HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO BE COME A PSYCHOLOGIST?

Question

I START SCHOOL IN A WEEK AND MY PSYCHOLOGY, I WANT TO KNOW HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE? DO I JUST A BACHELORS DEGREE?

Answer 1

Psychology is a very varied field with many sub-fields, such as clinical, comparative (animal), organizational, educational, and many other branches. You should look at the website of the American Psychological Association and explore the different divisions of the field.

http://psyccareers.apa.org/

To practice as a professional clinical psychologist you will need a doctoral degree, either a Ph.D., Ed.D., or Psy.D. in most states. But remember, licensure of professionals is a state power, and the states have different laws. In some states you can still practice with a masters degree under some conditions. Increasingly you can only practice as a clinician if your studies were in clinical psychology.

To earn a doctoral degree will take at least 3 to 4 years beyond your undergraduate degree. To work as a clinical psychologist or in several other sub fields you will also need a one year full time clinical internship.

You can work in other fields of psychology without a license and without a doctoral degree. For excample, you do not need these to work in a business firm in industrial psychology; the firm will have its own hiring criteria.

So your best bet for now is to learn about the different branches of psychology, figure out which branch you want to work in, find out about the actual pre-requisites for that branch, find the best schools offering training in that branch, and then talk seriously with them about what undergrad courses will work best and how long their graduate program takes to complete.

Answer 2

You need a Psy.D. To put it simply, you are going to need a couple years of graduate school.

Answer 3

A bachelor's degree in psychology means nothing. Too many people are graduating with psychology degrees. You really need to go to graduate school to even counsel people at the most basic level of counseling. You need to get your masters degree in psychology and if you want to make more money then you just get a phd in psychology.

Unless you have other skills then a degree in psychology is for helping people. If that's what you want to do for most of your work life then go for it. Some people are disheartened when they find out they can't do much with their bachelor's degree after spending 4 years in college.

Answer 4

Bachelors in psychology will not land you any specialized job.  None at all.  They do not train you to do anything.  This is contrary to what some people have perceptions of -- that psych majors are trained to do hypnosis or counseling.  Not so.  All you do is take social science oriented classes, which means a lot of the memorize-regurgitate routine.  There may be some opportunity to do research methods, but it's limited as it requires advanced mathematical knowledge, to which psych majors are not required to take and so majority do not know how to do it.

I'd suggest psych majors take a look at social work instead.  It's a far better major if you're interested in things such as counseling, therapy, or just want a job working with mental health.