Psychologist Education Requirements

Clinical Psychologist Education Requirements

Let’s start with clinical psychology. When you think of psychology careers, there’s a chance clinical psychology careers are the first ones you think of. Careers in clinical psychology include becoming a therapist, mental health counselor, clinical psychologist, and psychiatrist, but we are only focusing on clinical psychologists here.

First, let’s first start with understanding what a clinical psychologist does.

The Job of a Clinical Psychologist

As you might guess by the job title, clinical psychologists focus on the clinical aspects of people – diagnosing, helping, counseling, and treating people struggling with their mental health. Clinical psychologists have a variety of tasks in their job, keeping them busy. These psychologists can spend their time solely diagnosing new patients, conducting therapy sessions with patients, or even running clinical programs. Clinical psychologists can work in many different places – schools, hospitals, prisons, or even their private practices.

While the field of clinical psychology is certainly less broad than psychology in general, clinical psychologists can still specialize in subfields of clinical psychology. These psychologists could choose to specialize in specific age groups, disorders, or intersections between multiple disorders.

Education Requirements

As you might assume, you’re going to need more than a Bachelor’s degree to become certified as a clinical psychologist. It’s often recommended that students wanting to enter the clinical psychology field receive a Bachelor’s in Psychology but other degrees can be accepted. If you do have an undergraduate degree in psychology, you will be allowed to enter a doctoral program at some universities.

The graduate program that you attend has to be accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA).

By attending a graduate program that has been accredited by the APA, you are ensuring that your doctorate is legitimate.

When pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology, know that you are signing yourself up for more years of school. While programs vary depending on the university, clinical psychology doctoral programs will take between five to eight years to complete. However, after you finish your Ph.D., can't practice yet. You are then required to complete a postdoctoral fellowship, apply for your license, and then you can practice!

Developmental Psychologist Education Requirements

Next up is developmental psychologists. Just like developmental psychology, a career in developmental psychology focuses on people, their growth, and how they are impacted by their environment.

The Job of a Developmental Psychologist

Just like clinical psychology, a Bachelor’s degree in psychology will most likely not break you into the field of developmental psychology. To become a full-fledged developmental psychologist you’ll need a doctoral degree, but even a Master's degree can open the door to jobs in the developmental psychology field.

However, if we’re just focusing on developmental psychologists, there is a wide range of possibilities for a career. Rather than clinical psychologists who all stay in the same type of job, developmental psychologists have options for careers.

Developmental psychologists can work in schools, universities, hospitals, assisted living facilities, or anywhere else where people can experience developmental problems.

Fig - 1 Developmental psychologists can work from different locations

Often, developmental psychologists will specialize in one age range and broaden their education in that group.

Education Requirements

As you might assume, a doctorate is needed to be a full-fledged developmental psychologist. Many psychology students opt to get a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree, and then a Ph.D. However, if you know that your heart is set on becoming a developmental psychologist, there are special doctoral programs offered for developmental psychology students.

As with clinical psychologists, developmental psychologists have to complete observed postdoctoral practice before being set free. For developmental psychologists, this time can last up to two years.

Cognitive Psychologist Education Requirements

Our next focus is on cognitive psychologists. Cognitive psychology focuses on the mental processes that our brain does when we think, speak, perceive things, problem-solve, and learn.

The Job of a Cognitive Psychologist

As cognitive psychology’s focus is on how our brains function, it’s fair to assume that cognitive psychologists' jobs focus on that as well.

Just like developmental and clinical psychologists, cognitive psychologists can work in a variety of places – schools, hospitals, and assisted living facilities. They work with their patients on how to remember new information, recall old memories, problem-solve, and perceive.

Education Requirements

As you might have guessed by now, you’re going to need more than a Bachelor’s degree if you want to become a cognitive psychologist. As with developmental psychologists, there are some options if you only choose to get a Master’s degree, but the door will be wide open for career possibilities if you pursue a doctoral degree.

Once you get your Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, you will then have to complete an internship or supervised hours before you are officially a cognitive psychologist. These supervised hours are a key step in so many psychological professions for they ensure that the student can interact with their patients professionally and appropriately.

Criminal Psychologist Education Requirements

Let's look at criminal psychologist jobs.

The Job of a Criminal Psychologist

Criminal psychologists have a wide array of job options. A criminal psychologist could work in the government, law enforcement, mental hospitals, schools, research settings, or courtrooms. In a courtroom, a criminal psychologist can get called to testify about their behavioral analysis of criminals. Most times, criminal psychologists try to understand criminal behavior and uncover a criminal's patterns of behavior.

Once again, a background education in psychology is useful in being able to understand people's behavior. This, combined with continued education in criminal psychology, leaves the person extremely competent in a wide range of situations relating to crime.

Education Requirements

Just like pursuing all the other fields of psychology, becoming a criminal psychologist is a long road. To become a full criminal psychologist, you’ll have to get your Master’s degree and your Ph.D., tacking on another six years of schooling after your undergraduate degree. After receiving your Ph.D., you’ll have to complete supervised hours.

Forensic Psychologist Education Requirements

In the grand scheme of things, forensic psychologists have similar jobs to criminal psychologists. Both jobs revolve around criminals and crime scenes but criminal psychologists hone in on what took place and forensic psychologists focus on why something happened. Forensic psychologists also profile criminals to understand their behavior and can help inform new laws on aspects relating to mental health.

Fg. 2. Forensic psychologist. Pixabay.com.

As with criminal psychologists, forensic psychologists need to obtain their Ph.D. and supervised hours before becoming licensed in their state.