Would you do it again anyway?

[Psy01]

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With such pessimistic talk pervading this board, I'm curious to know what the people here would do. If you could go back in time and do it again, would you still go into clin psych? What would you do differently? Or would you do something else?

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I too would probably do an MD/Ph.D. I looked at a few, but I couldn't find a good match for my interests. The alternative route would be to stick around in my prior career to build enough of a cushion that I wouldn't worry as much about the $-side of things.

 

[DrGero]

I would probably have tried harder at a funded program. I realize I didn't really know what I was doing when I entered grad school at the time, but in retrospect, losing that five hundred bucks a month monkey currently on my back would be helpful. Aside from that, I wouldn't change what I'm doing now.

 

[docma]

Technically I did a Counseling Psych degree but the practice path led me to acute care/SMI/CMHS so the work is clinical with lots of supervision and teaching now. I would not have done anything differently. I have found it thoroughly rewarding (not so much financially but my partner is in the I/O side of the field so we have been fine)--in the sense that it has been interesting and gratifying work that feels like it makes real difference in others lives. Working in public systems requires a lot of creativity as well as patience, since you have to figure out how to make things happen from not very much. There are definitely staff that are burnt-out/cynical but they don't tend to stay; and the ones who I have worked with for years are wonderful colleagues.

M.D.s in our system are true heroes. But I would not want their job. If I were starting out all over again and couldn't do a funded Counseling Psych track, I'd be a mental health NP since they have lots of options.

 

[Student4Life0]

I am currently in the process of applying to doctorate programs (in an MA program right now), and even though I see all of the negative talk on the board, I am still extremely excited and positive about my path. However, I will say that in the last few months, I have scratched the prof schools off of my list, and take a harder look at funding opportunities. Money is a concern.

 

[deleted176373]

With such pessimistic talk pervading this board, I'm curious to know what the people here would do. If you could go back in time and do it again, would you still go into clin psych? What would you do differently? Or would you do something else?

I have toyed with the M.D./Ph.D. route myself, and I have often wondered about it seeing as I am being trained in a medical school. After quite a bit of reflection (and despite my colleagues in the M.D. field generating substantially more income) I am quite happy with my choice.

Looking back on it though, my advice, would be to NOT accept an unfunded program. No qualified applicant should settle for less than a funded position, it doesn't need to be 100% funded, but the costs should not sit squarely on your shoulders either. When you enter graduate school you are bringing something to the table and have invested in an education in your chosen field.

Looking back on it, I was fortunate, I could have (and nearly did) make some bad choices because I was desperate to get into a program before my "expiration" date passed to get back into the military. My wife was extremely concerned when I did not get admitted the first time around and she feared that I would end up on the couch, unemployed, eating bon-bons and collecting a welfare check.

I think the key is to have a plan and a good fallback plan. You can't control everything. Psychology can be a great field for those who enter it or it can be a complete disaster. Planning is one area that can make a substantial impact of where on that continuum you will fall.

Mark

 

[KillerDiller]

I'm pretty sure I would do it all over again. I doubt I would have reached higher than 40K a year by this time staying in the jobs I held right after college. Even if I did earn that much, I would be middle-management in some non-profit institution. That doesn't sound very appealing. I suppose I could have gotten into a decent law or business school, but those professions aren't immune from risk. Med school never appealed to me; I would be bored by courses that didn't focus on the brain.

If I could go back, I may focus my applications on research heavy programs as opposed to balanced ones. I feel I am missing out on some flexibility in that regard. However, if I had gone somewhere else, I may never have picked up 3rd wave behavior therapy, which feels so clearly like where I belong.

 

[ClinicalTrainee]

I would absolutely do this all over again. I came into psychology after doing an undergraduate degree in a completely different area, and I'm so thankful I had the resources (read: free tuition by working as a university staff member) to get the background in psychology that I needed to apply to grad school. I'm also one of the lucky ones who got in to a funded PhD program on the first try, although I probably shouldn't have due to my limited research experience before that. I am on internship now, and I wouldn't change much of the last 6 years. Getting to ask and answer questions about how people work and getting to help people figure out how to better themselves (either via therapy or education) has been incredibly rewarding. I can't wait for the next step!

