Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters
many of my fellow residents would be seeing 5 therapy patients a week in addition to their regular clinical duties. From what I understand the psychology students see less. They are busy doing a group (which we also had to do for a year), doing neuropsych, doing psychological testing, etc.
I had always thought that they did more and was surprised to learn that they did less.
Not every psychiatry dept. is the same. Some probably require little or none. I'm not sure what the minimum is, but I know our program is above the minimum. We were also required to have supervision for therapy, including one year from a psychoanalyst.
And the chairman of our dept. is a molecular biologist.
|
There are still people out there calling themselves psychoanalysts??
wow that's seriously subpar therapy training for the psychologists, if that's the case (less than 5 hours per week). Is the program APA-accredited? I would imagine a more likely explanation is that the rotation in the site where you're at is one of many that they do or have the option to do. That way they could get the more therapy-intensive practica done elsewhere, and come to your site if they want an inpatient feel with lots of assessment. From the time I was a 2nd year masters student until the end of my pre-doc internship, I did no less than 10 hours/wk of individual, at the least. Usually much more. And that was in addition to groups, assessment, supervision, consultation, outreach, etc. In fact, an issue right now in psychology training is that the post-doc year prior to licensure, where even more hours have to be accrued, is being seen as superfluous because people are graduating with more than ample numbers of hours already.
Interesting.
I would say, based on what little I know from psychiatrists I've worked with or in association with, that your program is in the minority. I respect that, as I think that if people want to specialize in the medical side of things fine, but you ought to at least have the ability to critically evaluate from a broader perspective. Sounds like your program tried to facilitate that.
Btw, I do not mean to imply an attack on your profession per se. We could point out the deficiencies and problems with psychology and I'd be right there. At times I am quite frustrated by my field, kind of a love-hate relationship some days.
What do psychiatrists like yourself and your colleagues think about psychologists getting prescription privileges?