PhD in Health Psychology?

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JackD

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Should I be skeptical of schools that offer PhDs in health psychology? I'm not talking about schools that have post doctoral training in health psychology for clinical psychologists but schools that have programs in just health psychology?

I ask because I was checking out the Walden University website (you don't have to concern yourself with telling me that university sucks) and they said they had a PhD in health psychology that does not qualify for licensing. It is disturbing if you can't get a license after graduating that program and it is even more disturbing if you don't need a license to practice health psychology (i guess those are the options here).

I then did a search on yahoo for PhDs in health psychology and found very few places that actually offered them. Should I take that as a sign of something?

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Check for licensure options, then look at accreditation. If you don't have those two....it sounds VERY questionable. "Health Psychology" is a bit vague, but that doesn't mean it is bad. You can write books, lecture, etc without a license....but I'd think you'd be pretty limited without one.

-t
 
"Health Psychology" is a bit vague, but that doesn't mean it is bad.

-t

Oh i know. I always thought it would be interesting, maybe some day down the road, to practice health psychology. I only knew of it as a branch of clinical psychology and something more like a specialty, sort of like a cardiologist is an MD. I never heard of a PhD in just health psychology and the fact this program at Walden (again, i know the arguments against such places) does not allow for licensing makes me wonder about any program offering a PhD in health psychology. It sounded at least intriguing at first that such a degree exists but I don't like what i have seen about these PhDs so far.
 
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Should I be skeptical of schools that offer PhDs in health psychology? I'm not talking about schools that have post doctoral training in health psychology for clinical psychologists but schools that have programs in just health psychology?

I ask because I was checking out the Walden University website (you don't have to concern yourself with telling me that university sucks) and they said they had a PhD in health psychology that does not qualify for licensing. It is disturbing if you can't get a license after graduating that program and it is even more disturbing if you don't need a license to practice health psychology (i guess those are the options here).

I then did a search on yahoo for PhDs in health psychology and found very few places that actually offered them. Should I take that as a sign of something?

Yes and No. I think that you need to evaluate every program on it's actual merits. Health psychology is a sticky one because many health psychology programs are really programs within a clinical Ph.D. setting.

Examples of this are University of Texas, University of Kansas, University of Maryland Baltimore County, University of Houston, USUHS (although called Medical Psychology with a clinical track is really "Health Psychology"), and others. You will find that these programs are APA accredited and qualify for licensure. These programs are sub-specializations of the clinical psychology Ph.D. tracks.

Now there are programs that are not within that realm and they are legitimate programs where you do not and cannot get licensure. However you are not interacting as a clinical psychologist, but perhaps as a consultant, other type of provider, or as a researcher.

There really has not been a long history of "Health Psychology" as a stand-alone discipline, as far as I know but rather, it has most often been a sub-specialty of clinical programs, and division 38's website confirms this (although I am sure exceptions exist.)

Medical Psychology, at least at USUHS, is not a degree that you can get licensure with unless you take the clinical track. Once again, really the program is part of the clinical psychology dept. However the lack of licensure, if your goal is to be a researcher is of little concern, and we have students that opt to take the program without the clinical track.

See the APA Division 38 website for Health Psychology:
http://www.health-psych.org/articles/what_is.php

"Psychologists who strive to understand how biological, behavioral, and social factors influence health and illness are called health psychologists. The term "health psychology" is often interchanged with the terms "behavioral medicine" or "medical psychology". While more than half of health psychologists provide clinical services as part of their duties, many health psychologists function in non-clinical roles primarily involving teaching and research."

"Many doctoral programs in clinical, counseling, social, or experimental psychology have specialized tracks or preceptorships in health psychology. A number of programs now exist in the United States and other countries specifically for doctoral training in health psychology."
 
The thing about non-licensure is that you will not be able to supervise students for their clinical experience, which may or may not be a problem if you are going the academic route.

I'd want to have the most options, so if you are interested in health psychology, I'd look at places that are APA-approved AND licensable that have a health psychology focus/concentration.

-t
 
The thing about non-licensure is that you will not be able to supervise students for their clinical experience, which may or may not be a problem if you are going the academic route.

I'd want to have the most options, so if you are interested in health psychology, I'd look at places that are APA-approved AND licensable that have a health psychology focus/concentration.

-t

It all depends, plenty of experimental and social psychologists do fine in academia without licensing credentials. Some of the more influential faculty at my institution cannot supervise, however it has not prevented them from having a great deal of power in our department or their career progression to full professor.

Personally, I agree, I think that I would much rather be licensable. I want the flexibility that is offered from being able to practice or work in a research/academic setting. Although it is likely that I will never work full time in an academic setting, it is possible that I may seek to work part time as an adjunct faculty lecturer in the future. To be honest I am "too old" to be considered competitive for a tenure-track position (yes, I know, no one discriminates on age.)

Mark
 
Personally, I agree, I think that I would much rather be licensable.

Me too. I'm not too sure how much I could tolerate teaching or researching for the rest my entire career. It might fun for awhile but I'm not sure about doing it for 40 years. I would think if i was going to be a health psychologist, i would do the clinical route. However, there are a thousand things i need to do before i can even consider going for that.

