Wow. Thank you for all the responses!
A few followup question/comments, if you don't mind:
Yes, I am interested in being mainly a clinician. I don't intend to work in private practice, at least not as a sole source of income simply for insurance reasons--I'm uninsurable by private insurance companies, so if not covered by a group policy, I would have to pay very high premiums for high deductable state "high risk pool" coverage, provided I live in a state that even has it (some do not). So, private practice is not really a a realistic outcome for me. Ideally, I would work to work in a community mental health center, college counseling center, psychiatric hospital, or possibly in a general hospital after graduation/post-degree licensure. I would also seriously consider working for the government (mainly VA) or through the IHS. I would even consider, though somewhat heistantly, working in a therapy position in a prison (A good friend of mine did a substantial amount of pre-internship coursework in our state prison and actually seemed to have a really good experience). So, generally, I'd like a study, salaried clinical job.
I've done some TAing as an undergraduate and liked it (did very well acoding to my supervising professor
), but I'm not as geographically flexible as one would probably need to be to be an academic (I'm not particularly tied down to a city or state, though I do have one strong preference, but I would like to stay in a general area of the country). From brief glances, there seems to be a decent number of social work adjunct positions, so I guess that could be a possibility if I wanted to do that part-time.
wedgemom,
If you don't mind me asking, why would you go for a PsyD and not an MSW if you had to "do it all over again"?
rap_mom,
Thank for you responding. If you don't mind me asking, why would some clinical programs not meet my views? I thought clinical psychology almost always orientated itself toward a psychopathology view of disiorders and treatment. Is this not the case?
Runners2,
What are your thoughts on your various positions? Any that you particularly liked or did not like?
Dudedad,
What kind of work does your wife do?
Again, thank you all for your responses; I really appreciate them! Feel free to ask any questions you may have if something I said isn't clear or to PM me if you'd prefer.