a lot of my classmates from my master's programs are now working in private practice, doing counseling around life transition issues, poor self esteem, career counseling, etc.
That's awesome. I'm happy for them. They're actually earning a living in the thing we went to school for. I just can't imagine doing it myself. I mean, I'm sure they're getting supervision towards licensure (right)? But I had to return to school because I felt like there was still so much to learn - and either I'm right or I'm wrong and I'm sufficiently resolving the cognitive dissonance. But I would just not feel qualified to be sitting across from someone being their therapist (despite the fact that I just did that for the last year).
But being a therapist isn't the same as being a psychologist. This psyD program isn't just more of the same from my master's program. I'm working towards something very different now. I have a good foundational knowledge in psychology and counseling, and it got me out of a couple of basic classes (but fewer than you'd expect), but there is a lot of stuff in this doctoral program that is COMPLETELY flying over my head and which I should be working on right now rather than blogging.
I'm focused on trying to understand multi-trait, multi-method matrices right now. I know, I have no idea either. And classical reliability theory, and item response theory? I mean, do I really need to know this shit, or is it like statistics, that I'm just going to turn it over to some stats geek at the office if I'm actually faced with it.
But here's the thing with being a psychologist: we actually do very little talky-talky psychotherapy. Psychologists specialize more in assessment, program evaluation, supervision, and consultation. (research too). And if you're specializing in assessment? you need to know psychometrics.
Which means I need to get off the couch and go back to my desk and bury myself in convergent validity determination. Gah.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
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2 comments:
Long-time lurker, first-time commenter..Actually, psychologists do a lot of the tasks you are talking about, but in little bits and pieces, e.g., they do psychotherapy, consultation, assessment, research, teaching etc. just at different times. That's why we're all just a little bit crazy. :) And my experience is a lot of psychologists do a lot of talky-talk therapy (from my graduate school class, I'm the only one who is not doing at least some therapy)...i think we are all at least somewhat drawn to that "scientist-practitioner" model. Assessment is the domain of psychologists, but not all psychologists do assessment (i avoid it like the plague). therefore all men are socrates. but this combination approach is why being a psychologist is fun, it's the chinese menu of careers-pick one from column A, two from Column B, etc. It's a recipe for both not being bored, and being constantly overwhelmed. But i wouldn't trade it for anything...well, maybe a food writer for Gourmet magazine. Now get back to that convergent validity!
I think it's more of the perception of what someone thinks they're going to spend most of their time doing. The last couple of generations of psychologists (especially clinically focused) really thought they were getting into doing psychotherapy. But with managed care, you're just not seeing that anymore - LCSW's and LPC's (or whatever they're called in whichever state) are the one's who will be hired or reimbursed for day to day counseling. It's apparently a surprise to some doctoral students that come in - they just didn't research it well enough beforehand. Sure, you can still do psychotherapy as a clinician, and many people do, but you shouldn't get a doctoral degree to do it. Which is my point - I have the master's and I TOTALLY don't feel capable of being someone's therapist. Of course, I'm batshit crazy and completely unstable, but that's besides the point.
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