History of clinical psych training

[erg923]

One of my supervisors is a great guy and totally from the old school. We were chatting today and got into an in-depth discussion about his training experience, which took place from 1965-1969. I am very well versed in the history of psychology and the emergence of clinical psychology, but I learned some fascinating things today.

Dr X. informed me that he initially went to UC-Berkley for his Ph.D. in clinical in 1965. He said the clinical program worked like this:

Meet with adviser once per week. Adviser hands him a list of pubs and book chapters and states "Go to the library and read all these and we will discus them next week." Repeat this for all first year. Apparently there were a few formal classes the second year, but no one told him for sure. He was very disillusioned and about half way through that year contacted one of his old undergrad professors at LSU. He told him he was unhappy and wanted to come back to LSU for his clinical training. His adviser said "sure, your in"...... If only it were so easy these days, right!? Anyway, he goes back to LSU where they have 2 years of intense coursework. He said one of his classes met five days a week and basically covered every undergrad course you could think of at an advanced grad school level. 3rd year you did your internship, and "applied" all the things you had learned. You winged it and learned on the internship because you had no practicums back then. Isn't that nuts!? While on internship you had access to a clinical population and thats when you thought about your dissertation. The next year, you returned to your institution and did the diss. After that, you had the Ph.D in clinical. He said 2 years of coursework, one year of internship, and back to the university for dissertation during fourth year was the standard training experience for clinical Ph.D. students up until about 1970. He said practicums were rare, unless your adviser engaged in alot of clincial work outside the university. Apparently, it was not provided by the program, or even a standard part of the training curriculum.

I just thought this was a neat glimpse into the past. Comments?

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[BorntoRun]

Meet with adviser once per week. Adviser hands him a list of pubs and book chapters and states "Go to the library and read all these and we will discus them next week." Repeat this for all first year.

I actually really like this idea. A solid background in psychology is important, but at the same time, I feel like concentrated reading in one's area of interest is the best use of 'course' time. So much required coursework only applies to an individual's area of interest in really tangential ways, but doing the key readings in the specific sub-field and discussing them with someone who knows more than you seems like a great way to learn what you need to know.

 

[psychanon]

Hmmm. I had a practicum supervisor once who kept asking me if I had done my internship yet. I was always confused by the question-- why would I be doing a practicum if I were done with internship-- but he said he did his internship in his 3rd year. So I guess that explains that.

 

[IT514]

Interesting post. The old-school UC-Berkley experience sounds very similar to that of one of my undergrad philosophy profs who got his Ph.D at Oxford. That is something I would probably enjoy for the first two years. Definitely would not enjoy showing up to internship without first doing a practicum though.

 

[psychmama]

I bet that back then the internship was far less demanding and competitive -- maybe more like a practicum would be these days.

I've always thought it ironic that internships will simultaneously write in their materials that they consider their role to be training students as clinicians -- and then in the next breath they state a list of things they hope applicants will have already become proficient at before walking in the door of the internship site ! The historical explanation about how it used to be explains it. There's been a huge shift in the way psychologists are educated and trained.

Thanks for the interesting info!