I have a masters degree in psychology, and was trained in the profession by doctoral psychologists. I worked for over thirty years as a clinical psychologist in the public sector, but there are psychologists with PhDs and PsyD degrees who would have you believe that I’m not a “real” clinical psychologist. That’s because I can’t be licensed as a clinical psychologist in South Carolina – as in most states – with a masters degree.
I’m thankful to the American Psychological Association (APA) because I got my first job as a mental health counselor as a result of a job interview at an APA convention. (I was subsequently certified by the state of Alabama as a psychometrist – qualified to administer, score and interpret certain psychological tests.) But I’ve since come to view the APA as a professional guild, as well as a professional association. It serves to protect private practice psychologists with doctoral degrees from competition by masters-level psychologists. There’s no established scientific basis for excluding masters-level psychologists from licensure, if they can meet the other requirements.
The central issue is demonstrated competency, but the APA contends that a doctoral degree is the established educational standard for licensure. No body of scientific evidence exists which demonstrates that doctoral-level psychologists achieve better outcomes in the provision of psychological services than masters-level psychologists. But the APA doesn’t want the competition, and has opposed all efforts in various states to allow masters-level psychologists to be licensed. In South Carolina, a hard core of doctoral psychologists even tried to “trademark” the prefix psycho (as in psychotherapy, psychological testing, etc.) for the exclusive use of doctoral psychologists.
I know this because I was the acting chairperson of the South Carolina Association of Masters in Psychology (SCAMP), a state chapter of the North-American Association of Masters in Psychology (NAMP), when the licensed psychology establishment proposed legislation that would exclude any psychologist without a doctoral degree from the possibility of professional licensure in the field. To insure passage of their “practice act,” it was written for them by one of South Carolina’s most prestigious law firms, and they hired a lobbyist to promote it in the state legislature. SCAMP didn’t stand a chance.
But it didn’t stop us from trying. We did research on the availability of psychological services throughout the state, indicating that South Carolina was underserved, and that masters licensure would make psychological services available to more people. We argued that only those masters-level psychologists who could achieve the same scores on licensing exams as the doctoral-level psychologists should be eligible for licensure. We were even open to an initial period of supervision by licensed psychologists, leading to eventual licensure for independent practice. Perpetual supervision of masters-level psychologists in private practice would have been a new revenue stream for licensed psychologists, but a period of supervision leading to independent practice was unacceptable. The psychology practice act only affected private sector psychologists. In the public sector, masters-level psychologists routinely did things that they’d been deemed unqualified to do in private practice, by the practice act.
SCAMP had some significant support when testimony was presented in legislative subcommittee hearings. A publisher of certain widely-used psychological tests testified that masters-level psychologists were competent, with appropriate training, to administer, score and interpret their tests. Dr. Logan Wright, a former president of the APA, testified in support of masters-level psychologists being eligible for licensure as psychologists. In spite of this, the South Carolina Psychological Association got the legislation they wanted. The law didn’t prohibit appropriately -trained masters-level clinicians in private practice from doing any testing; you just couldn’t call the service “psychological testing.”
For years I worked as a mental health counselor, but routinely did psychological testing as part of my job. I eventually got licensed as a professional counselor; but for most of my career, I was hired as, and performed as, a clinical psychologist. My colleagues who were licensed psychologists always treated those of us with masters degrees as peers; and although we couldn’t be licensed as clinical psychologists, we did essentially the same work as the licensed psychologists. For legal reasons, our psychological evaluations were co-signed by licensed psychologists; but in all my years of doing testing, I never needed to have my work corrected, and never got critical feedback from my licensed colleagues. Whenever I was hired by a psychologist, I was supervised by licensed psychologists, and always got excellent performance evaluations from them.
So, although I “work like a clinical psychologist, talk like a clinical psychologist, and have frequently been seen in the presence of known clinical psychologists,” I can’t be licensed as what I am: a competent, experienced clinical psychologist. I never regretted not getting a PhD, as I was able to do all of the things I was trained to do, as a public sector psychologist. My last clinical supervisor – a licensed clinical psychologist – explicitly told me that I knew as much about psycho-diagnosis and psychotherapy as any licensed psychologist he’s ever known. Shortly before I retired, he nominated me for an award honoring the outstanding clinical service provider in the state of South Carolina.
Although SCAMP is just a footnote in the history of psychological practice in SC, NAMP is still going strong, advocating for the licensure of qualified masters-level psychologists. Nine states now allow masters-level psychologists to practice independently in the private sector, although usually with a qualifier like “Psychological Associate” in the title. All this to say that you don’t have to get a PhD or PsyD in psychology to be a “real psychologist.” The central issue in determining who is a psychologist is demonstrated competency in the profession, not one’s academic degree.
jeffkooblog 