Early Career Mentoring
April 19, 2010 by Steve Sobelman
Filed under Early Career Psychologists
Rachel Gaillard Smook
Michael Constantino
Facilitated by Michael J. Constantino (Early Career Domain Representative) & Rachel Gaillard Smook (Early Career Committee Chair)
Division 29 Early Career Mentoring is a feature on the website of the APA Division of Psychotherapy that provides a forum for asking questions broadly related to one’s early career. Through this interactive column, readers will have a safe place to pose questions anonymously, and to receive feedback from a more senior Division 29 “mentor.” Early career is a time of great excitement, but it can also pose many challenges and give rise to many questions. We suspect that if a question is on the mind of one early career psychologist, it is probably on the minds of others. Thus, we hope this column provides a useful and far-reaching service to our early career constituents. To this end, mentors will be assigned to field questions based on their specific expertise and experience, and the column will evolve into bank of queries and replies.
Thanks for asking!
First, you sound as if you would definitely find a “home” in Division 29 which represents all aspects of psychotherapy, including research, practice, and training. I think you may be on the clinical practice track, in which case you would find many colleagues and potential mentors among the Division 29 members.
Planning for a career in psychotherapy these days is a dynamic process as so much is changing about us. We are all waiting to see what will come from the Health Care Reform Act and the growth of Integrated Care, with the Medical Home model at its center. Psychologists will want to be involved, and will create new ways of providing psychotherapy to patients that may not much resemble the classical quiet therapy room. It’s a great idea to look into Community Health Centers where integrated services are already being provided to see if this is something you might like to do. There are internships and post-docs in these settings, as well as actual jobs, and in some cases they have the special added advantage of qualifying you for student loan “forgiveness” under the National Health Service Corps program if your center is in a designated shortage area. To prepare for experience in the community health field, it would help to be familiar with the issues facing rural or other underserved areas, where there are special problems with access to care.
Another major area of change where in-coming professionals will surely lead the way is in the development of new delivery systems for psychotherapy. Again, moving away from our traditional office setting, many psychotherapists are considering working remotely through various forms of telecommunication. There are many issues to be resolved about this (practical, legal, and ethical) and APA has a task force working on telepsychology. Division 29 has been considering the pros and cons too. It helps to feel competent in various aspects of computer use and telecommunication methods. The VA, which has internship and post-doctoral opportunities, is using telepsychology to provide psychological services to veterans in remote areas.
More psychologists are pursuing specialty work, looking for interesting ways to offer psychotherapy outside of the managed care networks. APAGS often features innovative career paths in its excellent magazine.
In general, I think it is always important to stay connected with colleagues and to have resources available to you as you develop your career. Getting involved in an active way with Division 29 would be a great start, and if you are in APAGS or your State/Provincial Psychological Association, I would recommend jumping in and taking on some committee work, or helping your association present psychological agendas at the legislature. It helps to build your professional identity and confidence, and keeps you abreast of what is happening in a rapidly changing field. When you have an active role, you can really feel that you belong. Division 29 is very friendly and welcomes student involvement. We have a great student section, a mentoring program, and at APA Convention each year we have several opportunities for meeting up and socializing as well as excellent programming and events in the “suite”. Attending a huge convention can be very intimidating, so it definitely helps to have a friendly cohort to touch base with.
I’m interested in the Division of Psychotherapy but i’m curious as to what is necessary of me to become competent in the area such as education, being involved in certain organizations, post-doctoral work or continuing education. I’m currently in a PsyD program and have a bachelors and masters in Clinical Psychology. Any suggestions would be appreciated.