Practicing Overseas?

[Cosmo75]

I'm curious about how transferable a doctorate obtained in the U.S. in clinical psych is to work overseas (let's say Europe). I'm sure it differs from country to country. But has anyone gotten any good information on this possibility? You know, in case I ever need to flee the country or something

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[Marissa4usa]

I don't know anything about the rest of europe but I know for sure that Germany for example fairly easily lets you work with a PhD in Clinical Psych as long as it is from an APA accredited program. I would, however, assume that it is similar for the rest of europe. I don't know anything about an experimental PhD or other psych related fields or degrees.

 

[BorntoRun]

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[PsyDr]

you are assuming that all other countries have psychologists, which is not true.


also: the requirements to become a psychologist vary greatly. for example: UK does not require a doctorate.

also: you have to be careful about calling yourself "dr." in several countries including germany. there was a thing in the news because the phds at max planc institute were under the threat of jail time for calling themselves dr. the authorities instructed the phds that their true title was "herr professor"

and borntorun: you are forgetting the first A in APA. APA has absolutely no ability to accredit anything outside the USA. see CPA accreditation as an example. what you are looking for does not exist.

 

[cmuhooligan]

APA has absolutely no ability to accredit anything outside the USA.

That's incorrect. There are several Canadian internship sites which are APA accredited.

 

[PsyDr]

Fair enuff. I overstated. There are a total of 13 Canadian sites and a few Canadian programs that are jpointly accredited by the APA and the CPA. These programs/site to which you refer are part of a pilot program.

the APA is retracting the APA accreditation of non US sites/programs. Total retraction by 2015. No new applications after this year. Future accreditation of foreign sites is highly unlikely.

 

[Mattalbie]

In the UK people are getting away with just having "certificates" in psychology and calling themselves psychologists. The term is not protected although I believe new legislation is on it's way, probably come in during the next century. There are plenty of people here who have set up in private business and called themselves "psychological consultants" after getting "online degrees" on a Tuesday, "qualified" by Wednesday. They then join some dodgy "accrediting" organisation. I know someone who calls themself a psychologist with only a BA in Psych and runs a company which trains people to be life coaches (£1000 ($2000) per head), 12 per course, one course lasts 4 days!!

We do have the British Psychological Society that does regulate the field to some extent. Only those who have completed a BPS accred. course or equiv. will get a job with the National Health Service. The level of qualification required depends on which specialisation you want to go into. You will not be able to work as a Clinical Psychologist in the NHS without a docorate, and for UK students it has to be a professional Clin Psych not a Phd as the law changed 3 years ago, for clinical purposes the NHS wants Clin Psychs Prof Doctorates which are more practical than research based. In other specialisations like Health Psychology a masters or even a postgrad diploma is ok for the NHS. The jobs page on the NHS website will give you more of an idea.

The NHS in this country is completely choked, contrary to Mike Moore's "Sicko". Infact the service is so desperate to get people with common mental health probs like dep. and anx off waiting lists, it's training people to cert level in CBT (1 year accredited course) to work as therapists, work experience pref but any previous degree accepted. So the good news for you is that we do have great shortage of Clin Psychs here due to the slow grinding of the beauracratic wheels. The setup for training UK / EU students has it's good and bad points. All training for British prof Clin Psych doctorates is free. However there are only 3 to 5 places per course and only a few uni's provide the courses, so you need a letter from God to get admitted, I heard of a guy (Phd) who actually lectured in stats on a Clin Psy course for 8 years and could not get admission! There are lots of similar stories, crazy! There is only one accredited self funded Clin Psych prof doctorate, it costs $34,000 a year for domestic students!!! S if you have an APA accred. Clin Psych Phd or PsyD from the USA they are highly regarded and because we do have a shortage of Clin Psychs here you can take equiv. BPS exams to work as a Clin Psych. in an NHS hospital, you may be able to work in a private hospital without equiv, not sure. Or you can take an academic post no equiv exams needed as far as I know, we have several overseas Phd's working in my uni.

Eire is another possibility and there are great relations between Ireland and the U.S. so I would think it would be easier. The Republic of Ireland has it's own psych body, don't let the quality of the website throw you, it's a fine organisation and training places for domestic students are just as competitive as the UK if not more so.

As for the rest of Europe, you have to consider the language problem. A large proportion of Europeans do not speak English. Although, due to the crap educational standards here, the standard of both written and spoken English in most of Europe is better than that of a number British educational intitutions thanks to government meddling over the last 10 years or so.

There are also great opps in Singapore (Masters), check the SPS website, Australia and New Zealand.

 

[Cosmo75]

Thanks very much for all the info. Sure I realize the term "psychologist" differs from country to country. I spent a few weeks in Japan for a course in grad school. Mental health care there was quite different. And my lacking in being able to speak Japanese would make things slightly difficult

Mattalbie - Thanks for the details. I did come across Ireland's site when I was looking around online for some info before posting here.

 

[SteelMariposa]

You could try contacting the National Register regarding which countries require what in regards to practicing overseas. They have pretty detailed information and are used to handling those questions.

