What do you like about your job/profession? What do you not like about it? What kind of personality do you feel works best to go into the field? What kind of personality doesn’t?
How much independence do you feel you have to chart your own professional waters? If you had to do it over, would you have become a therapist?
I think what you are asking to those of us who are in the human services field of social workers, psychologists that are on the clinical side of the tracks…do we like it? Well, that would be a resounding NO for me. However, I am not on the clinical side of psychology, I may be a psychologist, but I never liked the clinical side. That is why I teach it, and not practice it…Or at least my students don’t know I do 
To answer one of your Q’s, I think you must have a genuine like for helping people. If you can’t stand to work with people, you will hate being a clinical psychologist/social worker. Being a caring individual is also a plus, but not a requirement.
Tell me more about your NO answer, Phlosphr. Why do you say that? Did you initially plan to be a clinician and then decided later to work in academia?
As a person who is currently on a path that includes the possibility of becoming a psychotherapist, I’ll be keeping an eye on this thread.
Ok for both of you…The resounding NO came when I worked very briefly in an in-patient psychiatric clinic. I was doing intakes and group therapy. I had a run of the mill psych bachelors and was excited to take the first job that came to me. Anyway, I was fascinated with the human mind and how it worked, but I was decidedly uninterested in someone crapping in thier hands and smearing it on the wall in the likeness of a prophet. I wanted to know why they did it, I did not necessarily want to see it with my own eyes…I was interested in the intellectual side of psychology, not the manifested facet.
I left that position and went to work for children and family services doing inhome site visits and evals. Nope not for me either. I then moved to Arizona, to work under a fellowship I was granted at ASU. I went into Environmental Psychology - the study of humans within their habitat and workplace - and I fell in love with the field. Upon finishing my PhD I took an adjunct teaching position at my alma mater back in CT and have been there ever since. Again, I like the intellectual concepts within the field of psychology, but in practice, I do not think I would ever be a good clinician, as I get much to emotionally attached to individuals, and have a very difficult time leaving that at the door when I come home. I still get attached to students on occasion who are exceptional in one form or another.
I had never really decided to become a clinician, and psychology was always my strongpoint in under grad. When I started showing an aptitude for design and architecture in graduate school, I quickly switched to environmental psych, from an org.psych program. I love academia and will most likely be in it for quite some time. At least until I decide to go into business for myself.
Ok, I will bite. I am have a Ph.D. in social psychology, which I taught for 8 years. I then decided to become a clinical psychologist, so I retrained in that area. I have been a clinical psychologist for almost 7 years now. I currently work with patients who have recently-acquired spinal cord injuries, but I have done some general clinical work, too. I plan to quit soon to open my own private practice.
What do you like about your job/profession?
Being able to use my emotions and my intellect to help others, I suppose. I get to think about human behavior all day long. Much more fun than thinking about accounting, IMHO.
What do you not like about it?
Psychology is not a field with a lot of rules. No “put that here on line A” or “mix agent X with reagent Y.” “Don’t sleep with your patients” pretty much has it covered. Not having rules make psychology fun and a challenge, but it is stressful, too. My biggest annoyance is having other staff think they are junior psychologists. I don’t tell the physical therapists what to do, but they feel free to say a patient is depressed. Not without a full assessment, he isn’t.
What kind of personality do you feel works best to go into the field? What kind of personality doesn’t?
You have to be insightful, particularly about yourself. You have to be curious, and tolerant. Most of all, you have to be able to find things to love in everyone.
How much independence do you feel you have to chart your own professional waters?
I will have lots more freedom when I open my practice. Other than that, it is like any field. You have to pay your dues, and there are politics to play. Jobs are not as plentiful as I would like.
If you had to do it over, would you have become a therapist?
Tough one. I see the money other people make who have less education, and I think not. Right now, I don’t like my job, so that makes me lean toward no, too. But I have been happier, and at those times, I would say yes. It is a powerful thing to help someone.
Great insights, Brynda, thank you.
Not that it’s all about money, but… I, of course, would like to be comfortable. As a single woman who isn’t going to have kids, well, what do you think?
You seem hopeful about moving into your own practice and being happier there. Would you expand on that? Why do you think so?
Well, that pretty much sums me up. Combined with an intellectual curiousity, like Phlosphr mentioned, about how the mind and emotions work. In my fantasy, I have a profession wherein I get to use both my mind and my creativity. From an early age, I’ve been called upon to provide emotional support to my classmates, and in general I think people feel safe with me, and see me as someone who they can come to to help sort out their issues. Do you think this might led itself to matching psychology with my calling, if there is such a beast? What makes a happy therapist? What makes an unsatisfied, grumpy therapist?
Thanks to all for your insights. This is really helping.
Here’s a thread I think you should read:
Work at Dept. of Family and Child Services? Tell me About it!
(my most relevant comments to this thread are in that thread. It’s about Child Welfare related social work in particular but it’s highly transportable to clinical SW in general, and even to admin SW stuff).
Strange. I was going to start a similar thread, but only focused on Social Work as that is what I’m currently studying. I’ll be completing a BSW this year and then an MSW next year. I’m interning this year in an agency that does preventive foster care (keeping kids from being taken from the family). The thread I was going to start would have asked what people with BSW’s and MSW’s are doing with their degrees. Like World Eater, I’ll be keeping my eye on this one.
niblet-head, I pasted your question in an email to my mom who has been a licensed clinical social worker for a number of years. Her answer follows.
