<p>I keep looking at the websites of the top ranked psych programs and they all seem to "discourage" applicants who want to become private practitioners. </p>
<p>What are some good programs where you can do that?</p>
<p>Nova in Florida has a lot of that stuff, but they are very pricey.</p>
<p>THe vast majority of phd programs are research based. you need to look at psy.d. programs for the emphaisis on clinical practice</p>
<p>Professional schools of psychology have a more applied focus than clinical psychology programs based in university psychology departments. Professional schools can offer the PsyD (doctor of psychology) or the more traditional Ph.D. If you go to the American Psychological Association website (apa.org) you can get a list of accredited graduate programs in clinical psychology and on that list will be schools idenitifed as professional schools which you can explore. More traditional Ph.D. programs vary on how practicioner friendly they are, although you will not earn kudos from any of them if you state on your application that your career goal is private practice. this is rather hypocritical as these programs recognize that more than 50% of their graduates will wind up in part or full time private practice, yet they want to see applicants interested in research and academics even if later they turn out to be clinicians. You can judge the practicioner friendliness of a program by looking at practicum requirements for graduation. All clinical psych students have a 1 year clinical internship, but programs will vary in how much clinical experience they want students to have prior to internship. some programs will require no practicums others upwards of 3 or 4. this is a rough but accurate guide to how much a psych program emphasizes the applied aspects of clinical psych.</p>