actually the DSW degree is slowly being phased out. more social work schools are looking to hire PhD's and not DSW's. i read an article about why, but i can't find the link. so if you want to teach social work (which is a varied field: micro, mezzo, macrco-social work; policy and planning; clinical). the main credential you need to do counseling is the MSW with the appropriate post-graduate training (which differs by state i believe). the PhD won't make you a more qualified counselor per-se (and i do believe there are some states that require a doctorate to be a licensed counselor...could be wrong). it depends what you want to research and what you want to teach. to be sure there is a little bit of overlap between psych and social work research regarding clinical/counseling issues. it is not entirely implausible that there are psych and social work researchers working on the same research topic. the fields should not be confused though, they are quite distinct and have different approaches to similar problems. i'd suggest doing some reading about clinical/psychiatric/mental health social work and seeing if what they are doing really interests you. a phd in social work normally requires an MSW first. then the PhD will be an additional 3-4 years. dont expect there to be a huge difference between the time it takes to acquire a PhD in each field (don't expect anything less than 5 years for any of those fields).
the fields are just so varied. the training is so distinct. as a psych major you may be more well acquainted with psych. if you wanna know what psych PhD's do and what they teach...just go to class. i'd definitely hit up google and see what social work PhD's do. i have to warn you that the field is so vast and varied that it may be hard to get an idea about what seperates social work research from other fields. it is in fact an historical complaint about social work that it is not a clearly defined field of research or knowledge at all. which i don't find to be a negative thing at all...its what has attracted me to analyzing the field of social work.
in case you were wondering i do research on the philosophy of social work and the philosophy of psychology/psychiatry. that is my orientation to the field and i am not a trained social worker.