On a side note, i emailed one of the academic advisors for psychology at Walden and I must say her response was very thorough and professional, as opposed to the ones that I have got from Capella. I would still be highly reluctant to go there (more to do with internship acceptance than anything else) but based on my experience with the staff at the two universities, I would probably take Walden over Capella at this point.
 
Have you considered Health Psychology "Psy.D" programs. I'm sure you are aware of them since you subscribe to the SDN. They have not been mentioned in this thread, however.

I searched for every possible health psych. program before applying this year. Most of them were Psy.D , or Clinical Psych Psy.D with a focus in health psych.

I too seek an application based career, well research based, but getting out and about and connecting with people is a must. All of the PsyD programs in health psych I applied to are APA accredited.

Some accredited/licensing programs may not outright say that they offer a health specialty/focus. For example, the USUHS program, correct me if I'm wrong Mark, isn't specifically titled "health" but has outstanding local opportunities to focus on "health" through .USU’s Center for Health Disparities and the National Naval Medical Center.

Feel free to send me a message for recommendations on the programs I found.
-Anthony

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Have you considered Health Psychology "Psy.D" programs. I'm sure you are aware of them since you subscribe to the SDN. They have not been mentioned in this thread, however.

I searched for every possible health psych. program before applying this year. Most of them were Psy.D , or Clinical Psych Psy.D with a focus in health psych

The clinical health psychology route was the one that i had been looking into, although there are a thousand "ifs" between then and now.

Up until yesterday, i didn't even know there was an clinically independent health psychology route. After looking into what earning that degree would mean, that isn't the way i want to go. I would consider it but only if four or so other degrees didn't work out.
 
Nothing wrong with a health psych degree for folks who don't want to do clinical work. Its a big research area right now so I imagine it could work out very well for some folks.

That being said, don't assume that a program has to have a specific health psych concentration in order for it to be a good fit. It certainly helps, but some programs don't bother organizing specific concentrations under the assumption that a student can take appropriate classes and let their CV speak for itself. In fact, at least a few of the schools I looked at that DID have health psych concentrations would probably have had substantially worse training in health psych than my current program (which does not have a formal concentration). Having the concentration won't get you much if you have a bunch of no-name faculty teaching the concentration classes, and not much active health psych research.
 
Does anyone have any more information about what someone could actually do with a PhD in health psychology? Would it be purely research and education or would there be other things a person could actually do with it? Would it be similar to having a degree in cognitive psychology or evolutionary psychology?
 
Pretty much research and teach. Like an experimental degree I'd imagine. POTENTIALLY you could be a sort of "informal consultant" on cases if you were in an academic medical center, but that's not terribly likely since there will probably be enough licensed folks they could go to first, and that's probably about the closest you'd ever get to a clinical setting without a license.

Of course, there's the usual array of atypical psychology options. You could potentially work as a statistician, methodologist as part of a research team, etc.
 
Pretty much research and teach. Like an experimental degree I'd imagine. POTENTIALLY you could be a sort of "informal consultant" on cases if you were in an academic medical center, but that's not terribly likely since there will probably be enough licensed folks they could go to first, and that's probably about the closest you'd ever get to a clinical setting without a license.

Of course, there's the usual array of atypical psychology options. You could potentially work as a statistician, methodologist as part of a research team, etc.

Yep, Ollie's basically nailed it down. My master's program had a health psych option, and the majority of those who graduated ended up doing consultant type work and/or heading up large scale projects involving research & stats, usually at academic med centers & the sort.
 
I am applying to clinical PhD programs that have people who are doing health research. I specifically avoided non-clinical programs because I want to have options. If you are looking for health PhDs I know that there is a really good program at U of North Dakota that is a social/health PhD.

But if you are interested, I can tell you the programs I looked at/am applying to.
 
Sounds like a lot of people are interested in specializing in health psychology (the clinical route). There must be something alluring about that career? Maybe the idea of not working with people who are potentially very dangerous is tempting.
 
Sounds like a lot of people are interested in specializing in health psychology (the clinical route). There must be something alluring about that career? Maybe the idea of not working with people who are potentially very dangerous is tempting.

I love the gap in knowledge and research......there is a lot out there, but a TON of unexplored/under-explored areas. I want to make a meaningful contribution to the field, and I think that is easier if you are doing the exploratory work, instead of trying to find nuance in something that has already been flushed out.

-t
 
I love the gap in knowledge and research......there is a lot out there, but a TON of unexplored/under-explored areas. I want to make a meaningful contribution to the field, and I think that is easier if you are doing the exploratory work, instead of trying to find nuance in something that has already been flushed out.

-t

Figure out the unifying theory of psychology. That would be cool. You would get a thumbs up from me.
 
Eh, danger is actually not such an issue. Internalizers tend to be relatively safe to work with;)

What T4C said, plus I think it ties in to psychopathology (I'm studying why people make poor decisions about health behaviors, and why people with psychopathology tend to make worse decisions). It also ties in a bit better to my more medical-type-interests. Really there's lots of reasons to go into health psych, just gotta pick one of em:)
 
Regarding the link to ECU's PhD in Health Psych program, the last time I checked it was not APA accredited. I could not get the weblink to open for verification. It has been some months since I checked the program out.
 
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