Careers in Psychology Forensic and Clinical Practice in a State Hospital Setting

I work as a Psychologist & Program Director at Florida State Hospital I have 51 psychologist colleagues at my workplace: 30 licensed clinical and counseling psychologists with doctoral degrees 4 psychological residents with doctoral degrees accumulating a year of supervised experience prior to licensure 6 staff with master’s degree in psychology 7 interns completing doctoral degrees 4 volunteers ranging from undergraduate psychology majors to persons in doctoral training

Extremely Varied Work!  I train & supervise psychologists. I direct an APA-accredited internship which emphasizes criminal forensic psychology.  I direct a treatment program for persons diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Seven therapists treat people who engage in impulsive self-injurious behavior and who are chronically suicidal and in chaos.

 I maintain a small private practice one day per week in which I evaluate people who are applying for federal disability benefits. I interview them, assess mental status, determine IQ scores, test memory functioning, assess personality variables, and think about how they are functioning in everyday life.  I teach occasionally at the FSU-PC campus.

 I serve as a consultant to American Psychological Association by doing reviews of internships to help determine their accreditation status.  In the last few years I have traveled to 25 training clinics, hospitals, and prisons in cities such as Manhattan, Los Angeles, Boston, and Rome.

 Because I have expertise in psychology and management, I have been assigned to review systems and procedures at various interesting facilities. I review unusual deaths particularly if there is a psychological factor that may have contributed to a death. I design & implement changes to systems.  Because I am a trainer, I have to create interesting experiences for my trainees. Ask me how many times I have been to Death Row….

Background and Training  B.S. in Psychology from a large state university.  Prepared for graduate school by working in a learning lab with pigeons, tutoring statistics, and working as a research assistant in a program studying effective interventions for oppositional children in low income families

M.S. & Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from FSU  Why FSU? Recommended by an undergraduate professor, and FSU offered a fellowship for three years  Master’s research: smoking cessation  Doctoral research: perceptions of rapists of men vs. rapists of women

 Several job experiences prior to settling on the state hospital, all in the area of “public service”  Community mental health center, work with persons with developmental disabilities, work at a large medical center  Liked the forensic work at the state hospital and decided to stay

License & Advanced Credentials  One year after doctorate spent under supervision, to qualify for Florida and Georgia licenses  One additional year of intensive supervision to qualify for national board certification as a Forensic Psychologist  217 psychologists are board-certified in forensic psychology; only 28 are women

Salary  APA reports that persons employed in public psychiatric hospitals after earning a doctorate in psychology in 2003 had a median salary of $54,000  Most of these jobs come with benefits which may account for 1/3 again as much salary  My income? If interested, just ask…

The Up Side, and the Challenges  Good: Exceptional variety of tasks, fascinating array of unusual behavior to observe, high level of intellectual stimulation, steady and predictable salary with plenty of paid vacation, enormous network of colleagues  Bad: Requires high commitment and expenditure of energy, high mileage on car, tough for an introvert to be constantly assimilating new people into my world  Would I recommend it?????