 

[clinicalpsyapp]

I recently read (in the NYT I believe) about this new program at Mount Sinai where they accept students with liberal arts degrees, i.e. no MCAT's, no orgo, etc. Admittedly, it's an extremely selective program... but then again you can't go back in time anyway, so I might as well go all out 🙂

I always wanted to go to med school and can handle the hard sciences but didn't want to spend 4 years doing only that and THEN med school... too much science for me. I liked the idea of a broader liberal arts education, but knew either I would have to spend significantly longer taking additional pre-req's after I finished, so I decided to go the psychology route.

Now I'm in a PhD program studying behavioral medicine, specifically cardiovascular disease, so I kind of feel like I've gotten the best of both worlds (minus the pay part).

As far as the pay goes, though, I think we're in a good place personally. The field of psychology, particularly my focus area in psychology, is a burgeoning science that has a lot more to add to medicine than the field of psychiatry (in its purest form). I can see how psychologists are becoming increasingly recognized as just as PART of the medical field instead of their own field entirely. And it's possible, maybe 20 or 30 years down the road (or perhaps less depending on how the health care reform pans out) that pay will start to equalize. This is especially true because I already hear discussion of reform for physician pay because specialists make astronomically more than GP's and that's just not sustainable. So, it looks bleak now... but I think there's definitely hope for reform in the future.

 

[psychmama]

While I'm still at the beginning stages of the profession, I would do it all over again. Literally -- I DID do it all over again since I decided on this career after over a decade as an attorney. It has been grueling lately with dissertation and internship, but I love the work. I feel naturally suited to clinical work, therapy and assessment, and I never tire of hearing people's stories and trying to figure them out. I cannot think of anything I'd rather be doing. If not this field, then maybe teaching or medicine?

Definitely NOT law though...😉

 

[HVD2011]

When I'm agitated by the intership process and my lack of school support I complain that I would never do this degree again. But that is really not true. Instead, I would go to a great school and make sure I didn't hold a full time job whilst also participating in a full time doctoral program, practicum and dissertation. I went to a school for career students i.e., students with full time jobs. But I feel my school uses this angle to appeal to students, making them believe you can do it all, when in reality it is practically impossible. Something has to give. For me, it was that I didn't make it into internship the first time around because my priority was paying my bills, therefore, I was not dedicating myself to practicum.

I hope that students that are thinking of doing their doctorate degrees, do their homework about the schools they're applying to. Don't talk to the admissions staff, you have to talk to students that are in the program or have completed the program. They also really need to work out their finances, do not work full time and lastly, give this awesome opportunity to train in an amazing field the best that they've got.

 

[Rick55]

Yes, definitely. I have no interest in being a physician, so I never considered that route. My second choice would be a doctoral degree in music and my third choice would be a doctoral degree in math. I'd still pick clin psych again as #1.

 

[deleted343839]

I ask myself that question from time to time. I don't have a good answer. I have enjoyed more success at this stage of my career than I anticipated going in, but many of the good things that have happened to me are not entirely the result of deliberate choices. Often, I was in the right place at the right time. What I do know now that I didn't know then, however, is:

(1) Most likely, I would not choose medical school if I had it all to do over.

(2) I should have thought more carefully about other professions that require less training (e.g., master's level).

(3) But the caveat to (2) is that earning a Ph.D. has made me a better thinker. I can't think of any other doctoral-level field that would have been preferable to me.

So in the end.... probably I would make similar (albeit more efficient) choices if I had it all to do over.

 

[ClinPsycMasters]

I'm not sure I understand. Is an MD/PhD program fully funded??

Also, those of you saying you would have chosen this route, how do you know you could have handled med school? I barely passed my organic chem and biochem in undergrads and would never look forward to doing more of that.

