Clinical and Counseling Psychology: Can Differences Be Gleaned From Printed Recruiting Materials?

Students and professionals alike often ask, "What is the difference between clinical and counseling psychology?" An even more basic question for educators and trainers is, "Are students accurately informed of the differences between the two specialties?" To address this question, we examined recruitment and application materials from 227 APA-accredited doctoral programs in counseling psychology (CoPhD, n = 56), clinical psychology PhD (ClPhD, n = 137), and clinical psychology PsyD (ClPsyD, n = 34). It should be noted that 83% of both clinical and counseling psychology programs, respectively, were represented in the data. An eight-page coding instrument was used to examine similarities and dissimilarities between each discipline. The results of this study suggest few differences in program or faculty characteristics, student and faculty demographics, or admission and training requirements, as advertised in program recruitment materials. Implications of these findings are discussed and directions for future research are presented.