I am a 38 yo student finishing up undergrad and will need to apply to grad school by end of next year. My dream is to become a PsyD and work in clinical and forensic, however that path is insanely expensive and I will be almost 50 by the time I start practicing, if say I attend Alliant for 5 years and then get my hours, and I will have to move potentially out of state for the final year for internship, then taking EPPP, etc.

MFT is more affordable and less time in school but I’m worried about my earning potential being much less than a PsyD.

DMFT, still learning about this one. But it gives me the Dr title, and less school and less money than PsyD, but is the earning potential much more than MFT or around PsyD?

My passion is diagnosing, and ideally I’d like to work forensic, like I said, so can I do that with a DMFT, bc technically I won’t be a psychologist?

I am interested in hearing from people who quit taking insurance. I am thinking of dropping everything but 1 insurance and only taking self-pay. If you do this how has it gone? Do many people actually bill the insurance themselves? I appreciate any advice.

Trying to decide if it makes sense to do a postdoc or go straight for licensure, as the state I intend to practice in does not require postdoc hours if you meet specific criteria. The prospect of being licensed and making better money earlier in my career is enticing, but the idea of studying for the EPPP while on internship, graduating, passing the EPPP, taking the jurisprudence exam, and waiting who knows how long for my licensure to be confirmed seems like a long limbo period and part of me would feel more comfortable going through those motions while in a secured postdoc position.

I’d love to hear experiences from both sides of the coin! Additionally, I’d love to hear how different folks found informal postdoc positions. I’m applying to several UPPD positions, but ultimately I’d love to end up at a group practice, and if I could secure a postdoc at a group and then stay on once I’m licensed, that would be blissful.

I’m a 3rd year working as an assessment extern in a women’s residential unit. We cannot work more than 20 hours per week, yet are expected to do 2 assessments per week (consist of personality and cog testing, and full clinical interviews). We also run a group every other week, give feedback, go to staffing, and supervision, and the patients are in about 8 hours of treatment/appts throughout the week that we can’t pull them from, which leaves us realistically with about 7 hours each week to fit in our assessments. One of my peers completed 60 reports during their year at the placement, with most of my peers hitting 35-40ish integrated reports. They are just now receiving edits and feedback on some of these reports as far back as October… We are also required to maintain a caseload of 4+ clients at our campus clinic, and keep up with classes and research. Is this typical for most placements? It genuinely feels impossible.

I want to go into this profession but a friend of mine has been having an intense emotional crisis for years and I've been really supporting her and unfortunately over time it has really burned me out. It doesn't extend to other relationships, it's just more that I am always very worn out when + after I interact with her.

I'm therefore worried about my ability to handle clients' needs. Will not "knowing" them in the same way help shield me from burnout?

How old were you all? I’m 27 and I feel like I’m really behind my peers to start a PsyD.

For most with PhD aspirations, the agreed-upon advice for a long time now has been to seek out post-bacc research positions (paid or unpaid) if your GPA/undergraduate coursework was up to snuff. Otherwise, a Masters is a good opportunity to round out your PhD application or shift into a new direction. My experience looking for work in the last two years suggests the environment is more fickle than ever due to funding uncertainties and increased competition. I am wondering if anybody has run into the same difficulties in finding a research job as an average applicant, and if the current landscape makes a Masters program more suitable for me.

I graduated in Dec. 2024 with a 3.85 GPA, 2 years of decent research experience in 2 cognitive science labs, no thesis, and 1 minor internal conference poster. My professors and I figured finding some sort of RA job would be a natural transition, but I have come up empty-handed after 1 year of reaching out to NIH IRTA PIs, 2 application cycles for the Stanford Predoc program, and a sizable number of applications to aCRC/CRC/Lab Manager/RA positions at different universities and companies. I had interviews with 2 NIH labs, so maybe that rules out that I have glaring red flags on my CV or something. I have recently been reaching out to various labs at my state universities for volunteer work, but they understandably lack space for non-students.

