, and very true. The undergrad population in general, unfortunately, lends itself particularly well to tobacco use and alcohol abuse research and practice. The VA can be another entity that works heavily in these areas (depending on the individual hospital), so finding graduate programs with faculty focused on alcohol/tobacco use, and with a nearby VA medical center, could also be a good idea.

 

[cara susanna]

Alison Looby at the University of North Dakota does research on drug use and expectencies.

I agree that the clinical side of it tends to be dominated by Masters-level clinicians.

 

[Fynch]

I just started a clinical PhD program and my primary research interest is substance abuse. When I was searching for schools to apply to, I picked up the indispensable Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology. It's a pretty exhaustive list of programs which lists research being conducted at each school among other things. I found somewhere between 30-40 clinical PhD programs that had active substance use/abuse/dependence researchers (this includes nicotine, alcohol, and other drugs). I believe SUNY Albany (possibly Syracuse, I can't remember to be honest) was the only clinical psych PhD program with a specific substance abuse focus/track. A majority of the other schools had speciality tracks like neuropsych, health psych, etc. Substance use generally falls under the health psych umbrella so it may suit you well to search for schools that have a health psych focus.

With that said, if you are only interested in doing clinical work you may be better off going the masters route because, like a few others have mentioned, the substance abuse field is dominated by that level of practitioner. However, if you are also interested in research, a PhD program may be the route to go. They are difficult to get into though (respectable ones anyway) and prior research experience is a must. So in addition to your placement at the hospital, it would be wise to try to get into a lab and start participating in research as soon as you can.

Hope that helps!

 

[paramour]

We have minimal (for most folks, mostly no) exposure to substance use issues in our program (clinical). The only way I managed to finagle some was by taking coursework in another dept (counseling)--which opened up some doors in other settings, so you may want to broaden your search to clinical/counseling as well.

I agree with the previous posters that most folks with substance abuse work (around here) tend to be master's level (if not bachelor's level with additional certificate course/training).

G'luck!