Rehabilitaton Psychology??

[PsychsRus]

Well hello!
Just making my list for prospective programs to apply to in the fall... I have a mix of counseling and school programs but lately I have been realizing that I would in fact love to work with people who are recovering from injury, illnesses and such...
I haven't seen almost ANYTHING concerning Rehab Psych and Im not sure why.....
So my questions are:
1. Is there any type of demand in this field?
2. Is it easy to obtain?
3. Do people who want to go into Rehab Psych have a Clinical or Counseling background, or it doesn't matter???
4. Is the pay in this field very low or is it comparable to other fields in Psychology?
4. In essence, would this be a good field to get into?????

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[NewPsychStudent]

The is a "Rehab Psychology" Track at the Illinois Institute of Technology. It is one of a very, very few rehab programs offered in the country. Check it out.

 

[dlpfc]

Hi PsychsRus,

When you say "rehab psychology", are you referring to neuropsychological rehab/cognitive rehab in which psychologists help individuals with injury to the brain cope with their cognitive difficulties and attempt to somewhat restore cognitive functions? If so, I can point you to a few different programs. Rather than having whole tracks or specializations dedicated to rehab, many of the programs with neuropsychology specializations have professors doing this kind of clinical work or research. Dr. Schultheis at Drexel does some rehab with people with TBI or MS. Dr. Crosson and Dr. Perlstein at University of Florida are each involved in some rehab stuff-- I think Crosson's work is with individuals with some sort of visual deficits and Perstein's work is with people with executive dysfunction. A few profs at University of Houston do some rehab: Dr. Fletcher does work with children with learning disabilities and I don't know what the other profs do, but I know they do some rehab as well.

These are just a few of the programs I know of with rehab, and I know there are more out there. I would recommend going through the author lists of rehab articles you find interesting and see if these researchers supervise grad students.

Cog rehab is a relatively new field so there is not a ton of work out there, but it does exist! It's sort of a "hot" topic in neuropsychology so I think it would be a good area to get into as there is MUCH research to be done. In terms of demand, as you mentioned, I would say there is a huge demand for this field as brain injuries are so prevalent and there are so few established rehab programs in practice.

 

[PsychsRus]

To Dlpfc,

I have never considered the field you're talking about although it does sound interesting...
I was talking about "Rehab Psychology" as described by the APA.. on this website:
http://www.div22.org/about_rehab.php

It sounds a lot like Rehab Counseling, but Im assuming Psychologist could also counsel in addition to assessing and evaluating a patients' ability to come to terms with an illness/disability and ability to function.

 

[Ollie123]

Interesting, I definitely thought "Rehab" psych referred primarily to neuro rehab, sounds like its a much broader field.

Honestly, alot of it sounds like a subset of health psychology. If there are rehab-devoted schools, that would be great, but I would DEFINITELY look into health psychology as well since there are TONS of faculty doing work that sounds alot like what is on that page that consider themselves health psychologists, not necessarily rehab. We have a very prominent researcher here who looks at helping people cope with cancer diagnoses, social support, etc. so its very similar to what that link describes, but I think if you asked him he would describe himself as a health psychologist, not a rehab psychologist.

 

[erg923]

the rehab psych post-docs are much easier to obtain than the neuropsych ones. It wont prepare you to "be a neuropsychologist", but rehab psych is heavy on assessment and brain-behavior relationships.

 

[PsyDr]

there was an article in the 90s entiteled somethign like "rehab psychology: we zigged where we should have zagged"


it offers a lot of broad based opinions and history of this field.


there was also an SDN interview with a dude from a rehab psych program. look on the front page.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I'm only familiar with the neuro-type rehab (traumatic brain injury centers, etc). It seems like fascinating work if that is your thing.