 

[Neuro-Dr]

I started grad school with a pretty clear idea about wanting to do assessments with children. I ended up in neuropsychology before the end of my first year. I borrowed about $42K when all was said and done as I didn't have funding all 5 years. I graduated from what I would consider a good, not great program by reputation; but one where I learned a great deal from the two NPs I worked with most often. I hated my internship, loved my fellowship and had a job within a month of completion. I paid my loans off last year, have taught graduate clinical psych students and 2nd & 3rd year med students for the past decade as well as work at an outpatient neurology/neurosurgery practice since 2000. I still see mainly kids and if their parents would stop coming it would be bliss.

I love every day I go to work and I am surrounded by friends of mine, my wife and her friends and whenever we are all together I listen to them complain about their corporate jobs. They always refer to me as the only guy who actually likes his job; they are right. Regrets, I've had a few; but then again, too few to mention!

 

[ClinPsycMasters]

I still see mainly kids and if their parents would stop coming it would be bliss.

😕

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Parents can make things infinitely more challenging. I enjoyed my work with kids, but the parents became the main reason I stopped. Every once in awhile you'll get your Tiny Terror, but for the most part the kids are manageable.

 

[Neuro-Dr]

ClinPsychMasters - Only an adult could have everything go right all day long and still be miserable. When you work with kids, you quickly figure out how frequently the parents are the problem.

 

[mizrachfaith]

I'm not sure what will be my next option rather than clin psych. Maybe I would go on teaching.hehe.😀

 

[Yellowbrickroad]

If I could go back, I may focus my applications on research heavy programs as opposed to balanced ones. I feel I am missing out on some flexibility in that regard.

Why do you say that? At first glance, it would seem that you would have more flexibility in a balanced program. (I'll be applying to programs this fall, and I thought the balanced programs would offer me more flexibility.)

 

[KillerDiller]

Why do you say that? At first glance, it would seem that you would have more flexibility in a balanced program. (I'll be applying to programs this fall, and I thought the balanced programs would offer me more flexibility.)

Balanced programs tend to require a lot more clinical work than research heavy programs (for obvious reasons). 16-24 hours a week of practicum leaves a lot less time to do your own research, apply for grants, etc. There is no way I would be competitive for a tenure track position because I don't have the research output. Hence, I have less flexibility in the job market. Correspondingly, students from research-heavy programs may have fewer clinical hours pre-internship, but they aren't any worse for the wear in terms of getting into the better internship training sites. Thus, they may be behind in clinical skills at first, but they quickly catch up.

It's not impossible to have large research output in a balanced program. People do it, it's just a lot harder. You have to be lucky enough to be in a lab where there is a lot of activity and a lot of shared publicatons and posters that you can produce with less time commitment.

Also, with the rampant inflation in reporting of clinical hours, my number of contact hours still doesn't look that impressive.

 

[ClinPsycMasters]

ClinPsychMasters - Only an adult could have everything go right all day long and still be miserable. When you work with kids, you quickly figure out how frequently the parents are the problem.

Sounds very...psychodynamic object relations. I thought we had move on from blaming the parents to blaming the environment and learning patterns (CBT), not to mention the brain (chemical imbalance). 😉

I see parents also as children...but with more "rights", older wounds, and less malleable. Kids bring out the parent/protector instinct. You can be a hero/savior even when you're just doing your "job." Parents can "use" the kids as an emotional crutch and be very possessive but as soon as I start to think they too were once kids, and probably abused/neglected in many ways, I see them as less controlling. But they sure can be frustrating. Interestingly, in my position, I deal with older adults and their adult children, some of whom have now switched places essentially, trying to parent the parent.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Many problematic parents are just not good at parenting; the "friend" parents are some of the worst. Then there are other parents who have a lot going on and they are doing the best that they can, so I try to stay objective when I am confronted with dysfunctional child/parent relationships.