Time for a social life throughout Clinical Psychology PhD/PsyD programs?

I am a current undergraduate interested in pursuing a PhD or PsyD in Clinical Psychology. I am excited to take this path, but am also concerned that committing to a doctoral program will mean sacrificing fun/a social life altogether. I am a serious and committed student, but I also like to go out on the weekends, hang out with friends, etc.

PhD and PsyD students–do you have time for a social life? Do PsyD students have more time for this because their programs are less “intense”?

They both do. I think the bigger concern with clinical psych programs is being constantly analyzed (both to your face and behind closed doors) by faculty.

PhD programs are a lot of work. If you want a social life, you’ll have to make time for it. It’s certainly possible, but you need to manage your time well, put together and adhere to a schedule and make sure that you get your work done during work hours so that you can have fun during your fun time. You also will not have as much free time as you have as an undergrad, so you should expect a scaled-back social life - social life indeed, but definitely shrunk down to a degree.

FWIW, I got my PhD in social psychology and public health - in a joint PhD program, so more classes and exams than your average PhD student - and had a pretty robust social life (in NYC).

I think this plays on the persistent mythology that clinical psychologists and mental health therapists spend a lot of time “psychoanalyzing” random people they meet. They don’t do that. Therapy is work. While any psychologist is going to have a different perspective on human behavior than other people, we don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about why random people in our every day lives do the mundane things that they do. We reserve that mental capacity for analyzing behavior that actually matters :slight_smile:

On the other hand, faculty in any kind of program - psychology, biology, history, etc. - are constantly analyzing you. That’s not specific to clinical psych; it’s really the faculty’s job (and training) to be quite critical and analytical of your work.