Benefits and risks of obtaining a DETC Psy.D?

BENEFITS:

1) A doctorate approved by the department of education.

2) No residencies

3) Low cost

4) Dissertation not required

5) MAY lead to licensure as a Psychologist in some states in addition to California

6) MAY enable master level mental health professionals to augment their professional dossier and title as "doctor" in certain states.



RISKS

A) No guarantee that degree will lead to licensure as a Psychologist

B) A number of states may resist graduates usage of title "doctor"

C) Will not be approved by the APA

D) Will probably present limitations for specific job opportunities and questionable acceptance by prospective employers.

E) Will probably result in lack of acceptance and/or skepticism by colleagues with RA and APA approved Psy.Ds.

F) May result in regrets for not obtaining an RA/APA approved Psy.D.

G) MAY require significant legal intervention to achieve recognition in a number of states.


ANY OTHERS?

 

Peer acceptance will be minimal.

 

It APPEARS that Florida, which has one of the most stringent statutes regulating the use of the title "doctor", approves degrees/doctorates from any school that is accredited by the United States Department of Education. If this is the case than a doctorate from a DETC school (ie, CSU) would meet this criteria. BTW, Florida's acceptance of this degree does not infer that one can practice as a Psychologist in that state because I believe they require completion of an APA approved doctoral program.

Of course anyone wishing to attend a Psy.D program at a DETC school should initially check with their state board of licensure to confirm their acceptance of this degree.

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?mode=View%20Statutes&SubMenu=1&App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=817.567&URL=CH0817/Sec567.HTM

 

Another risk is that you could have spent at least some the elapsed time and on-task time working on an RA Psy.D, which would enjoy greater acceptance.

Some merchant scholars fail to understand the harm they cause by allowing students to work on degrees that will not be accepted, since many of the more gifted students could have spent the time working on accepted degrees.

 

I think of these as grey area professional degrees because I'm betting that a large percentage of people in these degree programs are already licensed professionals. They don't need the PsyD in order to practice, it's as much an advertising tool as anything else.

 

In the hypothetical, if an agency or institution challenged me on the issue of DETC accreditation with respect to a credential I worked hard for, I would take them to court. There are a lot of disingenious people misrepresenting the issue on national accreditation, which will undoubtably require abjudication, in order to settle the issue.

 

You do realize you're probably talking about a $150,000 endeavor just to get to the point where the jury (or judge) will render a verdict, right? And if it goes for you, they'll likely appeal, running the bill up further. By the time you pay for discovery, expert witnesses, depositions, etc, you could easily reach or exceed that number.

People always say "I'll take them to court" without realizing that it is almost never economically feasible to do so. And chances are extremely good that you'd lose, by sheer virtue of the established precedent; if an employer or agency wants to fight it, you can bet that APA and the state licensing board and so forth will either join the suit or file amicus briefs, as they are generally heavily biased toward maintaining the status quo. And judges tend to go along when there are expert parties (particularly a state licensing board and a nationally recognized organization like the APA) who are likely inclined to keep things as they are.

I can't really see much of an argument in favor of a DETC PsyD. The low cost is not much of an advantage if you have to fight to get respect for the degree you've earned, and if you're already doing the hard work to earn a degree, you might as well get one that won't be questioned; I suspect that there are some good values in online doctorates, though, even with RA schools, APA accredited doctorates that can be earned partially or fully online are very few and far between.

I'd also suspect, as others have said, that you'd encounter a lot of resistance from peers.

I agree that this is an issue someone should challenge, but it would make a lot more sense for a school to challenge APA to accredit them than for an individual degree holder to try to challenge the system alone.

 

Definitely.

 

It would not be surprising if some graduates of the DETC Psy.D program who are denied parity with RA graduates will seek redress through their state boards, possibly necessitating legal challenges in certain instances. What will really be interesting is whether DETC will legally support graduates of this program who are experiencing resistance in their respective states to acceptance of their doctorates. If this hypothetical intervention should occur, DETC's primary argument may be that their Psy.D program is approved by the United States Department of education, the same agency that approves degrees from RA doctoral programs in Psychology.

 

It is very possible that as (if ?) DETC doctoral degree programs, such as the Psy.D, gain in popularity and generate higher numbers of graduates, that these degrees will achieve greater recognition status, possibly leading to greater acceptance on the part of their graduates within their respective states.

 

However for maturer and seasoned Licensed Professional Counselors and Social Workers who would never have an opportunity to complete a traditional RA clinical doctoral program or one from an online RA distance school requiring periods of residencies, an entirely online DETC Psy.D program may offer an attractive alternative. In addition this doctoral program may be attractive to individuals who have ABD status who wish to complete their doctorate either for personal and/or professional reasons.

 

I can't think of any reason to prefer a DETC doctorate over doctorates with different accreditations. So if we are just talking about accreditation alone, there are no comparative benefits.

