Week Eight's Blog

This week wasn't easy.  It was informative and educational though.  Writing a literature review has affected the way I'll conduct research in the future because it gives me a new scope on it.  I've evaluated literature in the past but this is my first literature review.  It wasn't "hard" it was just...different. If there happens to be an undergraduate student out there who is majoring in psychology, they might benefit from reading my literature review.  It will save them time and energy when asking themselves, how does one become a licensed clinical therapist?  It will get them to the right books, articles and journals, bypassing the headache of finding it themselves. 

Week Seven's Blog

So for this weeks’ assignment I was very worried that I would be overwhelmed but it turned out to be great! 

I got two new sources, journal articles from EBSCOhost.  I was actually very happy with them.  They filled in a couple of gaps in my research.  One being the new changes that have been implemented in the field of clinical psychology and the second being how clinical psychologists of this decade are satisfied with their career choice as opposed to those surveyed in 1961 and 1978.    

Three major findings in my research include:

• It doesn't have to be confusing and stressful to become a professional in the field of clinical psychology based on my two books that I found; Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology and Careers in Psychology: Opportunities in a Changing World.
• There are guidelines based on state and country licensure requirements for becoming a clinical psychologist, and that's good to know because we are in the army and get moved from state to state and potentially from country to country.
• There was also a very informative article written in 1955 titled; "Qualifications of the Clinical Psychologist for the Practice of Psychotherapy".  Although this article is quite dated, section 8 of it still holds true for steps on becoming a practicing clinical psychologist.  

My research question is:  How does one become a licensed clinical therapist?

This may seem very plain and simple but this has actually been the question I've had since before I enrolled in community college in 2009.  I know that I must enroll in college and make psychology my major, but the field of psychology is huge and there's so many different "jobs" I can go after with only a certificate or a full blown doctorate degree.  Those are some pretty broad requirements, so it wasn't as easy as it sounds to answer my research question.  There are still a few bumps that I need to work out but I think those require an academic counselor who knows the path to take.  The research I have conducted through this class has brought me closer to my career goals and expanded my knowledge and desire on becoming a clinical psychologist.

The following is my annotated bibliography...enjoy;)

Citation:

De Vaney Olvey, Cindy, Andy Hogg, and Wil Counts. "Licensure Requirements: Have We Raised the Bar Too Far?" Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 33.3 (2002): 323-29. Print. 

Annotation:

I chose empirical research article “Licensure Requirements: Have We Raised the Bar Too Far?”, because after searching through many, many articles, this one was the most relevant for my topic and research question, “How does one become a licensed clinical therapist?”  I felt that the title alone, hit the mark, spot on.  After reading through it, I found it to be both relevant, current, and informative.  This is definitely the correct article for this assignment.  The article covers what licensure requirements are across the country, state to state.  This article will enhance my research on my topic because of the relevance it provides.

Citation:

Ellis, A., M. Nydes, and B.F. Riess.  “Qualifications of the Clinical Psychologist for the Practice of Psychotherapy.”  Journal of Clinical Psychology.  11.1 (1955): 33-37.  EBSCOhost.  Web.  25 Sept. 2013.

http://ehis.ebscohost.com.libproxy.chapman.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=993612eb-ae41-4809-b645-d24abd5ab7a9%40sessionmgr4&vid=2&hid=3.

Annotation:

I chose article Qualifications of the Clinical Psychologist for the Practice of Psychotherapy because after searching through many, many articles, this one was the most relevant for my topic.  Although it was written in 1955, section 8 of the article is up-to-date and still required.  Section 8 describes the requirements of a psychology major on becoming a clinical therapist.  It gives a detailed list of the steps that need to be taken so that one can practice psychotherapy as a clinical therapist.  This article will enhance my research in the future because of details of personal and professional experience from the author.

Citation:

Konrad, Edvard. “National Cultures and Human Development Index.” Psychological Topics 21.03 (2012): 549.56. Hrcak-Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia.  Web.  13 Oct. 2013.

http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=140683.

Annotation:

I chose this journal because it was the most relevant to my research question.  It talks about the connections of the field of psychology across different cultures and countries.  This is relevant because I plan on moving to Europe in the next ten years.  This article will help me to understand and appreciate different cultures, while also keeping the focus on psychology.  This article will enhance my research in the future because when I do research, I will keep the culture and country I am dealing with in mind, not just the topic or the subject I am researching. 

Citation:

Kuther, Tara L., and Robert D. Morgan. Careers in Psychology: Opportunities in a 
     Changing World. Second ed. Belmont: Vicki Knight, 2007. Print.

Annotation:

Careers in Psychology provides a psychology major with a number of specific careers within the broad field of psychology. The last two chapters of the book help the student or graduate with getting a job after graduation as well as getting into graduate school in psychology. 

I feel that the two authors are indeed reliable as one is a PhD and the other is Associate Professor and Director of the Counseling Psychology Program at Texas Tech University.  This book will help me get a better understanding of my topic, because it tells me in depth what each field of psychology really is and how to get there. This book is a great guide to a psychology major or a student that's undecided about their major. Psychology is such a huge field with many different potential career paths, it's good to have a book that helps you zero in on a specific career field. This book will enhance my research into clinical psychology and the help me to understand how to become a clinical psychologist.

Citation:

Norcross, John C., and Christie P. Karpiak. "Clinical Psychologists in the 2010s: 50 Years of the APA Division of Clinical Psychology." Clinical Psychology: Science & Practice 19.1 (2012): 1-12. EBSCOhost. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.

http://scclib.sccollege.edu:2195/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b243acba-bf6f-4e8c-8add-0c56bc20a0ff%40sessionmgr4&vid=5&hid=15.

