Grad school for neuroscience vs. psychology

[Juche]

So I am considering a doctorate in either of these fields. What are the drawbacks or benefits to each?

With psychology I can do counseling, but I figure if I do a neuroscience degree in a field like biopsychology, I can do a masters in a field like social work if I ever want to be a counselor.

I'd like either the research or counseling side of the fields. My undergrad background is in science, not psychology. So part of me would like the neuroscience aspect more.

So I'm drawn. Is a doctorate in psychology with a possible masters in neuroscience best, or a PhD in neuroscience with a possible masters in a social work or psychology field (to do counseling) best? Or can you do behavioral neuroscience/biopsychology (neuroscience designed to understand human psychology) going to give me opportunities as both a researcher and counselor?

Here is a dog wearing a snuggie, figure that out.

[tigereye]

1. hmm, if I had it to do over again, I would study neuroscience, since there

is so much exciting stuff going on in that field that influences psychology in reality and practice, particularly in the areas of the amazing disccoveries related to the neurological bases of psychopathology, or ways that the brain functions in all it's wonderful complexity. Not that you wouldn't be exposed to neuroscience when you study psychology, but a lot of psychology programs now seem to make more of a distinction between the research aspect of psychology and the practice of psychology. I suspect that you might even be able to find a program that blends aspects of both these areas - there seems to be a lot of interdisciplinary overlap to programs.


One of the most interesting psychologists I am aware of does brain-based research, lots of PET scans, etc, related to Autism, for example. This field is so exciting right now. I attended a fascinating conference not so long ago that was examining many amazing areas of research in Autism, many funded by the NIMH, some genetic, some neurological, some related to social behaviors. I would think a background in neuroscience would open up your interest in treatment, actually.

OTOH, I met a woman working on a doctorate here in neuroscience, and she was mostly doing research largely devoid of any contact with the people who would hopefully be affected by that research. So I guess my point is to look at the programs you are considering and see if you can find the right blend. Maybe a start in neuroscience and then a PSY D to practice afterwards, would be cool.


Good luck, I envy you starting out in the field at this exciting time.

[Juche]

6. My undergrad degree was in biochemistry

And I thought of doing grad work in molecular and cellular biology because I enjoyed it, but I want to work with the brain of all organic tissues. The brain holds everything. All of our art and science comes from the brain, as well as our ability to appreciate that art and science. Our most serious illnesses come from the brain, as well as the ideas on how to cure them. So figuring out the brain is like smashing the biggest bottleneck the human race has.

Behavioral neuroscience is meant to be neuroscience as it relates to psychology, however I do not know if I could do counseling work with a degree in that.

I can always do a masters in counseling or social work if I want to take that route.

[Odin2005]

10. beware, though, that there are a lot of faddish notions that are dead ends, IMO.

Many of us on the Autism spectrum have voiced substantial criticism of many ideas about autism that are currently popular such as claims of deficient theory-of-mind and empathy.

[tigereye]

21. well, you'd have to take it up with the researchers - I think it's good that

several Autism organizations have been funding research and have more of a say in how it plays out and what type of research is done. Some of that theory of mind research has been around a while, though. I don't know if they have found more brain-based rationales for it. I can see that many folks who have the diagnosis (and probably many folks with MH diagnoses as well), find some of the attitudes and emphasis on pathology offensive.

[Odin2005]

33. Unfortunately many of those organizations are "pro-cure" groups many of us consider offensive.

And thus there is a vested interest in pushing negative notions about Autism Spectrum Disorders. I got into a spat with another poster with an autistic relative that got deluded into believing the MMR vaccine BS and she claimed some really offensive nonsense about most autistics being "low functioning" individuals that "smear shit". the more these Pro-Cure groups scare parents into hysteria the more donations they get.

[tigereye]

35. I think people buy into a lot of stereotypes or aren't very informed about

the complexity of the issue. Everyone has a lot to learn from people like Temple Grandin and those able to offer a personal view of the situation.

One of the primary NUMH researchers here, whom I have seen speak several times, actually used the term "cure" when speaking about the research that has been/is being done, and I'm not sure that's the best phraseology to use. I can see why parents with children who have very limited skills or ability to speak or struggle with emotional issues that their kids may have, etc., would want to understand possible reasons or precipitating factors for an ASD, hope for a "cure" or something that will help their children and children in the future to function better.


I admire their tenacity and concern for their kids.

[Odin2005]

37. IMO the "cure" language is overused in order to appeal to pro-cure group and their funds.

[Tobin S.]

2. I would go for the neuroscience

But it's personal to me seeing as how I have a serious mental illness and brain science has helped me more than talk therapy.

