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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 14:26:16 -0500
Reply-To:     egkline@befac.indstate.edu
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         Jeff Kline <egkline@BEFAC.INDSTATE.EDU>
Subject:      Therapy-Practioners-and Cocaine Addicts

Jennifer Writes

""Larry, if you really want to get frightened, you should know that
she
doesn't just work with "Colorado Cocaine Addicts," she works with
*adolescent addicts*.  But here is what I think is scary about
that...
We need immediately some legally more stringent rules to govern who
gets
to be a "psychologist" and who must be under supervision.  These
universities without walls are accredited by the APA - or at least
that
what she told me - and they have to GO! "

Yes, it is digusting how little you have to work in this country to
get a PH.d in some field. I had a friend of a fried who was a
Master's Level counselor working a Psychiatric hospital. She
received a "Doctorate" in hypnotherapy after taking about 3 mos of
coursework and paper. What was really sad was that she was offended
when my friend laughed at her demands to be called doctor. She was
very serious about her "degree."


Jennifer goes on:

"This woman had her
masters in counseling psychology from the school of education....
and
was in private practice."

Okay Jennifer You struck a chord (quite a few actualy). I have a
Master's In COUNSELING from the department of Educational And
Counseling Psychology, University of Missouri - Columbia. I am
currently getting a PH.D. in Counseling from Indiana State
universtiy, in the Counseling department. Both dept. are in schools
of education and were built as offshoots of guidance and school
psych programs. But I do not have an expertise in school psych there
are separate programs for that. I have been trained to work in a
variety o situations and with a variety of experiences (psychiatric,
eating disorders, depression, incest/sexual abuse, marital/family,
....).  I consider myself highly trained (at least geting there),
and competant in my areas of expertise.

"Good grief - that's what my mother does.   She is a high school
counselor with enough *human* ethics (as APA means nothing to her)
to
know that she is not qualified to do private practice (nor did she
ever
really want to which is why she went into education). "

Good i am glad she knows he limitations. WE SHOULD ALL KNOW OUR
LIMITATIONS. I know that I need to refer out many disorders to a
variety of more appropriate avenues.


"At UCCS they put
the ed counselors into the grad psychopathology class with us -
these
folks are asking questions like "What's aphasia" and "What does
perseveration mean" (the word, not the pathology)."

First, what do you mean by "ed. counselors?" are they getting a
degree in school psych? are they getting one in Ed. Psych? or
straight counseling?

Also, are you saying that a psychopathology class is a necessary
component to understanding anbeing a clinician?  I was in a
psychopathology class with a number of "clinical" types and
generally did better than they did. Many of them did well on the
regurgitation, but my clinical experiences did a great deal for my
diagnostic skills and understanding of the less than "perfect"
examples of a particular DSM-III-R disorder.


"Then they graduate,
rent office space, and screw up another generation of people with
problems."

Well, as you probably know most states require supervised experience
for at least 1 year before being liscensed (I know it is over
simplistic but liscensure in all of it's infinite complexity is
another discussion).

"What's more is that these couns. students are rather blatent with
the
facts that 1) they are in their program because they want the
easiness
of the job (private, nicely decorated office, set own hours, make
$110
on the hour, etc.) and 2) they can get an ed. psyc. degree and "get
in
through the back door" - they never have to take statistics.  They
declare that statistics has nothing to do with "helping people talk
about their issues.'"

Hold off ont he term "couns. students" your stepping on my toes
again.   Maybe these people should be checked for some form of
delusional disorder if they think that right out of school they are
going to be pulling in 110/hour.  And I certainly do not consider
counseling easy. When I worked as  a therapist, I worked. I got home
most evenings after 7:30 and left for work at 8:00 am. You have to
accomdate your hours to your client's schedule. Most people canot
take off every thursday for 10 weeks for one hour. Some therapists
have also begun to offer saturday hours to accomadate clients.

Maybe what you are really wailing aganst is incompetant people doing
therapy. I have met many a psychologist, clinical, counseling, etc.
that have been therapeutic nightmares. I find little anecdotal
correlations between their degrees and program type ans skill level.
Some of my Profs at MU were EDD's and were fantastic therapists,
with insights, and understandings of the processes of counseling.
They did not ususally start out doing counseling but rather worked
their way in. These are respectable professionals.

I see a major problem in that we do not have liscensure for the
specific areas of expertise. If you have ever looked at the National
Liscensure Exam, it asks very little about therapy (except for
behavior therapy).  Also supervison in a professiona institution
does not alwasys mean a person who should not be doing therapy is
"discovered" and kept from practicing. I have heard (and seen) some
pretty terrible things from counselors who were receiveing
supervisoon from a liscensed psychologist. yet these supervisors
never noticed or ignored some fundamental mistakes.

I do not know a solution to these problems, but I do know that the
degree that you hold has very little bearing on your skills as a
practionner.

Jeff Kline
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              *        Indiana State University          *
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