Annotation:

The article Clinical Psychologists in the 2010s: 50 Years of the APA Division of Clinical Psychology highlights the continuity and change in clinical psychologists' demographics, educations, theories, employment, activities, and satisfactions over a 50-year span.  In a 2010 study the results showed how there have been increases in both female and ethnic minority psychologists which is a very interesting topic, seeing that I am female and have mixed heritage.  This article is relevant to my research question since it addresses what is going on in the field of psychology currently.  This article will enhance my research in the future by keeping me current on any changes in practices or statistics.

Citation:

Weiner, Irving B. "Education and Training in Clinical Psychology: Correcting Some Mistaken Beliefs." Clinical Psychology: Science & Practice 19.1 (2012): 13-16. EBSCOhost. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.

http://scclib.sccollege.edu:2195/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b243acba-bf6f-4e8c-8add-0c56bc20a0ff%40sessionmgr4&vid=20&hid=106.

Annotation:

This article, Education and Training in Clinical Psychology: Correcting Some Mistaken Beliefs, was a very interesting, relevant read indeed.  The article talks of how based on a 1960 and 1978 survey of clinical psychologists, they were unhappy with their career decision and wished they had taken a different route in their career goals.  It also points out how that figure has changed in the recent decades of clinical psychology.  Now there is about 90% of clinical psychologists who are satisfied with their career compared to the 46% who were not in the original survey.  This gives me hope as I am a current pursuer of a degree and license in the field of clinical psychology.  This article has enhanced my future research in that I can 100% say that I am going to continue on my career path and not get diverted or question my decision to do so.  

Week Six's Blog

I have been a college student for three years now.  I learned way back when what academic integrity is and I respect it.  Having said that, it’s always good to be reminded about it so that you don’t get lazy or complacent with your work.  Some new ideas that have been introduced to me include the first video clip.  It gave a fast and easy way to make sure you’re citing your work properly by asking yourself a few simple questions.  This will make citing easier for me in the future.  I am not unclear about anything regarding plagiarism since I don’t do it, however how does a teacher or instructor know when and if someone is plagiarizing?  Another thing that confuses me a bit, is most people do not plagiarize on purpose, how do we avoid this from happening? 

Week Five's Blog

For this week’s assignment, we needed to search for one article and create a citation, write an annotation, and finally relay the process and path we took to find it.  I found a great one, in relatively a short period of time, compared to the last two weeks.  ;) I am happy with the article I found and feel that it is extremely relevant to my research question.  This article has expanded my knowledge and understanding of the topic of my research question because it gave me the requirements to become a licensed clinical therapist state to state, across the country.  This is basically what my research question is, “how does one become a licensed clinical therapist?”.  As the class moves on, along with my education, I’m feeling more and more confident in my career goal. That goal, of course, is to become a licensed clinical therapist so that I can help people, all over the country, regardless of the state I’m in at the time.  (We’re military so we’re never in one state for that long).  

Week Four's Blog

This week's assignment proved just as difficult for me as last week's assignment. I know that I can, and maybe should, revise my topic but it's very interesting to me and I'm just going to have to do the extra work necessary for keeping this topic.  Some knowledge that I've gain as a result of my searched articles was that psychology, clinical psychology, is not an easy field to get into. What I appreciated was that articles are not books, and therefore I could read through them at a relatively quick pace. The new search strategy that was particularly helpful this week was the ease of typing in as much or as little as I wanted. From one or two words, to full phrases. The major difficulties that I encountered was the list of results.  So many come up, I should have chosen a topic like, AIDS.  I bet there would be a more specific result on any search I've done. I hope to find out how to become a practicing clinical therapist so that I can attain my goal of helping people through my career.  

Week Three's Blog

The research I conducted this week led to a deeper understanding of my topic and research process because of the sheer amount of time it took me to find a book that was really relevant to my topic.  Upon first reading the instructions for assignment one, I thought, wow, easy peezy lemon squeezy.  Boy was I wrong!  I took me hours, literally hours of online searching, on three different sites.  Two library catalogs and Google Books.  I finally ended up walking into the local library and checking out a book in print called Careers in Psychology, Opportunities in a Changing World, written by Tara L. Kuther and Robert D. Morgan.  

I've been a psychology major for the past three years, I know what a broad field it is and that's why I specifically chose clinical psychology as my topic, however I just didn't know how broad that was in itself.  The knowledge I've gained in locating this book was tremendous!  I know now that being too broad isn't helpful whatsoever but being too specific can be just as damaging to researching as well.  This here is what was frustrating about the whole first part of assignment one.  I just didn't know how to type out exactly what I sought after.  It was a headache!  I'm hoping to find out what the bare minimum requirements are for being a clinical therapist as well as the benefits of going the max.  I love education and learning but I'm also anxious to start helping others.  

Week Two's Blog

For this second week’s assignment I needed to find two authoritative and reliable sources for background information on my topic and evaluate it using the CRAAP criteria.  The knowledge I gained about my topic as a result of the research I’ve conducted so far was impressive.  Just me researching in the manner I did, caused me to open myself up to more perplexing questions and critical thinking.  I normally always use Google or Yahoo search engines but having the ability to use an academic library and reference database was much more on topic and informative. 

One new strategy that I used to locate my sources was the buttons that they provide. i.e. Psychology, once clicked, Clinical Psychology, etc.  Normally I manually type in what it is that I’m searching for, however using the help that the website provides is truly helpful.  I would like to research abnormal psychology a bit further.  I have taken Into to Abnormal Psych in community college and it was very interesting but that wasn’t my career goal.  Based on the three hour research I conducted this week, my career goal MAY be changing.