[KT2000]

3. Neuroscience please!

We need more people in this discipline.
You may not be aware of this because it reamins well hidden, but there is much emerging information about the role of chemicals in brain disorders, behavior problems in children etc.
This info is currently hidden away in the environmental health literature and it will take courageous professionals to bring this important info to the fore.

Here is a site for a local man who got his PhD in toxicology and has done alot of work educating people about how the brains of children are affected by exogenous chemicals. He enjoys a varied and broad career while situating himself as a leader in the Seattle area.
http://www.asmalldoseof.org/vitae/index.php

Dr. Philip Landrigan (Mt. Sinai Environmental Health Clinic) has also dedicated much of his career to the protection of children and their brains from environmental toxins.

This is an emerging field that will break through. The brain injuries that are rampant in our society - autism spectrum, Alzheimers, etc. will break us unless we learn how to stop them. We will need people educated in neuroscience.

[Odin2005]

8. Your slight against those of us on the autism spectrum was uncalled for.

My Asperger's isn't a fucking "brain injury"!. :grr:

[KT2000]

11. It was not a slight

against you or anyone who has it.
An area of investigation to determine what is happening with the increase in autism among other conditions is pointing to exposure to chemicals in the environment. They are learning how certain exposures at critical times of development, especially the first 3 months of fetal development, affect the development of the brain. Dioxins, PCBs, PAHs, endocrine disrupting chemicals are some of the potential culprits.

In 1990 Congress declared the 90s as the Decade of the Brain because it was becoming obvious then that the human brain was at risk from our increasingly polluted environment. THey saw the need to take action, but then Reagan happened and it was stopped.

If it is found that autism or any other condition arises from altered development of the brain, it is a brain injury. Since you were born with Aspergers - that is your normal. A person who experiences a brain injury after birth develops their new normal, but it is still a brain injury.

No need to be offended.

[Odin2005]

12. There is no "autism epidemic", it is media-driven mass hysteria.

It's just more people being diagnosed and diagnosed correctly. A recent study has shown that the % of the adult population with Autism Spectrum Disorders is identical to that of children. This hysteria is nothing different from the media obsessing over shark attacks in the summer of 2001, causing people to think there was a epidemic of shark attacks.

I am also skeptical of many studies trying to claim that there is an epidemic, they are often funded by bigoted pro-cure groups like Autism Speaks that have a vested interest in "curing" us.

http://autismdiva.blogspot.com

[KT2000]

24. Believe what you will n/t

[woo me with science]

4. Definitely neuroscience, or choose your psychology program very carefully

to ensure that it is focused on brain-behavior relationships and sound clinical research.

Right now much of the mental health therapy people actually receive is still garbage psychoanalytic or pop psychology mythology, because therapy training has not caught up to what we actually know about the brain and mental illness.

We desperately need therapists and therapist educators who have actually studied neuroscience, so that the field can finally begin to emerge from the dark ages and focus on cures actually based in sound clinical research.

We also need neuroscientists to explain why it is important for therapists to have this sort of training, as the trend in the USA has been to restructure training to minimize actual education in neuroscience. Insurance companies and HMO's choose to cut costs by hiring someone who read "Sybil" in a fly-by-night professional school or master's program, rather than someone who actually studied clinical research and neurodevelopment at a university.

[nolabear]

18. You might reexamine psychoanalysis. Today's field has a great deal of neuropsych research.

Attachment theory and the neural pathways that are laid down in early development, and the difficulty of overcoming a set of coping mechanisms that involve an overdeveloped limbic response to stressors and an inability to be soothed by human interaction or consequently underdeveloped cognitive abilities is the foundation of a great deal of psychoanalysis these days.

It's a fascinating field, and I like it because it fights for human connection as a way to help some (not all) psychological issues rather than simply a drug that prevents the symptom and so sometiimes diminishes the possibility for helping it be overcome. And I say that with GREAT respect for drug therapy as an adjunct to analysis when needed.

[woo me with science]

27. Okay, let me clarify.

You do raise some interesting points. Attachment research has taught us a lot about the effects of early interactional patterns on later development. That is a far cry, however, from saying that adult psychoanalytic therapy has any effect on attachment patterns in adults or yields any positive outcome in adults with regard to stress hormones, limbic responses, or self-soothing abilities.

Attachment research has been most useful in areas completely unrelated to clinical psychoanalysis or adult psychotherapy. The current potentially useful applications of attachment research are focused on changing parent-child interactions directly during very early development, so as to alter maladaptive developmental trajectories. We do have some emerging evidence that such interventions can have a positive impact.

There are a lot of stunningly bad theoretical papers out there by psychoanalysts who merely take interesting information from the child development research and slap it onto a preferred psychoanalytic theory, hoping that the comparison will lend credibility to what they do in the consulting room. However, there is no good research that actually operationalizes and confirms the efficacy of adult psychoanalytic psychotherapy techniques for attachment problems in adults. This is a myth that is put forth by analysts and analytic therapists, using vague comparisons to the child development research to bolster their argument that what they do actually works.