 

[Marissa4usa]

also: the requirements to become a psychologist vary greatly. for example: UK does not require a doctorate.

also: you have to be careful about calling yourself "dr." in several countries including germany. there was a thing in the news because the phds at max planc institute were under the threat of jail time for calling themselves dr. the authorities instructed the phds that their true title was "herr professor"

It is right that you don't need to be a "dr" or "phd" to be a psychologist in germany. you actually "just" need to get a "diploma (which requires about 6-7 years of schooling). however, to become a therapist, one has to take on another 1 or 2 training. since since the question is whether one can practive oversees: you need to have a clinical PhD from an APA accredited program to do that, otherwise you will run into a million issues.

i dont know anything this incident at the max planck institute but I find that surprising since the D in phD stands for "doctor". I just know that in germany you can opt to get your doctorate after you receive your diploma in psych and the title actually is called "Dr" so that might be the reason. And I guess, it's typically German.

 

[krj2002]

c

 

[Mattalbie]

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We don't have licensure here other than you have to do accredited courses from cert to doctorate to work for the NHS. However it does depend on which area you want to go into. Clin Psych, very highly regulated in the NHS, outside the NHS nothing really, so you need to check with BPS on that one.

PsyD in the states 4 to 5 years and clinically based so I can't see there being a problem, but I'm only speculating, you need to check with the BPS direct.

Unfortunately, anybody can set up as therapist and there are alot of dodgy ones.

First: Eligibility to be in the UK will depend on what you are going to do once you are here.

a) I'm not 100% but coming in as a student w/o a doctorate would be fairly easy, get on a course then explore options from there. Chances of getting onto a Clinical Doctorate will be virtually nil but you can do other Psych related courses like a PG Dip in Councelling or Health Psych and depending on visa requirementst you will more than likely get a job ((maybe in the NHS you will have to check) related to the subject you studied. Expensive to study though and cost of living can be expensive depending were you live.

b) If you want to come here already armed with a clinical based doctorate,and work for the NHS contact the BPS, check their website to, and enquire about equiv exams, you may or may not need to take them. We have such a shortage here I can't see there being too much of a problem. You will need to have suitable visa before you can work, that seems to be the biggest hurdle, but plenty of people deal with it.

You may also be eligible to jointhe BPS now as an overseas member, not sure.

You may also want to contact some exsiting American psychologists here in the UK. I know there is a US lecturer, female, in the psych dept at Birkbeck College in London. In my uni psych dept of the top of my head we have Italians, Germans and more from outside the EU- like Russia. So you may want to come in and work as a lecturer, check jobs.ac.uk for uni jobs.



There is an English Psych forum similar to SDN called psyclick.org.uk


c) If you want to come and work for a private psych company, on an employed or a s/e basis you don't need equiv exams, as far I'm aware, but you will still have visa requirements.

d) Again I'm not 100%, but you could get here by taking a university lecturer position, you can practise privately or consult to the NHS p/t.


However an important consideration to make is that the NHS trains or at least heavily subs training of a lot of healthcare staff, spends millions on years of training, the students never sign a contract and have no liability. Again contrary to M. Moores "Sicko" as soon as they finish training they buggar off to private hospitals or oversseas. There are any number of reasons why: in the NHS there pay is low compared to the States, long stressful hours, hospitals full of superbugs which are killing 20,000 people a year would you want to work in that env? Don't get me wrong there are also lots of admirable med staff who do, mostly recruited from overseas (he says half joking)

A lot of British health care staff go over to private orgs or off to Australia, Canada or the States. Other reasons relate to the expense of living here. 80,000 people a year are leaving. The recent government has really screwed this place, beuracracy is unbelievable, employed people are heavily taxed, life satisfaction is at it's lowest for a long time, high crime, poor education standards. The cost of fuel and running a car is unreal. There was recent newspaper front page which showed an exodus of people who had originally come from developing countries and were going back to their country because it was better there. I know this looks negative, but a little digging will show you what's happening here. Best to be realistic.

If you want to work as a psych private clinics and hospitals like the Priory, (check website) maybe easier and better pay and conditions.

CBT is very popular at the moment so having a qual in that area will go a long way.

Counselling / clinical, both very much alike, clinical has maybe more emphasis on assessment but I think that's it. Easier to get on an BPS coun. psych course as they are gen self funding. but you will need work experience. Don't know why one is self funding and the other isn't, bprobably some decision made by some accountants in ivory towers that they will fund all Clin Psych buy not (as far as I know) councelling courses.

Remember uni's in this country are very business orientated, there are so many international students here now, it's big money, sad really as they should be allowed to pay the same as domestic students. If you want to study councelling psych here, you be paying international fees so you could probably walk into the VC's office, let him/ her sniff the cheque and say something like "I'll be taking your parking space to"


Just remember you can set up in p.p. with minimal quals there is no licence and no regualation as far as p.p is concerned. Working for the NHS need acrredited quals for Psych, BPS or equiv from overseas, for councelling other than BPS another accrediting body is BACP for cog therapies BABCP

I know of one American guy in Manchester not a Psych but private therapist, you might want to ask him about working here, think he's from Texas pm me for details