2 Responses to “What would be a good start in becoming a psychotherapist? Starting high school – college. ?”

1. 

   enki90 said on May 15th, 2010 at 7:15 pm

   If your school offers classes in psychology, you might consider signing up for them. An intro to psych will help you decide if you really like the subject and want to pursue it in college.

2. 

   Laura said on May 18th, 2010 at 10:00 am

   Things to do in high school:
   - Make sure you are taking the most possible challenging courses you can take while still earning acceptable grades (a B in a challenging honors or AP course is better than an A in an easy course where you don’t need to put in any effort).
   - Take the courses you will need to get into a good college: 4 years of the major subjects (English, social studies, science and math), and at least 2 years of foreign language (4 is preferable).
   - If your school offers elective courses in social sciences (psychology, sociology, or anthropology), take them!
   - Look for extracurricular and volunteer activities that will give you experience working directly with other people, like tutoring, working for a crisis hotline, being a peer mediator or peer counselor, being a member of a Boy or Girl Scout troop, etc.
   - If your school has a psychology class, speak with the teacher about ways to start getting research experience. Even in high school there are competitions for research in psychology, participating in these can help you get research positions as an undergraduate, which will help you get into graduate school (as far away as that may sound!)

   In college:
   - Major in psychology or a related field.
   - Gain research experience, volunteering or working for a faculty member or graduate student. (Even if you want to focus on clinical work – therapy – and not research, most of the top Ph.D. programs in psychology are research-focused and want to know that you have the skills necessary to successfully do research).
   - Build relationships with faculty and graduate students in the psychology department and related departments (social work, sociology, nursing, public health, etc.). Learn about their work and research interests, volunteer to work with them on different projects.
   - If you can do an honors thesis or research project, do it!

   Towards the end of college:
   - Decide whether you want to go straight to graduate school or whether you need 1-2 years of work experience to be a competitive candidate for graduate school.
   - Look into different degree options (Ph.D. in psychology, Psy.D. in psychology, social work degree, community psychology degree, counseling psychology degree, school psychology degree, etc.) to see which field is the best fit for the kind of work you want to do.

   The book “Applying to Graduate School in Psychology” and “Clinical and Counseling Psychology” (both by the American Psychological Association) will give you an idea of the kinds of things you’ll be thinking about when you apply to graduate school, so these can give you a sense of what you’ll need to focus on as a college student.

Leave a Reply