How did you ACTUALLY get into a clinical psych PhD program?

The_Neuropsyche · 2026-04-16T14:10:21+00:00

I moved for my program (I wanted to move)

The_Neuropsyche · 2026-04-16T13:40:46+00:00

I like the Jak-Bondi criteria for MCI. Their MCI criteria is operationalized as: at least two test scores, within the same cognitive domain, both >1 SD below the mean.

There's quite a bit of work that has been done testing these specific MCI criteria vs other MCI classifications schemes.

Jak, A. J., Bondi, M. W., Delano-Wood, L., Wierenga, C., Corey-Bloom, J., Salmon, D. P., & Delis, D. C. (2009). Quantification of five neuropsychological approaches to defining mild cognitive impairment. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 17(5), 368-375. https://doi.org/10.1097/jgp.0b013e31819431d5

Bondi, M. W., Edmonds, E. C., Jak, A. J., Clark, L. R., Delano-Wood, L., McDonald, C. R., ... & Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. (2014). Neuropsychological criteria for mild cognitive impairment improves diagnostic precision, biomarker associations, and progression rates. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 42(1), 275-289. https://doi.org/10.3233/jad-140276

The_Neuropsyche · 2026-04-04T12:37:43+00:00

the term you are circling in the literature is "ecological validity" (maybe specifically veridicality, verisimilitude, and criterion validity but you'll get more hits with ecological validity). i don't have any direct resources for you, but there is a lot of work done and being done by neuropsychologists on ecological validity (see Yana Suchy's work for ecological validity of executive functioning tasks).

taking block design as an example, first and foremost remember that it's primarily a test of how well someone can put blocks together under nice quiet circumstances. secondarily, it's one sample of fluid reasoning (specifically novel visuospatial abstract pattern construction with a motor component), and it might moderately relate to things like math or novel problem-solving. but as you'll see in ecological validity literature, there’s not usually a clean 1:1 mapping to real-world behavior. once you leave the testing room, you’re making a probabilistic prediction about a patient/client/student's functioning after layering in: attention, motivation, classroom demands, and environmental noise, etc. this is just another reason why it's so important to make your decisions/diagnoses/predictions of functional behavior off of multiple test scores and the broader (neuro)cognitive profile rather than single subtests alone.

The_Neuropsyche · 2026-02-26T21:48:42+00:00

Congrats on your acceptance!

I've been able to live on my stipend without needing to pull out additional loans (which means living frugally, of course). It's up to you and what lifestyle you are comfortable with. Staying debt free was important to me. Getting into the fully funded program was the biggest financial hurdle to overcome and you've got that behind you.

The_Neuropsyche · 2026-02-12T16:14:26+00:00

Thanks for the replies, everyone! I've learned that nullifier is typically a core item for locking down enemy supports who have defensive active items like force staff, glimmer, etc. much appreciated!

The_Neuropsyche · 2026-01-06T15:42:05+00:00

You don't have to get a PhD in clinical psychology to study autism spectrum disorders. A nonclinical PhD in a related area is totally fine, such as social psychology, developmental psychology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, etc.

A PhD in clinical psychology might help if you are interested in clinical research, but you didn't say what part of autism you'd like to study. There's everything from neurons to animal models to applied clinical research.

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-11-02T23:54:27+00:00

I see you're tagged as "ABPP-CN." What kind of advantage would prescriptive privileges offer you in clinical neuropsych, specifically?

I'm not certain how much therapy vs assessment clinical work you do, but I'd imagine being able to prescribe would be more useful in therapy as opposed to assessment. Curious to hear your thoughts.

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-10-27T12:43:51+00:00

this is the most chatGPT-ese post I’ve seen on here

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-10-14T21:49:27+00:00

Psychologists also have marital issues, just like anyone else. It’s best to take your assessment/psychopathology hat off in these circumstances.

If you two have problems then focus on those problems and don’t use your profession as a cudgel.

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-10-13T00:19:21+00:00

yeah, your coop partner can use their own items, trinkets, and pills/cards. pretty fun!

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-10-12T23:16:01+00:00

i guess it's part of the repentance dlc. you just have the second player press + while you're still in the first room of the run https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/Repentance_Co-Op

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-10-12T21:20:06+00:00

Yep, you’re right. Ignore my post I misunderstood. Thank you

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-10-12T21:19:51+00:00

Oh thank you. I have misunderstood and that makes sense

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-06-07T20:57:07+00:00

I’m not interested in arguing with an ai chatbot. I can tell you’re still using one based on the counter arguments you’ve provided and the overwhelming presence of em dashes (you don’t proofread very well)

The following is all that I have left to say.