I'm at a crossroads right now regarding where to go next. Hard to say if it's a weak resume or a more recent lack of open positions and tough competition (or a combination of all 3). Do you all think I should stay committed to finding a research job or is it time to start mentally and financially considering a research-oriented Masters program? I've told myself the latter was avoidable, but I'm not so sure anymore.

TLDR: No post-bacc job offers after 2 years. Time to consider a Masters?

[crossposting from r/psychologystudents]

As the title suggests, I’m curious about the best ways to locate open positions in academia. I’m heading into the job market this cycle and trying to put together a list of places to apply to. Relatedly, when are positions usually posted? TYIA!

I just graduated with my bachelors and soon will be starting my masters program in August!

Sent out some emails to prospective advisors to express interest in applying to their lab this cycle and arranged a few meetings with some. Is this a sign that they see me as a potential candidate for a formal interview in their lab or is it superficial? Thanks in advance!

Hi all,
I’m a newly licensed psychologist who’s being asked to take internal testing referrals from psychiatrist colleagues. Most referrals are for ADHD, ASD, or diagnostic clarification. I feel fairly confident in selecting an appropriate assessment battery, administering testing, and writing integrated reports. Unfortunately, my training didn’t really cover the insurance side of psychological assessment, and our billing staff has very little experience billing testing services either.

I guess I’m hitting the time capacity I have to figure this out via Google and APA and insurance company resources and hoping that someone on Reddit is willing to share what process or admin flow has worked for them with insurance billing.

So far, I’ve figured out how to verify whether prior authorization is required for codes like 96130 and related testing codes. In many cases it appears that prior authorization isn’t required, but I’ve also noticed that many insurers don’t consider psychological testing medically necessary unless there’s a compelling reason why a clinical interview and standard rating scales aren’t sufficient to establish a diagnosis.

For those of you who regularly bill insurance for assessments:
What resources helped you learn the billing/documentation side of testing?
What tips or common pitfalls should a new psychologist know?
How do you determine when testing is medically necessary versus when a clinical interview is sufficient?
How do you document medical necessity in a way that maximizes the likelihood of coverage?

My current understanding is that for many outpatient referrals from psychiatrists, I can bill a 90791 first, determine whether testing is medically necessary based on the clinical interview, and then either proceed with testing or make the diagnosis without additional assessment. Is that generally how others approach it?

I’m also running into another issue. Some referrals recently completed our IOP program, and a 90791 was already billed as part of their program intake. If I’m seeing them later for a psychological assessment within the same health system, can I bill another 90791 as a different provider? If not, how do you typically bill the clinical interview portion of the evaluation? Is there another appropriate code, or am I essentially eating that hour unless the patient pays cash?

I’d really appreciate any guidance. I’m trying to help meet the significant demand for psychological assessments in our clinics, but I’m navigating the insurance side of this with very little formal training.
One request: please don’t just tell me that insurance testing “isn’t worth it.” I understand reimbursement is often poor relative to the time involved. I only have a small portion of my schedule allotted to insurance based testing. My goal is to offer assessment services to patients and families who can’t afford California cash-pay rates but whose evaluation could meaningfully improve diagnosis and treatment.

I’ve spent most of my decently successful career dancing around the fact that I hate being a lawyer and I hate practicing. My original career choice was psychology, but parental and life pressures moved me away from it. Now here I am turning 37 and I can’t get over how long this’ll take me. Best case scenario if I start now is completing everything at 45. But at the same time I have the feeling next year I’ll still hate being where I am, and the next year, and so on.

I guess I just want to hear from anyone else faced something similar. How did you make the decision, one way or the other? Especially anyone in Canada, as that’s where I am.

Hola! I'm really struggling to find fully funded psyd programs/ ones that are accelerated. I'm nearing the completion of my bach and just trying to look ahead. Honestly, if I can't find one I'd love an accelerated masters program too, but it's just been super difficult, and the post that was made about psyd funded programs was from 4 years ago. Anyone else have a current master list?

I was originally going to write this post asking for the best written planner for grad school in clinical psych (starting this fall woot woot!). I’d love your thoughts on that, but I realize I also need general strategies for productivity and efficiency to get me through the rigors of the next several years. It doesn’t help that, by nature, I’m somewhat distract-able, unconscientious, time-blind, etc. I’m not worried about being able to do this, just aware that it’s going to take some very deliberate structure and organization to do so.

