Prevalence of training in addiction psychology and treatment in APA-accredited clinical and counseling psychology doctoral programs

Abstract

Clinical and counseling psychologists trained in the United States have reported receiving little or no formal education in substance use disorders (SUD). We, therefore, sought to determine the extent to which American Psychological Association (APA) accredited doctoral programs in clinical and counseling psychology provide education in addictive disorders., Based on past research, we predicted that (a) most doctoral programs would not offer formal SUD training courses; (b) the available courses would more likely be elective than required; (c) Psy.D. (Doctor of Psychology) programs would be more likely to offer required SUD courses than Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical and Counseling Psychology) programs; and (d) Psy.D. programs would have a higher number of faculty members who include SUD in the topics of their research interests than Ph.D. programs. We thoroughly surveyed curriculum webpages of all APA-accredited clinical and counseling psychology programs. We tallied the number of programs that offered courses in SUD (required and elective courses) and the number of faculty members who listed SUD (or an addiction) as one of their clinical and/or research interests. In general, our hypotheses were supported. We found that 30.8% of all surveyed programs offered SUD courses, supporting past research and our hypotheses that SUD training is scant among clinical and counseling psychology programs. While psychologists are increasingly required to provide addiction services in clinical practice, too many psychologists finish graduate school with no formal training to understand, assess, and treat individuals with an SUD.