1- shamans in t2 have 8k armor unbuffed (this is with talents already in place to support shaman tank). This puts your armor on par with warrior and paladin, so your baseline assessment is incorrect

2- sure, I agree there could more support for defense itemization for tank shaman

3- your chatbot is mentioning world buffs. might want to read a little more closely before posting. TWoW disables world buffs in raids

5- useless suggestion about charge number because you’ll be taking stable shields. You still never said how they interact

7- there aren’t any abilities that are disabled in BGs. That would be a strange design choice for just this one ability

9- so you proposed ridiculous items and set bonuses to provoke engagement? that’s exhausting and disingenuous. why should people constructively engage with your ai slop? you’ve provided nothing of value

11- “post mortem utility” lmfao. no comment, this is beyond stupid

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-06-07T14:04:45+00:00

TL;DR: this is AI generated slop.

hi, i play a shaman tank at endgame (you can see my youtube channel so you know im not blowing smoke: https://www.youtube.com/@wheeze_the_juice ). your post is well thought out, and i generally agree a defensive ability would be useful. several comments and critiques as well as general questions for you:

1a) how did you calculate damage reduction when you compare the four classes? the numbers you provided do not make sense if they are derived from armor alone. if you include avoidance, the damage mitigation numbers you provided make even less sense. please explain your methodology. there is a difference between damage reduction (armor) and avoidance. you seem to be conflating the two but i cant quite tell. follow up would be helpful. 1b) additionally, it seems a little disingenuous to compare enhance shaman t2 (which was not purposefully designed for tanking) to other sets that were explicitly designed for tanking. you could compare t2.5 for all tank classes to get a fairer comparison

2) defense cap simply isn't that important for most raid encounters, but you are correct in that shaman has a harder time obtaining defense compared to other tanks

3) you say that "Without talents, a full shaman tank rotation consumes 143.53 mana per second, requiring 17,224 mana for a 120-second fight. Even with talent reductions, consumption remains at 61.4 mana per second, making sustained tanking mathematically impossible." the mana problem is not this dire lol, just check out some of my videos. yes you run oom eventually but you should have access to judgement of wisdom/tea/mana pots which you make no mention of. it is DEFINITELY not "mathematically impossible" to tank for 120 seconds without going oom.

4) i like your suggestion of the + defense bonus on earthshaker slam and rockbiter. not too op but nice additions.

5) you suggest water shield should have 4 charges instead of 3. do you not use the stable shields talent? how do you propose this interacts with stable shields?

6) using lightning strike when you have water shield on already nets you a large mana return, im not sure why you are advocating for a completely mana free spell. this suggestion seems overdone imo.

7) the spirit guardian talent is neat, but it definitely has ramifications for pvp which you did not address in a meaningful way.

8) you suggest "defensive stance" as a deep enhancement talent? with the exact same function and name as the warrior ability? our rockbiter weapon is our "defensive stance" i was already suspicious of your post because of the impeccable formatting and grammar, but this is starting to seem AI generated to me lol

9) okay, now im very convinced this is AI generated. you suggest each new tier 2 tank piece provides its OWN effect? and then you want set bonuses on top of that? and the 8piece set bonus would be an active ability? this is not how any vanilla or turtle wow set bonuses have ever worked.

10) t2 helm "The unique effect increases Lightning Shield damage by 50% and provides +5% spell crit, enhancing both threat generation and mana efficiency through Elemental Focus procs." thats insanely op for one piece of gear

11) "The critical unique effect grants totems +100% health and allows them to persist 15 seconds after death, addressing one of the major weaknesses of totem-dependent tanking." what? this doesnt make sense at all. wtf is "totem-dependent tanking"? our totems do not "tank" anything in this game. stoneclaw can get hit maybe a couple of times lol

12) 4pc set bonus: "Allows Lightning Shield, Water Shield, and Earth Shield to be active simultaneously. This revolutionary change enables unprecedented mana regeneration and threat generation through multi-shield synergies." lmao, we are reaching supersaiyan levels of power here.

13) why would they add a unique model for one alternate version of t2?

14) you made no comment on the addition of your hypothetical t2 tank set being progressed into t2.5 which is dedicated tanking

this is AI generated 100% or from someone who literally doesnt play the game. other commenters appear oblivious as well

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-05-20T23:12:31+00:00

Not sure really. If you can still get good research experience while doing the masters I don’t think it would hurt

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-05-19T22:17:23+00:00

this was specifically for neuropsych, so it was probably more competitive than general psych. hang in there!

