Certification Above and Beyond: Options for Overachievers

Some of you have received a license to practice as a psychologist in your state of choice, and you are not satisfied.  You want another credential to back up your training.  It turns out you have the grand opportunity of getting another credential, primarily through three organizations.  The first is the ASPPB (the progenitors of the EPPP).  The second is the National Register of Health Service Providers (NR).  The third is the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP).  Now I know the rest of you are thinking, "Oh, but I was completely satisfied when I got licensed.  What could induce me to go to the trouble of obtaining another credential when I just spent the past seven to ten years getting my doctoral degree and getting licensed?!"  That is a great question.

The ASPPB, NR, and ABPP each offer their own credential, with their own qualifying process, and of course, the accompanying fees.  Each of these beneficent organizations additionally offers you the opportunity to start banking your credentials with them before you graduate with your doctoral degree.  Maybe you haven't heard of credential banking: sending all of your credentials and qualifying documentation to one of these organizations, having them verify each credential and archive it in a file for you.  Later when you apply for licensure in one or multiple states, you can have that organization send all your qualifying credentials directly to the licensing board of your choice.  This would save you the hassle of collecting all the official documentation and having it sent to a licensing board yourself, each time you apply for licensure in a new state.  As for the credential that is offered by each organization, and obtained by meeting specific requirements, it is like that organization's seal of approval.  The hope is that some states will recognize the credential as satisfactory and grant you a license without needing to see all your original documentation, and many states do recognize some or all of these credentials.  In some cases a state licensing board may still require you to take a jurisprudence exam or waive only some of the requirements for licensure.

I am too bored at the moment to go into the specific requirements for each credential, but rest assured that whether you seek a credential or just a credential bank you will always have to pay an annual fee to maintain your credentials with one of these organizations.  Really, this is an enterprise that stems from the original monster of different requirements for licensure in each state and the increased mobility of today's world.  If all states had the same requirements for licensure, then all states could be part of one big agreement of reciprocity, and instead of resending credentials to each new state you would only have to show them a current license and take that state's jurisprudence exam.  How simple that would be!  Not to mention much cheaper!

Mobility remains the number one struggle in licensure.  Let's say you originally get licensed in a state with very few requirements for supervised hours.  After practicing for 15 years, you decide to move to Florida, which requires 4000 hours of supervised experience.  You didn't have an accredited internship and only had 1500 hours of postdoctoral supervision.  Even though you have been practicing for 15 years, you still won't be able to get licensed in Florida until you make up the rest of your supervised hours.  And who is going to supervise you?  Another psychologist, possibly one who has only been practicing for five years.  Does this make sense?

Sarah's reflective voice

In a conversation I had with a few family members today, I realized that perhaps the voice I use in my reflective posts comes across as melancholy or in need of encouragement.  Of course, I am always appreciative of encouragement, but I want to set readers at ease, that the voice you might have interpreted as depressed in the birthday posts is merely what my reflective voice sounds like.  I was not trying to send a message to my friends and family that they need to try harder at making me feel special on my birthday.  It was not meant to make anyone feel guilty.  I am sorry if that is what it became to some of my readers.  Really I was not upset at all, because a birthday is still what it always was.  I anticipate this birthday will be about the same as any birthday, just because it is a birthday.  The posts were merely an honest, interested examination of some of the thoughts that go through my head when I think about birthdays.

By my reflective voice I mean my thoughts.  I suppose that even my family members have not really heard my thoughts prior to my writing a blog.  To me it seems quite normal and calm.  If I were to define my reflective voice it would be defined as such: an honest exploration of my thoughts on a given topic.  When I write a reflective post on this blog, it is just putting my thoughts into writing.  Prior to writing the present blog, I never really shared much of my written thoughts with anyone.  Perhaps I did on Xanga a few times in high school, but other than that it only appeared in my mind and in the spiritual journals I keep.

There are, naturally, many times that I try to share my thoughts verbally.  These are however, a slim slice of all the things I think.  As anyone who knows me can attest, I am a thinker more than a speaker.  My friends often catch me looking up or off to the side in the midst of conversation, as I try to organize and compose my thoughts.  Sometimes I am successful and am able to say what it is that I think.  Other times I drift off into just thinking or a daze, I'm not quite sure what it should be called, and I cannot catch the thoughts.  If someone asks me what I was thinking I will say I don't know, and that is usually honest, because I cannot remember.  The thoughts just ran together, leading from one to the next.

My looking up or off to the side can be offsetting, just as perhaps my reflective prose can be.  Many times I have been asked if I am sad or concerned about something, when I was only thinking.  By now I have learned they are referring to the expression I had while thinking, so I quickly reply, "Oh no, sorry, that is just my thinking face!"  As we get to know each other better, friends learn to recognize and accept the thinking face, and associated pause.

Friends often tell me they wonder what I am thinking, so I have tried to get better at expressing at least some of what I was thinking when I made a thinking face or paused for a moment.  I do not want my friends to be afraid that I am harboring negative opinions of them, and think that is why I do not say what I was thinking.  That is very rarely the case, but I suspect that less well known friends often wonder if that is the reason for my pause.  I am merely digesting an organizing something that was said, trying to decide what I really think.