Passing the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology requires a great deal of work, discipline, focus, and energy. Without overcoming this final major hurdle, it is nearly impossible to become licensed as a psychologist.
If you, like me earlier in my career, have ever wondered if there are alternates to the whole messy process, then this article is for you. Sometimes we need to take a long hard look at the alternatives to passing the EPPP examination in order to motivate ourselves. Often, I did not want to set aside the time necessary to study for the EPPP exam. I did not have the energy. I did not have the motivation. I had more pressing, "more important" things to do. Cleaning out the garage suddenly seemed a whole lot more urgent. During those times, I would daydream about my options:
1. Buy a street vendor food cart. Sell hot pretzels on the street in front of the psychology building on the campus where I got my degree. Gazing out the window of the student lounge, I would often see the vendors parked by the curb and would daydream that this could be my fate if I did not study hard enough! Additionally, my fate would provide a cautionary tale for the present batch of psychology graduate students!
2. Be a bag boy at the local supermarket. Always a frightening fallback plan. When checking out at the supermarket seeing the bag boys reminded me how fortunate I was, as well as motivated me to study harder.
3. Go into one of the few alternatives open to psychologists that do not have a license, such as:
- Work in a crisis center. Worry about the possibility of getting stabbed by a manic patient in the wee hours of the morning when I am tired, overworked, and have let my guard down.
- Work in an inner city drug center. Face the real danger of getting mugged on the way to my car one day in broad daylight.
7. Play the odds that a network television executive will give me a daytime talk show. Hey, it could happen. Now, where did I put that napkin with Oprah's personal phone number on it?
8. Hope against hope that I can write the next self-help best seller. (It's been done.) Besides, I could wait tables while writing it.
9. NOT call myself a psychologist. In most states and regions it is against the law to use the title of psychologist unless you are licensed. So what if I have a doctoral degree in psychology.
10. NEVER practice independently. Watch licensed professionals from other disciplines, with much less education and training than I have, treat clients in their private practices.
11. Collect form letters from health insurance companies rejecting me from their panels. Create a collage of them on my kitchen wall. Late at night, after a particular hard day at my alternate career that's "just as good," drown my regrets in whiskey and smash the occasional bottle against the wall of letters.
12. Every month when I make my student loan payment, try not to think about how I never really finished preparing for my profession, because I could not pass a 225 question multiple choice test–despite clearing all of the other hurdles to earn my doctorate.
13. What's your favorite alternative to licensed practice? Fill in your alternative career here: __________ .
Okay. Had enough? Now buckle down and study, and pass that @$*!# EPPP examination!
*No offense is intended to professionals working in the careers listed. The examples refer to those forced into an career that they do not want. Nothing is wrong with any of the jobs or careers I mention, but as a consolation prize for those who have spent years of blood, sweat, and tears working hard to graduate from a doctoral program in psychology with the intent of becoming a licensed psychologist, an alternate career is a poor consolation prize indeed.
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