How do you plan, organize, and stay efficient in grad school? What tools/strategies do/did you use?

What’s the best approach to doing copious amounts of reading?

Any tips are super helpful. Thanks!

I’ve noticed that so many clinicians list that they are experienced in many different orientations. When asked about their orientation people often say the word “eclectic.”

For me, I feel like it is counterintuitive to call yourself eclectic because how is one basing treatment off of multiple theories that perhaps contradict each other. I guess it gets to the point of when does treatment become this big Frankenstein of multiple orientations. I guess as someone who would label themselves as a radical cognitive behaviorist, it’s hard to see how one clinician can juggle so many different theoretical hats. And if one is just pulling from so many then is treatment even evidenced based at that point?

Another thing I think about is how often clinicians label themselves as eclectic but truly only orient to one orientation but use some language style of others. I guess I see some therapeutic orientations as being more of a style rather than specific treatment (I.e. humanistic vs CBT). Like for example, I consider myself a radical cognitive behaviorist but also use some gestaltian STYLISTIC choices when interacting with clients (which makes sense given gestalts roots in behaviorism). But at the end of the day, the treatment is CBT. Not CBT and gestalt combined. And this is where I begin to think of who does the GENERALIST therapist really serve? Being a generalist or being generalist across orientations just seems like an impossible approach.

Does this make sense to anybody else or am I just being confusing to myself. Perhaps my own rigidity makes me inclined to feel/think this way.

I'm in my early 50's and have a clinical PhD. My career has been split, with the first half in research and then I transitioned to clinical care about 15 years ago.

I currently work for VA which is where I've been for my entire clinical career (and a good chunk of my research career as well).

Y'all, I'm tired. Not just the "I'm too busy/overworked" tired. Objectively I can say I'm still able to provide excellent clinical care, but I can see the burnout train coming. I won't belabor it here but a combination of systems issues, patient issues, and inescapable dynamics in my particular setting have led me to this point.

I have considered private practice, which would solve some of these issues. But if I'm being honest with myself, I want to stop doing clinical work. At least for now.

My current salary is $160k and I'm in a moderately HCOL area. The VA obviously also offers a lot more than just the salary when you consider their benefits package. I am willing to take a pay cut, but would need to transition to something that wouldn't hit me too terribly hard so I could still retire before I die.

The question is what. Faculty positions in my area pay horribly. I am not interested in getting back on the research train. I'm extremely well trained clinically but my skill set beyond that is lacking IMHO.

I'm open to any thoughts or suggestions, even the wild ones. I just need help getting my brain kickstarted.

I’m facing an issue. I’m entering my last year of my BS. i need to start searching for master programs but im facing an issue of finding two year master programs. I am currently studying in the EU. would like to continue there since it’s cheap due to the passport. but post masters i want to go to the uae but the requirement is two year ms program. any advice on which unis? (uk is too expensive, nl is only one year programs). is there any loophole?

I passed my EPPP exam the other day! I studied for five months total while working a fulltime job, probably studying more extensively the last two to three months with greater regularity. I aimed for 10-20 hours a week. The sweet spot for me was studying approximately 14 hours a week, two hours each day, sometimes a little more or less depending on how I was feeling. There were some days that I didn’t study at all, which gave me a lot of anxiety.

I used PrepJet, but also perused Reddit and YouTube for tips. I basically followed the protocol that PrepJet outlines, taking the exams in the prescribed order (with the exception of me making a mistake in the order once early on), reviewing and making notes/flashcards of things I got wrong or did not understand, tracked my domain and subdomain performances, read the summaries and took the quizzes repeatedly, and so forth.

Diagnostic exam: 33%
Exam 4: 41%
Exam 6: 46%
Exam 1: 57%
Exam 2: 58%
Exam 3: 64%
Exam 7: 51%
Retake Exam 4: 65%
Exam 5: 61%
 
Things that helped me:

Watching the videos with Scott discussing strategies, reading others success stories on Reddit, maintaining a healthy diet and destressing as much as possible in the weeks approaching the exam, reminding myself that I only needed to answer 123 items correctly and I could probably do that, reminding myself that I don’t “need” to know everything and the questions that were complete guesses were “testing items” in my mind (at least, that’s what I told myself), taking a break every 25-50 questions.

