<p>Just as a note: the MA in psychology is at Teachers College, not in the GSAS at Columbia.</p>
<p>IMO, if you don’t feel ready to apply to PhD programs, you should apply for jobs. An MA in psychology is not really a big help for getting into PhD programs like it is in some other fields. What psychology programs really want is research experience, and you can get that working as a lab manager or project coordinator for a lab - and you’ll get paid and as a full-time employee of the university could probably also take some graduate psychology courses for free. Most clinical psychology programs will make you start over anyway, ignoring your MA credits. At best, they make take a semester.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure why NYU lost their accreditation…it could be any range of problems. I would not be worried about their other psychology programs, as NYU has a strong tradition in psychology and they have good programs.</p>
<p>So here’s the deal about clinical: the majority of clinical PhD graduates go into counseling and therapy, not research. However, in order to GET the PhD, you do need to have an interest in research, because you will have to do it in order to graduate (and because research informs your practice). There are three types of programs. There are clinical science programs, which are almost purely focused on clinical psych research, although the students do learn clinical work and are licensed just like any other clinical psychologist at the end. If you want to practice, don’t apply to those. Then there are scientist-practitioner programs, which make up the largest chunk. They focus on both, although not necessarily equally - it really depends on the program. Some S-P programs lean more towards the P, others more towards the S. The website should give you some indication of that. (This is also called the Boulder model.)</p>
<p>Then there is the newer practitioner model, also called the Vail model. These programs focus almost exclusively on practice, and a lot of them are housed in PsyD programs. They are gaining more and more respect within the psychological field as people begin to realize that folks don’t want to spend 6 years doing research and writing a dissertation if they want to counsel people. However, you will still be expected to do some research - you’ll still have to write a dissertation, for example. It’ll probably more be tailored towards practice, though.</p>
<p>Also consider counseling psychology programs. There’s a list on the APA website.</p>
<p>If you absolutely do not want to do ANY research, think about getting an MSW and going for a licensed clinical social worker.</p>