Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 10:17:21 EST
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         Tim Tumlin <UFTRT@NERVM.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: Stats & Therapists

All girls, eh? Well, that explains a lot right there; lack of mastery
in heterosocial conflict.  Obviously a desperate search for a brother
to complete your psychic development.
  Don't take too much joy in inflicting insult; it'll only increase your
feelings of guilt.  You may suffer a reaction formation and subscribe
to Playboy.
   Hmmm, more angry comments about APA.  Sounds like APS was a good
choice for a lot of your profs.
   Re supervisors: First, do you do clinical work?  It's important in
discussing the quality of therapists and supervisors.  I said the good
can outweigh the bad because the good supervisors that's my experience.
The bad ones are often rather lazy or uncaring or narrow-minded. The good
ones model good professional relationships, energetic concern and high
standards. Even for those of you who don't have supervisors, the same
can be said of teachers -- if you have an appreciation for teaching, you
learn a lot from the good ones and feel a little cheated by the bad ones,
but you aren't necessarily in danger of emulating the bad ones.
>
>How do we separate the good from the bad?  How do we define it - and then
>how do we effectively get rid of the bad?

   Hey, first you slam me for sounding like a know-it-all, then you
ask my opinion on the same subject. OK, I'll bite, but not much: I
don't know.  Like all professions, it's very hard and often only the
blatantly bad get tossed out.  But this isn't just psychology or medicine,
a friend who's a lawyer said when he went to law school at UF they were
deathly afraid of getting caught doing ANYTHING, holding a single joint
could keep you from being admitted to the bar. BUT, once you were a
lawyer, you'd have to practically commit murder to be disbarred.
   I don't want to ruin your day, but you're agreeing with me: A lot of
the screening does and should come in training, which raises conflict questions
 about schools that profit from training clinicians.
   The test: No, there's not a lot of "Freud stuff" on the exam. I once
took part in one of those seminars for writing questions for the exam
and they have quotas on types of questions, such as stats, psycopathology,
etc.  I have friends who've complained that it had too much IO on it!
   Re Malpractice:  The odds of being sued for malpractice as a psychologist
are very low.  Now -- here's something for the Feminists out there to gnaw
on: A lot of the malpractice suits allege sexual conduct between therapist
and patient and the vast majority of those cases involve male therapists.
BUT the premiums are not broken down by gender but only by region. Calif.
and the western region are the highest.  (I don't want to ruin your
Christmas, but I actually asked an insurance rep about that on behalf of
women. She dodged the question entirely.)  I would think it would be
very hard to allege malpractice because of the therapist's behavior
unless it was blatantly unethical.
   Don't feel too bad, Jen. I forgive you. It's the season.
Tim
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