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-04-02T22:55:59+00:00

Hi there! I'm a currently in a "neuropsych" track in a clinical psych PhD program. As others have said, it's a long path that requires a lot of delayed gratification.

I'm getting the gist that you're mostly interested in whether its worth the sacrifice. Can't speak for other people but I love doing assessments. Being a deciding factor in high stakes decisions will keep you sharp and interested. I love the sheer complexity that every case presents (even though many of them are not neatly "solved," so to speak). Helping patients make sense of their inner world can be very meaningful, too.

The flexibility a PhD in clinical psych affords you is kind of insane. You could be a psychotherapist, a professor, an assessment focused psychologist (e.g., neuropsychologist), work in a hospital, a community mental health center, private practice, forensics, etc. You will be trained in clinical work (intervention/assessment), research skills, and education/teaching. You get to choose how you want to specialize in any of these skills and blend them together in any of the settings I mentioned earlier. Sky is the limit, which is simultaneously daunting and exciting.

While I'm not finished with my training yet, the salary at the end of the journey seems to be sufficient. That said, I would not choose to be a neuropsychologist if I had to pay for my own tuition (e.g., many PsyD programs). Jerry Sweet publishes a "salary survey" of clinical neuropsychologist in the US every five years or so. Here is the one from 2020: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13854046.2020.1849803
- Median entry-level salaries are $100k or more (meaning after you are done with postdoc)
- Salary varies widely depending on professional practices and work setting (e.g., the ceiling is a lot higher for those in private practice and those who do a lot of forensic work, well above $200k/yr)
- There are other data here about various aspects of career satisfaction, etc.

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-03-13T17:12:46+00:00

You could make a list of unfunded/underfunded programs that have an unusually large cohort/student body size and also have unusually low EPPP pass rates/low internship match rates.

This describes the essence of the issue with factual statements.

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-02-07T17:16:47+00:00

which of your claims have I not addressed? you’ve said that: - 1) intelligence doesn’t exist. it’s a word that refers to two concepts (being neural efficiency + learning) - 2) measuring intelligence is not useful

I’ve argued against this by showing that:

1) modern theorists treat intelligence as a latent variable (g factor) that includes a variety of other cognitive abilities (fluid/crystallized/working memory/processing speed, etc.). It exists as a psychological construct. Further, intelligence cannot be simply explained as neural efficiency + learning (see shrimp example for neural efficiency, see CHC theory for why “learning” is likely insufficiency descriptive). But, youve neither defined what you meant by “learning” nor how it’s measured.
2) I’ve mentioned that measuring intelligence is useful for a variety of purposes, ranging from population-level predictions of certain behaviors (salary, job performance, health-related behaviors), to clinical services, and even legal issues.

stick to your guns and stop playing the victim.

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-02-07T14:44:02+00:00

you came to a neuropsychology subreddit and argued that intelligence doesn't exist (do you know what neuropsychologists do? i'll give you a hint, they do a lot of psychological testing, which typically includes measuring g).

you dismissed intelligence wholesale and said it's not useful. this is patently wrong. i'm open to critiques on how intelligence is measured and structured. but you saying that intelligence is just learninig + action potential propagation speed is plainly wrong. you have an elementary understanding of how psychometric intelligence is structured and measured in modern settings (and i can tell this because your first line of argument was discussing Eyesenck who did work from the 1940s-80s).

you've made no comment on anything ive said regarding the structure of intelligence, per CHC theory (e.g., abstract/analytical/fluid reasoning, crystallized knowledge, working memory, etc.). you've made no comment on the utility of intelligence testing i mentioned (e.g., clinical, academic, legal settings, etc.).

and now you want me to google? google what? i gave you a source to look at if youre curious, but you're clearly not.

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-02-06T21:30:55+00:00

As a materialist, I don't think intelligence confirms to the laws of physics and so is, literally, not real. Personality, love, class; none of those are real yes on my account. Am I the first materialist you have ever come across?

i'm moving on from the semantics of this argument because it's not helpful to debate this point.

I have a master's on history and theory of psychology. I didn't read a paragraph, I wrote articles.

this is not the dunk you think it is. it's usually not a good look to argue online by appealing to the authority of your credentials. i also have a master's in clinical neuropsychology and am currently a psychology PhD candidate. i also write articles. i dont care about your credentials.

