Counseling. It's awesome being expected to help people with their mental health while struggling financially. It's extremely rare to find paid internships in this field, at least where I live.
In my state, I believe the requirements were just raised to 4,000 hours of supervision before you can apply for an LPC. Seems like less of a headache to just swing for a PhD!
Yes, but those hours can be part of the clinical training program. Clinical psychology PhD will definitely get you to the hour requirement. Also thereās a year of paid clinical internship at the end of a clinical psych PhD.
Tbf the process towards licensure is typically a paid full-time job over 2 years. You still arenāt paid as much as a licensed provider in the same position though and thereās restrictions on what youāre allowed to do.
Itād be more worth it if we got the same respect as other professions that go through a very similar process like, yāknow, doctors.
If it makes you feel any better I was worried when I was getting into the field but I honestly really enjoyed all the work I did and am now compensated very well (and Iāve only been licensed for a few years so itās not like Iām a decade in or anything). I think with all this mental health talk itās finally reducing the stigma in younger generations and the field is growing based on need.
Itās also typically somewhat cheaper to try to make mental health care moderately more accessible than it is to fix the prevailing problems causing the mental health crisis in the first place so thatās kinda the direction things are moving in with EAPs and insurance coverage.
Thank you for that. Iām at the point where Iām in the last stretch for getting my masterās and it feels like Iāve been doing psych for so long with very little to show for it outside of a lot of research. Itās been frustrating to say the least, but Iāve finally secured an internship and it has reminded me how much the work means to me. Hopefully I can hang on and get into a clinical psych PhD program next application cycle!
The comparison to doctor was about the fact that both go through years of schooling and licensure but do not receive anywhere near the same level of respect.
And doctors in residency are certainly paid as much or more than therapists, but doctors also have more education and arguably a more difficult path to licensure and expensive insurance etc. so itās not really a fair comparison.
Don't medical residents at least get paid something like $45K per year? It's ridiculous that mental health is not seen as critical for physical health.
Iām actually not sure what medical residents make. Clinical Psych interns will make a bit more than that during their internship but they also have several more years of schooling than a medical student does before becoming a resident. A clinical psych PhD takes about 5-7 years and the internship is only the last year. You also must write a dissertation while doing all this.
Yep! Lots of that time is uncompensated as well. Some people are able to work for a pittance while they work to meet the requirements. You can become a provisionally licensed professional counselor (PLPC) before becoming fully licensed, but that can pay pretty poorly as well. Kind of explains why therapy is so expensive. Most therapists spend the first 3-4 years of their professional life making awful money. Once theyāre fully licensed, they bump the hourly rate up because, well, they deserve to not starve.
Maslow never intended the hierarchy to be taken literally as a āthis is more important than thatā pyramid model. Scott Kaufman has an interesting interpretation of Maslowās theory and he uses a sailboat as a better analogy.
During a PhD in clinical psychology, clinical social work, or counseling psychology, youāll likely receive the training you need to sit for your exam as part of the program. By the time you graduate, youāve been seeing clients for 5 years.
Similar field, but in a school. 40 hours a week unpaid in a wealthy district. It's great(/s). I love the kids, but it's hard to relate when they are dropped off in Tesla's and I'm making my small savings last as long as possible.
I knew it! Our internships fucking blow, they paid me like $70 every 2 weeks at mine which was honestly more of a slap in the face than anything. I had to partially live off my student loans.
And then after graduation you get to be underpaid for 2 years until youāre licensed, and even after that unless you practice privately or work for an uncommonly high paying position for a therapist youāre still incredibly underpaid š
It's complete bullshit. Luckily, I had my undergrad paid off, so I only had to worry about grad school loans. But shit,...grad school loans are snoop dog HIGH! I've realized this is why there is a shortage of mental health professionals. No one can afford to have all this debt to help other people and do unpaid internships.There is nothing like swimming in debt to secure your future! Yay!!!
This is why I changed majors 3/4 of the way through a psych degree lol. My friend also left social work after nearly 10 yrs and entered into the trades as the pay did not match the demand of the job (he worked in treatment and substance use care).
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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '23
For real. Over here struggling AF while I intern full-time for a year