I am not ruling out the possibility that attachment research may ultimately help in developing interventions that work with adults for these types of issues. However, it is disingenuous to say that psychoanalysis as it is practiced now has any basis whatsoever to make these claims. Add to that the fact that most therapists who claim to be using "psychoanalytic theory" to inform their therapy have never studied the child development and neuroscience research anyway. Rather, they have read Freud, or Kohut, or, god forbid, Sybil, and written papers that, again, have everything to do with theory or imagination and nothing to do with science.

We have to ensure that the interventions we support now (e.g., through recommendation, insurance coverage, or government programs/tax dollars) are evidence-based. That means real evidence with regard to efficacy, not just a theory that sounds good and has some evidence in another, completely different context. Interdisciplinary comparisons are always interesting, but they are usually more theoretical than scientific. Much of what psychoanalytic therapists are pointing to now in order to defend the efficacy of what they do is not really evidence at all.

[nolabear]

30. Well, I'll refer you to the work of

neuroscientist Alan Schore, Peter Fonagy, head of the Research Dept. of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology at University College London, and Jaak Panksepp, Head of Affective Neuroscience Research at Northwestern University. Every one of them has research evidence, and not simply anecdotal, that neural pathways are indeed affected by the therapist/patient relationship. Miracle cure? Of course not. But for some people it is highly effective in not only regulating affect but helping to overcome deeply held fears and convictions that the world is a place in which they cannot be effective and where they fight a sense of disconnection that is agony for them. And in my studies as a psychoanalyst these researchers figure prominently. You're right; insurance companies don't like such treatment modalities. That's why many of us can only afford to treat a certain number of people so intensively, and often at a deeply reduced rate. But I know what I see every day, that it's real, and that it does resemble the meaning-making aspects of art and religion. I also know that neuropsychoanalysis is a science-based, thriving field. I believe it's all connected, which makes it wonderfully fascinating.

[Odin2005]

5. Neuroscience! It's the more interesting area.

Psychology is infested with Psychoanalytic garbage and fuzzy self-help BS.

[XemaSab]

7. Neuroscience

because most of the people you will deal with in psychology will be CRAZY.

Then you'll have to deal with the patients. :hide:

[janx]

9. One is science, and one is not.

;-)

Go for neuroscience.

[tigereye]

22. tell that to all the psychology researchers...

[LeftishBrit]

41. Thank you!

[tigereye]

43. you are welcome!

:hi:

[LeftishBrit]

39. It's quite possible to study psychology as a science!

At least on this side of the pond, most academic psychology departments are scientific/experimental in their approach, and there is usually significant overlap with neuroscience.

[The empressof all]

13. Depends on what kind of work you want

I know a few folks with PHDs in neuro-science. Academic jobs are extremely competative. If you are someone who is good with going to school for a while, I'd suggest getting the MSW and then the Ph.D. This will open options for you to teach in both disciplines. Frankly, you may want to consider getting an RN/MSN. There are high demands for nurse educators and with a PhD in neuro on top of an RN you'd be gold.

[Juche]

14. Yeah, academia is not a good field to go into

In all honesty, I am not competitive enough to break into academia, and I really wouldn't want to anyway.

My goal would be to find ways to do research (preferably on the brain) either in industry or the public sector, or to do counseling.

[tigereye]

23. there will always be a need for good folks to work doing counseling and

therapy.

[The empressof all]

34. Get the MSW

Not only will you be able to get insurance reimbursement in pretty much almost every state without jumping through Mega hoops your degree will allow you to move into non profit management if you become so inclined. It's really a great practical degree. For counseling the only real advantage to the PhD in psych for private practitioners. is that there is some movement in allowing PhD's to prescribe psych meds in some states.

If your true interest is in providing counseling get the MSW and accept the fact you'll never make buckets of money unless you write a book and pimp yourself big time.

[AngryAmish]

15. Neuroscience

Psychology as a field is going away. There is very little respect for the field because for so long psychologists just made stuff up. Neuroscience is a real science with rigor. It also is incredibly hot right now.

[Sanity Claws]

20. +1

I had the same impression that psychology is declining in respect.

[tigereye]

25. actually a lot of research in neuroscience drives research in psychology and

the development of new and more beneficial treatment modalities. Psychologists don't "make things up." :(

[woo me with science]

28. Well, actually they do. :)

But you are right. The BEST psychological treatments are based first in the neuroscience research, and the therapies grow out of that. Unfortunately, however, there are endless cases in which the theory is made up first and then scientific studies desperately searched to try to find something that will fit the theory and sound like good evidence, even though it really isn't.