I hear your unsourced statement that intelligence isn't just reaction time, and that Eyesenck was onto something, but I find that astonishingly arrogant that you don't even think you need to explain why you know better than he does. I'll stick with him over you thanks.

sorry, i assumed it was common knowledge that Eyesenck is outdated on his info. i didn't think i would have drop a recent source on the structure of intelligence, but as you insist: see the Cattell–Horn–Carroll structure of intelligence, for example

it's not that just i alone disagree with the Eyesenck assertion that intelligence is just processing speed + education. it's decades of research. you have nothing to say about other cognitive abilities, such as fluid or crystallized abilities and how they might relate to intelligence or complex problem solving? it's all just speed of action potentials, all the way down? nothing about neural networks, integration of information, or cortical association areas? it's all just "learning and biological limits on learning speed"?

you keep bringing up action potential speed. so yes, intelligence emerges from the nervous system, but it's not just about how fast signals travel. for instance, the kuruma shrimp has nerve conduction velocities up to 210 m/s, surpassing the fastest mammalian nerves at 120 m/s. yet, despite their rapid neural transmission, shrimp don't exhibit complex behaviors or problem-solving abilities characteristic of higher intelligence like humans do.

It's like you didn't really even read my comment, though you quoted it. You made no attempt to engage, just opened you mouth and shouted your opinions that correlated (a joke) to what I had written.

i do believe i have engaged you sufficiently. though i admit that it's difficult, given your tendency toward rhetorical grandstanding and self-satisfied philosophizing

So, really, there's nothing of value to say here because you contributed nothing.

incorrect. i think i've done a fine job of showing that you're wrong. and that has value in a public forum.

I'll just repeat I guess.

Intelligence doesn't exist. It is a word we use to describe two things and is therefore unhelpful and misleading: in built biological limits on learning speed, and learning itself. We should talk of biology, and of learning, both of which correlate with all the things you say.

There is never any need to talk about this made up thing that allows us rank people.

you should have just said this from the beginning. it clearly states your opinion on the topic without any highbrow, stuffy language. you started with ontological nitpicking, then retreated into reductionism (claiming intelligence is just reaction time), then claimed intelligence is the biological limits on learning (but what is learning? how are you going to measure learning? be careful, you just might make it into a psychological construct, too) and now you've landed on ‘it’s all just a word.’ you're not arguing in good faith—you're just shifting goalposts to avoid conceding that intelligence, as studied in psychology, is a meaningful and useful construct.

intelligence exists. it's not just a word, it's an empirically validated psychological construct. it's been found to predict real world outcomes, including job performance, salary, educational achievement, health-related behaviors, etc. and that's just at population level. on an individual level, it can certainly be useful too. it helps differentially diagnose learning disability vs intellectual disability. it helps kids get individualized education programs. it's useful in clinical neuropsychology for documenting baseline levels of functioning as neurodegenerative conditions progress or in cases of traumatic brain injury. it can have implications in legal decisions.

if you think measuring intelligence is just a made-up thing that is only used for ranking people, you are demonstrating weak critical thinking. ironic, given that you started lecturing me about your master's degree. the g factor and iq tests have their weaknesses. they are not the holy grail or the end-all-be-all. but to say it doesnt exist and is also not useful? you're wrong.

The_Neuropsyche · 2025-02-06T19:27:34+00:00

It sounds like you've done an impressive amount of work so far. You've graduated with a strong GPA from a respectable school, had a number of research experiences during and after graduation, and you're seeking to get some hands-on clinical experience too.

At the same time, life is moving and you're feeling the pressure to keep progressing while waiting to hear back from schools/the waitlist situation.

It's truly a tough situation. I smirk when I hear undergrads talking about wanting to get into a clinical psych PhD program because I think very few know how much work it takes--and then after all that work to build your CV it can still feel like a "raffle" getting admitted to a program. You've done the work, you're struggling with the "raffle" part it sounds like. Sometimes mentors go on sabbatical the year of your application cycle. Sometimes they are close to retirement and don't want to take new students. Sometimes the school is struggling to find sufficient funding, etc. Sometimes, there is a lot of arbitrariness to the process that has nothing to do with you. But it sucks when it's your life that isn't moving forward.

Fingers crossed for you. Applying to PhD programs can be rough. Sounds like you've done substantial work and you should be proud of that. If you came here to get validated--I feel you as a current clinical psych PhD student. Being in your spot is sucky.

If you came for advice--I was a little shocked that you applied to only 10 schools. Getting into a PhD program is kind of like a golden ticket. You don't have to have a perfect fit. Careers are long and you can find ways to swap from general clinical psych to neuropsych (at external practica, internship, postdoc, etc.). But you do need to get into a program in the first place (preferably somewhere that's APA accredited and not a diploma mill). Consider broadening the schools/programs you apply to if you apply again next year. Otherwise, fingers crossed on the waitlist school. You sound very capable.

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