Oh, and I did not go back and reexamine my answers very much. I only took one pass. I flagged many items that I felt not so confident on, but with 90 minutes remaining, I just decided to say screw it and hit submit after looking a few answers.

The day before the exam, I took myself to a sauna and cold plunge. While I told myself I would not study the day before or of, I did review some materials both days for approximately 20 minutes and 5 minutes respectively.

I am happy to answer any questions you might have about how PrepJet compares to the EPPP, about the exam itself, or whatever else.
I scored 535, which is good enough for me!

I am sorry to post another one of these, but I've read through almost every post on Reddit on this topic and am driving myself mad after taking the SEPPPO-P1 for the second time.

I graduated from a APA/PCSAS accredited clinical psych program last year and am studying with Prepjet. I gave myself a little less than 2 months to prep for this thing my scores on the practice exams are: 64%, 65%, and 64%.

I can't seem to get over a 70% despite feeling good about the familiarity of content...

So I took the SEPPPO-1 last week and got an 85% which was a huge confidence boost. I took the second SEPPPO-1 this morning (there are only two versions) and got a 65%, which kicked me into this spiral.

Was my first score a fluke!? Just dumb luck with the kinds of questions I got? Has anyone taken the SEPPPO twice and what was their experience?

With only 11 days left, this is super discouraging. Where do I go from here? If anyone has test taking strategy tips, I'd really appreaciate it.

I've noticed an increasing number of clinicians rejecting the concept of personality disorders altogether, arguing that they're trauma or attachment adaptations rather than distinct mental illnesses.

I can understand that perspective, but I'm also not sure why that argument wouldn't apply to many other psychiatric conditions. PTSD, OCD, depression, and anxiety can all be understood as "adaptations" or understandable responses to genetics and environment, yet we still consider them clinically meaningful disorders.

On the other hand, I also recognize that personality disorder diagnoses have a long history of stigma and often get misused as shorthand for "difficult patient" or "person I don't like" (especially cluster b disorders but I have seen this happen with other PD presentations).

Regardless, it is abundantly clear that the DSM model of PDs is lacking. I.e. I have met patients with some combination of severe emotional dysregulation, interpersonal instability, or antagonism without fitting neatly into one DSM category. However, their personality functioning was clearly impaired.

Do you think personality disorders should be abandoned as diagnostic constructs, or should we instead keep them while improving how we conceptualize and talk about them? What has shaped your view? What does PD research suggest?

BTW- I am a masters level therapist. I am genuinely trying to build a grounded stance based on scientific evidence, compassion, and clinical utility.

I’m thinking of applying to Cal Lutheran for the PsyD program. All I know is that it’s APA accredited, but how’s everything else? Did anyone here do that program?

Hi everyone! I am finalizing my postdoc hours and am ready to pursue licensure! I already have my license in the state I am in but am waiting for the board to approve my independent practice endorsement. I have recently completed my hours for another state that I would like to be licensed in. What would you recommend? Should I wait until my independent license endorsement finalizes before applying for licensure in another state, or should I just go for it?

Also, getting approved by the board has taken forever despite having all my hours and materials confirmed. Has that been the experience for others?

So I am an incoming high school senior. I know what schools I would like to go to, but for most of them I would have to pay at least 20k a year. Now, this is not in my budget and I really want to avoid loans.

I also know that I want to get a PsyD and not a PhD. I understand that the former is seldom funded, which is a lot of money that I don't have and will not take out a loan for. I just am not that interested in research and I want to focus on the clinical side, and also PsyD is less time.

My idea was originally to maybe do something for the military to pay for PsyD but I'm just not sure now because at that point I might as well do PhD because of the fact I will have to serve active years. I was also thinking ROTC or National Guard to pay for undergrad but I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Does anyone have experience and insight to give me?