Nevertheless, even if they aren't preferrable, a DETC accredited doctoral degree might be satisfactory for some people in some situations.

That's DETC's primary product. It gets people past that minimal hurdle.

Not always a good thing, particularly in psychology.

Some high-end B&M doctoral programs offer their students lavish financial aid packages, not only picking up all tuition costs, but also paying them living-expense stipends. But cost isn't a function of the institutional accreditor so much as it is of individual programs. DETC programs may compete aggressively on price because other ways they are so minimal.

Again, not necessarily a good thing, at least for anyone with scholarly pretensions.

I think that's typically a question of specialized APA accreditation, not the institutional accreditation. If a DETC program ever managed to become APA accredited, it might encounter a lot more acceptance around the country.

I think that's what a lot of people will be using these degrees for. They will have to be careful to comply with their state's laws prohibiting clinical psychology practice by unlicensed individuals and regulating how non-psychologists can advertise psychological services.

There's only one DETC psychology doctoral program to my knowledge. Here in California, SCUPS graduates didn't do particularly well on the state psych exams. Graduates of some of the other California-approved psych-schools like Ryokan typically performed much better. It will be interesting to see whether or not DETC accreditation changes that.

I think that most of that will be a function of the perceived strengths, reputations, syllabi and modalities of the individual programs, not so much of what institutional acceditation they happen to have.

It's hard to imagine what the legal argument for that last one would be.

 

Another potential risk associated with practicing with a DETC Psy.D that does not lead to Psychology licensure and is based on the practitioner's master's degree license (ie, counseling, social work), is that the clinician will need to exercise significant care in marketing his/her practice so as not to inadvertently mislead prospective clients that they are engaging in the practice of Psychology. This disclosure and informed consent process needs to be ongoing, from the initial contact through all phases of the psycho-therapeutic interaction. To not do can possibly lead to strong professional disciplinary action and sanctions including loss of one's professional license.

 

To someone paying an attorney, perhaps, to someone with a background in litigation, probably not.

Because a defendant files an appeal doesn't mean that the trial court's decision will be reversed.

Not being "economically feasable" doesn't mean that a plaintiff isn't going to bring suit. Based on the large amount of litigation in today's society, it would appear that it is feasable, especially for those litigants on the winning side.

Chances are I would lose? How is that possible when the case hasn't even been heard and you haven't even read the papers setting out the facts of the case? Besides, I don't think I would be discussing the merits of such a case on a message board to the extent it ever did transpire.

Nothing is going to change until the RA issue is challenged in a court of law, which is where the NA versus RA issue is heading. New case law and precedent will likely emerge as a result, since law is not static.

 

DETC has been accrediting bachelor's-granting institutions for more than 30 years. Please tell us how you come to this conclusion, that "the NA versus RA issue is heading" to court. Anything at all will do. Thanks!

 

It is not unreasonable to conceive the possibility that there will be legal battles in certain states if graduates of DETC doctoral programs are not legally permitted to refer to themselves as "doctor" on par with graduates from RA doctoral degree programs. Their involvement may be based on the fact that if they don't doctoral degrees under their auspices will have no credibility or viability. This would lead DETC doctoral programs to lose their attraction to prospective students and leave DETC schools with no choice but to discontinue these programs.

 

No, but it does mean that the costs of pursuing the case go even higher than they already are, and almost any institution you sue is going to have greater resources to defend the case than you will, especially since most will have liabliity insurance that will pay for the defense.

No, it just means that people who evaluate risk against potential reward, and don't go for high-risk endeavors would probably opt against it.

Because the reality is that in many such proceedings, courts tend to defer to institutional expertise, such as the opinions and policy of a state licensing board, the APA, and, if you're going after a well-known organization, the organization's own policy and procedure, if developed over time and based on sound reasoning.

As Rich said, the DETC-vs-RA argument has been going on for 30+ years. The DETC apologists are always quick to make all sorts of claims, but there isn't a lot of evidence to support most of them. I do believe that DETC itself has made strides toward greater credibility and acceptability of its degrees, but when we're talking about a professional field involving licensure and working with individuals in health-related areas, I can see the APA and the state boards opting to operate with caution in granting recognition to DETC-accredited schools.

 

Based on what you're saying, it sounds like these DETC schools are being harmed and will suffer economic losses by way of those students leaving those schools and programs.

 

In my initial reply to the topic inititiator I said: "In the hypothetical, if an agency or institution challenged me on the issue of DETC accreditation with respect to a credential I worked hard for, I would take them to court."

That is my conclusion.

 

Conjecture, only. I'm wondering if there is any previous history of litigation regarding this subject. I'm not aware of any. I would think a bold statement like the one seen in this thread would be supported by some previous legal activity. I'd like to see what that is.