What is "Clinical" Research?

[Psychadelic2012]

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I am finishing a terminal master's in clinical psychology after a career change. I am applying to PhD programs for fall 2012, including a mix of clinical, counseling, and experimental psychology programs. I have found that I primarily am interested in health psychology research. I am minimally interested in clinical/practice work, but pursued this path because I am older and need a way to support myself if I do not get into a PhD program. One of the experimental programs I applied to was with a POI who has been a close mentor for several years. It is the exact research I want to do. However, after the interview (of which I did not interview with my POI, only other faculty with fringe interests who each mentioned my mentorship by my POI and therefore assumed a non-primary interest in their labs), I was told that my interests were basically too clinical and therefore not a fit.

Besides being disillusioned by the "lack of fit" (which makes no sense to me, as this is the best fit I can imagine), I'm thrown off by the fact that my research interests are considered 'too clinical'. I have my own ideas about what 'clinical research' is, but what say all of you? Is it working with the mentally ill? Doing psychotherapy and/or diagnostic research? Something else? What would distinguish clinical from pure health psych research??

 

[Cortex613]

The comment "your research interests are too clinical" may have several meanings:

1. The program wants applicants that have more of a theorectical approach, than applied.
2. It may mean that your interests may be directed in more of clinical (practioner-scholar model) than a scientific method (research scholar model).

What interested you in health psych?

Honestly, I am not sure what this (or any of these) programs want. It's a real crap shoot just to receive an interview.

 

[Psychadelic2012]

Probably #1 is true. I have production background and interest in hormonal research, in a particular population (related to my POI's history). Research-wise, this is all I've been involved in. I would prefer not to go further clinically, but my CV appears as if I've pigeon-holed myself into a practice-oriented career. Really too bad. The programs that they think match my history have nowhere near the training in research and statistics that I'm wanting.