(I feel a compulsion to say my mother knows all about paragraphs, but she fired back this answer off the top of her head at 10 o’clock at night)
carlotta’s mom says…
what I like best about being a psychotherapist is “making connections”
between myself and the client, the client and him/herself, couples, families, and
even making connections with myself through insights in the therapy room. These
connections can help people transform their lives, or get free of lifelong burdens
of fear and grief. Or the transformation can be about connections with possibilities,
ideas, skills and talents a person didn’t know were available to them. This is
exciting and moving stuff!
HOWEVER, I HATE the BUSIUNESS of psychotherapy . Yet,
like any other service, in this society, there has to be a way to deliver the service,
and that means business of some sort, whether it is in a public agency, through
insurance companies (“3rd party payors”) or a personal private arrangement
with your “client”. Ironically, the best personality for a psychotherapist,
warm, caring, accepting, seeing the big picture rather than the nit-picky details,
is the exct wrong personality to run a business! So therapists are notoriously
bad businesspersons. Then we don’t make any money. Then we feel frustrated and
underappreciated. We want someone to take care of US! But when we get that, like
working for an agency which guarantees benefits and a regular (as opposed to an
“irregular”) paycheck, we are now working FOR a business, instead of
BEING the business. Then we complain and carp and talk about how things should
be better run, when we don’t have a clue, or the will, to run it better ourselves!
There are those gifted people who can do both, be good and caring therapists who
know how to make a business run, and are not ashamed to do it.
Would I do it again?
Yes, if I could have one or two business courses along with all the clinical courses.
Right now, I fear psychotherapy is becoming either very rote and prescribed, or
it is a “hobby” for rich, or subsidized people (like people who have a
spouse with a real job!). Not only that, we can’t decide if we are medical professionals,
which would allow us to use the models that doctors and nurses use of a caring,
service-oriented business; or if we are “personal growth” practitioners,
like massage therapists, personal trainers, music therapists, etc., who don’t expect
to make much money, but trust that their work is good and important enough for people
to pay out of pocket for services that are not medically necessary, but extrememly
helpful and life-enhancing. The people who make any money diversify. They write
books, teach other therapists, give workshops, and gradually see fewer and fewer
clients, who have to wait weeks or months to get in to see the “expert”.
One needs a good and steady income and business sense to truly have “professional
independence”. You cannot be truly “independent” until you can
operate without insurance companies or an agency’s umbrella. That is very hard
to do in this economy. When it’s good, when the “connections” are made,
it’s VERY good. When it’s bad, you wonder if you should be sitting in your client’s
chair and asking for THEIR input! But, I love it! Now to figure out if I can afford
to keep doing it, or learn to change my personality just enough so that I can earn
a living. Thanks for asking! Love, Mom
Thanks, carlotta. Please extend my gratitude to your mom, also.
If you want to go into private practice I would become a psychologist, and not a social worker. Some social work schools will even kick you out (or, at least, make your life very uncomfortable) if you admit that your goal is to do psychotherapy in a private practice. If you do decide to go to social work school, make very sure that you go to one that’s cool with their students having that as there goal.
I do not believe this is accurate at all. I have some very good friends who are therapists, and they all have thier LCSW…Social Work should not always equated with having a caseload.
I’m not trying to insult social workers or say you can’t be a therapist as a LCSW. It was more a recommendation about school. At some school they believe that social work SHOULD be equated with having a case load. I was just saying that if you want to do therapy and do go to a SW school, make sure they will encourage your career goals, because some won’t.
Don’t have kids and you can support yourself doing almost anything. 
Seriously, there are some good salary averages on the American Psychological Association website. Salaries vary, of course, by region and speciality, but a new Ph.D. can count on making between 40K and 60K.
To know why I think I would be happier in a private practice…well, read Charlotta’s mom’s email. I am in the carping-about-how-things-are-done phase. Probably soon to be in the hating-to-be-in-business phase, but I have to try. I want to be my own boss. I also think that while I am not good at some aspects of running a business, I will be good at others. I think I will shine at marketing, for example. Unlike many therapists, I am a good public speaker.
What makes a happy therapist? A grumpy therapist? Being a happy person or a grumpy person, more than anything. We aren’t what happens to us, we are who we are as people.
On the LCSW vs. Ph.D. argument: Ph.D.s make more money, but have less training and therefore more years to work and less debt. It is easier to have a private practice as a Ph.D.
Whatever you do, don’t go to a professional school (e.g., CA School of Professional Psychology) or a <shudder> online university. If you can’t get into a reputable university, bag the whole idea. Otherwise, you will rack up debt at a substandard school and will really struggle to get a job.
Hmmmm funny. My exact goal is to become a private psychotherapist.
That’s it? Considering the time and effort involved, that’s a total pittance.
I’m looking for at least 75K.
Well, according to the American Psychological Association’s website salary info, it looks like you can get to that level after being in practice for several years.
Actually I have a silly question.
I was a little surprised that a psychologist was a PHd. Allthough I’d love to, I can’t ever see myself getting to that level. I was thinking about going for an MSW and just have some inflated rates. 
Not to be rude, but if you are going into it for the money, don’t. It’s the wrong profession for you. Anyone smart enough to get a Ph.D. could make lots more doing something else. You have to do it because you want to do it.
Damn, the post above is mine. Forgot to log my husband out and me in.
Brynda