Five Tips for Graduate Students Interested in Pursuing Private Practice
Being a graduate student is hard. Succeeding as a psychologist in private practice can also be hard. Unfortunately, while graduate school prepares us to face a wide array of clinical and ethical challenges, it often fails to prepare interested students to establish themselves and thrive as independent business people and private practitioners. As a recent graduate (2018), here are five tips that have proven particularly helpful for me along the way.
1. Specialize
Nobody stands out as a generalist, particularly in Los Angeles. Find one or two niche areas of clinical practice and/or specific target populations that you feel excited about. Then try to build your training opportunities, cultural competence, and referral networks accordingly. Is there a particular type of work you discover you love doing? Any specific populations or issues you feel passionate about? Do not be afraid to follow your curiosity and interest, and allow yourself to be surprised! If you feel unsure as a student about potential niche or specialty areas, no need to panic. Internship and post-doc can be extremely fruitful in this area. Post-docs interested in private practice would also be advised to pursue a private practice psychological assistantship in addition to other formal or informal post-doc opportunities.
2. Get Involved
Professional organizations such as the Los Angeles County Psychological Association (LACPA), the California Psychological Association (CPA), and the San Gabriel Valley Psychological Association (SGVPA), as well as the many APA divisions, are always hungry for interested students. It is often even possible to step into leadership roles very quickly. In addition, I strongly recommend joining APA Division 42: Psychologists in Independent Practice. They have a great email list and lots of opportunities to get involved, including a mentorship program for students and early-career practitioners. Professional service helps build your referral network and it also provides you with a supportive community of colleagues, which can be surprisingly important for professional and emotional support.
3. Speak and Write
Seek out public speaking opportunities, such as conference presentations or guest lectures, as often as possible. If you are nervous about public speaking, or feel you are not good at it, invest in training or classes to improve your skills and feel more comfortable. Good speaking skills really stand out and they can open a lot of doors for you. Absolutely loathe public speaking? Write instead! There are a surprising number of writing opportunities for students, even outside of publishing research, such as writing for psychology-related newsletters, APA division journals, and writing guest blogs for more established psychologists or writers. All of these opportunities spread awareness of you as a “brand” and further hone your professional communication skills.
4. You Are A “Brand”
Speaking of branding, as a graduate student and budding professional, it helps to start developing a professional social media and internet presence as early as possible. It is illegal in California to advertise as providing professional psychotherapy while unlicensed, and the Board specifically prohibits trainees from having professional websites advertising clinical services (even under supervision). However, there is no reason you cannot have a professionally-oriented Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, Instagram handle, and whatever else the kids use these days. Take care to clearly list yourself as a graduate student and do not give out or advertise psychotherapy advice, coaching, or similar services. Instead, you can post interesting psychology articles, write an informative blog, help connect people with relevant services and professionals, network and converse with other professionals, etc. Just make sure to keep your personal and professional social media accounts separate, and lock down your personal accounts’ privacy settings!
5. Have Hobbies
What are your hobbies? If you do not have any, or have let graduate school devour past hobbies, it is time to make a course correction or you risk burning out before you even get started! Make sure to nurture fun and fulfilling hobbies, and prioritize time for them. This means that other sacrifices must be made. Seek out sources of “dead time” throughout the week, such as mindless social media browsing, TV binges (sorry), and other unfulfilling and unproductive activities, and replace that time with intentional hobbies and satisfying connections with others. Being a psychologist is a very demanding job. You must take care of yourself or your well-being and work will inevitably suffer.
Feeling overwhelmed? That’s ok. You do not have to do all of this immediately; as a graduate student you still have time. However, as with dissertations, it helps to practice doing a little bit of “professional development” each week as a student. The more you are able to invest in yourself now, the sooner those efforts will begin bearing fruit!
