a PsyD & PhD? Well, almost…
I finished a doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the Minnesota School of Professional Psychology in 2008. That is the PsyD – and it means I have the academic and practical preparation that led to my work as a clinician. It is also the degree that led to qualifying for a license to practice as a psychologist in Minnesota.
The little "c" in PhDc stands for "candidate." It means that I have finished all the coursework, all the comprehensive exams and had set out a plan for a dissertation - original research - that professors, the college and the graduate school all approved. Completion of the dissertation was the final hurdle.
Graduate school for me began at the University of Minnesota in Educational Psychology - specifically the Learning & Cognition track. A focus on Learning & Cognition asks and tries to answer questions about how all kinds of learners learn. And how learning effects the ways we think and act. Because I have also long been interested in how cognition develops, I completed an equal number of hours of coursework at the Institute of Child Development studying developmental psychology. (Curiosity like this is a great way to pursue knowledge and to look within and across related disciplines - but completing 3 doctorates’ worth of coursework is not a quick way to get though graduate school!)
For most of my graduate school years, I was at both universities at once –moving back and forth between them. Because of that unique circumstance, the apprenticing part of my clinical preparation - the part that meant I worked under a number of mentoring psychologists - spanned over 12 years.
It was an unusual trajectory. And, I am not sorry that I took the classes I did, learned from the professors I met, had the training experiences I had, or realized the opportunities I did to sample the wisdom of more seasoned psychologists. But time passing changes things. By the time I could return to finish the PhD, the department had changed. The path to completion was entirely different. The private practice was, really has always been, absorbing, satisfying, and challenging in all kinds of ways.
So, yes. Almost. Had I finished the dissertation the little "c" at the end of PhDc would have fallen away. That abbreviation shows up in some places on the internet. Now you know why.