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.
Tommy Ingberg’s “Reality Rearranged”
But graduate school for me began almost a decade before 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 always been interested in how cognition, personality, and character 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 - to look within and across adjacent disciplines - but completing 3 doctorates’ worth of coursework is not a quick way to get though graduate school!)
For many of my graduate school years, I was at both universities at once –moving back and forth between campuses and programs. 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.
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 the time involved meant some things had changed. By the time I could return to finish the PhD - only the thesis remained - the department at the University had changed. Reorganization, retirements, and most importantly, the death of my thesis supervisor, all made the path to completion entirely different.
The little "c" in PhDc stands for "candidate." It means that I finished all the coursework, passed all the comprehensive exams, and had a research plan approved for my dissertation. But, without the shepherds with whom I had started my graduate school career completion of the dissertation had, sadly, become impossible.
So, yes. Two doctorates - 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.