The risk is often in working backwards...

[tigereye]

36. fair enough but people don't "make it up" out of pure cloth like folks may have

implied.

Theories are questions to be asked based on conjecture, expertise, experiences that people have had, observations they have made, etc. Then experiments are developed to see if those theories make sense or fit some cogent whole.

[AngryAmish]

38. Frued just made stuff up

like his entire framework of the mind...

[LeftishBrit]

42. Freud has little influence now on academic psychology, or on mainstream clinical psychology

There are still Freudian analysts but you would normally have to seek out a programme specializing in Freudian theory/ practice. Most academic and clinical psychology courses these days make little mention of Freud. You would hear far more about cognitive behavioural therapy, for example.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

16. in this day and age I would go for neuroscience. n/t

[romana]

17. I think it depends

It depends on what you want in terms of a career. Any good neuroscience program should have a mix of the basic sciences (psychology, biology, chemistry, and physics), along with some mathematics and ethics. If you are interested in counseling, then a background in theories of behaviors is a must. If you are interested in brain research, I would still argue that you need the background in learning and cognitive theory that comes from psychology, as the brain and central nervous system mediate behavior.

Contrary to what others have said on this board, psychology is not going away, nor is it mostly garbage or a discipline that makes things up. Many aspects of psychology are turning more and more toward the neuroscience end of things as an approach to understanding behavior. Well-trained experimental psychologists are among the very best in terms of methodology. Certainly the majority are not so unethical as to fabricate results (at least no more than is seen in other disciplines). While there is an applied side to psychology that does not always lend itself to the scientific method, a great deal of psychology does just that, and does it well, despite public perception to the contrary. Remember, science isn't a specific discipline, it is a process. Behavior, like anything else, can be studied using the scientific method.

Just as a disclaimer, I have a Ph.D. in biopsychology, have been a PI on an NIH funded grant to study behavior, am an assistant professor of psychology at an undergraduate institution, and have been a scientist all my life. :)

Edited to fix an error.

[tigereye]

26. well said!

:thumbsup:

[nolabear]

31. Thanks! We simple country shrinks appreciate you (grin).

You're right, of course. There's an astonishing array of beliefs and practices under the umbrella of "psychology" and we all hold our own beliefs dear. Working with affects, thoughts and behaviors is so different from working with electrical impulses and chemicals that it's hard, I think, for most people to imagine that, casting about as much as we have to do, we can really do some awfully good work.

[wickerwoman]

19. Awww... who's a good doggie?

Sorry, were you asking something?

No, seriously, I would do neuroscience. I have a friend who just finished a masters degree in psychology and she had a hell of a time finding a job as a counselor. She ended up working for a faith based program and she's an atheist so she had to go back in the closet and hates it.

But it depends on the job that you really want.

[Taitertots]

29. I am biased against Psychology

Everyone I have ever heard of going to a Psychologist never stops going. That is to say I've never heard of someone "Cured" by a psychologist.

Neuroscience I feel is a way to contribute to all humanity. You could use neuroscientific knowledge to create cures to Psychological problems.

[Tobin S.]

32. I don't think I've been cured by psychology, but I have benefited from it

However, I have benefited more from the medical and scientific fields that are involved in the development and dissemination of medication. Basically, my psychiatrist knocked down my symptoms so I could think clearly and my psychologist got me to do something about some other problems that I was having that didn't go away with the introduction of medication. I do consider them both as important people who have helped me recover to basically a normal state of being, but I no longer see my psychologist. I'll have to see a psychiatrist for the rest of my life, more than likely, if I expect to stay sane.

[LeftishBrit]

40. At least in the UK, it would depend more on the exact nature of your studies than the title of the

course.

I'm a teacher and researcher in psychology, but in England where things may be very different. Bear in mind that in the UK most academic doctorates are predominantly done through research, with a relatively small 'taught' element, and mainly qualify you for academic-type jobs. There are also doctorates and other advanced qualifications in specific branches of psychology, which are more vocational in emphasis. It may be different in the USA.

A doctorate in psychology here would not normally qualify you as a counsellor, unless you specifically chose to take a course in counselling or clinical psychology.

Counselling and neuroscience are pretty different fields, and it might be hard to combine them beyond an early stage. Some people here, if not quite sure of their exact plans, choose to start with a more general one-year Masters course, e.g. in Research Methods in Psychology. This can also make it easier to get funding for subsequent study. A Masters in Neuroscience is nowadays an excellent entry into an academic doctorate in any aspect of psychology, but possibly less so for counselling psychology.

Probably best to have a chat with psychology/ neuroscience lecturers and if possible graduate students in the universities that you're thinking of, and ask for their advice.

Good luck!